Chartres, Etretat, Rouen, and Accents

On Wednesday, we didn't have civilization class (yay!) so we had the whole day free. Everyone except two girls from our group went to Chartres to visit the city and its beautiful cathedral. When we arrived in Chartres, we walked right to the cathedral and took a tour with its famous tour guide, Malcolm Miller. He's an Englishman (who also speaks French) who has been giving tours there for 51 years, which makes him like 80 years old and he's still in great shape. We took his tour in English because there were five other American tourists there, so that pretty much determined what language the tour would be conducted in. One of the first things he asked (in his little English accent) was: "Has anyone visited Chartres in the last half a century? You may have already taken one of my tours, so I'm sorry if I'm going to be repetitive." And two of the other Americans had already had him once before surprisingly. He was very knowledgeable and his voice was entrancing (but then again, I really love English accents--I think if all of my professors had English accents I'd be able to concentrate better because I didn't miss a word this guy said because I just loved listening to him). He told us about the history of Chartres and told us all the stories that were displayed in the stained glass windows throughout the church. We went outside for a while and he told us who all the sculptures on the outsides of the doors were. Most were disciples or other important biblical characters. He talked about one sculpture that was centered between two doors of the church. The sculpture was of a woman holding a child. Malcolm told us that many people mistake this sculpture, thinking the woman is Mary holding Jesus as a child. But the woman was actually Anne, Mary's mother, and the child she is holding is Mary. I remember this point the best in the tour because Mary's little child head was missing, and Malcolm told us that it was destroyed during the time of the French Revolution. He said, "The French didn't really like heads much at that time." True story. (My picture is of this statue).  Then the tour ended, which was kind of sad because he was just so interesting to listen to. He told us to visit again because he'd probably still be there. I hope so!

After the tour, we went to lunch at this nice restaurant. I can't remember what it was called but I had some really good duck there and then this fabulous chocolate dessert. It was a small sampling of 4 different kinds of chocolate desserts. So good! I was in a really good mood after that meal. I was ready for anything, which was good because Dr. Morgan (or Deem as we have come to call him) wanted us to go back to Chartres to climb up in one of the towers to the top of the cathedral. We climbed up about a hundred steps in a continuous circle before we got to the top. The climb and the dizziness was worth it though because we got a panoramic view of the city. We had good weather that day too, so it was a great view. After spending some time up there, we left the cathedral and walked through the city. It was such a cute place--lots of little bridges over small rivers and the architecture of the town was very cute and picturesque. We then went to the train station and caught a train back to Versailles. We got home a little late (everyone usually eats dinner at 8:00 with their families) and I didn't get home till about 8:15 and my sisters had just finished up eating dinner (my French mom was gone in Bretagne and my sisters had to eat early that night because some of them had to be places). They had actually made hamburgers in my honor, because I think they really think that Americans eat hamburgers at least once a week if not more, so they made hamburgers for me. When I came in, they were finishing eating and when they saw me, they started preparing a hamburger for me. So my sister Pauline starts cooking these thin circular slices of meat in a skillet while Amélie is putting peppers, tomatoes, and cheese slices on a hamburger bun (which I was shocked to discover that they actually have hamburger buns in the baguette capital of the world). So Pauline asks me if I want bacon on my burger, and I'm thinking about bacon slices, so I say no since I don't ever eat bacon with my hamburgers, and then she says "Oh..." and looks at the frying pan. It was then I realized that those two thin slices of meat in the skillet was the "bacon" that she was talking about. I didn't realize that they didn't have any beef for the actual hamburger meat--the actual essence of the American hamburger. I would've eaten that meat they were cooking for me, I just didn't realize that was the bacon they were talking about, and they didn't have any other kind of meat. So I ended up eating peppers, cheese, and tomatoes on a hamburger bun for dinner. Epic fail on my sisters' part for trying to create a hamburger for me, but I appreciated their attempt to make me feel more at home here as far as food goes. Lol, oh well...

Thursday was pretty uneventful. I had a grammar test and then conversation class with Madame Vaudel...ugh she is not very fun. I wish I had conversation with Madame Chauchat. Our conversations with Vaudel are so repetitive. All we talk about is our weekends and then we have to talk to her for 2 hours which feels like 3 with this woman. Gah. After her class though, I took a long walk around Versailles with Michele and we found the back entrance into the Chateau of Versailles where the gardens were, so that was really cool. We walked for about two hours and just talked. It was really great, and we're going to try to make that a weekly thing, so I'm excited for that.

On Friday we left for Etretat, which is a city in Normandy, and spent most of that day traveling. We left at 1:00 and didn't get there until 7:00. But we arrived just in time for sunset, and saw a beautiful view of it from our hotel (the Domaine St; Clair), which was built on a hill overlooking the sea. The hotel we stayed in was absolutely beautiful. It's like a little chateau and it was originally owned by a rich family and was their house in the early 1900's. Katie and I stayed in a room that belonged for a time to an American dancer named Isadora Duncan, who was a friend of the family's. Monika and Elizabeth stayed in the children's room and there were even old fashioned children's toys in there. We found 8 wooden bowling pins and a small wooden bowling ball that we played with. There were a ton of old fashioned teddy bears and even a telephone for the early 1900's. It was so cool. After eating dinner, we tried to go swimming in the outdoor pool at the hotel because Deem told us it was heated. Turns out it wasn't. But it was fine, because Katie and I took a bubble bath in our large bathtub that had jets in it (disclaimer: we were halfway clothed when we took this bath). We used the hotel shower gel to create bubbles, and when I poured the first bottle in, not many bubbles were made initially so I poured the second small bottle in too, and as the water filled up (combined with the jets), soooo many bubbles were created. It was actually a bit too much and our bath consisted of about a third of water and two-thirds of bubbles. It was ridiculous, but by far the best bubble bath I've ever had. Katie and I had fun too. We had bubble fights and made bubble beards--it was like we were 2 years old but it was fun.

The next day, I woke up at 9:00 with Katie and had breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast, we walked down to the beach and saw the most beautiful views of cliffs and ocean. The beach was actually composed of mostly small pebbles instead of sand, and the pebbles were so smooth. It was gorgeous. Then we all had to prepare for a 4 hour hike around Etretat that Deem had planned for us. Yeah, it was intense. We stopped first at a goat farm and bought some goat cheese and cider for the picnic we would have by the cliffs. Then we walked through the countryside. It was such a beautiful day--it was sunny yet the air was really cool. It was the perfect weather for hiking. Walking through the countryside, we saw lots of wheat fields and cows and sometimes little goats. We also walked by a lot of country houses. We then found our way to the cliffs and ate lunch on a cliff that was right next to the ocean. It was incredible. We ate the goat cheese from the farm (which was so good) with fruits that Deem brought and drank wine and cider. Unfortunately the cider we bought from the goat farm actually ended up tasting kind of like a goat, so we had to sacrifice it since no one wanted to drink it. After the picnic, we hiked all around the cliffs and we had to hike up some really steep trails to get up to these cliffs. It was tough at points, but so worth it because the views were spectacular. It was the perfect day for it--I really can't believe how lucky we've been with the weather here. I took so many pictures of the blue sea, white cliffs, and green grasses. Those views were just as good if not a bit better than the ones I saw in St. Malo. If it weren't for Deem, I don't think we would have ever known about that place. It was breathtaking, and I feel so lucky to have seen something so beautiful.  The top picture is a view of Etretat.  

After the hike, we packed up our stuff and took a bus and then a train to Rouen. We got there around 8:15 and were really hungry, so we dropped our stuff off at our new hotel and ate at a restaurant called Le P'tit Bec. It was so good, and we had the cutest waiter. He kept switching from French to English when he spoke with us because he knew we spoke French but I guess he wanted to practice his English with us too, except that his English was pretty terrible. It was endearing. We all had a really great time that night--I think we all ended up getting a bit tipsy off the wine or maybe we were just all really happy because we laughed pretty much the entire evening. It was so fun, and the food was really great. By the end of the night, we were pretty exhausted from our long hike and our traveling, so it felt good to go to bed right after that.

And then today (Sunday) we spent the majority of our day in Rouen. We visited three different churches/cathedrals that were all built in the gothic flamboyant style, which is more intricately designed and built than the regular gothic style. The architecture was beautiful both on the outside and the inside. We then saw this great clock that is a staple of the city because it's like 900 years old. We got to go into the clock tower and see the mechanisms behind how the clock works. We also got to see a nice panoramic view of the city up in the tower and were there when the large bells in the tower chimed the 12th hour, which is the most important because the clock also keeps track of the days of the week and at that hour (midday), the picture for each day of the week (each day of the week is represented by a different God/planet) rotates. Not really sure why this changes at midday instead of at midnight, but that's the way it is. After that, we ate lunch at a local cafe and then were on our own to explore the city for about 2 hours.
Despite having beautiful cathedrals and a big old clock, Rouen is actually most famous for being the city where Joan of Arc was imprisoned and burned to death. We saw the tower where she was held, and Michele and I visited a small museum in our free time that was dedicated to Joan's story, and this museum was located right outside of the place where Joan was burned. Although, it was a bit morbid, it was so interesting and cool to be standing in a place where something very historical and important and tragic occurred almost 600 years ago (in 1431). After the museum we had to grab our stuff from the hotel and go to the train station to catch the train back to Versailles. Our train had not yet arrived because we got there early and since it was a nice day, we waited outside before the train came. And right were we sat down, there was a tree nearby where a drunk Irishman with a guitar was situated. He heard us speaking English and started talking to us and playing songs for us on his guitar. He said he was going to play an American song for us and sang about two lines of a song no one knew and then had to stop because he forgot the rest of it. Then he talked (in his Irish accent) about how "America has the best politicians money can buy! Ho ho ho." Then he talked about Sarcozy, saying that Sarcozy was born as a result of "the Wicked Witch of the West raping Dopey ho ho ho(one of Snow White's dwarfs). Then he tried to tell us jokes but the combination of his Irish accent and inebriation caused us to miss most of what he was saying. Finally our train arrived and we got up to go, and he then said to our group, "Wait I've got a joke for ya" so we stop and say "Ok what is it?" and he pauses, thinks for a bit and then says, "Ah I'll tell ya when yur older because I forgot it." And that was the last of what we heard from our Irish friend.

On the train ride back, Monika, Deem, Katie and I sat together and talked for the entire hour and forty five minutes we were on the train. Katie taught Deem how to play some card games because he hadn't played any cards since he was little. Deem wanted to read his book, but Katie insisted he learn how to play cards. We played gin and Go Fish. Then we talked the rest of the time about our childhoods and how Deem was obsessed with maps as a kid. He would order maps of just about every city in the U.S. and some countries and just sit there and memorize them. No joke. He remembers just about all of them too. If you dropped him off in one of the 500 plus cities that he had maps for, he'd know where he was and where to go. That's just incredible. We talked about a lot of other stuff too--life in general.
Then we got to Versailles and Michael, Katie, Elizabeth, Michele, Deem and I went out to dinner and had so much fun because we just learned a lot about Deem. He's written a Latin dictionary, and he actually starred in a Latin video that was watched among a lot of high school student who took Latin. He played Julius Caesar and was interviewed by someone while he was playing that character. He told us that some kids who had seen that video recognized him in a mall once and asked for his autograph. Then he told us about some of the travels he'd done in his life. The best story he told occurred in a field in Germany where he laid down to sleep while waiting for his train (and if you knew Deem he'd totally be one to go out and lay in a field to nap while he waits for his train). So he sleeps in this empty field and when he wakes up, he's suddenly not alone anymore. He is surrounded by hordes of men, and women, and kids and they're all stark naked picnicing and frolicking in this field. He is the only one clothed. He thought he was dreaming, and I would've too for that matter, but he wasn't. And it was so funny because he didn't know how he was supposed to leave this field unnoticed because being the only person clothed, he stuck out like a sore thumb. But then he saw a woman walking nearby who was clothed, and he thought "Oh thank God I'm not the only one" and she sees clothed Deem so she walks towards him but then she starts unbuttoning her dress and looking at him while she's doing it, and it was at that moment that Deem decided to bolt, literally. I couldn't stop laughing--that's probably the best story I've ever heard. We had a good night with him.

After dinner, I took a bus home, and while waiting for the bus, this black guy who was waiting with me started talking to me and I could tell by his line of questioning and the fact that we were the only two people at the stop that he was going to try to get my number or something or find out where I was staying. I explained to him that I was on a study abroad trip and he asked if he could take me to Paris sometime, but I told him "Probably not because we travel on weekends all the time. It's part of the program." Then he stopped talking to me. Little uncomfortable for a bit there. Then I came back to my house and found that a lot of things had been rearranged. A desk that was in my room is no longer there because Pauline is moving out into an apartment and wanted the desk in my room (which was her room) so now I have a much smaller desk and a lot more space. Even the computer was moved. So my house is pretty different now, but it's cool. As long as I have my Internet access, I'm OK. And now I will finally end this post. Until next time!