Grenoble: Le retour

"Going back" to a place is always a weird thing. There were some things that were just the same, I still knew the voice over in the tram off by heart - "Victor Hugo, correspondance avec la ligne B, 2, 22, 23, 31 et le reseau transisere", the mountains were still there (though I couldn't see them for most of my séjour as they were covered in cloud), the food is as good as I remember it, the French still bisous each other, still eat cheese and drink wine with almost every meal, still say "bah" and "fin" every third word...

Some things had changed, the addition of a new rather useless 5 stop long tram line not far from where I used to live, my favourite icecream place had changed name but the icecreams still tasted just as good! I met some new people, made some new friends,

But the other thing about going back is the memories, they came back with such life... I missed people who made certain good experiences wonderful. Eating an icecream wasn't the same without the crew from feu, frequenting my favourite cafe wasn't the same without the good friend I always frequented it with. A friend and I popped our head in at orchestra (she's no longer playing with them either) and it was bizarre to only recognise a handful of faces. A lot happens in 2 years... but I made some fab new memories - touring Chambery by bike, ski du fond, playing in the snow, salsa dancing, so many new people, international dinners, discovering libanese food hearing stories of the general strike of 1968, Hungary in the 50s and 60s...

and oh how I love speaking french!

It's good to remember that the past is past and the present is now... I'm glad to be home...

au printemps...

THANK YOU FOR BOOKING WITH RYANAIR

GOING OUT
From Glasgow (Prestwick) (PIK) to Grenoble Lyon (GNB)
Sat, 28Mar09 Depart PIK at 18:10 and arrive GNB at 21:20

PAYMENT DETAILS
*********0.00 GBP Total Fare
********25.44 GBP Taxes, Fees & Charges
*********4.00 GBP Passenger Fee: CC
********29.44 GBP Total Paid

I didn't think I'd get round to it, or be able to afford it or that there's be anything at the right time, but a gander on the Ryanair website found me this cheap flight, right at the beginning of the Easter hols (before my french oral exams :)! And so I'm going back for the first time in a year and a half...!

scrrrumptious

One of the things I loved most about south of France culture was the lifestyle that revolves around eating. The french reeeeally know how to enjoy their food! Meals are usually long, they last several courses, each one enjoyed round the table with family and friends. No one ever hurries to eat their meal. Even at school, the lunch hour was 2 hours long, an hour of eating and hour for clubs and recreational activity. There was even a stash of wine and cheese for staff who felt the urge! My favourite meals were those when I was invited round for dinner by a french family and we sat eating till well after dark. Every bite is savoured, seasoned with avid conversation, sometimes silences.
There are few things I enjoy more than spending a couple of hours at the table eating a scrumptious meal with people I love. Anyone who knows me will know how excited I get about a plate of good food! (see photo above) I love to savour every bite and then spend loads of time just sitting with the people at the table afterwards digesting :) hmmm (satisfied siiiigh)
Do I have that same attitude to spending time with God? I think that time should be as unrushed, savoured, slowly digested, seasoned with both conversation and silence... And yet so often it isn't... I read this a couple of years ago and came across it again last night. It strikes a chord because it's too often true of me. Makes me think of that banquet parable... although I know it isn't necessarily talking about that, when I read it I can't help but think on how often I end up making excuses!
It's more than just that though, I was thinking about how Jesus describes himself as the Bread of life. But that isn't the only reference made to where our sustenance should come from...
Comparing time with God to time with a yummy scrummy meal helps me to think about my eagerness to spend time with God as much as how I do it. En bref quality time enjoyed.

Un éclat

I like this photo because of the memory I have of the moment when I took it. It had been raining for days and when it rains in Grenoble it snows on the mountains (up until about April that is) so you can't see them for the thick white clouds that obscure them. The mountains are a constant and familiar presence in Grenoble. You can see them looming behind all manner of buildings in almost every direction. So it's a kinda eerie feeling, not being able to see them. I was waiting at the bus-stop to go to school and then spotted that tiny gap in the clouds and that stunning turquoise blue patch of sky against fresh snow-covered mountains made me catch my breath! I just had to snap it! It was just so beautiful to see and even more so because it felt as though I was seeing blue sky and mountains for the first time! I felt as though I had forgotten what they looked like.

I had another one of those gap in the clouds experiences just recently though it didn't involve mountains or clouds.

My hope had been leaking for a while... I didn't notice at first, and then after a while I started noticing a pit-hole kinda empty feeling when I was alone, something which I hadn't experienced in a long time and it didn't feel like something I could stop. I suddenly had so many questions that made my head hurt. It was kinda like having my vision obscured by impenetrable clouds.

See I had forgotten what God is like. Somewhere along the line I had lost perspective and so lost heart. It seemed to me that He was letting people slip through His fingers that shouldn't be slipping through, people that I really cared about or who had grown to care about. I had the initial gap in the cloud experience because of a few words that made me realise God wasn't letting things slip through his fingers at all. That He truly cares. And once realising that I found my eyes opening to other situations and people that God was working in and through. This week I'm helping out with kids and youth work with my home church. This week is "launch-week" of a church-plant in a small town Kirkliston, the next nearest town to where I grew up. The very fact that God has put so many passionate inspired gifted people in the area and is enabling this to happen is evidence of the fact that He doesn't let seemingly hopeless areas, people, situations just slip through His fingers even if everyone else seems to have given up hope.

I'm not going to give up on Him, Christ Jesus our Hope.

The last days

there were concerts, a baby and goodbyes

some walks and icecream too

there's a pedalo and there's silly shining there too

Things I've enjoyed the most here...

French cuisine - Tis no myth, French food really does beat British food by a long way!

Le feu - a church-funded, fulltimeworker-supported, building-equipped christian organisation for student ages and up which I stumbled across just a couple of months back, just when I really needed it, despite living just a short walk away. After spending 8 months in a foreign country, being able to hang out with, eat, pray and study the bible in french and my native language with folk in a similar situation as me is such a gift, even if it has only been for the last couple of months.


Savouring french eccentricities like little kids carrying baguettes as long as themselves, bereted old men playing ptonk, music rehearsals where more time is spent in discussion than in playing, listen to very interesting political rants from some v intelligent french people about how Sarkozy is the new Blair/Hitler/just generally a fascist and seeing giant fish heads in the supermarket



The international banter here, especially with the other assistants... cooking for each other, slagging off each other's accents, the odd bit o dancing...


Baebar, this lovely chap beside me ------------->
Have had a bit of a lovehate relationship with him over the past year, but I have made some great friends because of him and he's helped me integrate into french society... it will be sad to say goodbye.

No-Man's Land

The first time I ever went to France at the age of 14 I walked through these... No-man's land by the Somme: the expansive empty tranquil fields divided by several trenches that used to be the battlegrounds in the first world war. No one wanted to go out into them because the likelihood of your coming back was so minimal...
I feel as though I'm in no-man's land right now though my situation doesn't quite look like that. It looks more like a busy month of what will be more countless goodbyes, celloings, bits and pieces of travelling than much else... part of me just wants to skip the goodbyes, to skip this long drawn out end to what has been an experience of a year and get on with the next part... or at least be in either one camp or the other... not in between the two... hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrumph (an elephant sigh)

But I know God has a purpose for me being here, and even though I'm finding it hard to do what I love best i.e invest in people, because either they're leaving or I am, I've to make the most of it, and live, because that's what he's called me to do, for better or for worse...
Whether I like it or not this is no man's land season... so no reason to be de-motivated by it. Rather, quite the opposite: ...give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thess 5:18

God please make me joyful.

the funny moments

Had my last 8am start today... got a lovely card and some chocolate from the english lunch club which was immensely touching... one student wrote this

"Good bye. It was very funny the moments with you in the club.
GOOD BYE!!!"

Sums up the year of teaching pretty well really...

only 4 hours to go...

On BBQs and Being tired.

Trying to organise a surprise barbecue in France I discovered this weekend, is both a tricky and delicate process.

- Firstly there is the surprise element... The surprise victim was Canadian party organiser Court. Unfortunately it is rather difficult to keep a serial party organiser from organising a party when you're trying to organise one for him. I think he smelled a rat or two when I very tactfully asked him to meet me outside a shop at 6pm (about 4 hours earlier than our usual rendevous) and wouldn't tell him why... When I did actually meet him, he then went on to tell me exactly what he suspected we were doing this evening, and hit the nail on the head. He had every detail right, right down to the exact location. Impressive considering...

- we had a few problems getting everyone together at the same place at the same time. Especially when 3 people are doing the main inviting, and all of them tell folk to invite whoever they want. The set barbecue place was at the Bastille (for those of you who do not know Grenoble that is on top of a big hill in the middle of Grenoble). Now there are a lot of possible BBQ spots on top of a hill thus it was decided that meeting on the bottom before getting the cable car up would be a better idea otherwise we would just get lost and waste credit trying to find one another again. Now trying to get people turn up on time was always going to be a problem. People don't eat in France on average till at least 8. In fact restaurants aren't even open until 7 in the evening. But we were wanting to start while it was still daylight. And then there's the face that in France when you tell people to meet you at a certain place you have to add another half an hour on in your head. The Germans were the only people to arrive at the arranged rendevous on time... :)

- Then there was the getting hold of a BBQ and getting it in a tiny cable car up to the top of a mountain. Unfortunately disposable BBQs don't seem to be too common here, so after a lot of ringing around we thought we'd got hold of 2, and then lost them half an hour before expected rendevous. Our fortune turned when we stepped out of the tram in front of Monoprix (the Marks and Sparks of France) and decided to go in "just to check" since we had 5 minute till rendevous time.

- Now the weather in Grenoble has gotten ridiculously warm of late. Yesterday in the afternoon the temperature was over 30 degrees celsius. A little too much for a Scot like me (even one with Sri Lankan genes). We were expected good weather for the BBQ but climbing up the mountains as the sun began to set, winds began to pick up in both directions, which meterology expert Hannah informed us was normal due to hot air from the valley coming in contact with cold air from above (or something along those lines :P) I had to hold my couscous down with my fork to stop it flying off my plate.

- Oh and just so you know, there are no lights in the mountains.

All in all a quality experience, a good meal, 10 nationalities represented, awesome view... doesn't take much to make me smile :)

Surprisingly all that organising (followed by silly dancing till silly hours) seemed to have little effect on my level of awakeness at church the next morning, managed to maintain wakeful cheeriness in fact until that awful post-lunch period. Unfortunately I spent several hours lunching with three generations of an Italian french family and thus was very very very well fed! Weighed down by the contents of my stomach I struggled to maintain adequate communication levels in conversation on this hot Sunday afternoon, acutely aware of the rapid deterioration of my french linguistic skills, and trying as hard as I could to concentrate on adult conversation whilst being highly in demand as chosen playmate for the only member of the third generation (age 3).

If there's a lesson in any of this ramble it's this... When you organise a BBQ in Grenoble, tell everyone to come an hour earlier than when you actually want them to come (everyone that is except Germans), don't have it in a mountain and if you make it a surprise for someone, don't pick the habitual party-organiser. There is a time to be silly and a time to be sensible (re:bedtime).