Provence

Spent 5 nackering days with 2 lovely french girls...

Day 1 - a nice medium long trek and then one night ocamp in the alpilles (after the alps they really do seem tiny)


Day 2 - A rather much longer trek from town to town near to Miramas where we stayed the other 3 nights (done on v little sleep and in very dry 30degree heat= not so helpful) NB The nearest town is almost always further away than you imagine.


Follow that, the next day, with a loooong (by my standards anyway) bike ride, all 3 or us on matching red bikes complete with neon green helmet (isn't it beautiful!), handy handlebar bags which we crammed full with all sorts of goodies such as biscuits (yes Quinn I hear you :P) and strawberries mmmmm and yellow plastic-tasting water bottles which we got to keep...


Then riding and wading waist high in the sea in the Camaragues (Day 4)



Finished off by a tourist stop accompanied by self-downloaded audioguide (a million times better than those museum ones) in Arles

Recommended activity for any trip - get those card games out, anywhere, when or how :)


Add on the no space to breathe and think english, ever... and this made Dish a very very tired girl indeed... Thank goodness for bandes dessinées... I think I might have exploded otherwise. :)

A highly recommended experience... looovely memories made :)

la ville d'amour

The contributing factors to delightful entertainment on a 5 day séjour in paris...

- Meeting randoms, french and english speaking (even if most of them are medics! :P )
- Staying with randoms, french and english speaking. You may find yourself in some interesting places...
- Eating out in random quartiers... from the posh Jewish area to Parisian bohemian to what ressembled mini India.
- Finding pockets of free decent live music... in bars, churches and flea markets
- Give a couple of gorgeous french children piggybacks round the Notre Dame
- Waiting for the Metro

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Staring contests on the metro









- Taking cheesy tourist photos by famous landmarks (and inviting pfffts and snorts of disapproval from your french friends)

- Taking silly photos by famous landmarks (and laugh at your french friends who are keeping themselves at a distance and pretending not to be with you)

- Taking photos of silly things such as enormously fat pigeons and thematic traffic lights

Activities which I've found to be not so entertaining in Paris (or anywhere else in France for that matter except Grenoble)

- Trying to find the Tourist office

A tour of the audioguided tour

In the space of 3 days I was guided by these little phonelike devices no less than 5 times, round 1 art gallery, 2 museums, 1 palace and 1 Roman theatre. These experiences have sprouted some fairly strong opinions in me which I would like to air.

But first of all, just to give you some background and for the benefit those of you who may have yet to experience the delights of an audioguided tour... let me walk you through one.

You enter your historical sit/museum/art gallery of choice, past the beeping ticket barriers and are presented with an object somewhat similar in form and style to a mobile phone from the mid 1990s or "bricks" as they were affectionately known. Some galleries ask you what language you desire, some assume you want french, some assume you want english... this often presents quite some dilemna for the year abroader in France.
Do you... a. Pick french and listen avidly to every word trying to soak in all the new vocabulary and thus improving my listening skills (why else are we in France after all)? (Plus french people speak quicker so you get round the site in less time)
b. Pick english which requires less brain effort so you are actually able to look around rather than simply squinting in concentration, and really take in the visual as well as the audio.
c. Pick another language entirely, German for example, because you've been desperate to learn a third language ever since you got here, and hope that you might be able to get my ears accustomed to the phonetics of the language, and perhaps even understand/guess the meaning of at least one of two things.

I realise this might not be everyone's dilemna... all I can say is I pity those of you who truly are multilingual...

You move to the first exhibit, and see a metal plate beside it with a number beside it. There appears to be no logic to these numbers, the first one could say anything from 6.1 to 123... but you punch it into your audioguide keypad and listen avidly to the ensuing monologue in your language of choice. (I chose a. once, was given a. once without being asked, and chose b. the other 4 times) You do the same for the next couple of exhibits... but by the third your concentration begins to fade, you walk around looking blankly at exhibits, only half listening to the audioguide. By the time you've punched in the 5th number, you're wondering why on earth you need to know silly facts like the year in which the 17th Pope of Avignon died. By the 7th you're thinking option c. would have been a more educational and enjoyable experience. By the 9th you can't be bothered listening at all. You exchange a meaningful glance with your tour buddy, punch in a number and run past all the numbered exhibits whilst holding the guide to your ear and nodding and frowning in concentration. You finally arrive at the exit where you accidently try to leave without handing your guide in. The devices then start beeping loudly in burglar-alarm point the finger style, till you shamefacedly hand them in at the entrance; often a good 5 minute walk away.

Now I have nothing against the concept of these informative devices. I mean, surely the museum experience should in theory be heightened by that wonderful combination of visual with audio? But tourist authorities of the south-east of France... surely you could have...
- made descriptions concise and relevant in order to hold our attention.
- been selective about the information you wish to communicate... taking into the account the intellectual level of the likely listener (not high)
- used perhaps more of that hierarchical structure you unsuccesfully attempted to put to use on occasion e.g Press 1. for a few lines on why there is a sword in that casket, 1.1 If you wish to know more information about the person who used it, 1.1.1 if you want minute detail on the way in which these types of swords were fabricated, including all materials used and methods involved 1.1.1.1 for the family history, complete with birth and death dates of the person who used the sword.
- at least have picked a less montonous BBC-esque voice.

Here ends the rant

On the plus side, the audioguides in art galleries we went to seem to be actually interesting, concise and informative.
You can always just switch if off when you can't be bothered listening anymore.

NB: If your purpose in visiting a tourist site is just so you can cross it off the haveseenlist, just pick option c. You'll probably learn more.

Les virrages

They haven't been the only people skiing lately... I finally tried my hand at the truc this weekend here though unlike them I didn't have to travel far. An hour an a half in the bus was all it took to get me and my fellow assistant buddies aka les trois graces, qui savent faire la luge to our slopes of choice! There was certainly no shortage of laughs, nor falls... Free accomodation and lessons were swapped for home cooked food... a wonderful exchange à mon avis! Our teachers were 2 middle-aged french divorcees who worked at the school we all teach at, one silent, one not so silent, both good teachers, both with a million stories to tell. I now know all the ski jargon in french but not in english!

My skiing highlights

- I had red skis! I think that's pretty cool don't you?! :P
- la vitesse! This was however was a cause for a recurring problem, I couldn't quite work out how to regulate it. I would just accelerate and accelerate and had to throw myself to the ground because I couldn't stop.
- Finally at the end of our second and last morning, learning how to stop!
- Becoming an expert at picking myself up again after falling

Observations:

And I suddenly realised that Grenoble has become, without my realising, a home. Home number 3 perhaps, but a home nonetheless! We found ourselves walking along the road one day, chatting in french, remarking on the number of étrangères, especially anglophones at the station de ski... before remembering that we are étrangères... because we lived in Grenoble and were speaking french, we'd forgotten that we were.

The French really know how to enjoy the simple pleasures, i.e eating! 2 hours spent over 3/4 course meals always finished off with a café (tea pour moi) is most definitely the way forward! And they even manage to do it during the working week! Most banks, shops and offic es are closed from 12 till 2 so people can go home eat with their families and head back into the work again! Once you get used to the strange opening hours, adjust your eating patterns to it, and stop turning up at banks and finding them to be most annoyingly closed, you can't help but love it!

Essentially it seems people are no different no matter where they're from.

Oh and did I mention that mountains are beautiful?!