Bruges, Brugge, Bruges!

You may be wondering why the title has two different words in it: Bruges and Brugge. Well, yesterday (Saturday) Grace and I went on another little day adventure to Bruges, Belgium, or Brugge if you are referring to the city in Flemish! Flemish is one of the three official languages in Belgium (along with French and English). Bruges is also the name of a town in France. So this entire week Grace, my mother, and I have been trying to figure out what the weather will be like in “Bruges” (forgetting to include the country) and were very confused when a town in France kept popping up. However, by Friday, we realized the difference and began looking at the correct city.

Bruges was BEAUTIFUL. It’s known as the “Venice of the North” and while we really only saw about three canals, it was still just a beautiful, quaint, beautiful town. It also snowed the entire time there, which would have been so romantic and even more beautiful, if I had not forgotten gloves and a thicker scarf and a hat.

Casual canals

Our day started at 10:30, which was our first train from Arras to Lille Flanders. Then we had to find the Lille Europe train station, and take another train to Brussels, Belgium where we had another train to Bruges where we arrived at 2:00 in the afternoon. Bruges is located in the north of Belgium, relatively close to The Netherlands. This proximity to The Netherlands would explain the amount of Flemish we saw throughout the city. Grace and I had been mistaken to think that French would be the most prominent language, and this mistake became very evident at the train station where nothing was translated into French, and we had no idea if we were looking at the list of departing trains or not. Don’t worry, we figured it out! It was definitely interesting though trying to decide whether or not to use English or French first with anyone we came across, and most people who approached us spoke initially in Flemish (until the bewildered and confused looks on our faces prompted them to talk either in French or English).

Flemish!

English!

French!

We had another one of our days where we just explored the city by walking around without any set plans, and this time without a map. However, we were able to easily find the historic city center where there were several tourist attractions in addition to the traditional and interesting architecture. I absolutely adore this city; it’s literally the embodiment of the image that pops into your head when reading a story that describes a quaint northern European village. The buildings were not crazy tall, everything was brick and cobblestones, and the architecture was very quaint and village-like. It’s comparable to the beauty of Strasbourg and I loved it just as much as Strasbourg.

Horse-drawn carriage rides were er'rywhere

Our first major event was buying traditional Belgium “frites,” or French fries, in the Historic Centre. They were delicious, which sounds terrible because it was technically “fast food,” but despite that, and maybe working with the fact that Grace and I had not had real fries in so long, they were amazingly delicious. My fingers were so frozen when paying for them, however, my fine motor skills were embarrassing and I’m sure I came off as the typical American tourist. Ah, well.

Historic Centre

We then went to the Salvador Dali EXPO in the same Historic Centre. This little gallery exhibited just Dali sketches and sculptures, but they were the most intriguing sketches I have ever looked at, which was surprising because I am not a huge fan of sketches. However, Dali is an amazing artist, and I won’t ramble too much about art, but each sketch and concept varied so much it was crazy to think they were all created by the same man. Grace and I commented on this a lot, in addition to the occasional, “I wonder what he was on when he sketched this series?” Overall though, we loved this museum and even bought the original museum’s poster.

Kind of looks like the Maryland flag, doesn't it?!

Chocolate was our next goal, and oh, did we succeed. Last year in French 202, I had to give a presentation on a Belgium brand of chocolate and the one that I had chosen (Guylian Belgian Chocolate) specialized in chocolate seashells. We ended up finding a shop near the main canal and I was able to buy my chocolate seashells while Grace had bought liquor-flavored truffles. For those of you wondering, they. Are. All. Delicious. I have not been able to keep myself from eating the chocolate and had to hide the bag in my closet to get them out of sight. We had to force ourselves back into the freezing cold weather at that point with the intention of finding a café-like place where we could order this special kind of hot chocolate. What is this? Mrs. Jarman had told me about this when she came to visit: apparently, you choose white, dark, or milk chocolate hot chocolate, and they bring you a bowl of hot milk with a separate dish of chips of whichever kind of chocolate you choose, and you pour the chocolate chips into the milk while whisking, and you create your own hot chocolate. By the time we found a shop that advertised hot chocolate, we were so cold we decided to go in to warm up and they had the prepared hot chocolate. It was delicious still and came with two pieces of chocolate that were amazing and I even bought MORE chocolate from this place and (hopefully) entertained the owner with my own form of Frenglish. As you can see, chocolate is VERY important in Belgium, and it may be fun/interesting to see how many times “chocolate” is in this paragraph alone.

All of my chocolates...

I absolutely adored Bruges/Brugge, and we definitely had a very fun, freezing, exhausting, interesting, and delicious day in this beautiful historic city!! 

Dunkirk

Last Sunday I decided to take a day trip to Dunkirk. I have always been fascinated by the history of World War Two, in which Dunkirk hosted the evacuation of the British forces in June of 1940. In addition to this motivation, there is a scene in my favorite movie/book, Atonement, which shows the chaos and the desperation to evacuate from Dunkirk in a beautiful 5-minute tracking scene in addition to one of the character’s experiences during the evacuation. So, I decided to make the hour and ten-minute train ride to the English Channel to check out this site and soak it in for a few hours.

I arrived in Dunkirk at about 1 p.m., and that’s when I realized I had no idea where I was going. With no map, no plan, and no expectations, I began to wander to try to find the Tourism Office or a road sign or something to point me in the direction of the beach.

The first sight of Dunkirk I saw was the port- there were so many beautiful ships and bridges, which was pretty amazing to see. At the port I was lucky enough to find an open museum and the very nice ladies working there gave me a free map- of course, in English (after asking for “une carte” in French, the first thing they asked me was what language do I speak, so, awesome) and pointed me in the direction of the beach.

The Port

It took me about an hour to walk to the coastline, but, finally, I arrived. The Dunkirk beach was very unexpected- the actual beach was very large, the water seemed so far away. But, it was also absolutely gorgeous and very quaint. Houses border the road and in front of the houses are hundreds of cafés, restaurants, and ice cream shops, which all seemed delicious. They all boasted seafood specialties, especially mussels (very important in France), and sported a variety of colors and names. The houses themselves were beautiful too- each one had a different name and most of them had an interesting design on the facades. Next to the road are a boardwalk, then the beach, and finally the water.

The first sight of the Channel!

The boardwalk, the houses, and the beach

I decided to walk along the boardwalk for a while, just to take it all in. Several people were out walking in couples or groups, running, riding bikes, roller-skating, and playing soccer. The temperature was mild and it was alternately cloudy and sunny, so overall it was a pretty nice day. I then decided to stop for lunch (couscous with veggies and chicken in a baggie!), which I ate sitting where the boardwalk met the sand while watching the water.

Lunch!

High tide, I believe

The English Channel was very pretty, the waves were extremely tiny, and flocks of seagulls were floating on the water and whatnot. Shells are scattered all over the sand- most likely because the high tide came very close to the boardwalk from what I could tell. There were a lot of mussel shells but also a lot of shells I had never seen before: pink, very long and very thin. But I managed to find some very pretty shells as souvenirs throughout my day.

Other than my lunch eating and seashell finding adventures, most of my three hours in Dunkirk were spent walking the beach and sitting on the beach, just soaking in the history, the sounds, and the sights of Dunkirk. 

The Amusing Henry VI

Last Saturday my friend Grace and I went to the theatre in Arras to see Shakespeare’s Henry VI translated into French. I was especially excited/nervous, because 1.) I had never seen a Shakespeare play on stage before, 2.) I had no idea what Henry VI was about and so I had to look it up on Wikipedia the night before, and 3.) A Shakespeare play translated into French. Enough said.

I LOVED it.

There were many serious parts to it, obviously, it’s a serious play, but the overall tone of the first half of the play (which is what we stayed for- 4 hours out of an 8 hour play, I was pretty satisfied haha) was quirky and so, so amusing.

Some general ideas to understand: the play is about Henry VI (king of England in the early 1400s with some questionable mental health stability whose actions led to the eventual War of the Roses, which ended with the Tudor dynasty taking power of England, cue The Tudors), but it begins while he is a few months old. And so, most of the first act or so focuses on the historical events leading up to his marrying his French wife, Marguerite, when he was about 23 (according to Wikipedia). These events include a lot of war between France and England, including Joan of Arc and her role in the Hundred Years War.

So now, the hilarious details: the “horses” used were wooden chairs, Joan of Arc rocked a neon blue bob, the French made fun of themselves and the English, the battle scenes were basically dance scenes with a lot of strobe light, techno music, moshing, and the swords were actually those long, narrow pieces of cloth attached to a plastic rod. And, in keeping up with the French culture: there were instances of nudity and smoking while on stage. The actors, during stage changes, also poked fun at how long the play is. After about an hour or so into the first part, the woman talking to us during a scene change had actually said: “There are 15 acts in this play, and we just finished scene one of act one.” She was hilarious.

This play ended up being an amazing cultural experience that I think wouldn’t have had such an impact on me had it been as somber as the Shakespeare original. By presenting his ideas, still accurately, but with their own little twist, really presented French humor in a unique and awesome way. And as humor being very hard to understand in different languages, Grace and I were to able to interact with the play and the audience through understanding their humor as if we were also French. 

The Ever-Inspiring French Teacher

So this entry will be just a little more sentimental than normal, but I really wanted to share my thoughts on my visit from Mrs. Jarman tonight.

For those of you who don’t know, Mrs. Jarman was my high school French teacher and is really the reason I am currently in France. She inspired such a love for French in me that I had to continue studying the language even after completing four years in high school. Her energy, her own love for the culture, country, and language, and her wisdom over the years has helped me in more ways than she probably would think. One of her wonderful life lessons I remember her telling me: study what you love, not what you think will earn you the most money, because if you do what you love everything will work out. She actually experienced this, going to school to become a lawyer but realizing her true love was French and in pursuing French she has encountered so many amazing opportunities. This bit of advice has always popped into my head when trying to make decisions regarding my academics or anything really, to do what I love. I think it has been successful for me thus far.

In addition to being my French teacher and a source of wisdom, Mrs. Jarman also had the pleasure (I hope haha) of taking me to Europe twice during my high school career with a group from the school. We went to Italy and France in 2007 and Ireland, Wales, England, and Paris in 2009. Both trips were amazing and just added to the desire in me to travel as much as I could.

As she and her husband were passing through Arras from Normandy on their way to The Netherlands to visit their daughter, they decided to stop by for the night and take me out to dinner. We went to this little restaurant on the Grand Place with “Ch’ti” in the name (Ch’ti is the picard- or dialect – of the Pas-de-Calais region) and had delicious wine, an interesting dinner, and my dessert (crème brûlée) was delicious. She brought up how during her last school trip to Europe she was thrilled with a moment in the Louvre when the students were taking in and interacting with the art around them, and truly appreciating the experience. These moments are very special to her, as she says they’re the reason she continues to take students to France. She once told me that she noticed one of these moments with me, the first time I had laid eyes on the Eiffel Tower and pretty much anything in France.

These thoughts came to me tonight as I was walking home from our dinner and I was completely taken by just the reality of things. I’ve changed so much since young me saw these things that I had idolized as a child.  I can remember seeing Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the beaches of Normandy, the Coliseum, abandoned castles in Beaumaris, the Tower of London, and so many other places, and being completely enthralled by the history and beauty of these places. And yet, I am still taken aback by simple things I have found in Arras, and grander things I have seen in Strasbourg and the Loire Valley. With these more recent experiences, I know that that little girl who was literally giddy from seeing the Eiffel Tower up close is still present, and will continue to be giddy at the sights of Europe (just ask Grace!).

Having dinner with Mrs. Jarman tonight just renewed all of these thoughts and memories, and I really have her inspiration, encouragement, and love to thank for offering me all of the opportunities and the spark to follow my own love for the French language. So, thank you beaucoup Mrs. Jarman! 

Also, she brought some Maryland love with her (thank you Maman and Faja, John & Jessie & Jack, Will, Aunt Liz, and Granny!)

Another Art Museum?! – Louvre-Lens and My Classes!

I’m starting to think I should have named this blog “Art Museums, or What Else Does One Do While in France?” because I have yet another art museum to discuss and more photos for everyone to see of artwork! Yesterday the International Relations office from the University of Artois took a small group of us international students to a town called Lens, about forty-five minutes away from Arras by bus, and to the new museum there, the Louvre-Lens. “The Louvre?” Some may be asking, “Isn’t that in Paris?” Yes, yes it is, and when we first heard of this trip we thought we were going to Paris for the day, but alas, not the case. The Louvre-Lens is an offshoot museum from the original Louvre in Paris, a way for the museum to expand and offer the opportunity to more people to see its artwork. From what I gathered, the Louvre-Lens is the first of one of these museums, and it just opened last December so it’s definitely new.

When we arrived at the museum, I was personally a little shocked because I had expected an older, classical-looking building like the monastery-turned Beaux Arts museum in Arras. However, I was greeted with a very modern, glass, warehouse-sized, and flat white building with a lot of white cement. It was also (another) gray day in the Pas-de-Calais region, so that helped the building blend in more with the environment than it already did. Though once we entered the museum it was pretty cool with the glass windows in the “foyer” of the building.

The first exhibit we saw was a temporary Renaissance exhibit that focuses on the influence that François I had in Renaissance art. We saw a variety of images of this king, in addition to the usual run of sketches, statues, pottery, and decorative arts. The best part was the Leonardo da Vinci painting that they had, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, which was pretty awesome to see. (I always feel this way after seeing da Vinci paintings). It was a nice little connection to our trip in February too, as François I had a lot of influence on the chateaux that we saw and was buddies with da Vinci, who is buried at the chateaux of Amboise.

We then went to see the main collection, which is held in a huge, open room (much like a warehouse). This was a completely new experience, as all of the artwork was free standing and it all faced in one direction (which is toward the onlooker as they enter the room). It’s a pretty cool, modern concept and was interesting juxtaposed with the very ancient art at the beginning (it also went in chronological order, so the last piece of artwork was the “newest” one in the room- painted in 1830). There were way too many people in the museum, however, for it to be easy to navigate. I spent a lot of time zigzagging back and forth between artwork! 

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Greek mosaic

Augustus of Rome

Saint Francis

My favorite image of Mary and Jesus, Medieval work

From India

Diderot, worked with Alembert on the Encyclopedia, and who we talk about almost every day in class

Nevertheless, I was able to see a huge variety of artwork, ranging from ancient Egyptian sarcophagi, Greek statues, Roman statues, Middle Eastern tapestries and pottery, to Middle Ages, Renaissance, and neo-classical European art. 

Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix

I greatly enjoyed the variety but of course my favorite painting was the last one: Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People. I had seen this painting at the Louvre in Paris when I went to France at the age of 16, and I have always just loved it. So, of course, I took about triple the amount of photos for this one painting than any other piece of artwork in the Louvre-Lens!

I also wanted to talk about my classes that I am taking at the university, as I haven’t really talked about it at all. But, I promise to keep it brief. The schedule here is really, truly, very different than at Washington College. You have a mix of what are called “CM” courses- lectures- and “TD” courses – smaller, more discussion-based classes (although there really isn’t much discussion going on in them). The TDs I have are still bigger than any of my 200-400 level courses at WAC, so it’s still very, very different. I also only have every class once a week, which I kind of like because then it’s done with for the week, but it also means the classes are longer than what I’m used to which kind of drags sometimes.

On Mondays I have two two-hour long courses, a Youth Literature class and FLE, which is a French class for the international students. Tuesdays include an hour-long Introduction to Medieval Literature class and a two-hour long History of the French Language class. On Wednesdays, we wear pink! (Mean Girls, anyone?) But I also don’t have any classes that day. Thursdays: every other week I have a TD class for my Medieval Literature class, then an hour lecture for Introduction to Modern Literature, and the TD for my Medieval History course. Fridays are fun (not), I have an hour Introduction to Comparative Literature class, an hour and a half TD course for Modern Literature, and an hour and a half lecture for Medieval History. That was a mouthful.

Overall I enjoy my courses. The most interesting one is the History of the French Language course, but I also like the Youth Literature course. Some of them, however, don’t compare to the psychology courses that I miss so much! They’re definitely interesting though and come from a different perspective than the one I have had since kindergarten, so I am enjoying the new educational experience!

Adventures in Strasbourg and the Loire Valley! Part Deux

Wednesday morning Grace and I boarded our third train back to Paris from Strasbourg, en route to Tours across the country. This trip posed some challenges: once in Paris, we had 50 minutes between the arrival of our train and the departure of the next train to get from Paris Est to the Montparnasse train station, via the Paris metro. Scary, scary, scary. We succeeded though, and then had an hour-long train ride to Saint Pierre des Corps where we took another five-minute metro-like train to Tours.

View from our terrace

Tours is an interesting city, but I actually found myself liking it a lot. It’s mostly known because it’s the city of the Loire Valley so you can go there to stay while touring the countryside and the chateaux. Being a little less touristy itself, Grace and I had decided that we weren’t going to spend an extra day there and leave Friday afternoon after our all-day tour Thursday. But we found our hotel (mostly by accident – a lot of construction was messing up our original mapped walking plans), which wasn’t open until 5, so we sat at a café for a little over an hour drinking yet again café au lait. We then checked in, and the hotel was completely adorable. The proprietor was very nice to us and upgraded our original room to one with a terrace. There was also Internet AND a TV in our room, which was amazing because we hadn’t watched TV since we left until Wednesday night. We decided to get pizza for dinner and had a delicious one at La Scala: tomatoes, artichoke hearts, candied tomatoes, and vegetable chips with mozzarella. SO GOOD.

Anyways, we woke up early Thursday to catch another continental breakfast before walking to the tourist office to begin our tour. Our tour guide was a really nice man originally from Sri Lanka who can speak French, Portuguese, Italian, and English. He drove us around in a Fiat mini van, along with a Chinese girl named Jamie who studies in Lille, and an English teacher from Wisconsin named Devan and her mother, Melanie.

The Loire Valley is famous for all of the chateaux that are found there. Here's the Wikipedia link that describes what a chateau is and what it is compared to a palace or a castle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateau  (I figured it would be easier to just include the link as opposed to explaining it, then including the link!) 

The drive leading to Chenonceau

At Chenonceau, but just so gorgeous

Our first chateau was Chenonceau, which sits over the River Cher, and is gorgeous. A tree-lined drive leads you to the chateau, and there are gardens and fields that surround the building itself and the water. There’s an interesting history behind Chenonceau, it was the house of the mistress of Henry II, Diane of Poitiers. After the kind died, his wife, Catherine de Medici, kicked Diane out and took over the chateau herself and adding her own garden to rival Diane’s. The weather was sunny and cool when we got there, but of course, it being February, the gardens weren’t very pretty so it’s hard to judge whose garden is superior. We were able to explore the entire chateau and the chapel and the grand hallway were my favorite parts. The chapel is very tiny (compared to all the huge cathedrals we typically see in France) and so when light goes through the stained glass it colors the walls and floors. The grand hallway is the part of the chateau that goes over the river and so had a lot of amazing views and was very open and pleasant. There were lit fireplaces in the hallway too, which was nice as it is February and the stone building didn’t offer much in the way of insulation. Lit fireplaces became a thing of our day in the Loire Valley, three of the four chateaux had the fires going! We got to see the kitchens that are very famous for being the best of the chateaux, and, again, these offered really cool views of the river.

View of Chenonceau from the side

Chenonceau

The Chapel

Casual fire in the fireplace

The grand hallway

The Cher from a window in the hallway

Part of the kitchen

View of the river from the kitchens

The Cher!

One of the gardens

We then decided to take ten minutes to go wine tasting, as the Loire Valley is the third largest wine producing region in France, which was the best idea ever. These wines were delicious. Never fear, we had about two sips of four types of wine, so it was definitely for the tasting experience. From the Touraine region, we tried a red, a rosé (my favorite), a white, and a dessert white one (my other favorite), and it was a very pleasant experience.

Wine fields in the Loire Valley

Amboise from the chateau's grounds!

Amboise was our next destination, a town that sits on the Loire and can boast of its famous chateau and of its being the home to Leonardo da Vinci’s grave. The town itself was very pretty, very traditional with tiny roads and stone buildings. To get to the cathedral, however, you have to climb this huge hill from where the entire town can be seen. We spent a lot of time around the walls of the chateau just looking at the city and the Loire. I was a little scared, but also pretty fascinated by it all. A chapel sits very precariously on the hill and over the city, and this is where Leonardo da Vinci’s remains are kept. He and François I were besties, and so François had him move to Amboise to live for the last three years of his life. After we explored the castle we went to see his house and were able to take a few photos of it! It was a good ten-minute walk each way but it was definitely worth it.

The chapel was as pretty as the one at Chenonceau, and it was really amazing to be standing however many feet away from Leonardo da Vinci, never mind the view the chapel has of the city.

The Chapel

Gorgeous light from the stained glass windows

The Chateau d’Amboise also sat precariously on the hill; only it faced the Loire instead of the village. It was actually really scary, the hill was very steep, but definitely had its benefits as a safe place for the royalty to reside. We were able to explore this chateau entirely again, and we were able to see the throne, some suits of armor, a few rooms in the style of the 19^th century, and we climbed the one main tower over the river.

Chateau d'Ambroise

View of the Loire from the chateau

The throne!

So high up!

Eeeeek!

Leonardo da Vinci's house

Just a casual chateau casually chilling on the Loire (Chaumont)

Chambord was our third chateau, and inarguably the most awe-inspiring. This chateau was originally built as a hunting lodge for François I, who loved to hunt. As this is his second mention out of three chateaux, it’s important to note that he was a huge influence in the building of the chateaux of the Loire Valley. This is, according to our tour guide, due to his involvement in the French Renaissance, during which architecture and art became very important for monarchs. The Loire Valley was also the capital of France at the time, and so that is where the nobility and royalty resided. However, I digress. Chambord is famous because, in addition to its grandeur and beauty, it took about 30 years to complete and can say that Leonardo da Vinci had helped in its creation. Inside of the main building is a staircase known as a double-helix staircase, which is very famous. The French loved their spiral staircases, and this one has two spiral staircases in one, but the steps never cross. Chambord is also surrounded by hunting grounds with a diameter of 32 kilometers (about 20 miles) and the hunting grounds are the same size as Paris.

Chambord

The double-helix staircase

There were again a lot of lit fireplaces in the chateau, which was truly a blessing as the day had gotten very cold and windy and everywhere inside the building it was absolutely freezing. We explored yet again, even though half of the 400 rooms aren’t open to the public. However, it was very intricate and gorgeous with huge decorative rooms with famous paintings and lush furniture. The views from the roof of Chambord were amazing too, and the roof itself was a beautiful masterpiece of stone and turrets and just overall incredibleness.

View from Chambord

Our final chateau of the day was Cheverny, which was my least favorite overall. Another hunting lodge, it actually is still inhabited and owned by the family who has owned it for hundreds of years. We weren’t able to go to the third floor of the house, but were able to see the first two floors, and I think it’s because the third floor is still in use for the family. The decorations and furniture of this chateau were very over the top; there were a lot of gold, dark rich colors, armor and elaborate dressers and drawers and furniture. It was definitely interesting but I didn’t really like most of the interior. I did, however, love the outside and the look of the chateau, and there was one bedroom in particular that I thought was very beautiful.

Cheverny

My favorite room in Cheverny

We then returned to Tours, arriving back in our hotel around 8:00 at night. Grace and I watched TV and crashed, woke up to have our breakfast and then left the hotel at 11:00 in the morning. Our train wasn’t until 3:20, so we walked a little bit around the Old Town part of Tours and saw the outside of the cathedral before going to the train station and sitting in the café for most of the afternoon. We had a two hour train ride back to Paris, then a horrifically crowded metro ride from Gare d’Austerlitz to Paris Nord, and then a warm train ride back to Arras.