Cold Winter Mornings and Walks in the Fields

Well, it’s been a bit nippy here. Luckily it was cold enough the past few days that the humidity froze out of the air, and it actually made it feel a bit warmer. We usually catch the 7:50 bus, which means that it’s still dark out when we go.

We only have class Monday to Thursday (next week not included, since we’re taking a road trip to Belgium Monday to Wednesday). Accordingly, on Friday Steve Pearson (a friend from BYU) was in London for work, and decided to take the weekend to come visit his aunt, Jeannie Welch, who is the director of the BYU Paris study abroad program, so I ended up hanging out with him this weekend. What a crazy small world it is. Especially when you’re LDS. Anyway, Steve and I went to Versailles with some of the other BYU students, and had a great time.

The pictures didn’t turn out well because the entire front is being cleaned, but the inside is amazing. The tour starts on the top level with the throne room and the King and Queen’s apartments, then goes down to the Dauphin’s rooms. The only problem is that it makes the otherwise opulent prince’s chambers seem rather droll in comparison. C’est la vie, but I’d have arranged it differently. It was great to see because I just took my Greek and Roman mythology class, and there was tons of mythology incorporated in the not-so-catholic French King’s decoration. It was fun to be able to see the title “Apotheosis of Hercules,” look at the painting, and know what’s going on and why. Also, Louis XIV (whom I already admired in my Blog) and the French kings considered themselves the Sun kings, and Versailles was the Sun Palace, so they had a lot of references to Apollo, the Greek god of the sun. Good times.

Perhaps the greatest excitement of the day was that we got in for free with our “Art Student” cards. It would have normally been about US $30 total, but we didn’t pay a cent. That is, until we went to the Creperie right next door and I got a raspberry and cream crepe. It was amazing. Then I went and finished off the day with a Kebab, and I don’t think it could get any better. I had forgotten how much I missed kebabs while I was away.

Saturday I had forgotten that the bus schedule changes for the weekend, only comes about every two and a half hours, so I ended up walking the 45 minutes to the train station, thus making the trip into Paris a total of two hours and ten minutes. It was a lot of fun, though since I walked past an old church, some big open fields, and got to listen to the birds sing. The town is also surrounded by lots of open fields. They’ll all be planted come spring, but right now they’re just grassy, rolling fields.

French is coming along pretty well. I went from being able to say “Yes, Hello, Goodnight, and Thanks” to having short, somewhat pathetic, but full conversations about how my day was, what I did, what we saw, and who was with me. I also had a great conversation about books. Maybe not because the quality of speech was great on my end, but rather every conversation about books is a good one. Speaking of books, I finished Charlie Wilson’s War, and I’ve been focusing solely on vocabulary, and I’ve made great progress. I probably have several hundred words down now. I will probably have to go out and get a new book soon, though. The trip to Belgium is supposed to be several hours, and I don’t know if I’ll make it that long without reading anything besides a French grammar book.

A funny side note on Charlie Wilson’s War (not funny-funny, but odd funny. CWW, by the way, is about the secret war the CIA was running in Afghanistan from 1982 till 1991, which is where a lot of the Afghans got their weapons to fight the current US troops there). It was a phenomenal book, and I’m glad I read it, because it made me aware of something I had been totally unaware of before, but it’s also interesting, because I randomly picked up the Kite Runner and I also randomly watched Lord of War (edited, mind you, with Nicholas Cage as a gun-runner), and it seems like they all mesh together in some dark way. If you don't know what any of the three is about, I recommend you read/watch them all.

This afternoon we went to see the French Chateaux in Conches and the surrounding countryside (the tiny town where we live. It’s so small it only has like 3 bus stops. I’d be surprised if it’s as big as Homestead, the one mile square subdivision I grew up in). Maybe when I get my battery charged I can post some pictures. Some of them are really cool, and some are slightly dilapidated. The older/less well kept ones seem to mostly have been converted into retirement homes, and the nicer ones are mostly weekend homes for the uber-wealthy.

Today’s pictures come from my bedroom. It’s plenty big, and has a bookcase. This was before I moved my stuff in. It’s got a great German blanket on it. It’s really thick and heavy (as in it weighs a lot) and it is just wonderful. For some reason I like that a lot. As a side note, the wife in the family is actually German—but I think they’ve lived here in France their whole married life. They’re probably 55 or so. The husband is the chief French translator for the church (and had the joy of translating 3 last minute talks yesterday for the funeral, which took him all day). They have four sons. One is on a mission, and one still lives at home. They all speak English really well, but speak only French to me. It’s better that way.

It’s been a great first week. I am really happy with how things are going, and I think it will turn out to have been a plum idea. Until next time, a bientot!

Jeff

P.S. If you like the pictures, you may have to lobby my mom to send me my camera charger. Being the slightly absent minded person that I am, I managed to forget it at home, and now I need her to send it to me. Thanks mom!