The First Impression of a New Culture

5/18/2010: Part One
Well it has been quite some time since I have last posted on this blog. I created this for my English 112 class my second semester of freshman year. I decided before leaving for Europe not to post my journey. However, as I have been going about my travels, I have realized that I will forget a lot of this journey. I tend to forget things often unless triggered by a thought and I don’t think many sites in Ohio are going to trigger many memories from architecture….
To recap my first four days:
Day One/Two: I said good bye to mom at the airport in the morning and began my voyage. Many storms were rolling through the Midwest, so they had to change my flights. It worked out to my advantage as I skipped Detroit and went straight to Minneapolis. In Dayton I ran into Jessica Schwieterman from Minster (also a new officer in Circle K at Miami) on her way to Anchorage for the summer. Upon arrival in Minneapolis I met up with the four other Miami students on my flight. Being the nice guy I am, I gave up my aisle seat to a French girl to sit next to her friend and ironically it was the seat next to another Miami student. Unfortunately it was the middle seat….. The older man next to me was very amusing and we had many good conversations on the nearly nine hour voyage. The meals were surprisingly good!
After passing Passport Control we were greated by Pierre from the school in France. Pierre is very young and turned out to provide many laughs especially upon using ‘foul’ language to pregnant Bosnian women scamming us to give them money by reading their well written message on well worn paper. He became our tour guide through Paris.
Upon all fifty arriving at the hotel, we set voyage on our first adventure. We traveled across Paris via metro to IES Center for orientation. We were all very tired as it was already Friday and had been up for nearly twenty-four hours. After ‘safety’ training (a.k.a scaring the crap out of us of everything that could happen to us) we walked. Devin and I made a side trip around the block and were soon lost by all the odd angled streets. Our first interaction with a French person on the street came from a sweet, old lady with a bonnet as she gave us directions back.
The day continued with a boat tour on the river through Paris to see all of the world renowned sites. It was a dreary, cold day and not good for walking around. Ironically it was the 400 year anniversary of the assassination of ******** the Fourth in the streets of Paris. We stood by his statue for many hours wondering about the podium, lights and speakers of the occasion. Later that night the celebration was on tv. We were told that four important documents are housed in boxes inside the sculpture of the horse he is riding.
Dr. Sullivan (a.k.a Sully) took us to an area nearby called ‘So Michele’ which translates to ‘Saint Michael’ to have dinner. There dozens of restaurants in tiny alleyways. After nearly thirty minutes of searching the five of us (Jonathon, Devin, Trevor and Chad) settled on a small place that only held maybe twenty people. AMAZING food! French onion soup, pasta with salmon and caramel custard desert. The waiter was not too happy with our lack of French, but we left a much larger tip than usual so I’m sure he was happy then.
Day Three: The sunny morning began with a walking tour from an older French woman. I forget her name but she was very sweet. She shared more information than I’ll ever need about all of the palaces in Paris. Apparently many of the kings decided they didn’t like their huge palace and decided to build another a few blocks away. We learned about the prison in which Marie Antoinette was held and executed as well as the multiple guiatine locations.
I was very excited to see the entrances to the metro stops. They were crafted of cast iron over a century ago in the arte neuvo style in which all of the interior and exterior decorations are of a very leafy nature. I learned about this in my architecture course last semester and we talked about these entrances. Unfortunately most of them were destroyed during the French Revolution. The tour guide also took us through a flower shop square and I saw some of the most amazing flowers for purchase. These shops used to be all over the city to supply fresh flowers to the many palaces, but really only one exist today.
Next the guide took us to Notre Dame Cathedral, but we first walked through a large tent of bakers making very elaborate designs out of bread. Unfortunately we had no time to enter the crypts of Notre Dame to see old vestments, but we did get a picture with Quasi Moto (sp?) before entering. It was a rather amazing building. I learned that Notre Dame is not the biggest, best or tallest cathedral but is the most famous. Sully also told us that all of the mile markers on highways in France are distances from Notre Dame as it is at the center of France. The tour guide stressed the description of the stained glass windows which were beautiful as you can imagine. The significance is that some of them have survived from Miedevil times. They survived the French Revolution when nearly all religious representations were destroyed including many of the statues on the outside as well as the bombings of WWII. Although the cathedral was not bombed the vibrations from nearby explosions shattered many windows. Additionally the cross and statue of Mary holding Jesus in her arms that lies behind the alter is of significance. Louis XIII came often to the cathedral to pray for a son to inherent his throne as he and his wife (I forget her name) had not become pregnant. The story goes that he made a deal while praying that if the Lord would bless him with a son that he would give this statue and things to the cathedral. Well one day soon after Louis XIII was supposed to travel to Versailles to begin a hunting trip. The weather became very bad and his assistants advised him to not travel and postpone one day. The king did not want to as all of his belongings had already left with his servants. The assistant told him that since all of his belongings were not in the palace (The Louvre) that he should spend the night in the Queen’s bed. The story ends nine months later with the birth of Louis XIV in which we also saw a statue celebrating this birth. To end my story about Notre Dame, the hunchback a.k.a. Quasi Moto is tauted with saving Notre Dame Cathedral. After the French Revolution the government wanted to destroy the cathedral. However, somehow as it was the home of Quasi Moto it was saved and a very small display (the size of two bowling balls) protrudes from the side of the building. The book the Hunchback of Notre Dame is still the best selling book in Europe. I guess I should read it to get the full story.
Behind Notre Dame in the formal gardens we saw a wedding and also saw the memorial to the Holocost. Oh, I should also mention that several people believe to see orbs floating in several of their pictures inside Notre Dame, but others taking pictures of the same location at a different time do not have them. I don’t know what to make of it, but it is interesting. Additionally, there was a short mass going on while we were in the cathedral. Oh and one small door in and one small door out. Would not meet U.S. firecode standards; Rick Simon would not approve!
This day we also toured The Louvre which was originally built in the sixteen century as a military installation. About a century after Louis XIV decided to move the palace of the King to Versailles, it became a museum. Today it houses some of the most famous paintings and sculptures in the world. We met at the famous glass pyramid added in 1989 in the center courtyard. My favorite archway was Porte Colbert (I’m sure named for Stephen Colbert – ha) and Porte Sully of which I of course took a picture because of our professor and Mr. Sully from Russia! Our tour guide was a studying student from Germany and she showed us to only one wing. This building is huge and amazingly decorated inside. Unfortunately we only had ninety minutes to tour and she knew way too much about the paintings. We stopped at about seven paintings to learn about them. She talked for atleast ten minutes on each painting which was nice, but became rather daunting. We did get to see the Mona Lisa and many other paintings by Picasso in which they were landmark paintings.
The end of our tour took us to the Eiffel Tower. After an hour we made it to the top and got to see all of Paris. It was a very neat experience, but not as exciting as I was hoping because it was at the end of a long day and it was not lit up yet. Other notables of the day were walking past the Museum of Modern Art. I can’t remember the style of architecture, but it was another building we studied in class. It was one of the first buildings to display the structural and functional elements of the building outside. So for example, all of the air ducts run along the outside of the building and have giant two story air intakes coming up from the sidewalks. Also, the cantilevered structure of the building using trustes is outside and displayed. I learned from an architecture class two years ago that this was a new design for any structure and very innovative. It was great to see the building in person!
After the tower tour six of us were starving and stopped at a random restaurant called Castle Café. We learned that by using some French to greet and order tap water that we would be well received. This waiter however was very entertaining and funny. He gave many winks to the girls and was very interested in making it a good time for us. We soon realized that dinners take much longer in France as it took nearly two and a half hours. However, it was good bonding time for the six of us as we all became really good friends and will be for the rest of the trip (Trevor, Devin, Annie, Amanda and Ashley). That night we went out to a ‘lounge’ that was all black, mirrored and little lighting for a few drinks. Again, great bonding time for the six of us plus one more.
Day Four: It began with a violent domestic dispute beginning in the buffet line, moving to the lobby, continuing outside the main entrance and ended with the policia arriving. We began a bus ride to Versailles (less than an hour away) in which two people were late…together….after a long night of partying. I can’t begin to describe the stupidity of these two people. The one girl forgot her luggage (she didn’t come back to the hotel) and so went inside to change clothes (keep in mind, the clothes were in her luggage) and bring down her luggage. Only she forgot to bring her luggage again and the bus left. YES VERY STUPID. Not only that, but her Passport was in her luggage. After she stopped laughing about it she told Sully and she had to instead of touring Versailles, take a train back to Paris to get her luggage and got back just twenty minutes before leaving.
However, the rest of us toured the amazing palace built for the king. Again, huge with gold plated fencing and gold plated roof. I can’t describe the paintings on the ceilings nor the number of sculptures I saw and simple hallways that were just glorified to no end. However, the fireplaces were huge. The logs in them literally were ten feet long. Simply amazing to think about how many servants it took to run the place and to simply keep it decently warm. I loved it, but it was crowded. Many interesting items. We also toured the town at a fresh produce market, a Catholic Cathedral, a beautiful hotel and many streets.
The four hour bus ride to Nantes was very nice and I enjoyed watching the countryside. Western France is rather flat and has rolling hills like southern Ohio. Lots of farming with American equipment and a similar highway system to America. I was surprised with the differences, but all traditional stone houses and small roads like you see in movies. Very appealing.
I have to say that I really have enjoyed everything about France up to this point. I honestly could see myself becoming an expatriate and living here or somewhere in Europe for a few years. I feel like I have such deeper appreciation for things after spending a short amount of time here. It is late and I will post more on this night of meeting our host family and then the first full day in Nantes in tomorrow’s post!
Au revoir!

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