wrapping up La Rochelle... an amazing time.

I've now been back in the United States for three weeks and I have an unsettled feeling about my blog, since I didn't really finish it after I got busy with classes the last three weeks I was in La Rochelle. I also felt as though since we got into a rhythm in LR, nothing incredibly new happened, so I didn't have that much to update. After one week of classes back at UR, I am feeling a bit nostalgic towards the wonderful summer I had in France, and I feel as though one final post is needed to wrap everything up...


The picture from above is a picture that I took near the Minimes beach, which was only about a half mile from the university where we took our classes. A few days a week after class, we'd walk down to the beach and relax there for the afternoon... It was a pretty nice way to spend the day.

A few days a week (and sometimes a few nights, too) we'd hit up Ernest's, which is quite possibly the best ice cream shop I've been to in my entire life. They had a lot of local flavors like Caramel Fleur du Sel (which comes from the sea salt which is harvested in the area) and Café Cognac. My personal favorite was Café Nougatine... It pretty much became a staple in my diet in La Rochelle (especially when lunch was around 1 and dinner was at 8 or 8:30... I mean, it was pretty much necessary, right? )




We also did an excursion to the Ile de Ré, which is an island just off the coast of La Rochelle... the Ile de Ré is known for its Pineau (which is like wine but a little stronger and fruitier) and its sea salt. There are about five or six towns on the island, and the best known is Saint-Martin-de-Ré, which we visited as a group. Here you can see Aayla and I chillin on the Vauban fortifications, which surround the city and protected it from invasion. When we got the the Saint-Martin, the weather was lousy and overcast, but the sun came out and it turned out to be a beautiful day to see the sights in this charming city. The city's winding streets are lined with the "rose tremière" which is the tall, bright flower that grows up the sides of doors and windows in Charente-Maritime and is often seen on postcards and calendars. Here are a few pictures of Saint-Martin, a place where I could totally spend the rest of my life...






Back in La Rochelle, we went to the marché (market) one day for class, and we were forced to interview a few of the vendors about their products. My partner and I had to interview the florists, and here's a good shot of how beautiful the flowers were that were for sale... The family who put them together said that what was on the table was "literally their whole front yard"... could you imagine that house? Must be gorgeous... Most of the flowers came from the area, although a few were selling flowers from Holland.


During the last week of classes, the program took out all the students to dinner in La Rochelle near the old port at a restaurant that was pretty much closed except for us. We had an exceptional French dinner, and it was great catching up at dinner with friends from the group. Afterwards, we took a few funny photos... Joe was doing "the fish" i think...


We also walked around the old port and probably went to Ernest's. At one point, when we got out of seeing "Inception" downtown we realized that we were walking towards Ernest's out of reflex. We were kind of like magnets, accelerating our pace the closer we got... I think it was Victor who said, "We're heading to Ernest's aren't we?" and while none of us had really meant intentionally to go there, we all agreed it was pretty much a must. Here's a photo I took of the sun setting over the old port... I think it really captures a bit of the ambiance of La Rochelle during the summer...


Our final excursion was taking a boat trip to Fort Boyard, a fort that is situated between the Ile d'Aix and Ile d'Oléron. It was supposed to be used for shooting cannons at approaching enemy ships between the islands, but by the time it was finally finished (80 years after Napoleon had the building commence) it was no longer needed, since cannon technology had progressed to the point where they could shoot far enough from the shores to hit any thing coming towards land. So then they decided to use it as a jail, and now it is where the French equivalent of Fear Factor is filmed. Victor and I watched it with Sylvie a few times and it was awesome. Just the right amount of cheesy puns, token challenges and pointless tigers to keep me entertained... While the Fort was cool to see, I think a few of us were a little tired and passed out while on the high seas...




Here are a few pictures of my two favorite places to run while I was in La Rochelle. The first picture is of the Canal Saint-Martin, stretches from La Rochelle inward about 30 miles. I ran it often because the trail was quiet, well shaded, and had nice views. The canal starts at sea level and stays at sea level, even though the land around it rises about 100 feet the further you get out, so basically the trail overlooks the canal from a pretty high elevation the further out you go. There had to have been a TON of digging to make this canal happen, and it makes sense that, like Fort Boyard, Napoleon would have deemed this canal necessary, even though it also took 80 years to build and was pretty much useless by the time it was ready for use in 1886. Even so, it's a nice place to run and do tempo workouts :) The next picture is of the trails by Chef-de-Baie, a place to the West of La Rochelle that overlooks the ocean from a few bluffs. It was usually pretty windy, but gorgeous and the trails were soft.




This the École Supérieure de Commerce, where we took our classes... it's pretty modern and bright inside. I got pretty well acquainted with the café machines, which sold delicious espresso drinks for 35 or 40 (euro) cents.




The last night we were at Sylvie's house, Sylvie made us an amazing sea food dinner. Typically, I don't really like seafood, but most of what we had that night was delicious.




Sylvie is an amazing artist, so I took a couple photos of her pieces.. all of the artwork in her house was done by her.


I will miss Sylvie's dog, Vodka... who somehow can open doors with her paws in order to climb in our beds...


Here's Victor and I with Sylvie on the last night, getting some ice cream down by the Old Port at Ernest's (of course...). She was an incredible host... I hope to come back and visit again some day!


This is Victor, myself, Josh and Joe with our professor, Frédérique. She was the best professor we could have asked for-- she taught us up-to-date French and would correct every error. I definitely spoke better after her class in French than I ever have in my life.


The last thing we did was stop at Chartres to visit the cathedral. i think a lot of us were tired and ready to be done at this point, but this cathedral honestly blew my mind. It was probably bigger than Notre Dame and it's stained glass was stunning. unfortunately for us the Rose Window was undergoing cleaning/repair, but the rest of the windows were awesome. it's such an awe-inspiring thing to be in a place that literally took centuries and thousands of people to build.





Hopefully this blog has given you a little taste of what I did while in France... it was a summer to remember in a lot of ways. I loved staying with Sylvie and the rest of the Galliot clan and improving my French over conversations at the dinner table. I also go to learn so much about the country, its culture and its gastronomy that I couldn't have learned without actually being there. The trip has REALLY made me want to go back-- in fact, i'll be starting an application so I can go back and spend another year there very soon. La Rochelle was such a fun place to be for the summer-- I'd definitely recommend it!

I could get used to fresh croissants in the morning...

Ahh, it's been a while since I've posted! I have a lot to update you all on. I suppose I should discuss the reason why i'm here, which is to take a course in french culture and conversation. We take classes at the Sup de Co (short for: École Supérieure de Commerce), which is a business school that specializes in tourism and related industries, mostly. they have some classes in french, since a lot of their students are non-french, and our professor frédérique is a pro. she's really funny and engaging and gets to know us really well and is very good at correcting all of the little faults we make. class goes from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm, with a short break around 10:30.



There's no set format for the class, except for that every day one person presents an "exposé" on a certain topic that is relevant to France or La Rochelle in particular. I did my exposé last thursday on the proposed changes to the retirement system in france, which is basically akin to our social security system, except that it covers around 85% of the average workers' retirement, compared to social security, which makes up 36% of US retirements. Sarkozy and company are trying to change the law to delay retirement from 60 to 62 in order to make the system solvent in the long term. one of the problems with it, however, is that it seems to advantage upper level employees (cadres) more than lower level government workers or privately employed workers. these people would have to work two extra years without increasing their retirement, while bosses could earn over 4000 extra euros per year for their retirement by delaying their retirement two years. it's also not likely to help unemployment rates, especially since now young people will have even a harder time than they already have finding work (the unemployment rate is around 10%, like it is in the states). any way, i think i successfully bored the class with that presentation (it was also the morning after Bastille Day, so I'm just gonna assume that's why everyone was falling asleep, haha).

Outside of class, going to the beach is a pretty popular activity, both during the day and at night. Here's a picture from the last time we went to the beach as a group at night:



This particular beach is right near the center of the city and it was actually a good place to listen to music from the francofolies concerts when they took place last week. It was also really cool to be in Europe for the World Cup, or as I got used to calling it, la Coupe du Monde. A few of us went downtown to watch the final game... at first I was going to root for the Netherlands, since I thought they were the underdog, and normally i like to root for the underdog. But then, during the first few minutes of the game, Pierre texted me and told me that he was rooting for Spain because the Netherlands wasn't exactly "fair play." Immediately after that, a dutch player judo-kicked a spanish player in the chest, which solidified my support for Spain. As Pierre put it, "The Netherlands isn't playing soccer, but kung-fu!" Emerald, Joe and I rooted for Spain, while Liz and Aayla, seen pouting in the picture below, cheered unsuccessfully for the Netherlands.



Last weekend we also made a trip to two chateaux of the Loire Valley, which was pretty cool. The trip was a little bit long for my liking, but it was really cool to see two castles from which the French monarchy used to rule the country. The first one that we saw was Amboise, which was 80% destroyed a few hundred years ago, so it was lacking a little bit of splendor if you ask me. It was definitely cool. Here's me in front of Amboise:



I think I preferred Chenonceaux, the second castle. One thing that Amboise had that Chenonceaux didn't? Leonardo da Vinci, who is buried there. Chenonceaux is more of a "fairy-tale castle," as you can see here:



Later last week, we also made a trip to Cognac, which is where--i bet you can't guess-- COGNAC is made. We took a tour of the Hennessy factory, which was really interesting. They showed us the process from the cultivation of the grapes all the way to the bottling. Cognac can only be made in the cognac region, and there are specific geographical regions north and south of the center of Cognac where certain soil nourishes the grapes differently, ultimately leading to different varieties of cognac. I think there are a few members of my family who would've really enjoyed that tour! Then we had a small tasting of the different flavors and they showed us (but did not let us taste) the bottles of cognac which cost over $10,000. Some of them are made from the "eaux de vie" that date from the early 1800s!! They amazingly still have these batches of raw cognac in bottles in the cellars we saw. I've also learned a lot about Pineau, which is a variety of wine (but a little stronger) that is a specialty of the region, and it is made with the same grapes as Cognac. People around here are amazingly proud of their products, it's almost overwhelming. And they also like to talk about how Americans don't really have anything comparable... Which i usually try to argue, but ultimately fail.



On Friday, I went to Phoenix's concert at the Francofolie music festival (picture above), which is in La Rochelle and I can actually hear quite clearly when I open my windows. The Francofolie festival is, I think, the biggest music festival in France and only brings in french speaking artists, but not necessarily people who peform in french....... case in point, the two groups i saw, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Phoenix, while French themselves, sang almost exclusively in English. I tried to imagine a music festival in the states in which an American started singing in French.... especially if the point of the festival was to promote anglophone singers. Oooh, the french. But anyway, back to Phoenix. They pretty much blew my mind and now I own a lot of their music. For a group of four parisians, they come up with some pretty good english lyrics...



On saturday, we went as a group to the Aquarium in La Rochelle. It is (apparently) one of the best aquariums in the world and had a ton of tropical fish (including nemo-fish and dorie-fish) as well as a hermaphrodite fish that Monica loves and some pretty sick sharks that would swim on top of you, basically.



in terms of language comprehension and learning, I've definitely come a long way since arriving in La Rochelle. Every night at dinner with Sylvie (and often her boyfriend Alain as well as various children who come in and out of La Rochelle from time to time) we discuss different aspects of french culture and society that we find interesting. yesterday we talked about overfishing and the environmental consequences of pesticide use, as well as the high costs of being "bio" aka organic. Today we talked about the military in France, and Alain told Victor and I about a few of the differences between our respective armies. For example, when going to war, the French ask their soldiers, "Are you prepared to go to war?" According to Alain, in his regiment of 88 people, only two replied "yes".... and by "yes," i mean "oui." The others said things like, Well I have kids, well I have this and that... I can now see a little more clearly why our army bears the brunt of so many of the conflicts around the world, especially since we don't let our soldiers opt out of their service when it's inconvenient to them. Dinner time discussions aren't always so serious though... Any way, it's time for me to crash so i can get up in the AM and do a short run.

@+!
tim

Ahhhh.... La Rochelle

Finally, I'm in La Rochelle! I think the last thing I wrote about in the blog was arriving at the Mt. St. Michel on on Friday evening, so I'll try to pick up from there and continue to where I am now. I got up early and ran again, planning to do my long run but i brought my camera that I ended up stopping so many times and taking so many pictures that I ran out of time to finish 85-90 before breakfast, haha. But I'm glad I did it! I got some good photos, like this one:



We then went up into the Abbey of Mt. St. Michel, which I've done before, but it was great to do again. It's simply so old, so it's really hard to believe that i'm standing on a place that was built around a thousand years ago and yet is still in existence. Here is a picture of the prayer courtyard neart the very top of the abbey:



While waiting around, Aayla and I took some pretty "hard" pictures. We're so B.A. ....



This photo may or may not be on the cover of our first joint rap CD. After the Mt. St. Michel, we took the bus about five hours to La Rochelle where Victor and I met Sylvie! We were pretty anxious about it all, but Sylvie is so nice and makes great food! We've shared meals with her, some of her friends, and even a few of her children, including Thomas and Charlotte, who both live in the area. Charlotte is 19 and lives in Bordeaux where she studies Science Po (like me) although she may take the extra room here for the summer because she has a pretty good job offer.

Sylvie's house is in a great location-- really close to the Vieux Port and the Old City shopping district. It's only an 8 minute walk to the harbor, and there are tons of shops, patisseries, boulangeries and PEOPLE on the way. I didn't know this until yesterday, but La Rochelle is the third most visited city in France after Paris and the Mt. Saint Michel. There are a ton of people here already, and there are sure to be more when the Francofolies music festival commences. The atmosphere downtown is great-- tons of restaurants and cafés which overlook the old port, and a ton of glaceries, aka ice cream shops, that are amazing. We've definitely hit those up more than once already. Here's a look at one of the towers in the Vieux Port at sunset:



Classes started yesterday and they are going well. Our prof, Frédérique is great, and really helpful with learning vocabulary and specifically slang vocabulary that the French youth use. So far, so good as far as class is concerned.

All right, I'm tired and going to bed... Bonne nuit!

PS-- the temperatures here are between 60 at night and 75 in the day with a nice ocean breeze. I'm so glad I'm not on the east coast of the US right now! 102 just doesn't suit me...

normandy is fine and fair...

If anyone understands the title reference, I'd be really impressed... it would probably have to be someone who went to middle school with me, but not necessarily...

so anyway, I'm in Normandy at the moment! My precise location is "Le Restaurant de l'Esperance" in the hotel de l'esperance in Lisieux. It's a cute town that has a huge basilica and a lot of roaming countryside. When we got here yesterday I went on a GREAT run along rolling country roads, past old farms, some lazy looking heifers and a lot of small french cars. I had about a mile run up a massive hill that caught me a little off guard, but it was totally worth it since the 360 view at the top was incredible.



Yesterday we hit up Mantes-la-jolie, a pretty town on the Seine. The cathedral is gothic, and really cool. We then traveled to Giverny, where Monet lived and had his gardens. You may recall some of his water lily paintings and his painting with the green japanese bridge... We saw all of those things. It's such a gorgeous place, it's easy to see how he was so inspired to paint. I picked up a nice Monet book for six euros in the book store.



Then we had a picnic along the Seine that was really picturesque... We also were in a great mood, having realized that prices in rural Normandy around roughly 1/5 of the prices in Paris. Check out our picnic spot.. (not bad, right?)



On a funny side note, my roommate, Mike Bosserman, woke me up last night while shouting in his sleep... now I finally know what Is ound like

Okay, I took a little break while writing this... now I've changed locations. I'm in a bungalow outside the Mt. Saint Michel. We just arrived here today... it's gorgeous. I have been here before when I came to France three years ago with my parents, but it still took my breath away when we came saw it on the horizon.



while on the way, our bus driver missed the exit, and we ended up going down a really country road. we happened upon a herd of cows that felt no pressure to move while meandering down the street...



when we arrived, our bungalows are sweet. I went for another amazing run, up country roads and alongside a windmill from which I could see the Mt. St. Michel in the distance. Again, breathtaking. THen I ran through the scenic village of Beauvoir, and I I saw some rundown houses I wanna buy and flip. They'd make some really awesome B&Bs for Mt. St. Michel tourists....



Right now I'm exhausted and am still trying to recover from a cold that has been following me all week. I took some medicine and I think it's about... to knock....... me....... out............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...... Haha, okay that was really cheesy but I am indeed really tired. Tomorrow, finally, we get to La Rochelle! Look for the next update from there!

the city of light never ceases to amaze...

bonjour encore!

I'm going to try to upload some photos, although facebook might be a better place to check out a few more... see my latest album, "a few from france" at www.facebook.com/timjquinn



we've been really busy in the last few days, seeing all the sights in paris. on sunday we went to the musée d'orsay, which has a lot of Monet, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Renoir, Manet, and others... then we went to the Marais district, and say the Musée du Carnavalet, which is all about the history of paris... this museum actually used to be Madame de Sévigny's house, a woman who famously wrote about aristocratic life a few hundred years ago... it was easily the biggest house I've EVER been in (likely to be trumped by Versailles tomorrow...) We walked around the Marais for a bit and when to the Eiffel tower at night, to check out the view when everything was lit up... it was gorgeous...



Yesterday we went to montmartre and, after seeing sacré coeur, we had lunch at the café des deux moulins, which is the café from the movie Amélie. It was extremely overpriced (as everything is here...) but still pretty good. there was a really drunk man in that restaurant at 11:45 am who gave me a good laugh... He had fallen asleep and was swaying back and forth, coming really close every time to falling completely out of his booth. It was pretty sad, actually, and I probably shouldn't have been watching as intensely as i did, but I've learned that people-watching is the parisian way, so since I'm here, I may as well do as the parisians do.



This morning we got up super early to head out to versailles, which i'll put pictures up of later, since I haven't put them on my computer. It's no wonder the french people rebelled against the monarchy...that place is such a waste of money it's unbelievable! I mean, I'm really glad that Louis XIV built it, because it's so insanely extravagant. but if i were a french peasant at the time, and I couldn't eat, I'd probably have been pissed.



I think we're gonna go explore the town some more. I'll try for more interesting anecdotes at a later point. a toute a l'heure!

bonjour de paris!

hey everyone!

Yes, I arrived in Paris two days ago to spend about six weeks here. My flight went from Rochester to Chicago, and Chicago to Paris (yes, I know, it doesn't make sense to go that diretion, but it's what I did). I hardly slept at all on the plane to Paris, which sucked, because when we got there it was 8:30 am and I had things to do! American Airlines is pretty lame... they only have TVs in the middle of the plane, and they showed the Tooth Fairy and Bride Wars. Some really stellar movies right there...There was an episode of Parks and Rec though, which made me happy.



Upon landing, I went through the passport check, then on out security towards baggage... until I realized that the baggage claim in France comes BEFORE the security doors. Which made things complicated, so I had to have some policiers let me back in. Then I went out to get a taxi, where a man on a motorcycle semi-harassed me to go with him. But I said, "Avec ça?" meaning, with this gigantic suitcase? And he said yes, but I thought to myself, I've seen Taken before, and I'm pretty sure this is the exact same as the scene in the movie where she gets kidnapped and sold into prostitution. Not that I was overly worried about that, but... I went with the, 70-year-old vietnamese man and his roomy taxi. 55 euros later, I was at my hotel.



Okay, I'm writing too much. I'll condense. I took a short nap at the Hotel, then managed my way through the metro system to find Dr. Radi at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, where we got my library card so I could do work at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal the following day. We were greeted by a grumpy Frenchman who refused to shake my hand when I extended it towards him. "I don't shake hands with people I don't know," he said, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. Then he asked my nationality and said that Americans are too polite with "inconnus" (strangers), which is not the case in France. When he found out Dr. Radi was Italian, he said that Italians are the Europeans who most copy Americans in general, and she made a quick retort about Sarkozy, and he finally settled down and gave me my card.

Back at the hotel I watched the US triumph in the world cup (I freaked out alone as teh algerians who own the hotel groaned beneath me). I went for a short run on the Seine and hit the sack not long after getting some MacDo. I was way too tired for anything authentically french...

Yesterday, I got up early and did a short run, then headed through the Bastille to the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, which is a beautiful 16th century library. It was a great day, but I'm running out of battery and I'm at McDonalds again using the free wi-fi where I can't find a plug. Here's a photo... I'll update more later! With more pictures!



A toute a l'heure,

Tim

first post!

Hey everyone,

So I've set up this blog in case you feel like following what I'm up to this summer, which is pretty jam-packed with activity.

I'm starting this summer with research here at Richmond which I'm doing on French literature of the Renaissance. I'm reading a lot of François Rabelais, who wrote Gargantua and Pantagruel, two hilarious, though also thought-provoking, books about two giants. Perhaps I'll throw down a post soon about how the research is going in more depth...

Following my research and a two-day interlude in the ROC, I'm headed to France, where I'll meet Dr. Radi, my research advisor, for a few days of research in Paris before I meet up with Dr. Raymond the rest of my group from the University of Richmond. We'll tour Paris for about a week before heading to Normandy then La Rochelle where we'll take our classes.

Following my classes in France, I'm really excited because my mom, dad, Mike and Brittany are coming to Paris to hang out with me for a week! I can't wait, it's gonna be amazing! I wish Katie and Sean could come too, but seeing as Katie is pregnant after all (!!!) I suppose their excuse to stay home is pretttty legit. After we return home in August, I'll be in the ROC again for about a week before heading back down to Richmond for pre-season cross-country camp! All of this while also running between 90 and 110 miles/week in preparation for an amazing fall cross season.

Busy much? As my (not-so) favorite politician Sarah Palin would say, You Betcha! But it's gonna be great, so follow my posts here to see what's going on! I'll post some pictures, but most likely I'll just put links to send you to facebook to see albums there.

Here are links to my other two social networking sites:

http://www.facebook.com/timjquinn/

http://www.twitter.com/timjquinn/


I hope every one is doing well! Keep me updated!

@+
tim