Oakwinter.com

From the fireworks display going on outside my window, it must be a legal requirement for every man, woman and child to stockpile explosives all year long. In case you forgot, though, no worries: you can restock at any grocery store around. Milk, cheese, Roman candles, butter.

Sidebar: this is the same grocery store where you can buy vodka by the box.

The entire visible skyline is absolutely ablaze, and given the impressive bangs associated with some of these displays, I’m certain somebody broke into the Bundeswehr depot in town.

Maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas to give a bunch of hard-drinking Germans fireworks: my building has taken at least two direct hits from the building across the street.

One of the nice things about this place being so flat is that you can watch the fireworks displays up to 40km away.

To give you an idea of just how much ordnance we’re talking about, there’s so much smoke around the base of my building that I can’t see the ground from my 7th-floor balcony.

Happy 2006.

Sleep five hours at the Three Ducks. Pay the man, nearly walk out the door with my key. Catch the Metro from Commerce, change trains at Concorde, direction: Palais Royale-Musée du Louvre. Get off, surface, requisition terrible oranges and a less-than-delicious pastry from a side-street baker. Eat them on a park bench, watching the sun rise over the most famous art museum in the world. Finish “breakfast”, approach the glass pyramid to buy a ticket.

Who the hell is closed on a Tuesday?

Well, that certainly explains the rather suspicious lack of a crowd, now doesn’t it. I’m so incredibly grateful for the 2kg book on the Louvre that I’ve been lugging around since borrowing it from Elizabeth in Caen.

So, given that it’s currently 9AM, what do to with the rest of my day? As I recall, my solution involved wandering around Paris (such a tough life I lead, I know) for 90 minutes or so, then finally catching the Metro back to the Champs Elysées-Clemenceau station and the Grand Palais located there. The Grand Palais was something that Ann and I had attempted to get into on Monday, but were thwarted by the long line. We didn’t know what was going on in there, but with a line like that, we assumed, it had to be good. On this Tuesday morning, however, the ticket queue looked just as long as it had the previous day, so I headed back toward the Musée d’Orsay to see if it were, by some miracle, open on Tuesdays.

Quelle bonne chance! Not only was the Orsay open and operating, there was a long line for me to stand in. While waiting, the girl behind me taps me on the shoulder and asks if I’m from North Carolina. She’s from Knoxville and had noticed the Cape Hatteras patch on my backpack. We chat a bit as the line progresses toward the door, parting ways to pass through the security checkpoints.

I proceed to spend the next five hours taking in the Orsay. It’s like they have the entire Impressionism movement in there.

One part of the Orsay that I’m perhaps most grateful for — if that’s the right word — is their gift shop. I’d been stressing this whole time in Paris over a gift for Charlotte, something that says, “I’m so sorry I went to France for a week and left you in Germersheim, please don’t kill me”. I had wanted to buy her some fabulous French coffee, but at the few places I found that actually sold beans, they wouldn’t mill it for me. In the Orsay, I finally hit on something that satisfied me: Charlotte used to be a ballet dancer, and with that combined with the tragically bare walls of our dorm rooms, prints from Degas’ ballet series seemed like just the thing (I had seen the originals earlier in the day).

So: it’s around 3PM by this point, and my flight leaves at 6. Rather than spend three hours at Charles de Gaulle Terminal #3, I opt to go wander around Montmartre some more. After walking up and down the Butte and then meandering through the backside of the district for a while, I head back into the Metro, airport-bound.

At least, that’s what I thought.

I’m back at Gare du Nord, my old nemesis from Thursday. After some confusion — though less than the first time — I make my way down to the proper place and settle in to wait for the next train north. And I wait. Still waiting. Yep, still here. I should mention that I’m not alone: there’s quite a crowd cooling their heels on this same platform. Several trains come up from the south and disgorge their passengers, all of their passengers; we’re forbidden to enter the cars, and once fully empty, the trains head off on their way north.

Time check: 4:30PM.

After waiting a total of 25 minutes or so, a loudspeaker crackles on and informs us that, Oh, we’ve cancelled all the direct routes to Charles de Gaulle; all you poor dumb saps waiting over on Voie 43, you’ll need to head over to platform 32 and catch one of the slow trains to the airport.

The difference between these trains is this: the direct route stops only three times between Gare du Nord and Charles de Gaulle, taking about 15 minutes to do the entire run. The other trains stop at every single station along the way, meaning that that same distance requires at least 45 minutes to cover.

For the next three-quarters of an hour, I’m certain the stress I’m feeling is palpable. Check-in for my flight closes at 5:30, and barring supernatural intervention, I’ll have only a razor-thin margin of error to make my flight back to Basel. Assuming, of course, that there are no complications of any kind with the Metro, and that I’ll be able to make my way from the Metro station to the terminal with no hesitation whatsoever.

Needless to say, that doesn’t happen. I arrive at the counter to see that they’ve just closed check-in for my flight, and policy being policy, I’ll just have to see about booking a seat on the next plane. A few minutes, some testy French and a swipe of my credit card later, I own a ticket back to Switzerland. Time of departure: 8:30AM, the next morning.

I’m faced with a dilemma: my three-day Metro pass expires in six hours, meaning that if I venture back into the city, I’ll have to buy another pass. Also, I’m not quite sure where I’d stay, and moreover, I’m terrified of possibly oversleeping and missing yet another flight. I resolve to simply spend the night in the airport; call it a character-building experience.

I settle in.

At some point, desperate for something to do, I decide to set off in pursuit of the elusive Terminal #1, which I’ve heard about and seen signs for, but so far had no idea where it was. I won’t bore you by recounting the following two hours spent trying to walk to this building. I will say this, though: if you’ve ever seen the video for U2’s “Beautiful Day”, remember the part where Bono is walking on a strange-looking road with the plane taxiing above him? That was shot at Charles de Gaulle, and I’ve walked that road. Having a 777 taxiing 10m above your head is a singular experience.

Note for the curious: as I later found out, the way you get from Terminal #3 to Terminal #1 (or whatever the big one is; I’ve just assumed that it’s Terminal #1) is by bus. There are no signs for this at Terminal #3, unless you interpret the abrupt disappearance of “this way to Terminal #1″ markers as an indication that you should secure motorised transport.

Returned to the relative warmth of Terminal #3, I and a dozen or so others tried our bests to catch some shut-eye despite the artificial sun-strength florescent lighting. The only time they dimmed was around 3AM when some guys came through and changed some of the bulbs, a task they did as noisy as they possibly could; I mean, really, did you have to drag the ladder across the floor? Could you not just have carried it for that 30 meters?

Outside of that, the rest of the night was fairly calm, if mostly sleepless. I managed to sleep in only 30 minute increments, due in equal parts to the bench I was sleeping on and the fact that I was nearly to the point of having nightmares about Charlotte’s Degas prints becoming wrinkled.

So it goes, the night passed. I got on a plane, then a bus, then a train back to Germany. In Karlsruhe, I took the wrong train heading north and so got to see what hell-hole rural Deutschland looks like. Eventually, I made it back to home base, a day later and €106.25 poorer than anticipated.

I met up with Charlotte that afternoon, after tending to some serious shower-and-shave needs. It turned out that she’d taken the wrong train north from Karlsruhe that afternoon, too, but, from her description, her slice of rural Germany totally out-hell-holed mine. I presented her with the things I’d brought back from France: three Degas prints (all mercifully unwrinkled) for her, two bottles of wine from Galleries Lafayette for us, and myself, ridden with a flu I picked up in Caen. She was very happy to have at least two of those things.

Note: I’ve uploaded a map of the Parisien Metro system so everyone can follow along at home.

Ann and I woke early, having slept like stones after walking around half the city the night before. After a preposterously-overpriced breakfast at the hotel, we grabbed the Metro and settled in for the 30-minute ride back to civilisation.

Our first stop of the day: Notre Dame de Paris. I’m not sure what to say about it; hundreds of years old, one of the best-known examples of Gothic architecture in the world, gargoyles, Disney movies — you know the place. Random notes: the Christmas tree they have in front of the cathedral looks pretty pathetic given its surroundings. Second, the church was packed with Korean tourists, taking pictures of every surface imaginable. Also: the interior of the cathedral is very dark, much more so than I had expected.

Next up: a stroll through the Latin Quarter, headed toward the Panthéon. On the way, we walked by the Sorbonne; you’d never know there was a world-famous university there unless you were looking for it — the sign is tiny.

To be honest, The Panthéon isn’t one of those things I would have gone to see had Ann and Elizabeth not insisted on it (primarily because I’d never heard of it). The attractions: upstairs — above ground, that is — is Foucault’s pendulum. Downstairs, however, in the crypt, is the real reason you’re there: the Panthéon is where France’s greats are buried — Voltaire, Rousseau, the Curies, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Alexandre Dumas, just to name a few. It is, to the say the least, humbling to stand in front of Voltaire’s grave.

After returning to daylight, Ann and I grabbed the Metro north, with me effectively dragging her to see L’Opéra de Paris. The interior of this place is exactly the kind of opulence you would expect from an old-world opera house: gold leaf everywhere, massive curved staircases, etc. You feel underdressed just standing outside the building. While I’d love to attend an opera there, I’m sure even the worst seats cost several hundred Euros, need to be reserved months in advance and require a tux. That’s not so say I’ve ruled it out, though.

Determined to continue feeling underdressed and out of place, Ann and I walked the few blocks from the Opéra to the Galleries Lafayette, one of the fanciest shopping centers in Paris. It’s a massive establishment, made up of five separate buildings, all interconnected via foot-bridges. At the entrances, they have young men dressed as 18th century footmen to open the doors for you. Inside: Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Christian Dior, Armani, Valentino. There’s an entire floor devoted to food, with at least two restaurants (I can’t begin to guess at the prices) for the hungry shoppers. One wing is exclusively French wine, with a section given over to bottles so expensive, they’re protected by Lexan and armed guards. It’s that kind of place.

Having had our fill of incomperable elegance, Ann and I headed south so that she could show me where I would be staying that night (she’d stayed there on previous trips to Paris) before catching the train back to Caen. At a little bistro near the hostel, we rejoiced over fabulous food — some kind of pasta for the silly vegetarian, andouille sausage with haricots verts in a mustard sauce for the carnivore — and wine. After this, we said our goodbyes, with Ann headed toward her train at Gare St. Lazare, while I grabbed the Metro bound for Les Invalides, aka, Napoleon’s Tomb.

Listen: despite being a very tiny man in terms of physical stature, Napoleon Bonaparte’s ego knew no bounds. As would befit the man who nearly brought all of Europe under French control, he had had built a tomb of incredible proportions in Paris, just next to the Ecole Militaire, where Napoleon received his military training. Everything about his tomb, from the building itself to Napoleon’s actual casket, is massive. Attached to the mausoleum is what I understood to be a private church (visible in the background of this shot), which is, again, appropriately large.

From Les Invalides I took the Metro toward the the Musée d’Orsay, where I had planned to spend the rest of the day. When I got there, though, it turned out that the museum is closed Mondays. Moving the Orsay to the “list of reasons to come back to Paris”, I got back on the Metro and went off to keep exploring Paris.

The rest of that afternoon, to be frank, is a bit of a blur. I walked along the river Seine, through les Tuileries (a huge tulip garden near the Louvre), through this district and that district, and when I got tired of walking, I’d grab the Metro to another part of the city, rest on the train, and then go walk some more. I can’t say I saw anything of consequence, just Paris.

Around 6PM, I headed back to the hostel (at the Commerce Metro station, in the south-west of Paris), checked in, dropped my stuff, and headed back out to go find dinner. My goal was a place with as few tourists as possible — ideally, I’d be the only one. After hitting a few Metro stops without success, I remembered that one of my favourite cooking books is named after the Les Halles area, and I figured that would be as good a place as any to try.

I was not to be disappointed. Oh, how I ate and drank! Dinner was grilled ribs of lamb — though so wonderfully rare that “singed” would be a better adjective — with the ever-present haricots verts and purée, which is to mashed potatoes as “mindblowingly delicious” is to “you want me to eat what?”. To drink: un pot of Saint-Emilion, 2001 I believe. My French, it must be said, performed admirably during the meal; if there were any problems with it, the waitress certainly didn’t let on.

Suitably fattened, I headed back toward the Champs Elysées, with my eventual goal being the Eiffel Tower. As my camera batteries had died the day before, I’d been unable to get that many shots of Paris by night, something I intended to rectify. While strolling up the Champs Elysées, I came across the grand opening of Nike’s new Paris store. I joined the crowd for a bit, but after the fourth or fifth European sports star I didn’t recognise, I headed on my way.

I arrived at the Eiffel Tower a few minutes too late to see the light show, and so decided to wait around for the next display. Fortunately, it was a relatively warm night (which may have just been the vin talking), so the wait was an enjoyable one. After being suitably wowwed when the strobes came on, I headed back to the hostel, finally feeling the exhaustion of a day spent on my feet.

A word about The Three Ducks, the hostel I was staying at: my room was right above the bar portion of the hostel, and the whole thing is located above a metro line, both of which are incredibly noisy until they shut down around 1AM. I shared a four-bed room with a timid twenty-something from Marseilles and a British girl, who came back that night so drunk, she couldn’t get her key in the lock and so resorted to hammering on the door with what may well have been her shoe. I can’t say for sure, though; I let Frenchy handle that one.

After sleeping off the effects of Che Guevara, Ann and I woke late and caught the train to Paris. Our original plan had called for some of the recuperation to be done during the 2.5-hour train ride, but since that clearly hadn’t worked, the intended sightseeing for that afternoon would have to be curtailed. The plan: Ann would spend Sunday and Monday morning showing me around Paris (she knows the place like the back of her hand, she’s been so many times), then she would head back to Caen after lunch on Monday to pack for a trip to Italy. I would then spend Monday afternoon checking out the last few items on my “to see” list, with all of Tuesday devoted to the Louvre, then fly back to Switzerland Tuesday night.

For those of you snickering already, keep those spoilers to yourself, s’il vous plait.

We arrived in Paris around dusk (ie, 4.30PM-ish) and set off to find our hotel and drop our stuff there. The reservation service we had used said that the hotel was in Montmartre, one of the nicer, central districts of Paris; when we look at the Metro stop (Porte de Montreuil, for those of you with a map) it says to get out at, however, it turns out that the place is actually way out in the eastern fringe of the city. You know, where the riots were. Fortunately, the hotel is otherwise as advertised, and after unloading our kit, Ann and I grab the Metro back toward the city center.

Our first stop is the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. The church caps the Butte Montmartre, a massive hill in the 18th district. For reference, Montmartre is where the movies Moulin Rouge and Amelie are set, and in Amelie, the Butte Montmartre is the hill that Nino runs up when he’s searching for Amelie. We get to the top of the Butte just as the sun is setting, and our frantic climb up the hill is well-worth it: the Sacre Coeur commands a view of all of Paris. You can see the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Napoleon’s Tomb, the Panthéon, everything. After watching the sunset over Paris, we headed inside the Sacre Coeur.

For only being 120 years old, the place is nevertheless very impressive. Best of all, as we finished walking around the interior, I noticed that Mass would be starting soon and informed Ann of the slight change in plans. Listen: nothing drives home Roman Catholicism quite like hearing Mass delivered in French, in a massive cathedral. You begin to understand how this force moved nations. We ducked out when they started serving Communion since a) we wouldn’t feel right taking it, b) even if we did, given the portions it’s served in, the Blood and Body of Christ probably wouldn’t do much to fix how hungry we were.

Ann, who, it turns out, has also attended Mass at Notre Dame de Paris, provided this comparison of the two services: Notre Dame may be more awe-inspiring, but the Mass at Sacre Coeur was nicer. The reason: at Sacre Coeur, they stop letting in tourists once Mass starts, whereas at Notre Dame, people are still coming and going, milling about, taking pictures during the service.

We headed back down the Butte and walk west along Boulevard de Clichy, stopping at an untouristy-as-possible place for dinner. The food was, as usual, excellent: for vegetarian Ann, penne in a pesto-cream sauce; for me, braised lamb with haricots verts and some bit of deliciousness I was unable to identify. To top the meal off, a half-bottle of Côtes du Rhône 2000, with crème brûlée and coffee for dessert.

Let’s be clear on something: the reason I didn’t bring back many souvenirs from France is that I was too busy spending my money on mind-blowing food. I’m salivating just writing about it.

Anyway: after finally dislodging ourselves from the table, we continued west, heading for the nearest Metro stop and, along the way, le Moulin Rouge. Yes, it really exists. Yes, it really is a strip club. Yes, it really will cost you around €70 just to get in the door. If you’d rather pay less for your scantily-clab entertainment, though, don’t fret: there are blocks and blocks of strip clubs and sex shops, on either side of the road, heading away from the Moulin Rouge in both directions. You will get to see some nudity, don’t you worry.

Our next stop, says Ann, is a surprise. We take the Metro here and there, eventually getting off at Charles de Gaulle Étoile. Finally, we surface, and L’Arc de Triomphe absolutely fills our field of vision. You’d never guess just how massive this thing is, just from pictures. You know it’s big, but you’re not prepared for just how big it really is. It’s breathtaking.

We start walking, heading down the Champs Elysées. The city has strung every tree along the street with Christmas lights, and the effect is amazing. At some point, Ann wants to head back into the Metro system, and I make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that we will be walking all the way down to the Obélisque de Luxor. Why? The Tour de France ends on the Champs Elysées, doing six laps from the Obélisque to the Arc de Triomphe. Call it a pilgrimmage. As we walk, I see this; it’s only now that I start to get excited about being in Paris.

We walk and walk and eventually arrive at the Obélisque. Again, the shear size of this thing isn’t well conveyed in pictures. It’s this massive, gold-trimmed Screw-You to the people of Egypt; we stole it and we ain’t giving it back. After being suitably amazed by the view from the Obélisque up the glowing Champs Elysées to the Arc, we cross the Seine, heading toward the Eiffel Tower.

For the Millenium celebration, the city of Paris installed extra lights on the Eiffel Tower. Originally intending to take the lights down after the festivities, the city decided that they liked the effect so much, they left the lights up. Whoever made that decision is a genius. At night, every hour on the hour, the Eiffel Tower erupts in strobe lights for 10 minutes. Spending your honeymoon here suddenly becomes a no-brainer.

On our way to the nearest Metro stop, Ann and I took a route that led us under the Tower. Do not be surprised when you see 15 or so French Army personnel carrying assault rifles, finger on the trigger. Ann relayed to me that a few weeks before, some guy had parked his moped at the base of the tower and started running; had he not run into one of the soldier’s batons, they would have certainly turned this guy into pulp. They never did discover what he was thinking, but the bomb squad determined that the moped didn’t contain any explosives (by blowing it up). Maybe he was just late for a hot date, who knows.

All pictures from Paris are available on Flickr. Try not to read ahead.

I woke up early and caught the train to Bayeux, 20 minutes west-north west of Caen. My plan is to go see the Bayeux tapestry that morning, then spend the afternoon touring the American D-Day beaches.

Arriving in Bayeux at around 10:00 gave me two hours before I had to meet the guide for the beach tour. Rather than actually ask someone where the tapestry was, I set off for the huge cathedral I could see from the train station, figuring that that would be a likely spot to keep a famous relic. While I was wrong, I was glad that I was: the church was old, Gothic and gorgeous. After wandering around it for a while, I found some signs pointing to the tapestry and headed off in that direction.

It’s always awe-inspiring to stand before something you’ve studied in history class, and the Bayeux tapestry was no exception. You walk all 70 meters of the tapestry, trying to think something other than, Wow, this is it, this is the real thing.

This day was to prove full of experiences I can’t put into words.

After seeing the tapestry, I head back to the train station, where I’m supposed to meet the D-Day tour guide, a man named Frederic. Ann and Elizabeth had used his service when they went on their tour of the beaches, and Ann had given me a description of who I should be looking for. Well, 12:00 comes and goes, no short Frenchman in a battered brown bomber jacket. At 12:05, though, a guy wearing a brown leather jacket (though not a bomber jacket) shows up, and I overhear his friend call him Frederic. Even though he doesn’t look like he’s waiting to show some American college kid around Omaha Beach, I walk up and ask him — in French — if his name is Frederic. He looks pretty surprised, but says yes. I then ask in English if he’s the guy who does the D-Day beach tours. He doesn’t understand, so I ask again in French. He continues looking surprised and says no. I excuse myself and walk out of sight. I wait and wait some more for the real Frederic to show up, resolving that if he doesn’t show by 13:00, I’m heading back to Caen.

It’s a good thing I waited. Apparently, when Ann had said to meet Frederic at 13:00, I heard 12:00. The man himself showed up at precisely 1PM, matching Ann’s description to a T. There were two others on the tour with me, an American from Tulsa and an Australian. We set off north, toward the American cemetary at Omaha Beach.

If you’ve ever seen a film or read a book about the Normandy invasion, you’ve heard about the hedgerows that cover the countryside there. These things allowed the Germans to make the Allies fight for every single road and field in Normandy. Typically, the hedgerows are slight dips in the earth with a line of low trees and shrubs, ideal territory for rolling ambushes. On the way to the cemetary, Frederic showed us what the hedgerows really look like. Some of these things were so deep, so perfect, they could have been World War I-era trenches, dug deliberately for the purpose of killing men.

I’m not going to try to write about the rest of the tour. The cemetary at Omaha Beach, the actual beaches themselves, the German bunkers still dotting the landscape, the Pointe du Hoc that the Rangers scaled, the earth churned into some Boschian golf course by Allied shells, these things defy description. I walked through a field of 9000+ crosses. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Random notes:

• There are condos all along Omaha Beach. It’s not unusual to see condo, condo, German bunker, condo.

• The cemetary is American territory, donated to the US by France. The American military guards it.

• The church at St. Mère Eglise, one of the targets for the US paratroopers, has two stained glass windows to honour them; one depicts St. Michael descending in a cloud of parachutes, the other the Virgin Mary similarly surrounded.

• I was not prepared to see how far the Americans had to run at Omaha Beach: from the landing craft to the cliffs would have been at least 500 meters of German machine gun fire, mortar shells, mines and barbed wire.

• In Bayeux, in Caen, all over the seafront, there are still signs reading “Bienvenue a nos liberateurs”: welcome to our liberators. The people there are still incredibly grateful to the Allies, especially to the Americans. Ann relayed that one man she met said that he considers himself both French and American for what our nation did for them.

After returning to Caen, Ann and I went out to an amazing fondue place, where we proceeded to gorge ourselves for four hours on French wine, cheese and chocolate. Afterwards, we went to a club that I’ll try to somehow compress into words. This is the kind of establishment that you have to know somebody to get into, not because it’s incredibly exclusive or anything, but because, unless you were shown where it is, you’d simply never know there was a club there at all. Listen: you walk up to what looks like two abandoned car repair places and press a button on the wall. After a moment, a section of wall that you didn’t know was a door swings open, just wide enough for you and your friends to squeeze through. Once inside, the doorman closes the outer door, waits 10 seconds, then opens the inner door. Welcome to the salsa club “Che Guevara”.

The place is made up to look like it was airlifted straight from Havana. There are photos and mosaics of Che Guevara on every wall, the floor is covered in sand, palm trees grow here and there, and there’s a massive Cuban flag suspended over the dance floor. The bar specialises in tropical, Cuba-inspired drinks, you can buy Cuban cigars from the bartenders, they even import Dos Equis and Corona. They play salsa and Latin music almost exclusively, and if you get there early enough, people will teach you how to salsa while you wait for your drinks. This place is amazing.

After sleeping off the effects of the previous day (and night), Ann and Elizabeth played tour guide for me, taking me around Caen. Sights seen, deeds done:

• First, we went to get lunch at a local tex-mex place. That’s right, tex-mex, in France. Needless to say, the French take on Mexican food is a little…odd. They use all manner of goat cheeses, and the guacamole is piped on to the plate in an ornate little rose. It may be Mexican after a fashion, but won’t forget that the chef is very, very French.

• After lunch, we went to the post office so Elizabeth could send a package. Whereas in America, you hand them your package and some money and that’s all for your end of things, the woman behind the counter was very insistent that Elizabeth pick out her stamps for the package. Very insistent. As in, all-the-Americans-are-looking-at-each-other-thinking-Umm-What? insistent. After a tense few seconds, Elizabeth finally picked out some lovely stamps of yellow polar bears. Let it not be said that she did it willingly, though.

• First stop: they took me to the Men’s Abbey in Caen. The story goes like this: a millenium or so ago, William the Conqueror got hisself hitched to a girl who turns out to be, after some investigation, a distant cousin of his. In order to appease a less-than-happy Pope, Bill offers to build two abbeys for Rome in Caen. The Right Hand of Christ says, “Ok, deal; you can keep the girl”.

  Not only is the Men’s Abbey massive and beautiful, William the Conqueror’s tomb is right there in the nave, behind some pews. I won’t even try to describe the experience of standing before such a thing. Oh: I thanked him for my language.

• Next, we went to see St. Pierre, a huge Gothic church in the market district. Caen was one of the main targets of the initial D-Day invasion, and most of the town was levelled during the fighting there. The Church of St Pierre (En: St Peter) is noticably darker than it should be, scorched by the flames of a burning city.

  One of the most amazing things to me about these centuries-old cathedrals is that they’re still active. I can’t imagine walking past a church built 1000 years ago every day on my way to the market, much less attending regular Mass there.

• The last stop on the tour was a fortress built by William the Conqueror just before his invasion of England (construction began in 1060; England became part of Normandy in 1066). This thing has a moat. Honest to God, a moat. You can go have picnics down there. I’ve been reading about castles, moats, the whole package, since I learned English. A moat!

  To really drive home how old this thing is, the steps up to one of the battlements have 2cm scoops worn in them; how many feet does it take to wear away that much stone?

By this time, we’re all pretty cold, so we head back to dorms, our intention being food to fortify ourselves for the night ahead. Given my reputation as a cook, I’m expected to make something fabulous, and I’m quite happy to induldge. I ask Ann, What do you have for ingredients? Potatoes, some veggie burgers, an Indian spice mix. I say, Hmm. I ask Ann, Do you have any oil, any butter? Nope. I say, Hmm. I ask Ann, What kind of hardware do you have? A 10cm frying pan, a spatula, a Swiss army knife. I say, Hmm. I ask, What does the kitchen look like? Like this. I say, Hmm. I’ll have you know that I proceeded to earn my reputation: dinner was potato and veggie burger curry and it was quite tasty.

All pictures from Caen are available on Flickr.

“Day one of seven“, I hear you ask. “I thought you were only supposed to be in France for six days?” Yeah, funny story about that.

Before we get started, here’s the executive summary of my trip to France: anything involving international travel, horrendous; everything else, wonderful. Now, to business:

I left Germersheim last Thursday (8. Dec) on the 11:22 south to Karlsruhe. The plan at this point is as follows: from Karlsruhe, take the train to Basel, Switzerland, where I would catch a flight to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. I would then navigate the Paris Metro system, eventually arriving at Gare St. Lazare, where I would get a train to Caen in Normandy, where I would be met by my lovely friend Ann who’s an exchange student at the university there. We would party it up for three days in Caen, then head back to Paris for the remaining three days, after which, I would fly back to Basel, and you can guess the rest from there.

It all looks so easy written down.

From the very start, things didn’t work quite as smoothly as hoped. The train from Germersheim to Karlsruhe was later than I had counted on, meaning that my dash to the bookstore made me miss my train to Basel. No big deal; there’s another train headed for Basel in an hour, and I’ve built plenty of padding into my schedule. I sit down at a cafe with my new purchase (the German translation of my favourite book in the world, Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood) and kill an hour.

Things do not improve once in the Basel airport: my flight to Paris is an hour late leaving the airport. This means that I’ve missed the train I intended to take from Paris to Caen, and even though some rational part of my mind knows that there’ll be another train to catch, the rest of me is starting to get pretty anxious at this point. I should mention that it’s now around 7PM, and given the rush-rush-rush I’ve been doing since leaving Karlsruhe, it’s been quite a while since I’ve eaten. The adrenaline in my system isn’t helping, either.

Also not helping is the fact that Charles de Gaulle airport takes top prize in the “Worst Designed Airport Collin’s Ever Been In” competition. It takes me a good 15 minutes to figure out how to get from Terminal 3 (where I landed) to de Gaulle’s Metro station, even though they’re only 300 meters apart. Stress levels are on the rise.

So, I buy a ticket to Caen; this is the easiest part of the next two hours. My route through the Metro system requires me to change trains at Gare du Nord, which sounds simple until you find out that Gare du Nord is probably bigger than the city I live in in Germany. I spend a good 25 minutes looking for the train to Gare St Lazare; I can see where it is on the map, it’s right there, but the signs pointing the way play a fun little game: you’ll follow them for a little bit, then they disappear. Totally gone. Poof.

I break down and head over to what appears to be an information desk, intending to ask how one crosses the 3mm of map-distance to This Spot Here. It’s at this point that the accumulated stress, hunger and adrenaline overcome me: I forget the infinitive form for “to go” in French. All I can come up with are the irregular forms, in any number of tenses, but I can’t summon up one of the regular forms that will get me back to the infinitive. Here’s a fun puzzle: ask the question “where do I need to go to get over here?” without “to go”. My solution: mumble where I should have said “allez” and let the other guy assume the right verb.

Once set in the right direction, I finally make it to Gare St Lazare. But the fun doesn’t end there, no sir. If you’ve ever had a dream about being lost in a maze of twisty little passages all alike, you were dreaming about Metro stations. You feel like you’re underwater and you’ve run out of oxygen: you are trying desperately to get to the surface.

Now, a word about the French rail system. Despite my initial encounter, the Paris Metro system is actually quite excellent; the rest of the French rail network, however, needs — shall we say — “work”. The French need to get over whatever issues they have with the German-speaking portions of Europe and go talk to the Swiss and the Germans about how to run a rail system:

• In Switzerland and Germany, they know at exactly which platform train X will be leaving from, on any given day, for the next decade. In France, the train is assigned a platform when it gets to the station. This means that there’s a huge crowd gathered around the main train board, waiting anxiously for their train to be assigned a platform.

• In Switzerland and Germany, they have boards (posted on every visible surface) showing exactly where train X is going, every stop it will make on the way, and exactly when the train will arrive at those places. The French, on the other hand, simply tell you where the train is going, and God help your poor, dumb ass if the geography of Normandy is something you’re less than fluent in. Oh, and if you try and ask someone, “Hey, is this train going to Caen?”, not only do they look at you like you’re clearly mentally handicapped, but they’ll probably berate you for not knowing; that was my experience at least.

So, I’m finally on the train to Caen, two hours later than expected. I spend the entire two-hour train ride worrying that Ann won’t still be at the station and what I’ll do if she isn’t. Fortunately for my frazzled nerves, though, Ann is indeed still waiting for me. At this point, 12 hours after I left Germany, she is the most welcome sight in the world. We head off to her dorm on Mission: Put Food in Collin, spending the tram ride bringing each other up to speed on our respective European adventures.

After my mental state returns something approaching “normal”, we head over to one of the bars on campus (yes, that’s right: “bar on campus” and “one of”) to meet some of her friends. After a beer there, the whole place decamps and heads back toward town, toward a bar on the waterfront.

If you ask me what we did at night in Caen, and if I say anything other than “go to clubs and dance till wee hours of the morning”, I’m lying.

During the course of the festivities, I get to know Ann’s best friend in Caen, another American girl from MTSU named Elizabeth. Turns out, she too knows my former roommate, one Mr. C. R. Langley; Kevin Bacon, eat your heart out.

The whole continent here is outraged over the revelation that the CIA has secret gulags and torture flights operating in Europe. Newspapers have daily coverage of the scandal, radio morning shows talk about it, and every news update on the German NPR equivalent includes at least one piece on the progression of the story. All of our friends here want to talk about it with us, about how our government could do such a stupid thing.

What’s the reaction in America? Is it being talked about, is it getting any media play whatsoever? Do people care? What’s happening back in les États-Unis?

So, this past Saturday, a bunch of us popped over to France, just for the day. You know, for the Christmas market, to buy a bottle (or three) of wine, maybe dinner. We went shopping in another country.

I love saying that.

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s begin: the trainride from Germersheim to Strasbourg took about 2.5 hours and was packed the whole way. Most of the group we were with (for values of “we” approximating “Charlotte and I”) ended up having to stand most of the way from Karlsruhe to Strasbourg.

Impressions of Strasbourg: this is going to sound strange, but Strasbourg somehow looks and feels much more “European” than any of the German cities I’ve been to (Bern has a similar ambiance). I’m thinking this may stem from Strasbourg’s more consistent architecture; whereas most of the German cities I’ve been to are a hodgepodge of different architectural styles, a mix of old and new, Strasbourg (the areas I was in, at least) feels like it was all cut from the same cloth, or at least made to look like it was. This photo, that I didn’t take, gives a pretty good illustration of the prevalent style.

Segue: that photo is of the area around one of the places (De: Platz; En: “plaza” or “square” come close) in the city center. If the photo went further left, this is what you’d see. The caption of that photo isn’t an exaggeration at all; you really do emerge from this twisty maze of narrow streets and BOOM oh, hey, there’s a cathedral.

I like to think that I’m pretty good at making English do what I want, but the Cathédrale de Strasbourg has completely exhausted my supply of adjectives. Pictures can’t possibly do it justice: the building is simply massive when seen from the outside, cavernous when inside. Every surface of the cathedral is an intricately-detailed Gothic landscape, such that you could spend all day staring at it and never run out of new things to see.

Following this, our party split up into three groups: the Italians, the Francophones (a French girl and two Belgians), and Les Autres: a Ukranian girl, a Polish girl and les deux américains. My group (henceforth “we”) set off for the Palais Universitaire and the Jardin Botanique, on the other side of the city center. After walking for a while, we paused to consult the map and, upon realising we had no idea where we were, Tatiana, the Ukranian girl, stopped some passers-by to ask directions.

At this point, I should probably mention that, outside of the French native speakers, I’m the only one on this trip who speaks even a shread of French.

So, here’s Tatiana, a Ukranian, asking three Frenchmen for directions, in English. This happened several times over the course of the day, and the others couldn’t understand why Charlotte and I found this state of affairs so amusing.

After regaining our bearings, Charlotte and I took leave of the slavic girls; you see, unlike them, we Americans periodically need to take a break and consume food. After lunch, we hit the shopping district (that is, half of the downtown area), becoming separated in a massive department store. I spent the rest of the day wandering around the city, sampling the many Christmas markets, walking along the river that runs through the city, just generally soaking in the surroundings. Charlotte spent her afternon in much the same way.

Sidebar: for those of you who follow the Tour de France, I saw several Credit Agricole and Credit Lyonnais buildings, but I didn’t figure the copious, assault rifle-wielding French police would appreciate me photographing banks.

Random notes:

• Being so close to the French-German border, most of the people in Strasbourg speak French and German, and many speak English. So, even though most of the students on this trip didn’t speak French, it wasn’t ever an issue: they could just fall back to German.

• I, on the other hand, took every opportunity available to practice my French, and I think I did pretty well. There was only one situation where there were some communication problems: I was in a tie store and the girl was using cravate-related vocabulary I wasn’t familiar with. I had to ask her to repeat herself a few times, but she was very patient with me, and eventually the necessary information was conveyed.

  Over the whole day, there wasn’t a single time I had to fall back to German in interacting with the locals. Charlotte and I, on the other hand, spoke German among ourselves almost exclusively, not wanting it to be known that we were Americans.

  Tip for Americans travelling abroad: you can get through an entire restaurant experience knowing only a single word of the local language: the word for the check. In German, this is “die Rechnung”; in French, “l’addition”. Unlike American restaurants, they will not bring you the bill automatically — you must ask for it. Other than this word, you can infer the rest of what the other person is saying from context.

• I returned from France with, well, let’s just say “multiple” bottles of wine in my backpack. One of the “advantages” in coming from America is that we’re used a bottle of decent, to say nothing of good, wine costing around $12. Here, that same bottle would cost you about €3, which is so close to 0, it might as well be free in my mind. This price difference means that I can buy very good bottles of wine (€12, pretty expensive by European standards) and still be comfortably within my American-adjusted price range.

I’m heading back to France this coming weekend (leaving Thursday, returning next Tuesday) to visit Ann in Caen. On the agenda: the battlefields at Normandy, the castle of Mont St. Michel, and two days in Paris. By the way, for those of you keeping count, since arriving in Europe, I’ve spent only one whole weekend in Germersheim; every other Saturday, we’ve been travelling. This pattern shows no signs of stopping any time soon.