Again, I will have to rush this letter, as I am going to have an early start tomorrow and the day after. My travel schedule is again going to be a little rushed, though it will slow down in Ghent. The good news is that I have finished both of my conference proposals, leaving only the fellowship proposal, which I will be able to finish over the coming week, to revise.
I started my day by learning that the French rail strike was finally being scaled down, and I heard yet another American's president's name, pronounced eyes-unaware (Eisenhower), in connection with a street name. Provence is full of reminders of both world wars; while its population was not literally decimated during them, it was significantly reduced, and the populace is not ready to forget it.
Speaking of wars, I met someone on the train today, a man from Krakow, who had joined the French Legionnaires and spent five years with them; he even had a tattoo on his forearm to prove it. He spent much of the train ride railing against Stalin and describing his experiences fighting in the Yugoslavian War, speaking one third Polish, one third Russian, and one third curse words common to both languages. "There is a saying in French," he said in French. "Every boat that sails the seas must eventually cast its anchor. It is time for me to cast mine. I am forty-two years old," he said, switching back into patois. "I must make child, maybe two, maybe three, how many I make, buy house, car, figure out how live." He was on his way to Lyon to get his passport, and, for all of his talk about his past, I could not figure out what he was doing for a living.
My arrival in Lyon was exciting, mostly because the train station was so much more bustling than any that I had seen in days; I was back in a big city. An earnest, very energetic young man from Algeria who saw me looking at my Google map helped me to find my hostel, decrying Lyon as we rode the subway there (he lived near the hostel). "People here are closed. They look at you like this," he said, standing on the tips of his toes and thrusting his nose into the air. "Nancy -- good," he said in English. "Nantes -- good. Paris -- good. Toulouse -- good. Lyon -- no good." He parted ways with me very amiably when we had found the hostel.
My immediate impressions of Lyon were much different from the young man's. The city is full of trees, sits on two rivers, one of which I could see, and had the atmosphere of a large city with none of the stress of Paris. The streets near the hostel were lined with restaurants, grocery markets, and other stores, but the streets were not that big, and the rows of buildings were not that high. I have found the people of Lyon to be very friendly: I have asked several of them how to find the subway, and each time they have answered me politely and accurately. Perhaps it is a less interesting city to live in than to live in, or perhaps this young man confuses people's friendliness with haughtiness.
One perk of the rail strike's easing up is that I was able to see Annecy today and will be able to see Clermont-Ferrand. I took a bus to Annecy, as buses are part of the railway system (for certain cities), and was struck by its silence. I did not hear a single person talk, except for someone who quietly took a few phone calls, on the entire way from Lyon to Annecy. Many people's heads lolled in sleep; it is possible that the heat and direct sunlight make them all too drowsy to talk. The other surprise to me was that the highway seemed quite safe: despite being nut cases in the city, the French appear to be able to drive on highways.
Again, I will have to give Annecy short shrift; it is almost midnight, and I am sitting in a pool of my own sweat. The landscape outside of Lyon was boring, but that leading up to Annecy was increasingly mountainous, and the hills outside of the city were carpeted by trees and little towns. There were more bare rock faces as we got closer to Annecy... that is about it.
Annecy had a very relaxed atmosphere. It was much quieter than any French city that I had so far visited, as it has a huge number of pedestrian-only zones for the number of streets, and the air is cooler than that of the city, as Annecy is at a higher elevation and borders a lake. Its tourist office was especially impressive: it was almost like a factory, with people constantly coming in and being spewed out from any of its five counters; it was advertised as working twenty-four hours per day.
Annecy's historic center is just as pretty as it is made out to be in photos, and it feels festive, perhaps because it is so geared towards tourists and so full of tourists. I left it in order to get a view of the lake, climbing into the city's foothills, and found the non-touristy part of the city dumpy. It had very few sidewalks; its few sidewalks often disappeared, narrowing into nothingness; and it was dusty and noisy with construction. When I got to the city's monastery, I discovered that one could only climb its tower on Saturdays, the day on which I had originally planned to visit the city, but I got pretty good views of the water by walking further and turning off onto a little-visited road leading down from the monastery. I rested for awhile at the water. It made gulping sounds, as though it were drinking itself; it reflected the hulls of boats docked on the wharf; and its ripples' reflections played on those very same hulls. It was a city of unalloyed pleasantness, with its light breeze and turquoise water. Just as I was thinking that it would be nice to find an outdoor workout area, the kind that has a chin-up bar and a few other crude structures for exercise, I did just that -- some people in Annecy exercise! I saw a saw fly for the first time, oddly -- they are big birds! -- and noted that the ducks in Annecy, which are black with white stripes down their faces, are more athletic than those back home: while our ducks merely stick their rears in the air while feeding, these ones dove entirely under the water. I have seen a few big birds of pray, by the way, over the past few days, in addition to a magpie and something magpie-like with white wing tips and a somewhat shorter tail.
A few more observations: Annecy appeared to have some pretty good hiking. Fruit there was expensive; I did not buy any. The man next to me had a very tight connection to make at the Lyon train station; he was plucking at his beard, just as I do when I am nervous, and his nervousness transferred to me, engendering in me that peculiar hatred that people who are running late feel for everyone around them, for the conditions leading to their lateness and the simplicity and insouciance of other people's lives. People who are late it especially hate it when others smile or laugh: how could they dare to show mirth in a world in which one can be late?
My final observation is that young French men -- I saw some interacting today -- appear to conform much less than their Canadian and American counterparts. It seems that the pressure to be unfailingly cheerful causes young people in much of North America to put up just one more mask between themselves and the outside world, making them more afraid to be different. French youth appear to me to be more accepting of difference than Canadian and American youth, but this is more of a hunch than anything else; I have no concrete data to support it.
I am off to take a shower and move scrap paper and keepsakes from my pockets into my backpack. I have sweated through my pockets. Lyon is hot.
Goodnight!
I started my day by learning that the French rail strike was finally being scaled down, and I heard yet another American's president's name, pronounced eyes-unaware (Eisenhower), in connection with a street name. Provence is full of reminders of both world wars; while its population was not literally decimated during them, it was significantly reduced, and the populace is not ready to forget it.
Speaking of wars, I met someone on the train today, a man from Krakow, who had joined the French Legionnaires and spent five years with them; he even had a tattoo on his forearm to prove it. He spent much of the train ride railing against Stalin and describing his experiences fighting in the Yugoslavian War, speaking one third Polish, one third Russian, and one third curse words common to both languages. "There is a saying in French," he said in French. "Every boat that sails the seas must eventually cast its anchor. It is time for me to cast mine. I am forty-two years old," he said, switching back into patois. "I must make child, maybe two, maybe three, how many I make, buy house, car, figure out how live." He was on his way to Lyon to get his passport, and, for all of his talk about his past, I could not figure out what he was doing for a living.
My arrival in Lyon was exciting, mostly because the train station was so much more bustling than any that I had seen in days; I was back in a big city. An earnest, very energetic young man from Algeria who saw me looking at my Google map helped me to find my hostel, decrying Lyon as we rode the subway there (he lived near the hostel). "People here are closed. They look at you like this," he said, standing on the tips of his toes and thrusting his nose into the air. "Nancy -- good," he said in English. "Nantes -- good. Paris -- good. Toulouse -- good. Lyon -- no good." He parted ways with me very amiably when we had found the hostel.
My immediate impressions of Lyon were much different from the young man's. The city is full of trees, sits on two rivers, one of which I could see, and had the atmosphere of a large city with none of the stress of Paris. The streets near the hostel were lined with restaurants, grocery markets, and other stores, but the streets were not that big, and the rows of buildings were not that high. I have found the people of Lyon to be very friendly: I have asked several of them how to find the subway, and each time they have answered me politely and accurately. Perhaps it is a less interesting city to live in than to live in, or perhaps this young man confuses people's friendliness with haughtiness.
One perk of the rail strike's easing up is that I was able to see Annecy today and will be able to see Clermont-Ferrand. I took a bus to Annecy, as buses are part of the railway system (for certain cities), and was struck by its silence. I did not hear a single person talk, except for someone who quietly took a few phone calls, on the entire way from Lyon to Annecy. Many people's heads lolled in sleep; it is possible that the heat and direct sunlight make them all too drowsy to talk. The other surprise to me was that the highway seemed quite safe: despite being nut cases in the city, the French appear to be able to drive on highways.
Again, I will have to give Annecy short shrift; it is almost midnight, and I am sitting in a pool of my own sweat. The landscape outside of Lyon was boring, but that leading up to Annecy was increasingly mountainous, and the hills outside of the city were carpeted by trees and little towns. There were more bare rock faces as we got closer to Annecy... that is about it.
Annecy had a very relaxed atmosphere. It was much quieter than any French city that I had so far visited, as it has a huge number of pedestrian-only zones for the number of streets, and the air is cooler than that of the city, as Annecy is at a higher elevation and borders a lake. Its tourist office was especially impressive: it was almost like a factory, with people constantly coming in and being spewed out from any of its five counters; it was advertised as working twenty-four hours per day.
Annecy's historic center is just as pretty as it is made out to be in photos, and it feels festive, perhaps because it is so geared towards tourists and so full of tourists. I left it in order to get a view of the lake, climbing into the city's foothills, and found the non-touristy part of the city dumpy. It had very few sidewalks; its few sidewalks often disappeared, narrowing into nothingness; and it was dusty and noisy with construction. When I got to the city's monastery, I discovered that one could only climb its tower on Saturdays, the day on which I had originally planned to visit the city, but I got pretty good views of the water by walking further and turning off onto a little-visited road leading down from the monastery. I rested for awhile at the water. It made gulping sounds, as though it were drinking itself; it reflected the hulls of boats docked on the wharf; and its ripples' reflections played on those very same hulls. It was a city of unalloyed pleasantness, with its light breeze and turquoise water. Just as I was thinking that it would be nice to find an outdoor workout area, the kind that has a chin-up bar and a few other crude structures for exercise, I did just that -- some people in Annecy exercise! I saw a saw fly for the first time, oddly -- they are big birds! -- and noted that the ducks in Annecy, which are black with white stripes down their faces, are more athletic than those back home: while our ducks merely stick their rears in the air while feeding, these ones dove entirely under the water. I have seen a few big birds of pray, by the way, over the past few days, in addition to a magpie and something magpie-like with white wing tips and a somewhat shorter tail.
A few more observations: Annecy appeared to have some pretty good hiking. Fruit there was expensive; I did not buy any. The man next to me had a very tight connection to make at the Lyon train station; he was plucking at his beard, just as I do when I am nervous, and his nervousness transferred to me, engendering in me that peculiar hatred that people who are running late feel for everyone around them, for the conditions leading to their lateness and the simplicity and insouciance of other people's lives. People who are late it especially hate it when others smile or laugh: how could they dare to show mirth in a world in which one can be late?
My final observation is that young French men -- I saw some interacting today -- appear to conform much less than their Canadian and American counterparts. It seems that the pressure to be unfailingly cheerful causes young people in much of North America to put up just one more mask between themselves and the outside world, making them more afraid to be different. French youth appear to me to be more accepting of difference than Canadian and American youth, but this is more of a hunch than anything else; I have no concrete data to support it.
I am off to take a shower and move scrap paper and keepsakes from my pockets into my backpack. I have sweated through my pockets. Lyon is hot.
Goodnight!
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| This picture is beautiful. |
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