Béziers to Bollywood . . . and Beyond

Paris, Paris, Paris

November 2008

  In France they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Instead, they have a 15 day holiday when the whole family comes together from wherever they are living to have some “family time”. This holiday is called Toussaint, or in English, All Saints. We chose this holiday to visit our friends in Paris. To get to Paris we took a train.
  The train that we took was called the TGV. That stands for Train à Grand Vitesse. Roughly translated, that means Super Fast Train. It only took us five hours to get to Paris. It seems like a long time but seeing how far we were away from Paris it was a really short ride. On the way, we passed lots of vineyards with all the grapes and everything. It was really cool. When we left Beziers it was super sunny. As we neared Paris it got super rainy. That was upsetting but our spirits soon lifted when we saw our friends waiting for us at the station.
  Our friends are our neighbours back in Victoria. They are living in Paris for the year. They have two kids aged 7 and 11. Since they are in Paris for only one year they didn’t buy a car. The only way (and probably the easiest) to get around is the metro.
  The metro, as we soon found out, was not so great. It smelled TERRIBLE! It smelled like pee and sweat and gross stuff. It was also very crowded. We got separated many times. When we all got regrouped again, we would all get on the crowded metro and SPEEEEED away. Despite the horrible smell, we took the metro to most of our destinations.

The Louvre is a palace.

  Our many destinations included the Louvre. It’s the most famous museum in the world. I found it not at all what I’d expected. I’d imagined it as a museum with a red carpet and just paintings lining the walls. In fact, it was so different. There were paintings all right, but with the paintings were really cool artifacts like old weapons, jewelry, statues and stuff like that. I also found interesting a hand that someone had found 100 years after the HUGE statue that the hand belonged to had been found. The statue is called Winged Victory and it is of a winged lady.

The Winged Victory

The other thing I found interesting was the way Picasso took a painting by Delacroix and imitated it but changed it completely by making it abstract. There was so much to see and too little time. Luckily I had the chance to see the Mona Lisa.

Crowding around the Mona Lisa

I thought that it was at the end of a long hallway but I was so wrong. It was in a very large, very open room. It was really hard to see it because of the HUGE crowd that was simply a blur of flashes and shoves to me. The museum was really cool, of what I saw of it, which was less than a 50th, and I really enjoyed it. But nothing will quite compare to the stained glass windows of the Notre Dame cathedral.

The detailed stained glass

Notre Dame

 Notre Dame is a huge cathedral on an island in Paris.  They started building it in 1163 and finished it in 1345.  It was partially destroyed over the next few centuries and again during the French revolution.  So this young guy named Violet Leduc, an architect, rebuilt it in 1790.  When we went there, the first thing we noticed was the organ music,which sounded to me like screeching.  Our moods changed when we saw the beautiful, detailed stained glass and the millions of candles lighting up the church.  The other things that I found cool were the very skillfully-made models showing the exact interior and the exact exterior of Notre Dame. 

When you wish upon a candle

When we left, I turned back one more time and looked at the huge church.  It was really huge, but nothing is huge compared to the Eiffel Tower.
  The first things I noticed when we walked up to the Eiffel Tower were the abnormally long line-ups emerging from all directions. The people were in line to pay to go up the Eiffel in the elevator or on the

stairs.  We joined one of the lines and had enough time to eat a full lunch without being rushed.  I was also surprised by how tall it was – it rose at least 270 metres in the air.  When we got to the front of the line, we had two choices – the stairs, or the elevator.  We chose the stairs, and saved 24 Euros, which is about $35.  There are three floors; you can only walk to the second floor, and then you have to take the elevator, which we decided not to use.

La Tour Eiffel!

  We started to walk up.  My friend was getting nauseous but I was running like a marathon runner.  When we got to the first floor, we looked out over the city.  We could see the Louvre and Notre Dame, and also the many people walking along the streets.  On the first floor, there was also a gage showing how much the tower was swaying in the wind.  At one point, it went 3.7 cm off its centre.  It doesn’t seem like a lot, but for a huge metal structure . . .
  There was also an exhibit explaining who, what, when, where and why.  The Eiffel was built by Gustave Eiffel in 1887 as a temporary structure for the International Exhibition in 1889.  Many people protested its construction when they saw the plans.  They thought it was hideous.  But it eventually got constructed and here it stands today.
  When we finally climbed back down, my legs were aching.  Nonetheless, it was an amazing experience.  If I had the chance, I would love to go to the very, very top and parachute off it someday.
  I really liked my trip to Paris. It would have been a lot sweeter if there was more sun, and if we had had more time.  It was pretty fun, though, with our friends and everything and I’m saying this right now – I think that Paris is definitely on the list of Places To Go Before You Die!! 

To see more photos of my trip to Paris, just click here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/30487738@N06/sets/72157609260419119/

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School Rocks

October 2008

Ecole Lucie Aubrac

My school in Béziers is so good. It is bigger than your average middle school. Or collège I should say. There are 700 kids, aged 11-15, in grades 6-9 or, in France, 6ième, 5ième, 4ième and 3ième. My school is called Collège Lucie Aubrac. Lucie Aubrac was a woman who did a great deal of things in the French resistance movement and died in 2006. The school was built two years before she died; therefore the school is fairly new.

The courtyard is not like the courtyards in Canada though, because there are no playgrounds or fields. All there is is a small space where all the kids retreat to at recess. It is so small that it is amazing that I can actually breathe. And the worst part is that they lock us in there with all the older kids. The older kids basically ignore us though; all they want to do is start fights, smoke cigarettes and talk on their cell phones.

Everyone has cell phones. EVERYONE! Some of the kids got their cell phones when they were in grade two. If their cell phones go off in class they get a detention! So far only two people in my class have got detentions. I hate to think what has happened in the older grades. But most of them don’t have internet. So they don’t have email either. I think that it’s a good thing that they aren’t allowed to use their cell phones in the hallways though, because if you don’t watch where you’re going…

The View From My School

The hallways are always packed. They aren’t very big and at each end of the hallway there are HUGE swinging doors. You can’t even imagine how much it hurts when one of the doors “accidentally” swings into your face when you’re running at top speed to get to one of your many classes.

I have lots of teachers and classes. Too many teachers maybe. I have eight in total, but more than eight classes. I have two teachers for gym, one for art, music, French, math, SVT (science), English and technology. Then I have one teacher for history, geography and civics (social studies). Her name is Mme. Lesage and she is really nice. In gym we are doing swimming and… rugby. I never really cared about rugby and now I hate it!

My favourite class is French because the teacher is really funny. In French we are learning about Molière who is the equivalent of Shakespeare. We are also doing miming. It is a lot of fun. But nothing can compare to English.

“ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ” sing all the little kiddies. I am trying my hardest not to laugh. But it is impossible. At least I don’t have to sing along. I just do my home school English work and try to be silent. I find it amazing, though, that for 75 percent of the kids, it is their first time ever doing English. On my first day, my friend asked me to say something in English. I said the first thing that came to my brain. “What is your favourite colour?” She had no idea what I was talking about. The first time that I got my English textbook I started to read it. It was uber easy.

Winding Streets on the Way to School

All the books are really heavy though and I have to walk to school every day with all my textbooks. All the textbooks + all the notebooks = super heavy bag. Ugh.

When I walk to school it takes me 12 minutes. I walk alone down little winding streets. It isn’t too hard or too long. The only problem though is the poo. But that is another story!