Written on Saturday, December 8 &
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Hi there! First of
all, I just wanted to thank all of you for reading, whoever all of
you are. It seems that I’ve experienced a pretty sharp spike in
readership recently, which excites me! Well, either that, or the same
readers I’ve had all along are accessing the site over and over and
over again. In any case, I appreciate the traffic! I only have a
limited idea of your identities based on the general geographic
locations from which my ‘’audience” accesses the page that the
blog provides me. Otherwise, all I can do is thank God for you
because I know that my efforts are not in vain…and that someone
other than my immediate family is reading this :) [By the way, it
took me longer than necessary to type the preceding paragraph because
I’m actually getting used to the French keyboard – I almost said
« clavier », which is the French word for “keyboard”
– that I use on the computers in the teacher’s lounge at school 3
days a week as well as on the desktops in the common room of my
residence hall when my laptop refuses to connect to the very…special,
yet free, wireless network. So the configuration of the
letters and symbols on my American laptop is beginning to feel
strange to me. Aaaggghhhh!!!!]
Anyway, this is
probably going to be one of those entries where I just type the words
verbatim from my handwritten nightly journal and add any needed
explanations in italics/brackets. That way I can get the post up more
quickly than if I were to try to re-create this day from scratch in
vivid detail, as I did with the previous post, essentially. And, I as
said before, my goal is for the next post, Lord willing, to be a
highlight reel that begins after my Bordeaux trip and goes up until…I
don’t know when, but that only tells you about my favorite/the most
remarkable moments rather than going day-by-by. Because clearly that
system isn’t feasible if I ever want to bring you up to speed with
the present. (If I mix up “w” with “z” one more time…Deep
breaths…)
So enjoy, and I
hope to be back in touch again once or twice more before the
holidays, assuming that I stay on track zith with my
grad school apps that have January deadlines .
Peace and love – Morgann
P.S. Just in case you haven’t been
following along and are wondering why I’m just randomly traveling
during the week, we school employees had a two-week (paid!) vacation
period in recognition of All-Saints’ Day on November 1st.
So this trip took place during the second of those weeks.
P.P.S. If you want to know what I’m
up to now as opposed to over a month ago, a highlight from last week
was introducing theatrical activities in the classroom (the students
had me genuinely laughing) and from the weekend was eating falafel in
Le Marais before attending an orchestral concert in the suburb of
Vincennes to support a fellow Fulbright scholar who plays bassoon.
Those of us who didn’t buy tickets in advance ended up sitting on
the stairs, but it was still a nice program, especially the
experimental non-Mozart opening piece. And we all had a good laugh
over a broken umbrella later. But I’m not telling you that story
yet. You’ll just have to wait ;)
Friday, November 9 – Stopped in my
tracks + “Star” restaurants + Deflecting slave trade guilt?
- Sleepily read abt. Gideon separating out army based on how they drank H2O from stream so God could demonstrate His power outside of human strength [See Judges chapter 7 for this story, especially verses 1-8 for the part I’m referring to here.]
- No broken pitcher; left bag beside (not behind) desk w/ a prayer; no eggs either – you snooze, you lose!
- See “Bordeaux pt. 2” post for the tale of the broken pitcher. I was excited not to repeat this incident today when I mustered up enough courage to attempt to pour a glass of OJ and succeeded.
- Before eating breakfast, I’d gone to the desk to see about leaving my duffel bag there while I was out and about during the day since I would have to pass the hotel to come back to the train station later anyway. The lady informed me that they didn’t keep bags behind the desk, but that I was welcome to put it in the storage area on the far side of the desk, which was out of sight, but accessible to anyone who happened to walk over there. I saw another guest get really upset about this policy when I was leaving breakfast later on. I, on the other hand, didn’t have anything of material value in the bag, so I figured that it was worth it to leave it there instead of carrying it around all day. And it wasn’t the only bag over there. Actually, I remember thinking that the most valuable thing in my bag was my Bible, in which I have a lot of notes/underlined passages that have been meaningful to me since I received it in 2005. (I would include my journal as one of my most treasured possessions as well, but I had only started this journal on Wednesday 11/7, so it had hardly been used. By the way, shout-out to Ms. Georgette for giving me this new book to write in each night!) So I told myself that if someone stole my bag and ended up with this Bible, then that would quite possibly be the greatest gift I could give him or her.
- For the eggs part, there had been boiled eggs – the most substantial component of the otherwise-continental breakfast buffet – on Thursday when I’d gone downstairs to eat during the 8:00 hour, but it seemed that they’d run out by the 9:00 hour in which I ate on Friday morning.
- Meant to take train to Chartres [an area of town after which a tram station is named] to Musée du Vin et du Négoce [“Museum of Wine and Business/Trade”...or perhaps “Museum of the Wine Business/Trade”], but God literally stopped me in my tracks. Well, me and everyone else on my train b/c a truck had messed up the rail, I think, so we had to evacuate.
- When I’d looked at the list of museums in the magazine from the Office of Tourism on Thursday, this was the only other one (besides the Aquitaine Museum that I visited in part on Thursday) that had caught my attention because it covered the history/culture of the founding families this particular region, and my goal in traveling around France, as explained in the previous post, is to discover the richness of different regions outside of Île-de-France, which is where Paris is located.
- Our tram stopped randomly in between stations, and I took my cue from the other passengers, as I typically do in such instances on the métro (in-town subway) or RER (commuter train to suburbs) in and around Paris. By this, I mean that I tried to get a sense for whether or not they were concerned by the fact that we weren’t moving. A lot of times, this is a normal occurrence which is soon followed by an announcement from the train operator that’s become a little too familiar to me: From memory – « Mesdames, messieurs : Veuillez patienter quelques instants pour la régulation du trafic. » (“Ladies and gentlemen, kindly wait a few moments to allow for the regulation of traffic.” For my fellow students of French, I think regular street traffic is usually « circulation », but this is a particular case in which the word « trafic » is used to apply to the…well, circulation, of the trains on the line, I guess. I'm no expert, though.)
- This time, the announcement said something about a truck, but I didn’t understand the verb that the tram operator used to describe what said truck had done and how that prevented us from being able to move forward. But everyone else on the train was getting all upset, so I knew that this was different from the normal interruptions along my public transportation routes. Next thing I knew, we were being asked to get off of the tram in between stops. Thankfully, we were in the middle of downtown, so I knew exactly where I was. On the other hand, I was pretty far away from my intended destination of Chartres, and now there were no trams on this line that could take me there. I saw the tram that (from which?) we evacuated sitting right where we left it for quite some time as technicians tried to repair what I think was a damaged rail.
- Ended up writing postcards to EBCE [church in Athens, Georgia] & fam after taking some bridge/city photos by day, incl. one w/ me & the bridge that I like so much. Hope my solo shot worked out!
- Thought it would be a nice gesture to tell my postcard recipients that I was writing to them from the scenic gardens along the Garonne River (in spite of the cold) in Bordeaux itself rather than on the train or back in my room in Paris.
- I included a couple of these solo photo attempts (aka “selfsies”) with this post so you can judge my skills – or lack thereof – for yourself.
- Waited in line at post office that reminded me of one in 15th [arrondissement] from [my trip to Paris in] 2006. Later @ museum saw window shutter from intersection. [Oddly enough, the Aquitaine Museum featured a display of window shutters dating from approximately the 16th century that were from the intersection of rue des Faures and cours Victor Hugo. This description caught my eye right away because I had just visited the post office that now stands at that intersection earlier in the day.]
- Walked to Aquitaine Museum, which was now open. Meant to speed up but still enjoyed reading & taking it all in. Christianity – Louis XIV in 1 hr 15 mins. before realizing I should take a lunch break.
- Part of the reason I’d planned to go to the Musée du Vin et du Négoce first thing in the morning was that it opened at 9 rather than 10, like all the other museums. But the postcard writing/mailing helped to kill time, and I was right down the street from the Aquitaine Museum that I’d begun visiting yesterday in super-slow-motion as I took notes on French words/phrases that I either didn’t understand or thought were interesting. Didn’t write anything down on this return visit, but still took time to read about what I was seeing.
- The reason I said I “should” take a lunch break is that a greater proportion of restaurants in France close between lunch and dinner as compared to the U.S. So I didn’t want to miss my window of opportunity for the places that closed at 1:30, for example, once you factor in the time it would take me to figure out where I wanted to go & get there.
- “Star” restaurants ended up being even more expensive than I had imagined. €39 for lunch? Even away from city, it was high, but that place was closed. Went across street to crowded placed w/ 1 seat that was willing to make 1 more “menu” = soup w/ 1 scallop; fish; apple tart. Excellent! And they liked that I was American.
- Okay, so my Office of Tourism magazine separated out 8 restaurants in or near Bordeaux that were considered to be “Stars of Gastronomy” – not to be confused with the regular list of riff-raff establishments. They weren’t 4- or 5-star restaurants, but just “stars.” I thought it might be neat to try one of these and figured that it would be cheaper to do so for lunch rather than dinner, which I why I’d planned on doing so today rather than on Thursday night, for example. But, as I explained in my journal, they were crazy-expensive. I could eat lunch, like, 4 or 5 times for €39 – and eat my fill each time too! Of course, the food wouldn’t be as high-quality, but I just couldn’t see it.
- I tried a place in the center of town at first (« Le Chapon Fin » = “The Delicate Capon” = a rooster that you eat, apparently) then one that was more off-the-beaten-path (« 7e Péché » = “7th Sin”) near where I had intended to go the museum earlier in the day, but it turned out that the latter was only open for lunch on weekends. Seeing as their set dinner menu was priced at €59 in the window display, I don’t think I would’ve been very pleased with their lunch prices either.
- It was getting close to the end of lunchtime by this point, so I started looking around for a decent-looking spot that wasn’t as expensive. « Le Gravellier » across the street was packed out and the price in the window said €24. I decided to give it a shot. They literally only had one place left and the kitchen stopped making the « menu » (as in fixed menu of an appetizer, main course, and dessert) after I came in.
- And the reason that I divulged my American identity is that I had to ask what the word for “scallop” was when the waiter rattled off the components of that day’s menu offerings to me. He asked if I would prefer to hear the menu in English, and from then on it became a game of the service staff trying to practice their English with me. They probably thought it was hilarious that I ordered a Coke instead of wine. I’m such an American…
- Wanted to check off a few more items on my to-see list: water from Chartons [as in, the Garonne River from a different point away from the center of town], Marché [market] du Chartrons, Jardin [garden] Public, 2 towers to mayors w/ M-names @ Quinconces [...so I walked around and took some photos after lunch before returning to the Aquitaine Museum for a third and final time to see what was upstairs.]
- Swung through Rue Notre Dame, which my magazine said was well known for its antique shops, and St. Louis-des-Chartrons Church between the taking photos by the river and walking through the market, to help you understand those pictures.
- I think there’s only one faraway shot of the market here because I didn’t want to point my camera intrusively in the faces of the merchants. But shout-out to my violinist friends Hillary and Jessica because there were antique violins on sale here, and I thought of you! I know I heard the name “Stradivarius,” but that’s the only specific detail I’ve got.
- A puppet show was about to take place in the garden (perhaps “park” would be a more appropriate translation), and I seriously considered watching it, but I didn’t want to spend all of the rest of my time in Bordeaux on that. Nor did I want to take a ticket away from one of the little children assembling around the stand. But that should explain those photos.
- Slavery part of museum & beyond: ̴1 hr
- The only reason I didn’t say more about this in my journal is that I was nearing the end of my second page of writing and was probably getting tired. The section covering Bordeaux and the slave trade was by far the best part of the museum! Definitely glad I went back for it. Yes, I am biased because I am personally interested in the history and culture of Africans in the Diaspora (my other degree is in African American Studies for crying out loud!), but it was also the newest part of the museum. I appreciated the fact that there were parents teaching their children who were on vacation about the realities of slavery using the images and texts – written in multiple languages – included in this special collection.
- In some ways, I felt that the city was trying to deflect some of their “guilt” for being a major port from which slaves from exported by saying “everyone else was doing it!” with some of the statistics etc., but the overall impression I got was that this was an effort to tell the story of a people whose story is often overlooked. The collection ended with a multimedia room in which you could listen to interviews or read quotes of people of color (some of whose names I recognized) commenting on the effects of slavery on the present lived experiences of their generation.
- I saw a map that featured my home state of Georgia and 2 artifacts (idols, from a Christian perspective) from Bénin in West Africa, a country where I’ve volunteered abroad, in one of the rooms. See if you can find them among the photos!
- After this special collection, the regular museum collection picked up where it had left off downstairs (Louis XIV) and continued through the present-day (almost), but I sped through this section pretty quickly.
- Stopped by St. Michel church = really tall, grabbed sandwich & bag >> train. Sleepy, but “home!”
- St. Michel has an enormous bell tower adjacent to the church building, which I’d seen looming over the skyline of downtown Bordeaux and wanted to see up-close-and-personal before leaving. I also wanted to tell Hillary that this church is on the pilgrimage route associated with Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, as he’s called in French. They talked about this hike through Spain that can include Bordeaux during my tour on Thursday and I felt proud to be the only one who actually knew what the tour guide was talking about thanks to you :) In addition to the photos of the church, there should be a photo of a statue of St. Jacques from the Aquitaine Museum included in this post as well as a photo of one of the seashell symbols that the pilgrims follow in the last post.
- Happy that my bag was still next to the desk at the hotel! Ate my sandwich while waiting for my assigned platform to appear on the screen at the train station.
- And I put “home” in quotation marks just for you, Mom. She didn’t even like it when I called my apartment in Athens “home.” And it’s true, although I may have been blessed to travel around the world and even to live in new places, there’s no place like my real home. Looking forward to my family’s Christmas visit :)
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