Noël en France

Ten years ago, I was in France as an exchange student (at the University of Caen - in Lower Normandy). My year in Normady was exceptional; I had a great experience and learnt many things; the only thing I didn't quite experience, however,  was Christmas (I had gone to Spain).

 This year, I stayed in France! What a treat it was to see all the Christmas decorations,  hear Christmas carols (in English on the radio), eat some traditional French cuisine, and see how frantically French people moved about (I have never seen them move this fast!) "trying to look for the right Christmas presents" (amid a world economic crisis - yes, France is no exception)!

There are many things that are very similar to what we're used to in the United States, but there are also a few that very different.  

Galeries Lafayette and Printemps are THE French department stores by excellence!  To shop here is not so bad.  Although, it would be nicer 

to shop at specialized boutiques       

(out the question for a teacher's salary - truly) such as Hérmès, Chanel, Dominique Sirop, Franck Sorbier, Givenchy, Christian Lacroix, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, Jean-

Paul Gautier, Cartier, Mont Blanc and the like (note: I only indicated French Haute Couture / Bijoutiers name brands).  

But I digress. 

Back to the subject; as in any American department store they do an excellent job decorating their display windows, and buildings with Christmas lights and symbols. Capitalism at its best!   

If you should know - on December 16th 2008, police and the Parisian bomb squad discovered five dynamite sticks in one of the bathrooms of Printemps.  Apparently, an islamic group claimed to have put them in there as a warning for the French Government because of its army's presence in Afghanistan.  (I decided to include this piece of information to add to the effect it had in France, it sort of got people nervous, sad and angry at the thought of being so vulnerable - I know felt that way, too. I took these pictures on November 25 - a couple of weeks earlier.)

So back to similarities...well, I guess that's all I want to mention - a part from the fact that French people also put up a Christmas tree (Sapin de Noël), they open presents either at midnight or on the morning of the 25th.  French kids are no different from American kids about what they want for Christmas (i.e. iPod, MP3's, video-games, etc.)  It is too bad because all of them, like their American counterparts, end up getting clothes!  

As for food, here's one things that is different and Oh, soooo good: La Buche de Noël.   (Buche Yule log).   There are many stories to why they eat this dessert, none of them make sense to me, plus everyone tells you something different. The only thing that makes sense is that they have it for dessert. It is gooooooooooooood!

Among the other differences, French tend to confuse Saint Valentine's day and Christmas.  I saw so many hearts (red hearts) being sold as Christmas decorations! Teddy bears, too! C'mon! 

Metz - Northeastern France

Dennis and his family invited me to go drop off their son, Maxime -for la Toussaint break- at his grandmother's house in Metz.  So we were there on a Sunday.  Mostly everything was closed, except for the cathedral and a few cafés.  We decided to go see the cathedral.  I didn't know anything about it! 

As we were looking for a "free" parking space I saw the cathedral from the car and got soon very interested.   I mean, look at the gothic style architecture, flying buttresses, stained glass windows, etc. Quite a jewel!  It was a must to take a picture in front of it!

Once inside the church, I found out that there was a stained glass window done by a well-known Russian-French painter: Marc Chagall. Not only that! One part of this window had been broken, yes, BROKEN, by what Jay Leno calls and "IDIOT burglar" who probably had no idea what he was breaking. He wanted to get into the church so he could steal from the shop.   Now the window has one blank square that reads "Vitrail en cours de restauration."  Voici l'évidence!  Look at them!

Certainly, the cost of repairing this window will exceed that of the amount of merchandise this thief stole!  Even worse, tourists like me, have to "put up" with having a picture of an "incomplete" work of art.  I am thinking "lawsuit".  :-)

As I went out of the cathedral, I saw these two signs.  The plaza in front of the cathedral used to be Place de la Cathédrale. It is now Place Jean-Paul II.  Metz welcomed the Pope on October 10th 1988.  Interesting!

  Yakima had welcomed me on August 27th 1988, 48 days earlier!  (from Mexico, of course!)

La Toussaint

Since we're in the Vacances et voyages section.   I shall tell you that students have a break every seven weeks (of classes).  So our first break was All Saints Day (from October 25 to November 4th) and here's how I spent my vacation. 

First of all, Kim (one of the 5 US teachers on exchange, living in Montpellier) and I had planned to spend a few days here in Franche-Comté and the rest in Montpellier (Region: Languedoc-Rouissillon), south France.

     While in our four-day-tour of the Franche-Comté region, we visited: Basel, Switzerland; Épinal, Colmar, Belfort, and Beaune (in the Burgundy region - west of Franche-Comté).  Below are some pictures we took while in Switzerland.

                               

Eatin' candy- given to us by a bank teller!  It was good at first, but we discovered it had a sort of peanut butter mix filling. Pas bien!                 We went to Basel to see the Autumn market.    The Autumn market is just that, a bunch of (sorry for the expression) merchants selling all kinds of merchandise, from candy to leather goods, to toys, to anything you can imagine!  It was nice and warm as you can see on the picture above!                                                       

Transportation- In Europe, if the city where you live has buses as means of transportation, it means it is not 'modern'.  If the city has tramways, it means the city is up to date on transportation.  As you see by these pictures, Basel is a very modern city, just look at the colorful tramways they have.  

With the looks of the tramway on the left picture; I could only imagine the directions you get if you want to go downtown.  "Oh, yeah, take the pig to go downtown." or "The pig will take you downtown."

Bikes - a very popular means of transportation in Europe.   Gas is expensive, so any means of transportation other than cars will be good!

Look at this sign for public urinals!