This past weekend I went to Le Mans, a city in the Centre region of France, to visit my friend (pen pal) Frederick and his wife Anais. Actually, this blog entry has to start hilariously on Friday morning when I decided it was a good effort to try to get to Creteil (I have to say that sometimes my power of reason is not at full force at 6 in the morning), I talked to a bunch of people in the station who told me I could get a train in 25 minutes but they couldn't guarantee anything for the afternoon. For some unknown reason I thought it would be a good idea to take that train, I made it all the way to Creteil, and I talked to another guy in the metro who told me there were three trains in circulation that could stop at any time. I went ahead and walked to the school (again, unknown reasoning here) where my morning class was all assembled but Aude (the teacher) wasn't there. They really wanted to have class anyway, they suggested we do it in the hallway, but I told them I couldn't really do that and they had to tell me what do because I don't actually know the procedure for when the teacher's not there. Thank goodness those kids are awesome and took themselves to la Vie Scolaire where I talked to the guys who felt so bad about me having come and just sent me back to Paris. So at 9:30, I caught the LAST metro of the morning back to Paris. Needless to say we were packed. Like sardines. In a crushed tin box.
I made it back to Paris, took a little nap, and then woke up and called ILPGA to see if they were blocked or not - and they weren't! (I found out last night from Anne that part of the reason they started putting different parts of universities in other places than the main building is so the can't block them all...) I went to class there, and my usual professor couldn't come, but we had a different woman who I liked a lot. There were only 5 of us, and I was the only non-French person, and we did some review, but it was still fun. Apparently there's a minor in Finnish you can do where you take at least one other course that's practically entirely grammar...some of the girls were talking about it. Oh well, this suffices for me, at least it's the one class I actually have!!
So after Finnish, I went straight to the train station (lots of love for line 4), where I found out that NO TER's were running (that was the train I was supposed to take) so I got to take a TGV instead and didn't have to pay anything for it! I had to wait in the train station for a lot longer because I didn't want to get to Le Mans and have to wait in the train station there for someone to get off work, but I will never get to the train station that early again - it was FREEZING and there was no place in any cafes...I had to keeping going into the same bookstores over and over to get warm. But I finally got a train, and it only took an hour to get to Le Mans (the TER would have taken 2,5!). I met Fred in the train station, and we walked to their apartment from there. It's a really cute and typical French apartment, the kind with a separate toilet and bathroom and everything. Anais made dinner, she's a great cook and I ate really well all weekend. We all went to bed fairly early on Friday night, but we got up Saturday morning to go to the 'bio co-op,' it's an all-organic co-op a little ways outside of town. On the drive there, I got to see that Le Mans is actually surrounded by a Gallo-roman wall and has a really nice little old town. The river Sarthe runs by the town, too. The co-op was really awesome, there were so many fruits and veggies, stuff I'd never seen before like the 'potimarron,' it's in the squash family and is orange like the tramway. It was really fun to look around at all the amazing food in there, and all entirely organic, even the cheese!
We had lunch, and then we decided to walk around Le Mans, they were inaugurating the new tramway that weekend, so there were tons of people and music and lots and lots of orange. The tramway's orange, like you can see in the picture, and apparently the mayor asked everyone to wear orange for the occasion (none of us had any orange...). We walked around the tram lines, then to the main square (Place de la Republique) and up to the cathedral, which sits on top of a big hill and is surrounded by the old town. The old town's really cool, it's all old half-timbered buildings and lots of tiny cobblestone roads. The cathedral was really nice too, not as impressive as in Chartres or anything but still really beautiful. We walked around for a while, and then we went back to the other part of town and went to some interesting shops there. They were having some projections on the buildings at Place de la Republique, so we went there for a little while, but they were kind of strange and it was getting cold, so we ended up going back to the apartment and eating a cabbage lasagne that was excellent. I stayed up with Fred for a while and looked at all their wedding pictures (they took a big trip around France afterward, to Bretagne and Bordeaux and then to the south too).
On Sunday I went to the main market with Fred, we took the tram one way but it was SO crowded because it was free all weekend, so we walked back. We just got some cheese and looked at the book stand (of course), but then we went back for lunch (I got to try the potimarron, it was yummy) and then afterward we went to l'Arche de la Nature, it's a big nature place like 20 minutes from Le Mans. It's a big wood with farms and stuff, but unfortunately it was raining and freezing, so we didn't get a chance to walk around. They were having a fair for apples and chatignons (like chestnuts but not...) so I got to smell apples and watch goats, which was excellent. I got some apple juice that I've yet to open, but I'm sure it'll be excellent! Unfortunately I had to go like right after we got back, so we had some hot chocolate and I changed my socks, and then it was time! Luckily I got to take another TGV back to Paris, but getting back was another adventure. There were no buses, so I had to take the line 4 and 1 metros, but when I was in there listening to the announcements about other lines, several of them had no trains running at all. It was really disappointing to come back to that after having such a nice weekend not worrying about what trains are running and which ones aren't. Sigh. Also, my school's still blocked, they voted to block it until Thursday afternoon, when they'll vote again. I couldn't get to Creteil at all today, so...stuck in Paris again, at least this time I'm going to attempt to go to the movies! (as long as the electricity's not on strike...which it very well might be)
We're having a large Thanksgiving gathering on Friday night, I'm really, really looking forward to it! Hopefully everyone will be able to get here!!
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