Calling Chartres

So, for the last weekend before the February holidays, I and Erin, Harriet and Amy (AKA the Blois girls) went on a small adventure to Chartres.

Chartres cathedral

My adventure started Friday evening, where I discovered a cultural difference between 'southern' Europe and 'northern' Europe. I have two very good friends at the MAJO. First of all, let me introduce John, who is 42 and wordlywise after having lived in almost every continent, and Portugese but essentially European as he says he has taken on a personality characteristic from most of the countries he's lived in. Secondly, there is Michael, who is French-Portugese and a French teacher here in Romo. After telling the boys that I was going to Blois that evening and taking the 6pm bus, John exclaimed that he and Michael were wanting to go to Blois in any case and that they would drive me. I accepted the offer, but said that if they changed their minds, they would need to let me know by 5.30pm at the latest so that I could walk to the bus stop.

Some rather lovely
stained glass windows

At 5.45pm, I got a call from John telling me to chillax, and that he was going to drive me. He added that he'd be ready in about 15 minutes after he'd had a shower and made himself 'beau'. Let's just summarise and say that 6pm English time turned out to mean 6.30pm southern French / Portugese time. All joking aside, being uptight and strict about timings does seem to be part of English / British culture. John said that's why stuff actually works in Britain and Germany, unlike southern France downwards...

Anyway, we got to Blois fine (it's SO much quicker by car than by that tank-like bus - especially with John's driving) and Erin welcomed us with open arms. Such hospitality that she came out to greet us and left her keys inside so Amy had to come and let us into the building. We then hit Blois reasonably gently, with burgers and cider in a restaurant, and some more ciders and beers when Erin's Columbian friend Dina joined us. Another benefit of learning a foreign language: Without each of us having French in common, we wouldn't have been able to communicate and have the interesting conversations about cultural differences which we did!

At one point, a cocky young French lad came up to us and said 'Are you English?' I replied 'Peut-être, peut-être pas' (Maybe, maybe not). He looked thoroughly confused. I told him to try and guess the nationality of everyone on the table. This boy was doomed: John is essentially European / Portugese with a perfect southern French accent, Michael is French-Portugese, I'm English, Erin is American, and Dina is Columbian. Nonetheless, it was a really good laugh watching him try and guess, especially when he came to John. The expression on John's face put me in hysterics.

Anyway, after spending the night in Erin's apartment and having far too little sleep due to extensive gossiping and discussing, the alarm buzzed to wake us to go to the train station to take first a train to Tours, then a bus to Chartres. Suffice to say the ticket was 8€ for a reason. The journey was horribly, horribly long for what is not a long distance, and I severely dislike long-distance coach journeys.

Traditional gothic style cathedral

We arrived in Chartres, happy to be off the blooming thing, and found our hotel fine (easily located opposite the train station). We then had a rather bizarre conversation with the man on reception, who recounted his entire life story (I'm not exaggerating) and then asked us if we spoke French, despite me asking him questions throughout, in french. We then retreated to our rooms which were actually quite nice, and reposed a little. We then decided that we were in Chartres to EXPLORE, so we set off in search of the cathedral which I'd heard to be splendid.

Bref. It was incredibly easy to find the cathedral because 1. it's pretty freaking tall, and 2. Chartres turns out to be a rather small town... The stained glass in the cathedral was lovely, but sadly I think I have simply seen too many cathedrals since my arrival here in France, and most of them are in the same gothic style with equally beautiful stained glass. The works going on inside the cathedral also detracted from its beauty. One brilliant thing though was climbing one of the towers. 300 steps later (yes, I did count) we were up on one of the towers, feeling vulnerable and insecure, as we dared to look vertically down and realise that we would end up looking like strawberry jam if we fell. It was a long, long, long way. It also feels a lot less sturdy 100m above the ground, than it appears to be at the bottom looking up.

Jean Moulin memorial

Other cultural activities in Chartres included following the chemin de memoires, which had monuments to all the people of Chartres who had died fighting in the first and second world wars, and in the wars in Tunisia and Algeria, and key French leaders. There was also a mention to the men who had liberated France, and they seemed to have got the nationality wrong: French, not British....

Another 'chemin de
memoire' memorial

Sadly, I actually preferred the activities that could have occurred back in Blois and saved us about 100€ each in hotel and train ticket costs. That is to say, 1. watching Wales whoop France's fesses in the rugby, while eating take-away pizza and 2. eating my first Subway sandwich, chicken teriyaki with sweet onion sauce. It is on my list of things to do in Exeter.

And that's when I realised, that travelling mainly consists of walking around, looking at stuff. Yes, the first few cathedrals I saw took my breath away, and the first time I bought a nutella-coated gauffre (waffle) my opinion of France increased greatly. But now, my travelling experiences in France consist of sitting on trains for horrible lengths of time, wandering around, looking at old buildings, in the cold and sometimes wet. The snow which commenced on Sunday morning (making Chartres look magical) quickly turned into rain and then slush.

We all took the train to Paris together, and then Erin and I walked around le Jardin de Plantes in the snow and appreciated a good chin-wag while looking at the imposing museums and menagerie while I waited for my connection.

Nutella Gauffre. It needs no justification.
Just look and  behold.

At Salbris, after waiting an hour, I nearly missed the train to Romo (we now have trains instead of buses!) as they have created an entirely new platform the other side of the car park, and haven't bothered to name it. Consequently, there was a blank space on the screens for the platform of the train to Romo (i.e. the same blank spot used when they haven't decided which platform the train is coming into). Many thanks to the man who asked me which platform it would be leaving from, and the chap next to me who piped up saying it wasn't here, it was over there. After pegging it across the car park, I then met Aykim on the train, had a little chat (so difficult talking in French after a weekend in English), met up with some people at the MAJO and went and got a kebab.

And then it was Monday again, and lessons. But this was special: it was the final week before the February holidays! Where have the last six weeks gone? (Apart from the time I spent whinging because time was dragging on and I wanted to go home... ahem.)

Typical battered French buildings

Anyway, my weekend foray into Chartres has shown that I need to stop being a control freak and planning all my weekends; two days after booking Chartres, Juliette invited me to go to Center Parks with her for the weekend, and I could have spoken lots of French and saved 100€. But too bad, because I'm a control freak and I had already organised Chartres.

So what sort of note to end on?
1. I'm looking forward to going home and going to Exeter in order to get my six-week dose of home and Britain. I'm then looking forward to going to Strasbourg; despite my above statements that travelling is basically walking around looking at stuff, I'm hoping that Strasbourg will be sufficiently German that it's more like visiting another country altogether, but without the need to speak German! I'm hoping to try more German food, and see some more germanic influences.
2. I need to take a leaf out of John's book, and chillax when it comes to organising my life, and just enjoy it as it comes.