10aC Utes: Dec 11, 2011

Going Home

On Sunday morning David drove me to the train station. In France, they have photocops that flash when you pictured for your speeding ticket. David got flashed twice on our way in to the train station. The funny thing is he probably won't end up with points on his license, because the company car he drives is licensed in Belgium so while the company may end up having to pay the fine, France can't give them points. But that also led David to tell me this funny thing about having a Belgium plate. Since he has Belgium plates and French people think Belgium drivers are unskilled and rude, he doesn't feel as embarrassed if he accidentally cuts someone off while merging, because everyone expects that of a Belgium driver.

Coming home was a long day. It was a 30 min drive to the train station, a 2 hr train ride, then a 9.5 hr flight over Atlantic, then a long wait thru customs in Atlanta and then a delayed flight to Nashville, so by the time I got home, i was pretty exhausted.

Other random thoughts: French toilets, no seat, just the bowl, not sure if that is traditional or what, certainly not the case everywhere. Not a big fan of this.

In France, every city has a symbol. For the medieval city, it was a dragon. This got me wondering again what creature that dragon was actually based on. Its prevalence in European culture suggests it must have been based on something.

A French Medieval Village

In the afternoon, all of us drove about an hour to a medieval French village from the 13th century called Perouges. We got to drive near the river for much of the way, and then on various village roads through round abouts. These are the same roads as get used in the Tour de France and other famous bicycle races and I wondered if any of the cyclists we saw were from the pro peleton. I have to say I was thoroughly disoriented by the time we arrived, since there was no direct path and one is never really sure the direction one is leaving a round about towards..

Entrance to the village

The medieval village was as a lot of fun and all very beautiful. The outer wall was dominated by this old fortress cathedral that had these fantastically brightly colored stained glass windows.

Inside the cathedral

All the streets were cobblestone, which turns out to be fairly tiring to walk on for a long time. There were several beautiful gardens, both for herbs and flowers near the local noble's home/castle. Since the whole city was walled and fortified, and the nobles resident was just one of many building within the compound, I guess you would simply called it his mansion. There were many other smaller homes that were homes or workshops of the guilds and tradesman. What was cool is that a lot of these were now used as either residences or as shops, so much of village still maintained its residential feel. There were no re-enactors, just people living there.

Cathedral Tower and courtyard

The nobleman's home

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One of the gardens in nobleman's home

Another view of the garden

Tradesman shops

Inside the nobleman's home

I took this picture of an ancient clarinet for JPD

One very old bible

View from watch tower

David's daughter has no fear of heights. Kristan looks on.

David's daughters plot their strategy to take over the countryside

The rotund knight takes the tower

Overlooking the gardens from the watchtower

Bernard classifies some herbs

In the main square.

This lime tree is hundreds of years old. Executions and auctions were held here.

One conclusion that while we have a very romantic notion of kings and queens and knights, etc... the reality is that even someone in the lower middle class today probably lives a thousand times better off than the royalty of that day. Our homes have central heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. They had to have huge fire places to try to warm large rooms in the dead of winter. With electricity, we can see at all hours of the day. They only had candle light. Our beds are clean and comfortable. While servants clearly did the work for nobles, our machines do the same for us. And we have modern medicine and antibiotics that consistently works against a wider spectrum of disease than apothecary potions. So as beautiful as the place was, I don't think I would willing trade my life today for that in the 13th century, even if I got to be a noble. If I had to be a peasant rather than a tradesman, it would have been very miserable indeed. On the other hand, the beauty that was build from stone and hand tools is very gratifying and frankly one wonders why with modern materials, we build such ugly and non-human scale sort of places.

A guest in the french countryside

After the conference was over, I stayed at Nathalie and David's house for the day and half. They live about 30 min from Lyon. If Villeurbanne was ugly, the little village they lived in was everything wonderful one imagines about the French country side. Their home is very new, having been build about 3 years ago, and in a very modern style.

Stair well

Dining table and chairs look out to the pool

When David was in Tennessee, he began to work for a local airplane aluminium manufacturing company that sold some to Europe. David began to work as a salesman and after they went back to France, essentially become a one-man branch of the company in France.

The fireplace opens to both the dining room on one side and the living room on the other.

He has done incredibly well ($4 million in sales last year) and they have been able to built a beautiful home. Such a change from them from their time in Tennessee when money was so tight. Another great thing for them is that Nathalie parents live next door, in a home that is 300 years old. A very different architectal style, but also very beautiful. So the girls can go over to their grandparents everyday.

Although I had seen pictures of Celia and Franny, their daughters, I had not met them in person since they were born after Nathalie and David went back to France. They were quite shy around me, because while they are learning English in school, they were nervous about actually using it in front of me. They are beautiful girls and it is obvious that Nathalie and David are wonderful parents to them. The next day, another family who had been post-docs (Bernard and Kristan) at the same time as we were, but were in a different lab, came to stay as well. I felt bad that I got the big guest room with the shower, since they had their two kids as well, but I guess David and Nathalie figured that I needed my own room. There little boys were especially funny. Poor Thomas, it frightened him when I spoke in English to his parents, and he got upset and covered his ears. Even when his dad explained why he couldn't understand, he still had a hard time dealing with it. I kind of knew the feeling. It was awesome listening to the two families converse back and forth in French, sometimes stopping to translate, but it was hard also not being able to follow most of what was going on. I really wish I remembered more French from way back in Jr. High when I took it.

On Saturday morning, David took me with him when he and Ceclia went to buy bread and run errands. They take their bread very seriously, and don't usually buy bread in their village but rather in the next larger village over because the local baker is not up to snuff. (Can't argue with the results, the bread was fantastic and I have been searching in vain for equivalent bread since coming back home.) We also stopped by the local superstore to buy some berets for much less than 50 euros and lots of chocolate. When we went to check-out David very generously paid for everything. Again, if there is anything I have learned from my French trip, it is how generous host the French are. Eating around their dinner table was the highlight of the trip.

The alley in front of the museum.

The bear symbol is from the village's famous story of a man who saved the noble's daughter from a fire by covering himself with a bearskin and climbing up a burning tower to rescue her.