Settling In

January 26, 2010

Well I’m definitely settling down in France here. As mentioned before my apartment is a lovely little flat that houses myself, Charlotte and Chloe. Chloe is 20 and studies at ESDES with myself (although we don’t have any classes together because she’s a French student) and comes from just outside of Paris. She’s super chic, with the cutest outfits ever, includes me in all her activities and is part of the ‘bar’o’meter’ which is like the schools Student Union. So she’s hooked up socially, but serious about her studies. She use to play rugby and use to do martial arts – so we are quite similar! She also visited Canada and lived with an English family in Vancouver so she speaks English very well with a French accent ;). She’s very patient with me as I stumble through the language.

Charlotte studies at Lyon Deux and is doing her masters… although she’s not enjoying any of her classes and only really likes her dance class and her English class (I forget at the moment what she’s doing her masters in). She’s 22, quite the avid traveler as well and just spent a month in Madrid and has been to India as well! Like my sister Charlotte she’s quite tall, and has a dancers slim body, with a funky colourful style. She comes from Grenoble – which she tells me is a place I would LOVE because everyone wears sneakers and its super outdoorsy place. In addition to dance she use to play basketball and this is the first year that she hasn’t.

One of their New Years resolutions has been to be more active so they’ve both readily agreed to run with me (at least once a week) which I’m thrilled about! Additionally Charlotte had an ex boyfriend who climbed so she’s ready to come climbing with me which is simply fabulous!

Le Mur aka Climbing

I have decided to bite the bullet, pull out my little credit card and purchase a trimester membership to the climbing gym here in Lyon called ‘Mur Mur’ (wall wall for those of you who don’t speak French). I laugh as I tell people, ‘I can now breathe properly because I found a place to climb.’ It’s gorgeous! It’s a 10 minute walk away from my house in a huge warehouse with 1950 m2 of climbable material. It’s got a great bouldering cave and all the routes are leadable plus a ceiling traverse. For those of you who want to drool please follow the link here: http://www.lemurdelyon.com/murdelyon_la-salle.php I’m still getting use to the European grading system but I’ve already done a number of leads and am working on my bouldering skills as the climbing circle in any place takes a while to break into. Although 2 of the front staff already know me by name J.

It’s interesting observing how another country runs their climbing wall because there are obvious differences. For one – the French’s concept of safety is much more blasé. For one, there was no waiver that I had to sign when I first visited the wall, secondly, they asked if I knew how to belay and/or lead and then I didn’t even have to pass a course or prove it to them…I just walked in. There are no anchors and it’s often that someone lighter goes flying up a couple feet when someone takes a fall on lead. And EVERYONE leads here. Kids that I swear are no more than 9 are leading, and grandmas are leading – everyone! There doesn’t seem to be any regulations or rules. Even watching the way climbers interact in the cave they’ll climb over and under and around other climbers. It’s a little bit like Asia’s road systems sometimes… how bizarre!

I’m of two minds – at times I can’t help but think they’re crazy to let anyone and everyone climb with no rules or mandatory courses because of the obvious safety issues. However, at the same time when I entered the climbing circle in Lethbridge (although I had already learnt and climbed for the first time outside in Thailand) I felt it was implied that people start inside and leading was something you worked up to. There always seemed to that it was a big step between just climbing and then leading – and I’m not saying there’s not but I think by having this type of learning curve it negates the fact that a huge part of climbing is leading, and leading in itself is climbing. Coming and seeing everyone leading not only are they learning how to climb – the basic skills, techniques, how to move your body on the wall etc – but they’re also learning all of that in a leading mindset. And ultimately leading is a mindset as much as it is a physical ability.

Geneva 2

As we made our way to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum what building did we come upon? None other than the world trade organization and the United Nations Headquarters! Although there were no tours offered it was a photo opportunity galore. Eventually we came to the Red Cross and Red Crescent museum. The museum tells the story of how the Red Cross was formed, its governing philosophies, and talks briefly on various projects that it is working on/has worked on around the world. Although small it also has on record all POW (prisoner of war) from the First World War (1914 – 1918) which amounts to seven million index cards which identify these people and which are still used today for people in search of their ancestors.

We were also fortunate enough to catch the tail end of an exhibition called ‘Modestes’ which were photographs taken by Alexandra Boulat which speak to the women of the middle east. The shots were haunting and raw yet captured their life in all forms. I’ve included my favorite here which I have taken a photo (not well). It’s captures the moment when the polls have been re-opened to women. Upon writing this I’ve discovered she was a French photographer who passed away in 2007. More of her photos through a photo essay can be found at http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1669313,00.html?iid=redirect-boulat .

The rest of our privileged day consisted of seeing the Jet of water (I believe it claims to be the highest in the world). The flower clock, the old town and sampling some expensive but well worth it Swiss chocolates! YUM! We also bumped into some Canadians (from Windsor) who were a group of old men who just spent the last 6 days skiing. Upon seeing the Canadian flag on one of their jackets I went right up to say hello –while Abby our American friend - documented my overtly friendly self by taking a picture. I think she was also further amused when the rest of his friends we discovered were on top of the cathedral and Linda and I excitedly waved and shouted ‘CANADA!’ to cement our new found friendship. I was also thrilled to find a Quebec license plate in the back of an old car and found the need to snap a picture as well.

Our full day in Geneva ended on with a short train ride back to Lyon and talk of further explorations into the Swiss Alps to climb, hike and ski either at a later date this semester or another voyage!

Geneva

We arrived n Geneva early in the morning and tumbled out of the train sleepy, in search of coffee but excited that we had managed to pull off an early start. After visiting the tourist office and obtaining a map and a list of things to do we headed out into the deserted streets along the river with the early joggers of the morning.

Geneva is a clean city (especially after coming from Lyon), with beautiful old architecture and watch stores and Swiss Army knife stores everywhere – actually. We took our time as we wandered to the main park – finding a children’s merry-go-round of sorts and had too much fun spinning (for the ones with tough stomachs).

We found a free science museum which was SO cool as it had a bunch of interactive activities outside which drew us in. One of them, in this picture here uses the magnifying glass to heat up a mini canon and it will shoot at midday. Other exciting experiments included old telescopes, optical illusions, and a lot of old instruments used in meteorology, as well as astrology. The building itself was a museum with intricate detailed paintings on the walls and ceiling.

My First Trip – Geneva January 23, 2010

My First Trip – Geneva January 23, 2010


Geneva or Genève is located in the French speaking part of Switzerland. It is the birthplace of many philanthropic world organizations and is where the United Nations and Red Cross have their head offices – to name a few. It sits on the border with France and the famous Mont Blanc casts its shadow over the city.

Switzerland is coined to be the banking capital of the world and is – as stated by Wikipedia – ‘one of the richest countries in the world.’ Geneva is rated as having the 3rd highest quality of life in the world. In addition Switzerland is known for its global neutrality, and is very much a peace keeping nation. The flag (red with a white cross) is known worldwide not only for these philanthropic reasons but as well for the countries snowcapped peaks – the Alps.

So a group of us decided to do a quick run over to Geneva for the day yesterday. AGH! How cool is that? I just went to Switzerland for the day – you know no biggie! It was 22 EUR round trip (about $33 CDN). So the Canadians (Dennis, Claudia, Linda and Myself) plus some Americans (in our immediate group was Abby, Tyler, Danny) and Pei Pei from Taiwan all got up at the break of dawn and caught the 7am train (fyi we met up at 6 – working with a large group is fun). Some Germans (which we had some fun calling out ‘the Germans are coming’ whenever we talked to them…) and other Americans were there later that day too.

For Linda, who is our little sheltered Lethbridge-ian, it was the first time on a train. (We have pictures to prove it…many). Most of us crashed on the train, but Tyler (an avid outdoorsman like myself) excitedly peered out the window as the sun came up to reveal the gorgeous surrounding countryside. We passed little sleepy towns that were just awaking with smoke pillowing out of the stone houses, and bubbling brooks that still had the morning mist hanging over top of them. The sun slowly came up casting a pink glow over the mountains the beautiful snow capped hills with rough rocks exposed and I excitedly wondered about climbing…

France!

January 24, 2010

Well! I decided I’d better start blogging about France before I forget all the cool things I’ve done. I’ll try and keep it in some kind of order so you all aren’t all lost!

Just a brief update of France – I arrived the 12 with no place to live and managed to find a beautiful apartment with the 2 sweetest, cutest French girls. My apartment is literally 2minutes away from my school and in the heart of Lyon. My room is big, with large windows, we live on the 2^nd floor and the building is old (I still have to find out how old), the floor creaks where ever we walk, it’s all heated by radiators, all the fireplaces are filled in (but there’s one in every room), the ceilings are high and I LOVE it!

School has started… but that’s about all I know. I’m taking 5 courses – 4 business 1 French – and I plead guilty for changing my courses so that I have a 3 day weekend every week. However let’s not forget this is a cultural, language and academic exchange and I’m in Europe … and my classes come back as pass/fail… so all I have to do is pass! The French, however, are very strict about class attendance (and tardiness) and so we are practically forbidden to skip. In all of my classes 50% of my grade will come from the final exams – which will be a drag. OK! Enough about school!

The Exchange Students

There are about 110 of us a mixture from USA, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic , Brazil, Argentina, Senegal, Ireland, Italy, Colombia, Finland, UK, Poland, Nigeria, & Austria. Most of us are from Mexico, Canada and USA. After coming from meeting all the amazing Rotary exchange students in India I have to admit none of them completely struck my fancy. However after having some opportunities to talk and mingle they are quite a couple that are very cool. (No climbers though… sigh.)

To our horror (and probably secret pleasure) we were all given a sheet with all our photos, our names and our nationalities. However when the school (ESDES) requested photos from us we undoubtedly thought they needed passport photos so all our Canadian photos are the best mug shots ever … (I guess in other countries you can actually SMILE for your photos…) They are printed off in colour and my red hair looks a startling neon orange… oh joy.

There are a huge number of students who don’t speak French or who have no knowledge of the language and no desire to practice or speak it. This is undoubtedly disappointing for me and I’m great full for my French roomies and their ever-inclusive friends. Even the students who do speak it don’t seem to want to so although I find them nice I’ve limited my time with them and plan to immerge myself in the culture as much as possible.