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.