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Timeframe: Dec 05, 2008
Well Craig made good on his promise to come visit and we decided to do a little road trip around different parts of Brittany. Our first stop, Mont Saint-Michel! It's amazing how the fortress just pops out of the ground. There's absolutely nothing higher than 10 feet for miles around and so the fortress is easily visible miles and miles away. With the ocean on one side and flat fields on the other it must have been really easy to defend this place.
Here's a picture of the place from the parking lot. The fortress seems huge! Luckily the sign let us know that the tide wouldn't be washing out this parking lot today so we didn't have to walk much to get here. 
Once you get inside the fortress there are actually streets with shops. We even had a nice lunch at one of them. It really amazes me how France - a country known for their food - is really quite fastidious about when you can and can't eat. Almost all the shops stop serving lunch at about 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon and won't serve you dinner until 7 pm. There are workers inside the whole time, but if you go in (through the unlocked door) they ask you what you think you're doing here and ask you to leave. Really odd if you ask me.
My impression of the fortress was that the whole thing was going to be one big building, but it turns out that what you mostly see from the outside is the church towering over everything. Another little bit of trivia is that they actually used the whole island as a prison in the late 17 or 1800s (can't remember) housing something like 700,000 prisoners over 100 years. It's the French Alcatraz!
Here's another shot of the streets found all around the cathedral in the middle. It seems very much like a little old European city. Very quaint (albeit a bit more vertical than I'm used to).
Now we finally get to the cathedral itself. As you can see it pretty much towers over everything else. It went through a bunch of different stages of construction with the earliest model we got to see being from the 11th century (basically just the nave - picture later on). But from the audio tour it seems that they were copying manuscripts here as early as 600 AD. We didn't see any of the manuscripts because they're no longer kept here, but instead are in a museum in Avranches (a city nearby).
Here you can see how far up we are. It was funny because Craig kept making comments about Geoff (brother) being afraid of heights and that one time they were climbing up a tower in Switzerland where Geoff was freaking out about the arrow slit windows. I tried to explain to Craig what it's like being afraid of heights (as I am a little scared even while taking this picture), but later on there was a tower where Craig showed me what Geoff had been afraid of. I don't really understand why he freaked out. I mean, higher up the stairs it almost looks like you have a straight shot out of the arrow slit, but you'd never fit through them. Maybe Geoff was way smaller then?
This is the nave of the cathedral that was built in the 11th century.
And this is the cloister. I never thought this is what a cloister was. Considering the verb means to hide oneself I figured that a cloister would be a hidden little room where monks go for penance or something. This was a nice little garden room that seemed very light and airy with a huge window (glassed in now) that over looked the ocean.
This was the knights room. I assume it's where the knights who defended the fortress had their beds. But the audio-guide also talked about the fireplaces in the background as being places for monks to gather and also about making manuscripts. The audio-guide wasn't very clear about the whole thing even after listening to it a few times.
Here's a picture of the shadow Mont Saint-Michel leaves on the surrounding beaches (water when the tide actually comes high enough). I just thought it looked cool.
There are also other islands out in the sound. It's all very pretty on the Brittany coast.
And here's a picture looking back up at the cathedral from the streets down below as we were climbing back down. Very medieval :)
Another interesting thing that I never would have thought of, it seems like there are actually people who live here on the island. As you can see in the picture it looks like there are homes above all the shops. We even saw some furniture in some of the rooms as we passed by.
And the most interesting street we encountered on our trip! I don't know for sure that it was a street since it was so small (Craig got a picture of me struggling to get through it sideways with my backpack off). But, there are two doors (right about where Craig is standing) that open, so someone must use this thing.
And one last picture of the Mont with the sun setting behind us. What a wonderful day!
Well it looks like they do have mini garbage trucks too Geoff! Actually, I think this is a parks and recreation truck cleaning up waste baskets that they seem to have around the city. So, while it may be mini, I don't think it actually counts as a garbage truck.
Timeframe: Nov 25, 2008
They never told me, but apparently grad students are supposed to help their advisor change car tires.
Apparently Kadi (my advisor here, the one on the tire) didn't realize his tire was kind of flat and it popped on the way to work. He pulled over when he heard a strange noise and noticed that the tire was totally destroyed (at least he had a warranty).
So Jonathan (top left), Kevin (top right), and I (behind camera) helped Kadi fix his tire. All in a day's work as a grad student right?
Timeframe: Nov 24, 2008
Anyone know? As far as I know if they look like they could be from Super Mario World I figured we should eat them. How come nothing cool grows in Utah? Silly desert.
You find these all over outside the place we go to eat lunch. Even though they're probably poisonous, they're pretty.
Timeframe: Nov 17, 2008
Well Guillaume (another lab mate apparently) just successfully defended his doctorate and has invited everyone to a local Irish pub to celebrate! Félicitations (congratulations)!
This is Kevin on the left, and a bunch of other people I don't know hanging out in back. Except... see that one guy in the far back left with the blue button up shirt? That's the American ambassador in Rennes. He's partying with Guillaume's free champagne to celebrate the fact that he got sent to France instead of Baghdad.
And a bunch of other people I don't know, with Rugby on the tube. And a bunch of people speaking English (Irish).
Timeframe: Nov 23, 2008
I found it very interesting to see how many different languages I heard while in Paris. Of course I heard people speaking French, and English, but along with that there were Spanish, German, Russian, Eastern European (of some sort), along with many oriental languages I can't distinguish. I even had to help a French guy explain to a Japanese lady (in English) how to get somewhere in the city, and what stop to get off at (because he didn't speak English very well).
So, to cap off all this multiculturalism, I met a group of young people on the way back from Versailles on the subway. These 3 people (2 guys and a girl) sat down next to me and the French guy I had helped. I listened to the French guy and one of the young people go on about Lyons (where the French guy was from) and then noticed the other French guy turned to the really pretty girl next to me and started talking in English.
It's the perfect way to start a conversation, "So, are you from the States?". Everyone in a foreign country loves to find someone or something that reminds them of home, and they all love to talk. So we were chatting a bit and found out that she's on an exchange studying French at a school in Rennes. Sound familiar? It should, that's the same city I'm staying in right now. Not only that, but it turns out she's visiting here from Hartford Connecticut, and laughed that I said "New Britain" the correct way. So, meeting a fellow nutmegger on a train through Paris. What a really small world.
Unfortunately I didn't get any information about how to contact her (no number, email, or even a name). I completely lost track of time while we were talking that I didn't notice I was at my metro station until the train was almost leaving. So I had to jump out of the seat and out the door before I even said goodbye.
The only saving grace is that halfway through the conversation I mentioned that I knew French but didn't practice it much. Her French friend over heard me and asked for my phone number because he had a friend that's also in school here in Rennes who's looking to practice his English. So her friend has my phone number, which means she can get it if she's so inclined. And if not, it's still a nice memory to have :)
