Crazy WeatherMan

When we were in Boston, Remi earned the name Crazy WeatherMan. Why? Well, aside from being a meteorologist by profession there were a couple of other factors and today another couple have come along just to reinforce the idea.
The first couple of factors:
- During his trip to Boston in January this year they had the worst snowstorm (I am linking someone else's pictures but we have the same if not better, I would just have to find them :P) they had had in at least the last 100 years, with 1 meter of snow falling overnight. His return home was delayed for a couple of days because all the roads were blocked.
- During our trip to Boston in August this year they had the worst thunderstorm (same comment as above for this photo :P) they had had in oh I don't know how long but let's just say a very very long time. It was very scary!!
So that's when he earned his name. But now for the other two factors:
- During our trip to Arizona, also in August this year, we were confronted with the monsoon. Now apparently according to the locals the monsoon rains usually only last about a week. Well this year while we were there, thanks to Remi I am sure, they had more rain than they had had in the last 15 years!
- This weekend Remi went off for a little jaunt to the Netherlands and today he is supposed to be heading to Paris to stay the night and return home to Toulouse tomorrow. Well... Check this out... Yes! you read right! Hundreds of commuters stranded in the Netherlands and the Eiffel Tower closed for 4 hours!

I hope he doesn't start getting barred from places... that would be awful!
Actually, yesterday I visited the Musee des Augustins in Toulouse with a friend of mine. The Musee des Augustins is a fine arts museum and a lot of the items on exhibitions were pillaged from the aristocracy during the Revolution and then redistributed among museums all over France. While I was there I looked out the window to see HUGE snowflakes falling from the sky. I do love the sight of snow, but really didn't expect it in Toulouse. Though I have been told it snows here occasionally I really thought it would be more like tiny drops of slush. Well we ran outside to stand in it, but disappointingly although the flakes were huge and white it really was just slush.
Today Anne is picking me up for a little trip to the countryside in defiance of the rain. We are going to visit the hometown of Francis Cabrel... Astaffort. I will have to explain that later because she is due here in 10 minutes and I am not even dressed :/

Goodbye Montreal, Hello Paris!

My last few days in Montreal were super charged. I thought I would have time to do a little visiting or a little lazing around, alas, that was not to be. Between having to be home to welcome the hordes of hungry buyers come to rid us of our 'stuff', taking care of last minute administrative hassles, cleaning up, sorting through papers, photos and clothes, I didn't have a minute to spare.

I was leaving early evening on the Friday, so I had designated the Thursday evening for friends and the Wednesday evening with my love from whom I was to be separated for a whole month :/So for our last night together, also my last experience of dining out in Montreal, Remi surprised me by taking me to a restaurant we had read reviews about a few months earlier and vowed to try but never got around to it. The restaurant in question is Troika on Crescent St. A little on the pricey side but the food (especially the meat!) was delicious. With Russian/French fusion food on the menu, I chose the 'Table d'Hote' which consists of an entree (meat pirojki that I shared with Remi), a main course (beef stroganoff which was amazingly melt-in-your-mouth delicious), and finally a beautiful (and big) slice of mousse cake which I also shared with my love. Remi knew he would be sharing my meal and so he only ordered a main course... I can't remember what it was called but it looked mighty impressive and involved beef, foie gras, and some sort of alcohol... Cognac maybe. So ... in short, the food was delicious and the restaurant
highly recommended :)

The last night with friends was very enjoyable with a higher than expected turnout and some good laughs. Unfortunately Clem and Amaury got their bikes stolen before the end of the night, but Clem is a lot like Shane in that 'bad luck' department.

On Friday morning, Remi and I set out to the Bagel Cafe on Mont-Royal for my last taste of fresh St-Viateur bagels, not to be missed. We got home around 12.30 and I started to get myself organised for my trip. I finished packing ten minutes before the cab was due to arrive, perfect timing. I was a little frazzled by that time, but more at the prospect of being separated from
Remi for a month than at the thought of moving to France, although after my experience at
Heathrow some years ago, I was not looking forward to tackling Charles de Gaulle airport!

Goodbyes were teary on my part and the walk through customs was weird for an international flight... nobody stamped my passport to say that I was leaving Canada, so I have no idea how they keep track. Add to that no entry stamp in France due to my being a European passport holder and I have no idea how one proves that one left Canada on such and such a date. Weird.

I flew to Paris with Zoom Airlines, a Toronto based charter airline. The price is budget, part of the basis for my choice, but also you can buy a one-way ticket easily and it's half the price of a return ticket, which is the way it should be everywhere but oddly enough isn't. I paid 565 Canadian dollars, tax included, for a first class seat. The service was better than any airline I have travelled in over the last few years, and they even gave out meals, drinks, newspapers with wipes to clean the ink off your hands when you're done, a travel kit, lots of stuff I hadn't seen for years in the air. Zoom Airlines, highly recommended then.
Although I flew through the night (7 hours flight but a 6 hour time difference between Montreal and France) I didn't sleep a wink. I watched Madagascar, The Interpreter and some other crappy movie.

I believe Charles de Gaulle airport is designed to make people not want to go to Paris. Our plane landed at Terminal 3 and parked in a designated space off the runway. Just like in Vienna, you make your way down the stairs from the aircraft and across the tarmac to an awaiting shuttle that takes you to the terminal's main building. A pain in the ass if you have a lot to carry but at least up to this point you don't have your checked in bags so it's still workable. You breeze through the passport checkpoint when you present your European passport and make your way to baggage claim to watch the belt roll by empty for at least 45 minutes. Finally your bag is in sight and you struggle to offload all 24 kilos off the belt... no no, don't expect anyone to help you, after all this is Paris. BUT at least the trolleys are free :)

Through customs... Nothing to declare or something to declare, I realised it made no difference since all customs officers apparently considered themselves off-duty and were huddled to one side of the area chatting. Out into the foggy early morning air, I knew I had to find a way to get to Terminal 2 where I was to be boarding a TGV (Tres Grande Vitesse train) to Lyons. There were panels everywhere with symbols on them but if you don't know what the symbols mean, for example a pink square with a number 5 in it, well you're pretty much screwed.

I followed the one symbol I figured was hard to misinterpret... the arrow. The walk seemed very long... out in the open at first along the carpark, and then through a tunnel and out in the open again, across a road, when you finally spot another building. But no no, it's not Terminal 2. What it is is a train (RER) and bus station. I go inside and ask the guy if this is the TGV station. No, for
the TGV you have to go back outside and take bus number 5 (hence the pink square!!) to the TGV station at terminal 2.

I go back outside and lign up with all the other passengers laden with suitcases and bags and some also laden with children. I tell you, this is the perfect scenario after a sleepless night - I forgot to mention that by then my hands were all swollen due to heavy bags, lack of sleep and possibly air and temperature changes... they were very painful and I had very little grip left in them.
The bus/shuttle finally arrives. There is no ramp to make it easier to get on with a suitcase, in fact there is a little step. Once inside, there is hardly any room for all the suitcases and people the shuttle should be designed to transport. The aisles are extremely narrow so you can't just wheel your case down the middle. The driver is not very well versed in the art of smooth driving, so it's sudden braking all the way along our trajectory. She stops once to yell at some kid and kick him off the bus, I later realise he's a pickpocket and shit now I'm in Paris I have to be careful... There are pickpockets everywhere at the airport.

About 5 stops and lots of people struggling to get off later, I finally arrive at my destination to find the bus drops you off on the other side of the road, so now you have to tackle the step to get off the bus, the step to get onto the road to cross (again no ramp) and the other step on the other side to get back on to the pavement. When you get there, you look down through the glass windows to see what? You guessed it, a freakin' staircase. I curse and struggle a little longer with my luggage (backpack charged with laptop, chargers, cds, etc., camera bag charged with camera, charger, cables, cds, etc., handbag charged with cd player, money, jumper, scarf, books, etc., and 24 kilo suitcase as mentioned above) and finally find an elevator... but you then have to wait about 5 trips of the elevator to finally get enough room to board.

I finally make it down to the TGV ticket office where I explain my predicament to the lovely gentleman behind the counter: we bought my ticket online but you need the card's PIN to collect the ticket and after 1 year and a half in Canada my dear Remi has forgotten the PIN so now I can't get my ticket. No problem he says, you can buy a new ticket now with cash and I will reimburse the other ticket to the card. Yes! Finally a pain-free process!

It's now over 2 hours since I landed and I was glad to have planned such a gap between my flight arrival and my TGV departure (plan for about 3 hours because customs would have delayed me even more had they decided to work). I find a bench to rest my weary self while waiting for the train, conscious that another adventure awaits me then. A guy approaches me and asks me to answer a survey on the layout of the airport, the facilities etc. Boy am I keen to give him a piece of my mind! Unfortunately he doesn't care. When I ask him why there are only yes or no questions and no room for comment, he tells me "I have no idea and I don't care, I am only doing this for a week and then I'm back to show business". Hmm. Well I come to the conclusion that they are only interested in statistics and not in constructive ideas or criticisms. Typical.

I start chatting to an older couple of retirees from Massachussets who were waiting on the TGV to Lille and they too have had a horrid experience of this Paris airport and they only had to go from one area of Terminal 2 to another!

My departure platform is finally announced and I make my way to the northern access where
luckily there is an escalator. Everyone on the platform is laden with luggage. The TGV finally arrives and it's time to embark. Two steps up to the carriage and once again no ramp. Since none of the young able-bodied men around me offered to help, I took the liberty of asking one of the guys behind me to lift my suitcase on to the train. He seemed a little taken aback but well, he did it anyway and he didn't complain.

Once on the train came the realisation that there was no designated storage area for the suitcases, the overhead compartments were all already taken so no more room for my hand luggage either and, to top it all off, my seat was on the other end of the carriage with yet another very narrow aisle for me to struggle to move my suitcase through while also carrying all my hand luggage. Great! What an positive experience! I was also second on the train so holding up everyone behind me but even though every single male on the train was dumbly gawking at me, not one of them got off his arse to help me. By the time I made it to my seat I was exhausted and fuming and a young guy who was also struggling behind me helped me to lift my case on to an empty seat. I then had to squeeze past a lady with all my hand luggage to take my seat and did the 2 hour train trip with half an eye on my case which was precariously perched on a seat behind me, the heavy backpack with computer at my feet, and the camera bag and handbag on my lap. Nothing like travelling in style and comfort. I managed to sleep 20 minutes.

By the time I arrived in Lyons my head was spinning and I was exhausted. About 20 minutes
before arrival I struggled back through the carriage with my case but this time without hand luggage so I could manoeuvre it much easier using foot and knee. I set it down facing the door so I could kick it down on to the platform if required. Once on the platform I realised that in the turbulence that surrounded my departure from Montreal, Remi had forgotten to tell me where I was supposed to meet his mother!

I made my way up off the platform via an elevator I managed to find and then headed for the ticketing office where I didn't find her, a couple of waiting rooms where I didn't find her and I finally came across a sign pointing towards "Point de rencontre" (meeting place). I made my way there, circled around a little and lingered somewhere I could be spotted and that is where she finally found me. She was in a tizz after circling around looking for me, she took charge of the trolley and dragged me over to a little cafe where she plonked a strong black coffee and a chocolate croissant in front of me and listened to me vent my frustrations. She also informed me that if I felt up to it later we had been invited for dinner at some friends of hers.

By then it must have been about 12.30 and we set off back to her place for lunch. At 3.30 I crashed and had to sleep. We had both agreed that to get over my jetlag quickly I should try to go to bed at the normal time and sleep through the night so I was not allowed to nap very long.

NOTE: This blog entry was in fact written a couple of days after my arrival in France... I had meant to write more and that is why I delayed publication. Now I realise the entry is long enough as it is. Sorry!
Another note: Some time after my nightmare at CDG airport, I noticed that Paris Airports actually airs ads on TV reminding us how welcome we all are. If they had won the 2012 Olympic Games bid it would have been a logistical nightmare! Someone needs to be sacked and it's not their advertising department!

On Sunday there were two CRS on our bus as we headed home. No, they have not swapped their dark blue vans for public transport and no, they were not armed to the teeth. This seemed strange to me: I figured they were there to protect us and yet they were armed only with a two-way radio. Until we turned the corner and I saw the dark blue van shadowing the bus.

To me, coming to France has been somewhat like coming full circle, face-to-face with a childhood that faded into oblivion when I arrived in Australia at age 13 and a half and struggled to integrate to this new culture that I had been exposed to in small doses all my life and yet that seemed so foreign to me. As the months wore on I began to feel totally separate from my other life, as though none of it had ever happened. I cut off from my friends and took to growing up too fast. So now I have this opportunity to join both ends of that circle and try to be careful to blend each end into the other so as not to leave any unsightly bumps. I already have too many bumps to sort out ;)

The French president has called a state of emergency and given prefects the power to impose curfews to restore peace. The last time such a measure was taken on French soil was 20 years ago in New-Caledonia and I was there and I was grateful to see the army and the CRS landing and taking over the streets because I really thought I was going to die. I remember one particular day, my mother had been evacuated to Australia for radioactive treatment and back in Noumea we had the worst riots I can recall. I can still feel my heart palpitations and my mind racing as I packed my bags in case we had to leave our house or still could. And I remember crouching down beside my bed and crying because I thought I was going to die and the worst part of that was that I was never going to see my Mum again.

But this time must be different. These people aren't fighting for their right to freedom from French colonisation, they are fighting for their right to be accepted as being French in French society. The issue at hand is very complex. I received an email the other day stating quite plainly that 'it is up to them to integrate, it's not up to the French to integrate them. When you live in a country you bend to its laws'. If you see only in terms of black and white this statement could be true but we all know that reality is very different. There are issues here that we are only just beginning to encounter. Yes, there is a big problem here that needs to be addressed and it will take time. No, you don't solve those problems by burning cars and spreading violence and bigotry. Ironically, actions are now being taken, changes being planned, and this outburst was the catalyst. What message is that sending?

So things are starting to calm down over here and it may take a little longer for tensions to simmer down but let's hope that some real positive and durable changes come out of this whole experience. I can only wonder how the world will be for the next couple of generations now that it has become so much smaller and easier to navigate and people are migrating all over the place. Where will our children fit in? How do we go about making sure they have that precious sense of belonging? That 'home' element that seems so vital to us humans?

In other news... the other night I turned on the radio to drown out the noise of sirens and circling helicopters (imagine that with a less dramatic tone please) to hear some ridiculous song about 'Aimer jusqu'à l'impossible', a song I had heard before and hated just as much. Imagine my surprise when they announced that it was performed by none other than Australia's Tina Arena! Geezus, god help us. She's taken to singing in French now. As if Celine Dion wasn't punishment enough to the francophone/anglophone worlds. Apparently our little Tina has quite a following here!

More important news... read this because it could help you save a life. The other day my friend Betty forwarded me an email that explained how to recognise when someone is having a stroke. Since it was a forward that asked to be forwarded on to 10 other people and didn't reference any names, institutions or anything vaguely scientific, I almost ignored it. But I didn't, because I'm curious :) So I did a little search and here I quote from an article I will be linking to:
'Every 45 seconds someone suffers a stroke and many are not acting fast enough to prevent a fatal outcome or the serious long-term disability that can occur if treatment is not received in time. Researchers report 80 percent of strokes are preventable, yet one in four Americans cannot name a single risk factor for stroke.'
And though I am not American and though I have previously held a first-aid certificate, I realised I had no clue how to recognise the signs. So PLEASE, read this article
Though I hope you will never need this knowledge, it may just help save the life of someone you love.

Lastly, I have started sorting through my photos to bring you the French albums soon and also a 'best of... Canada'. I hope you all took a peek at the Pyrenees photos, they are really worth checking out. The blog will probably be going back and forth in time over the next few entries to accommodate for the blanks that will link to the photos, so please bear with me.

As for me, I am on the job trail and fingers crossed something will come up soon!

xoxox

Where's Tashie?

Tuesday was a public holiday here: la Toussaint or Day of the Dead if you prefer. It is traditionally the day when people do the rounds of the cemeteries to clean up the graves of their dearly departed and deposit fresh chrysanthemums on them. The day is also used as a pretext for a long weekend or week's holiday since it falls in the middle of the school holidays.
We took the opportunity to take time out of the city and head to the Pyrenees for 3 days and nights since Remi found a colleague who has a father who has a cousin (you know the drill) who owns a 6 sleeper-'chalet' in Cauterets, a gorgeous ski resort/spa village tucked in the valley between beautiful mountains.
I was told the Pyrenees were wilder than the Alps so more beautiful in a lot of ways. I was not disappointed, what we saw was stunning and definitely a change of scenery for me.
We all 3 (Anne, Remi and myself) set off in the Twingo late Saturday afternoon after a chaotic day spent at that international house of all-things-householdy-practical-and-mostly-cheap IKEA where I scored myself a cheap desk, desk chair and corkboard as well as a few of those things you never knew you needed until you saw them at IKEA for 1 or 2 Euros.
A brief pipi and food stop and a 2.5 hour car ride later, we arrived in Cauterets in complete darkness and were greeted by our dear landlord, a total caricature of frenchdom in his navy Lacoste v-neck sweater and black beret. After an exhaustive run-down of stuff we could have worked out ourselves within a couple of minutes of being left alone (but hey, you don't scoff at good friendly and especially thorough hospitality!) our hosts left us to our own devices and we decided to go check out the 'gave' we had spotted on our way into town. As I mentioned, Cauterets is a spa town and the water that runs through it is renowned for its healing properties. The water rushes wildly through the town (contained of course!) and is known as le gave. Suitably impressed by this we went off to sleep soundly in preparation for some exploration the next day.
First thing next morning I got a lovely surprise that had me gushing for quite a while: when I opened the shutters I realised that not only we had a perfect view of the beautiful village church that was perched on a square just across the (narrow and steep) road from us, but we were also surrounded by gorgeous mountains which we got not the slightest hint of in the blackness of the previous night. And it was a beautiful day! Remi did the Sunday morning dash to the bakery for croissants, pains au chocolat and fresh bread and after stuffing ourselves silly we set off happily. Our drive that day was the first hint that we were surrounded by gushing water and waterfalls, unfortunately our plans to hike up to the Lac de Gaumes were thwarted by poor Remi who had way overtaxed himself physically over the 3 previous days with volleyball, tennis and biking. We spent the rest of the day at the chalet relaxing and nursing our wounded and ventured out at night for a bite to eat at a local bistro. Rebecca was arriving the next morning by train and we decided that we would go to Lac de Gaumes then.
Next morning we woke up to grey skies, fog and rain. We got Rebecca settled in and set off to the Tourist Info office to figure out if it was still worth hiking up to the Lac in the rain - you guessed it, the answer was a definite no. It would be a complete waste of time. So what were the alternatives on a day such as this?
The aquarium in Pierrefitte or the Chateau Fort in Lourdes. Well, I've seen some pretty amazing aquariums in my time so the one in Pierrefitte did not seem like too much of a revelation. As for the Chateau Fort, well Lourdes was a 45 minute drive away and we just weren't up for it. Just as we were about to despair we decided that we would still take Rebecca to see the few waterfalls we had seen the previous day. Great idea since we actually did some beautiful hikes and Anne and I even made it up to the rickety bridge we had spotted the day before. We got absolutely drenched but it was worth it... for the photos of the conquering heroes, click here! In the meantime you will have to content yourselves with the photo above that shows you the beautiful autumn colours and gushing water in the background. After our drenching we went to sit in a cafe for hot choccies and a few rounds of Elixir before setting off to the Pont d'Espagne and our next round of discoveries. The Pont d'Espagne is another bridge over a beautiful waterfall, but it is made of stone and not rickety at all. So we ended up having a great day after all despite the rain and cold and we topped it off with a cheese fondue chez Gégé for dinner. Gégé was off his face and could barely stand up but he served us nonetheless and without incident which was quite impressive. We later found out that he had just sold the restaurant and was retiring the next day... no, he wasn't usually that pissed at work. It was ummm interesting! but the fondue was good :)
The next day we got up early to clean up the chalet and pack all our gear and get off to an early start since we were heading to the Cirque de Gavarnie. Absolutely magnificent and very reminiscent of the Rocky Mountains. Gavarnie is about 45 minutes South from Cauterets and borders Spain. The Cirque is a circular wall of snow-capped rocky mountains. If you fall forward off the top you fall into Spain... and well, presumably you die a horrible death also but that's beside the point. We parked the car in the village of Gavarnie and set off up the mountain for approximately a 1 hour hike. It was stunning. The water so aqua clear, the rocks a soft slate grey, the valleys so green and lush and peppered with grazing sheep, horses and donkeys, the snow-capped peaks of rock... You most definitely must see.
After a beautiful afternoon in heaven it was time to head back to Toulouse, although we did stop briefly in Lourdes on the way. Long enough to see what a horrible, depressing place it is. Full of sick people hoping for a miracle and kitsch souvenir stores selling Virgin Mary plastic water bottles to fill with holy water in the cave, and all manner of tacky Jesus and Mary plastic knick-knacks.

So there you have it, our first long weekend away!
P.S: adding a note since I believe no one has read the post as yet. I forgot to mention that at the Cirque de Gavarnie you will find the tallest waterfall in Europe at some 450 meters high or thereabouts.
The photos Remi has selected from our visit to Gavarnie can be viewed by clicking here.
The photos Remi has selected from our visit to Cauterets can be viewed by clicking here.
Each album contains about 3 pages so don't forget to click 'Next' in the bottom right hand corner of the page or you will miss out on some beauties!!