Paris and off on a new adventure

Hey everyone,

Yet again, I am apologizing for a seriously lax attitude towards updating my blog.  The last week has been great because I had both a wonderful trip to Paris to look back on and a delightful visit from Andrea Shalay and her mom who stayed with me for 5 days over the weekend.  On the other hand I have been fighting off a nasty cold since friday and I am feeling pretty run down.  

Paris was great!  We left early saturday morning and took a large tour bus to Versailles, which is a suburb of Paris and home to the magnificent Palais de Versailles.  A UNESCO world heritage sight, the palace has been home to some of Frances most well known feudals.  In 1669 Louis the 14th (the Sun King) commissioned renowned French architect Louis Le Vau to commence construction on the Palace.  Highlights of the castle include the Hallway of Mirrors and the grand royal apartments.  The gardens are also a favourite with tourists but they were actually commissioned by Louis the 15th and Marie Antoinette.  The day that we went to Versailles we were treated to a small by Canadian standards snow storm which left the gardens under abour 5cm of snow.  This was enough to keep us indoors however and so I will have to see the gardens another time.  The palace was the envy of pretty much all of Europe's royalty and frankly it isn't really until you go inside that you understand why.  The exterior of the castle is rather un-impressive, especially when compared to some of the cathedrals that I have visited thus far.  However when you go inside, breathtaking, becomes an impossible understatement.  The interior is truly magnificent.  There are enormous painted ceilings and incredibly luxurious hallways.  The royal cathedral, although closed to the public is incredible, there is truly a understanding of sacredness in old European church architecture that truly stands the test of time.  When you finally make it through the royal apartments and into the hallway of mirrors, you really understand why the European elite of the 17th century were so impressed by the Palace.  I mean, all comments on vanity aside, the Hallway is really beautiful.  Another highlight of the palace is the hallways decorated with all of the major battles in France's history.  To put it mildly, it is a really long hallway featuring depictions of battles as far back as Charles Martel in the 700's AD.  Also a highlight was the painting of Napolean 1 (Bonapart's handle after declaring himself emperor).  This is one tourist destination in the Paris area that I highly recommend.

After our exploration of Versailles we continued on to Paris.  With a quick stop at a viewpoint of the Eiffel Tower and a drive around the roundabout at L'arc de Triomphe, we arrived at our hostel.  After that, we went to Saint Michel (the famous latin quarter).  Home to the Sorbonne, one of the worlds oldest universities and ground zero for the 1968 popular uprising, the quarter has a lot of history and has undergone a lot of changes over the years.  The latin quarter is home to many restaurants popular with tourists, one of which, we got hustled into with the promise of 'free drinks.'  Rookie mistake, I know, but you live you learn...right?  Well, the frogs legs weren't great and the drinks were pretty terrible, but the company was great and we went on to have drinks at a local café before returning to our hostel.

The next day was spent at the Louvre which was overwhelming...in a good way.  I think in the 5 hours or so that we had in the museum we probably saw about 15% of what was being shown.  Highlights, were the Italian paintings, the Egyptian section and the greek sculptures.  After that, we went to Lunch at an Italian restaurant and Notre Dame, which we only saw from the outside.

My overall reflection of Paris, was that the city is absolutely incredible and far far too big to see in the short 2 days that I had there.  I definitely didn't want to leave and look forward to my next trip there, which might be the first weekend of March.  Until then, I am heading to Budapest tomorrow morning and Prague middle of next week.  I will be traveling with Antoine, my housemate and another Québecois friend, Jule and hope to be wowed by the old architecture and have a chance to experience the culture of Eastern Europe during the trip.

That's all for now.

Vive les Manif's!!!

Hey everyone, 

I realize that I posted yesterday, but something happened today that was worth taking note of and I wanted to write it down before it gets dwarfed in my mind by Paris this weekend.  

First, as many of you know, the French are renowned for their consistent use of the protest as a tool for social change and discourse.  The world was yet again reminded of this when more than 2 million people were united in a national one day walk out last thursday to protest their governments response to the current economic crisis.  Today I was fortunate enough to be on a bus that was stopped by a manifestation (protest).  I got off the bus to take some pictures, but also because it wasn't going anywhere and then looked for someone who seemed approachable enough to ask what all the fuss was about.  

Some time this afternoon a group of what looked like around 600 students from the Université de Tours François Rabelais took to the streets chanting in unison and carrying signs.  When they arrived at a busy intersection in downtown Tours they proceeded to sit down and block traffic accompanied by the completely unobtrusive presence of local police officers.  They were observed by some bystanders and joined by others  singing chants proclaiming their desire to see better accessibility to education for all and a general opposition to the policies of the current government in this regard.  The protest was very peaceful and unfettered by law enforcement personnel, who were present in surprisingly low numbers for the size of the crowd.  I circled the crowd several times looking for someone handing out pamphlets or something and ended up talking to a guy carrying a large banner at what seemed like the front of the group.  He explained to me that they were protesting the fact that they were voicing their concerns that educational opportunities were not universally accessible to students and that they felt the government need to work toward increasing equity in this regard.

It was at this point that I began to be confused.  After a month in France I have learned that post secondary education is heavily subsidized by the French State.  To the extent that with the exception of a comparably small number of private schools, university is FREE for french citizens and virtually universally accessible.  Still, I knew that their were some fees associated with school and that it was difficult to get loans and/or work during school so I asked a question of clarification: "So are you saying that you think the academic fees at French universities are too high?"

He said: "No, not at all."  He explained that although all citizens can go to university in France virtually free of charge, courtesy of his government that there are two tiers in the education system.  In order to get into the second tier, which is where most of the professional programs are taught, one must compete in what is called a Concourse.  Basically, all applicants to professional programs (law school, commerce, pharmacy, medical, engineering etc.) must write a series of exams and are admitted to the program based on their marks on the exam as well as their course marks.  The exams are extremely difficult and students are forced to compete for a limited number of spaces in their desired program.  If they don't make the grade they are left with no choice but to pursue and general arts or science degree and are faced with limited employment prospects after school.  

The man explaining was speaking very quickly and emphatically and so I was not sure if I had understood him.  I asked some further questions of clarification and then thanked him for his time wishing him all the best.  I took some more pictures as the crowd proceeded to march peacefully back toward the university campus escorted by the police who blocked traffic at upcoming intersections for them.  

As I walked away I became more and more disturbed by what I had seen.  I agree with the fact that the university system is very single minded in its learning/teaching style and that if you are unable to adapt to the going methodology and can't get the grades, you are S.O.L in terms of grad school/professional program placements.  Further, that as a result of this, the system looses people who would be potentially very strong in their respective discipline due to the fact that they have an unconventional learning style.  I have experienced this in my program at The University of Guelph.  But, as far as I understood from the gentleman at the protest, this was not what the group of students were arguing.  Basically, they wanted people to be able to get into any professional program, regardless of their grades.  This way, everyone would be equally assured of an opportunity to get a good job upon graduation regardless of their natural ability and willingness to work hard in school.  My first instinct was to laugh at the underlying socialist principles that were driving this movement.  But after a little thought, something about the socialist label wasn't really working for me.

Having studied marxism to a certain extent as an economics student, I believe that even a well run socialist dictatorship would have some kind of vocational aptitude testing in order to streamline their education system.  At a young age, citizens would be tested to determine their levels of proficiency towards mathematics or science or sanitation services; future educational opportunities in any particular discipline would only be given to those naturally endowed with the respective ability.  What was being proposed by these students was the ability to basically study whatever interested you regardless of ability or work ethic.  They seemed to want to be able to have their cake and eat it too.  It seems to me that given limited resources, and demand greatly exceeding supply for programs like law and pharmacy; that the only reasonable criteria for choosing who gets into a program and who doesn't would be to choose the hardest working and the brightest.  This group of students seemed to think that having to opportunity to go for free and the only requirement being to possess a minimum level of intellect, or at least being willing to work hard enough to make it appear so, was in fact too much to ask.  So it's too the streets!!!

I struggled as I sat on the fence between really disagreeing with this protest and the fact that most of the people in the crowd seemed like cool, hippy types that I would really want to be friends with.  What a dilemma, but still, it seemed like as good an excuse as any to cut an afternoon of lectures and march in the streets with some friends, singing and shouting and carrying signs.  And yet, the whole event reminded me of some discussions I have been having lately.

Due to the large protests in France last week, the topic of les manifestations has come up in several conversations I have had with young French people.  Opinions very as to their efficacy and willingness to participate as much as anywhere else.  One conversation, I'll be it, with a hair dresser that was giving me a much needed hair cut yesterday yielded an interesting thought.  She asked me if they had protests in Canada and I explained that yes of course we did but in nowhere near the frequency that they did here in France.  She cited a news story that I believe dates back to a WTO protest in the 90's where a couple of protesters were killed by police, or possibly video she saw of riot police tear gassing kids in bandanas...something like that.  She asked if it was because we didn't have the same rights as they did in France.  I resisted the urge to scoff, that their democracy was free'er than ours and thought about the question for a second.  I explained that we had the same right to protest peacefully but that Canadians didn't frequently resort to protesting and I stopped there because I didn't feel I could adequately address the reasons why.  

This brings me to the feedback section of this post.  I am interested to know your thoughts as to why you think that Canadians do not exercise their right to protest regarding the many social issues faced by our society more often.  Is it because we are apathetic, is it because we are lemmings and don't care at all, is it because we have some other forum for public discourse to let the government know what we're thinking?  What do you think?

With Love

Chez Moi, reflections on one month in France.

Tomorrow, marks one month since my arrival in Tours.  First off I would like to apologize for not really blogging all that much since my arrival.  Here is a little description of where I live:

I live on the 3rd floor of a multi-story apartment building and although I take the stairs I always get a chuckle as I enter the building and walk past the two elevators, one for even numbered floors and one for odd numbers.  The accommodations weren't exactly what I was expecting.  In my head I imagined a quaint little apartment in a 15th century building with a view of cobble stone streets cafés and markets close by for grocery shopping.  Instead, what I got looks a lot like Mississagua.  The apartment itself is really nice, it has everything I could need or want and my landlord is fantastic, but more on that later.  My walk to school is about 20 min or a 5 min bus ride depending on how I am feeling that day.  10 min in the other direction takes me to the quaint old world european city I dreamt about before my arrival.  I share an apartment with 2 other international students at ESCEM:

Antoine is 27 and working on his masters at L'université de Sherbrook in Québec.  A native of Montreal, now living in Sherbrook.  He loves to snowboard and loves the sun.

Adam is 22 and working on an undergraduate degree in Quantitative Methods at the Warsaw School of Economics in Poland.  He comes from Upper Sielesia in the South of Poland.  He loves Czech beer and is currently trying to convince me to go splitzies with him on a cheap car so we can go on road trips into Spain and Portugal...any thoughts???

We each have our own rooms and share a bathroom, toilet, common room and kitchen.  I make a distinction between toilet and bathroom because they are two separate rooms.  Perhaps an explanation why the french insist upon making the distinction when you ask où est la toilette s.v.p?

Another defining feature of my apartment is what I have come to call my stoveaundry multi-purpose household appliance.  Yes that's right, its a stove and a washing machine all in one! 

No dryer, as far as I can tell most apartments here don't have dryers.  We hang our clothes on racks that were here when we arrived.  Anyway, I let out a good laugh when I saw it for the first time, but the truth is it is really practical, I can now do my laundry and cook at the same time.  The ultimate domestic timesaver...no comment.  

Another thing I have noticed over the last month is that several times a day I have heard the sound of jets flying very low overhead, and these were not the sound of your typical air france commercial transport jets.  They are the extremely loud screeching cry of a top gunesque fighter jet...Probably taking Tom Cruise himself to some kind of great battle with an evil space alien that has come to take over the planet and enslave the human race...The first time I heard this, it pretty much completely freaked me out, fighter jets...buzzing the apartment buildings...someone better call 'goose!'  Enough kidding aside, the sound of a fighter jet is actually quite frightening, so I turned my head upward the last time I heard the sound, scanning the sky for a glimpse of the weapon of war that may or may not be coming to destroy us, it was a French Armée de l'Air Mirage fighter jet (as I later learned).  Turns out their is a fighter pilot training base just outside of the city of Tours.  You see France being so much more densely populated than Canada, it is pretty much impossible to train an air force without being on top of the civilian population.  Unlike Canada's fighter pilot training centers like CFB Cold Lake, in Alberta, which is in the middle of frickin' nowhere.  Anyway, you get used to it pretty quickly and it isn't really that much of an bother once you know what it is.

Tours is a city of approximately 150 000 people.  I have not been able to find an exact date as to when it was settled but it started to get noticed sometime around 350A.D when St. Martin, the Bishop of Tours started destroying pagan alters and temples and converting people to the Roman Catholic faith.  It is also well known for the Battle of Tours 732A.D when Charles Martel and his infantry stopped an invading Muslim army from North Africa.  The city is home to several religious landmarks including:

The Basilica of St. Martin:

The Basilica is absolutely spectacular inside, it is very dimly lit by a dome skylight (above) and some candles and small lamps.  Under the main pulpit is a crypt.  Not the kind that houses the deceased but rather a smaller church sanctuary where services are held in the winter, the only part of the building that is heated.

And the Cathedral of St. Gatien:

Normally I would try and give you a better picture of the monumental cathedral but it is currently getting a facelift and is decked out with scaffolding.  Also, it has been raining a lot and I haven't done much outdoor photography.  The cathedral is enormous.  It was built between 1170 and 1547...yeah that's right, it took almost 400 years.  Interestingly, a product of the mild winters and logistics the French have abandoned any attempt to heat their old cathedrals.  When you walk in it is usually colder inside than outside.  

Lastly, I would like to introduce you to my extremely kind landlord, M. Tripet.  He has been to Canada several times to visit an old family friend who moved there a number of years ago after finishing seminary.  He loves our country and has promised to show me his photo album from his various trips there.  

Anyway, that is all for now, on Saturday I am finally going to Paris...don't want to get your hopes up but I will hopefully get some good shots and post them here.