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.