Adventures in Brittany

Because my sojourn in France was extended a week thanks to my friends at the Chinese consulate, I decided to take a trip to Brittany to see the northern coast of France. After painstaking research (read: glancing at Wikipedia pages and blindly trusting passing comments of friends), I decided to spend two nights in Saint-Malo and take a day trip to Mont Saint-Michel. The main things to see at Saint-Malo are the intra-muros, the walled-in historical old town, and the numerous defense forts on surrounding islands. Mont Saint-Michel is a city constructed on a small tidal island, whose main attraction is the monastic abbey crowning the mount.

Pros:

- Mont St-Michel is possibly the coolest place I have ever been. I was seriously awestruck.

- Gorgeous views of the coast from the walls of Saint-Malo.

- Walking along the beach at sunset.

- Amazing seafood. Brittany oysters are delicious.

- Met an awesome Korean girl studying in Paris in my hostel. Both traveling alone, we decided to spend my last day exploring the city together. Long conversations about religion, racism, food. We spoke French the whole time, our only common language. We woke each other up in the middle of the night because we both talk in our sleep; me in English, her in Korean.

- Solitude.

Cons:

- The SHITTY SHITTY WEATHER. It rained almost the entire time and was freezing cold. And when I say rain, I mean pouring, pants drenched, shoes squeaking.

- Saint-Malo was cool, but it's very small and two nights ended up being a little long. Then again, I could easily have spent three days lying on the beach if it weren't raining the whole time...

- Solitude.

Also because I am lazy, here is an excerpt from my journal dated 6/9/09:

It's almost 8:30 and I'm waiting for the sun to set, armed with Kundera and my favorite Cal sweatshirt and my Nikon. The skies aren't quite clear - Mont Saint-Michel was beautiful today, but Saint-Malo continues to be grey and overcast. Still, in the distance, sunlight is pouring into the ocean through an oculous in the clouds. The diagonals of light are so beautiful that I think they must be the product of some sorcery. The beaches have cleared; just an hour ago the stone pathway above the sand was filled with joggers, families, skipping dogs. It must be dinnertime.

Mont Saint-Michel was stunning. I'd seen plenty of photos and postcards, but on the bus approaching the island, I gasped when I caught sight of it. The abbey spires tower over rows and rows of stone walls, like an Atlantis before its sinking. What a mystery that something like this exists in nature, and what a miracle that man constructed a city on top of it.

I was worried I wouldn't have enough time to properly explore it, having only four hours between buses. It turned out to be plenty of time - the island is small and the uphill paths are well-guided - but I still wish I had been able to stay long enough to see the city lit up at night.

Much of Mont Saint-Michel was extremely touristy. The main avenue was lined with souvenir shops, almost all of them toting signs in Japanese (not for naught - throngs of Asian tourists with cameras around their necks crowded the streets). Still, I was able to find a few peaceful moments away from the crowds, some with astonishing views.

(The beach is quite deserted now, the tide almost swallowing the cliff of rocks I was sitting on just an hour before. I keep putting away and taking out my camera because the scene before me is changing every minute to something more beautiful than the one before).

The view from the top of the abbey at MSM was so breathtaking partly because there were so many different landscapes to look at - the muddy bay with streams of sea water fingering their way through the dense, grey sand, the green pastures littered with rows of leafy trees, low white clouds hanging in a straight line just barely above, and then the ocean, wide and expansive, Normandy cliffs barely visible in the distance.

The abbey itself was formidable. I'm not generally a fan of Romanesque architecture, it all feels so heavy and oppressive, but I couldn't help being impressed by the massive stone columns in the crypts holding up wide, vaulted ceilings. The cloisters were beautiful too, turning their way around a garden planted with roses.

(The clouds are receding towards the ocean now, and patches of clear blue sky are finally visible under the clouds. This sunset will be beautiful).

Perhaps the most interesting part of the day was walking through the bay. Despite the warning signs about quicksand and death, groups of children running around it reassured me that there wouldn't be a problem. For the most part my trek was fine save for a few spots of mud splattering on my feet. Towards the end, though, I hit a patch of wet sand and there was no way around but through. So I stepped in...ankle deep. And then another step. And another. My feet and shoes were covered in mud by the time I made my way out, and I had no water to rinse them off with. Let's just say...awkward bus ride home with a lot of weird stares.

Still, there were magical moments on the bay. The sun kept playing hide and seek behind the clouds, and at one point was making its reappearance after a particularly long absence. Across the flatness of the bay and the fields beyond it, shadows of the fleeing clouds scampered swiftly away, chased by the wind. I felt like I was watching an episode of Planet Earth on high speed. The flatness of the land meant that I could trace the shadows of the clouds that were once above my head all the way to the horizon.

I think I almost prefer this semi-dreary, quasi-tumultuous, often-grey type of beach town in Brittany to the sunny Californian variety, all filled with palm trees and girls in skittle-colored bikinis. Other than the rainstorms, which I could do without, I love everything about it - the sad cries of seagulls overhead, the scent of seaweed and crustaceans in the air, the waves crashing without pause onto an empty beach, the steadfast fortresses and silent stone walls coldly standing guard against the ocean.

(The sky is almost completely blue now. By the time the sun dips below the horizon there will be nothing between us).

Two families, two homes

My dad has a business meeting in Amsterdam this week, so my mom tagged along his trip and both of them are spending the weekend in Bordeaux. My dad came with 2 cameras, 4 lenses, and a tripod. My mom brought her Nikon D90. I walked through the streets of Bordeaux today with them, D80 SLR in hand. We looked like a band of runaway photographer circus freaks. And I loved it.

As I write, my parents are napping in my bed next to me, passed out after a long French lunch at my homestay and jetlag from hours of travel. It has been so nice showing them around the city, and I love that they can have a small glimpse into what my life is like here, which is so different from any place they've ever lived. My host mom made a delicious meal of beef bourguignon, a very traditional French dish, with potatoes and bacon-wrapped green beans. We finished with French vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries. The meal was delicious, but the best part was watching my parents share stories and champagne with my host mom and my host sisters, while we all clustered around the same table I eat dinner at every night. My dad made corny jokes that my host mom laughed at - it was all perfect.

It's funny trying to see Bordeaux through a tourist's eyes again. When I first arrived, the architecture and buildings here were awe-inspiring, and I remember having conversations with French people about how beautiful this city is and being scandalized that as residents, they couldn't see it anymore. I could never have imagined looking around Bordeaux and finding everything "regular," or getting used to sweeping monuments and towering church spires. After five months here though, I can see where they're coming from. But now, I no longer see it as a lack of appreciation. Aesthetically I still find everything beautiful, but there's a comfort in the fact that I no longer get whiplash from craning my head to look around me. I don't do that anymore because this has all become part of my life. Bordeaux is my home.

Blogging on the road

This is going to be quick because I'm using the hostel computer and I don't want to be obnoxious. I'm now in Prague. Tiffany is sleeping upstairs, Alexa, Laura and Emily are out getting Czech beer. I was dead tired a while ago but now wide awake, so here I am - blogging.

London was amazing, even though we had entirely too little time there. I'd been there before though, so we took a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath. Bath was beautiful; Stonehenge was a pile of rocks. A mysterious pile of rocks, yes...but still a pile of rocks. It took a while to get used to the fact that I could go up to strangers and speak English to them without seeming obnoxious.

Being in Prague is something else entirely. We arrived late in the evening and it took us a while to get downtown with public transportation. By the time we got to Old Town Square it was already dark out, but I'm glad we got a chance to see the nightscape because the architecture here is stunning. There are so many different styles right next to each other, it's dizzying. We're definitely in the touristy heart of things but I'm looking forward to venturing off the beaten path after we find our way around a bit.

It's extremely exciting being in a city where you don't understand anything. Even though almost everyone here speaks English (helpful but disconcerting), there's still something very novel about being in a place where you can't read any of the signs and where you have to figure out everything on your own as you go along. I've learned the words for "Hello," "Speak English?" and "Thank you," and am hoping I'll have enough balls to bust them out once in a while instead of just hopping straight to English. Everyone I'm on this trip with has traveled a lot in the past, but this is my first time staying in a hostel, one of my first times out of France (if you don't count St. Sebastian, which is right on the border). I'm thrilled to be out in the world, finding things out for myself.

This was probably totally incoherent but I don't care. Life is wonderful.

Cobblestones and wine

Click for full-size images.

Yesterday I literally spent the whole fucking day on Facebook, because everyone and their mom, myself included, decided to put up photos from Bordeaux, and I needed to be supervigilant as bar-dancing pictures were uploaded and I had to protect my pristine reputation. 

The reason all the pictures went up yesterday is because we spent a beautiful Saturday at Saint-Emilion, a small town near Bordeaux famous for its wine. 

The town was lovely. I'm really glad we got to go during the off season because the streets were nearly empty, and my host mom told me later that during the summer there are people everywhere. The town was the definition of a quaint European village, with towering church spires and cobblestone roads laid during the 12th century. Extremely steep and potentially death-inducing cobblestone roads. We took a tour through the church's catacombs - it's the deepest underground church in Europe (or something equally impressive) and carved out of the side of a mountain. It was also cold as hell inside the buildings. I'm far from a fan of Romanesque architecture (too heavy and depressing), but it's hard not be be impressed by the sheer size of the buildings and the intricate paths underground. The day had been a bit gloomy, which was making for shitty photographs, but then the sun finally came out and it was glorious glorious glorious. 

After a historical tour of the city, we hopped back on the bus and drove to a winery not far away. I was a little surprised because it was extremely modern and indistrial, and not at all what you'd picture a traditional winery to be - no barefoot men stomping grapes (thank god) or dark stone caverns. Everything was steel and shiny. There were, however, barrels and barrels of wine at the end of the tour. 

You could smell it all around you, which no one was complaining about. At the end, we had an informal tasting of two wines. I would have felt pretentious but for all of us scarfing the stuff down like alcoholic and uncultured American college students. Oh wait, that's exactly what we are. At the end of the tour almost everyone bought some wine for themselves and their host families. I had no idea what I was doing, but I liked the second wine we tried so I picked up a bottle of that for my host mom. She promised to break it out for the next big meal.

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A cafe in front of the church bell tower in St. Em. I love this photo for some reason. It just screams Europe to me. Sometimes after a day spent speaking English with fellow Californians, I forget that I'm here, but suddenly I'll be surrounded by waves of French on the tram or I'll see something like this, and then I feel so lucky to be in this place where everything is beautiful.