History Lesson

This past week it has been absolutely miserable out; I’m talking constant grey drizzle and nagging winds.  To make matters worse, this town (and country, actually) is a bit sleepy to begin with, so with the addition of bad weather, EVERYTHING shuts down early, like before 6.  Thus a lot of my time (same goes for the people in the rest of the group here) has been used by taking advantage of the forced down time-eating lots, going to the weight room, and deep slumbering (I’m on the verge of going into polar-bear hibernation stage, I’m afraid).  

As far as my internship is concerned, I’m STILL getting used to the work mentality here.  Unlike in the states, a person’s professional life is very much separate from their personal life.  So from what I’ve observed, people don’t really get into work (at least at INSA, the scientific lab I’m working in) until 9:30 or 10, take their lunch break from 12 to 2, and then leave work sometime around 4.  Talk about a day, huh?  The project I’m working on is really interesting but also a little frustrating.  I’m taking photos of old artifacts and then turning them into scaled, 3D replicas using complex computer software.   It’s a lot of trial-and-error since I’ve never really done this before, and since people’s work days are so light, it’s often hard to find a professor to help me when I have questions about the software.  However, I’m learning everyday, and the work is not SO demanding, so I still have plenty of time to go explore the city after work before dinner!  We were also granted temporary student cards to be able to have huge discounts at the student cafeteria, which has been great as a money saver (plus, compared to The Diner food, who can complain?)

Yesterday was “un jour ferié” (a public holiday) due to “l’ascension,” a catholic holiday.  Thus I took advantage of my day off by visiting as many museums as I could!  Museums here are not things of grandeur; rather, they are old homes or even palaces converted into museums.  Typically there aren’t huge galleries or anything, but winding staircases and hidden rooms with artifacts stuffed in every free corner imaginable.  It’s kinda cool to think about, actually.  Smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood, you can enter a normal-looking home that actually houses priceless impressionist artwork from Monet, beautiful and intricate old-style Alsatian gowns, or archeological pottery unearthed from hundreds of years back.  We ended up visiting upwards of SEVEN museums, and all for free, since we were students!  I had two favorites: one was the historical Alsatian museum, where I got to try on some parts to a suit of armor (good god, you CANNOT BREATHE in those things!!) and see a full-scale model of the entire town.  The other was the Musée des Beaux-Arts, which I’ve learned to appreciate thanks to Madame and her French V AP class. (Shout-out to Madame; I spent SO much time there looking at neoclassical artwork (le clair et l’obscur!) and even found a bunch of impressionistic paintings and Pointillism by Sisley… but this museum was weird in that they didn’t organize the paintings by type or era, but instead organized it by what was in the actual picture.  So there was this whole section called “Le Paysage,” which was just this humble-jumble of different styles of paintings of the countryside, whether they be impressionistic, realistic, classical, etc.  I’m not sure I liked it that way)

The most humbling part of my day (as is per usual) was my dinner with my host mom.  I could not be more grateful for the host family I was given; this woman really goes out of her way to make me feel at home, whether it means cooking HUGE meals (that have so far all been very good and all different from one another) or even doing my laundry, which apparently is not typical of an exchange program.  And though she doesn’t eat in the evenings, she always joins me at the dinner table to ask me about my day.  Yesterday I found out the most interesting stories from her.  After I told her how I had visited the cathedral in the morning and sat through part of the Ascension service, she spoke of how she was raised Catholic but now doesn’t label her religion, only states that she has faith in God.  She tied her reasoning in with her fear of religious wars and her love for peace between religions (my how she loves soaking in different points of view and different cultures!).  She continued to tell me about her childhood, growing up in France amidst the chaos of WWII.  It was a very sobering conversation, with her speaking of her town being “bombarded” into devastation, and her family being so poor that they were reduced to eating domestic cats (which her parents disguised as roasted rabbit, to preserve her innocence) to survive.  It was incredible just sitting there listening to her, for she is truly “une femme qui connaît bien son pays.”

Today’s agenda: work, planning for a weekend trip to Spain (woo!), and tonight, going to see an Opera! Très chic, non?