Travelogues Retread: The Birth Of A Nation?

I'm not in a mood for creativeness so a handy recycle job. Beside E. McPan asked very nicely for something like this last week and I'll grant her request. Some consider this the best travelogue I ever did simply because of the way I wrote about Notre Dame. I'll let you decide on that.
EDIT: now with higher resolution pics to resolve fuzziness issues.

Bonjour Madames and Monsieurs,

Saturday June 14, 2003

Things have been going relatively well here in the land of cheese and wine. I checked my email a few hours ago and noted that I got replies from many of you so I am quite happy to see that I had a decent workaround to the communication problems of late. Though I was THWARTED by the webmail system as I would click on your messages and the screen would simply refresh. *Deep Sigh* As it's rather hard to call tech support from Lille I hope the problem will be resolved by the time I send this.

Part of the purpose of this class is the experience of being in different counties and our reactions to the differences. I had my revelation this week as I realized that this must be how immigrants to the U.S. feel. Everyone speaks a different language than you, how things work like public transportation or phones don't make any sense to you, the location of needed things are not what you would consider convenient. I am indeed a stranger in a strange land. It is one thing to know that ahead of time, but truly another to live and feel that isolation and confusion.

I feel I'm handling the differences better than some of my classmates. Some simply can't stand the lack of air conditioning in our residence and classroom. As we usually can catch a breeze through the windows I don't find it too bad. Some dislike trying to order lunch during our break. I just pack a homemade sandwich and save the 5 to 7 euros for a field trip souvenir. Lunch is sacred here and something to be enjoyed. That is why the service is what Americans would consider to be slow. Another reason whyI pack the sandwich, we only have one hour for our break and the French pace isn't conducive to that. I enjoyed learning that "CL" stood for Centi-Liters. I guess centiliters are not a useless unit of measurement after all and I'll need to apologize to my high school physics teacher. A can of Coke is 35 centi-liters instead of 12 fluid ounces or 335 milli-liters. The 1.5 liter plastic bottles of pop are easier to shove into our dorm fridge (to keep cold) than a U.S. standard 2 liter. Others consider it a funny shaped bottle. Okay, I'll admit doing laundry by hand does stink, but with a Laundromat 6 tram stops down the line that shouldn't be an issue much longer. I just want to tell these people to relax. We're learning the system and are finding most of the things we really want and need. Just go with the flow and realize that we'll laugh about these experiences in the fall semester.

This week was European Union discussion week in class. Quite topical as the Polish people last week voted to join the EU, this weekend the Czech's have voted to join the EU as well, a rough draft of a EU Constitution was drafted and sent to the member states for discussion, the U.K. decided to not adopt the euro as its money, and the European Union has sent a peacekeeping mission to Congo without any help from NATO or other countries. Though we may not be sure what the European Union is, an economic and trade union or a federation of nation-states or something else, it is definitely becoming a power player of some kind in the world and being here as it happens is quite exciting.

After reading the power structure of the EU I've come to a few conclusions: 1) it's a system that a bureaucrat would love as there are TWO legislative branches and no one PERSON has any position of power. As currently written this is a corporate bureaucracy run amok. 2) It's amiracle anything of importance gets done at all and as it averages 2 years to make any directives/laws. 3) I find it sinister that the one part of the "government" that is directly elected by the people, the EuropeanParliament, has very weak powers in the creation of EU laws/directives (this betrays the beginnings of the EU as a coal and steel economic cooperative) ,and 4) it actually seems to do a decent job of balancing the power of small and medium sized countries against the power of the 4 large ones of Germany, UK,France, and Italy.

Our Thursday (June 12) field trip was to the European Union Commission in Brussels, Belgium. As near as I can tell that building has the best air conditioning in Western Europe. I must have been underneath a vent as I was wearing a t-shirt, long sleeve dress shirt, and thick navy blue blazer and was actually freezing. I'm the man who has no problem wearing shorts in 50 degree weather and my arms were going numb. Our law class was teamed up with a Syracuse poli-sci class for the tour. Our afternoon was free and Belgium is great for Americans. Many in Belgium do understand and speak English, though it's not one of their official languages. Our server at lunch even had an interesting California/British accent.

We found our way to the old Grand Place or Square that Brussels is famous for. Cobblestone streets and freakishly old buildings were everywhere, including a Gothic cathedral, town hall, and hotel. Gargoyles, angel, and spires galore. We just don't see architecture like this in the U.S. even in the old parts of the east coast.

It's quite enjoyable to sample the infamous Belgian chocolate, outdoor cafes with equally infamous Belgian beer, and to pick through some cheesy souvenirs.

It is a 30 minute train trip from Lille to Brussels that would cost 11 euro. Why we rented a bus for the 2 hour road trip is beyond me. Then it tried to break down as we tried to get home. I didn't get all the details, but apparently the cable between the accelerator and the engine broke so we couldn't maintain our speed. Every couple of minutes we needed to pull to the side of the road and the driver would mess with the cable for 5 minutes before we make it a few kilometers down the road and then have to stop again. After the fourth or fifth time, the driver somehow MacGyvered a fork to keep the cable together. I don't know where he got a fork from but we managed to limp into Lille without stopping again so I salute his ingenuity. We got a great surprise when we hit our rooms. The only stations that spoke English were a German station that shows half their news programming in English and MTV music videos. Suddenly we had BBC out of England. Instead of going out Thursday night I think most of us stayed in and watched the BBC. Long live the Queen and her English speaking TV station!

Friday June 13th was back to Paris to see the Council D'eTat (Council of State), the French Supreme Court. It's not like ours, the French have 3 Supreme Courts while we have just the one. They have 15 justices in each court, but only 3 or 5 to 7 hear a case while our's has all 9 justices sitting on a case. Our SC has a case load of not even 200 cases a year and they hear 12,000 a year. One more thing to flip out my legal scholars buddies: no such thing as precedence. These courts could hear the exact same case on two separate days and decide two different ways. The building is across a plaza from The Louvre and is also a former royal palace. Have I mentioned that there are a lot of former royal palaces in Paris? They seem to sprout like mushrooms out here. Once again we get a tour of a building with marble walls, thick rich tapestries, painted scenes on the ceiling, mirrored walls and doors, gold leafing everywhere, and paintings of former kings, philosophers, legal scholars, and some dude named Napoleon.

If Marion County EVER gets the new Justice Center they've been clamoring about for years I'm pretty sure it's not going to look anything like this.



The Orsay Museum is a great way to spend a Friday afternoon. Wonderful works of art in air conditioned comfort on a 90 plus degree day. Why suffer Parisian Heat Stroke like I did last weekend especially since I didn't want to carry a change of clothes in my backpack? The former turn of the 20th Century train station with all the high vaulted glass ceilings houses a huge French Impressionist collection. Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Degas, are all there including the originals of all those posters that are hanging my condo walls. I wonder if French teenagers do their version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off in this museum? Orsay is undergoing renovations, which halved the number of bathrooms. So why am I telling you this, the remaining bathrooms were effectively turned into unisex bathrooms. They tend to bepopular over here. As a group we've treated them as separate bathrooms as we guard the entrance. Luckily no French men have attempted to go in while the ladies were in or I'm sure a cultural misunderstanding would have occurred. As for the Orsay restrooms, sometimes you adapt to other cultures,other times you just bypass the issue.

Here's an important tip for travelers in a foreign city: DON'T RUSH YOURSELF OR YOU'LL GET LOST! Had I taken the time to properly view the maps of the city and the Metro (subway) I might have made it to Sainte Chapelle before it closed. Ste. Chapelle is a beautiful Gothic cathedral that is mostly glass.

It's two blocks from Notre Dame because some king decided to build a cathedral inside his royal palace so he could go to mass in his royal pajamas instead of hiking the two blocks to Notre Dame. Got it built in 6 years instead of the usual 2 centuries to build the typical cathedral. Anyway, I get off on the wrongstop, it doesn't connect to the Metro line I need, and I literally walk in the opposite direction of Notre Dame/Saint Chapelle. I see the spire of Notre Dame and walk into a park with yet another cathedral, that is not Notre Dame like I thought.

Cathedrals also seem to sprout like mushrooms out here. Perhaps I should have played tourist in this unknown cathedral, it seemed nice enough. This is where having two guidebooks, a metro map, and 5 minutes to ponder came in handy. Obviously I figured out where I was or else I brought laptop with me to the park bench I've been sleeping on.

The Tale of Two Worlds

I find my way to Ste. Chapelle, but it's about to close so no new admissions will be let in. Most attractions in Paris close at 6pm F.Y.I. The former palace that Ste. Chapelle is in is currently police headquarters and there was a protest in the square across the street. Reading the signs I couldn't tell if they were protesting for or against the transit strike, police oppression, or were the Illinois Nazis. Every cop in Paris appeared to be here. As I wander around the block our leader waves me down. He and his family are dinning at one of the numerous sidewalk cafes across the street. Our class has numerous wives, husbands, children, significant others, and Scooter the Dog joining us just so you know. We compared notes on our afternoon and I found out the protest was against a violent police response when a transit strike protest got out of hand a few days ago. The prof even picked up the tab on the beer I got and that act alone nominates him for "Coolest Prof. EVER!" award.

As Notre Dame was only 2 blocks away I figured I would walk around it in the setting Parisian sun even though it should have closed an hour earlier.

I arrive and the doors are open, with people going in. The lucky tourists has just wondered into the beginning of a mass at Notre Dame. The 5 story pipe organ was in full glory, the several hundred parisoners were singing hymns, the rich notes resonating throughout 700 year old stone arches, with the lights highlighting the stained glass windows. The cynic in me has seen the world as dark, harsh, grinding, and it's difficult to hold the line against the continual onslaught of tyranny, hate, and injustice that we humans fling so casually at each other. Yet as those hope-filled notes of a better world lift through air and resonate through the ancient transepts I ponder if perhaps I am wrong, and I'm okay with that idea.


On that note I finish this up. A quiet night in to allow my weary, blistered feet to rest has been exactly what I needed. Plus it allows me to have another one of my infamous travelogues that so many of you seem to enjoy. This upcoming week will have visits to Metz, Luxenbourg, Trier, and Strasbourg (a lot of it is classwork, but some is being a tourist) so I'll be on the road for 4 days and hopefully have some cool things to share withyou later. Hopefully I can see what your replies are when I send this out.

Au revoir from Lille,
Brian

"Without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace, but we'd be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we'd be truly dead."