May Week Culture Shock

Last week was (for those who aren't in the know…) "May Week" in Cambridge, a week set aside after exams during which everyone spends their days lazing around in the gardens, punting in the sunshine, drinking pimms or champagne and eating strawberries at multiple garden parties, playing in under-rehearsed but very lively may week concerts, and, most importantly, going to May Balls. Given that this is rather a lot of fun, and, especially, that most of my friends had just finished their finals and so were celebrating the very end of their degrees and their last may week, I decided to return to Cambridge for a few days.
Of course, this also meant I could take half of my stuff (perhaps slightly more than half in reality) back home from France. So on Saturday morning I left the flat in Lyon, with an enormous suitcase weighing a good 30kg and my violin over my shoulder and caught the TGV to Lille. For the two hours from Lyon to Paris Charles de Gaulle I was sat next to a (French) soldier who was on his way to Iraq for three months, and who was looking forward (if somewhat apprehensively) to his 'retirement' in six months' time and wondering what life was going to be like for him back in the real world. He also told me about his weight allowance (35kg) that meant that after his gun (25kg) he could live from 10kg plus his hand luggage. That's a lot less than my 30 (ish) I was taking home!
After that the journey got slightly more boring. I had an hour and a half to waste in Lille Europe waiting for my eurostar, and then sat next to a german lady who was reading her newspaper (in german). Crossing London was hard work, though people were very helpful in giving me a hand getting my case back up the steps out of the underground. All went to plan and at 4pm I was back home just in time to have a brief breather before heading out to the week's first party, which was a bbq (under a makeshift gazebo) for Alastair's birthday. It felt bizarre to be back but lovely to see everyone, in particular Caroline who I hadn't seen for a whole 11 months!
Next morning, church, of course, followed by drinks at the Vicarage where I met Clare, a lovely girl who happens to have sung with Greg (the world is small), and to whom I was able to explain the mystery of the green and red shoes… In the afternoon, Cripps Court garden party, before collecting Mylene from the bus station and eating a quick dinner. We then ventured out again to the Selwyn May Week Concert: typically underrehearsed but sounding excellent for it!
The rest of the week flew by, as expected, in a haze of garden parties, fireworks, choir vegetarian feast, and so forth. On Tuesday evening I went to work at St John's may ball, in the rain, which proved great fun, the highlight undoubtedly being eating chocolate cake at a "birthday party" for Isobel and me in the middle of the night. Thursday came round remarkably soon and I left Mylène to find her friend Katie, and ran off to Stansted with hand luggage only, to arrive in Lyon just in time to go to one of my schools and attend their 'reporting back' evening on our trip to England: the children had clearly missed me so it was a nice welcome 'home'.
The funny thing was, it really did feel like returning home. May week, although endless fun and a great moment to see friends, was the most bizarre culture shock experience I'd had in a long time. I'm sure getting back in the "bubble" long-term will be less strange, but getting back into it, sort of, for a few days, was definitely an odd experience.

Une soirée franco-anglaise

Yesterday I was very kindly invited to dinner with Danielle and Denise, two of the lovely teachers with whom I survived a week of school trip to England, and Denise's family. It's something they'd been hoping to do ever since I finished teaching, and finally we found a good day. The meal included sausage à la Lyonnaise, and a very impressive trifle that Denise had had fun creating , but perhaps the most exciting part was the starter: snails! Despite the slimy reports I'd heard about them…they were actually okay! Just like mussels, without the fishy taste and with lots of garlic and parsley and butter. Mmm. Delicious…as long as you don't think about where they came from!
Here's a pic of me eating them:

It's already June 10th?

Today Claire flew to Mauritius, accompanied (amongst others) by her big new rucksack, and by a friend with a broken rib. Meanwhile, Rebecca, Antonia and I went to Grenoble. Neither so exotic nor so risqué…but very very hot (it felt like we were inside a fan oven in the middle of the afternoon) and thundery. And France-on-a-Sunday-ish. After a wild goose chase to find the tourist office, coffee in a nice café, and a discussion as to how fast the trams went and whether or not a town like Grenoble might have a metro (this was the Parisian point of view…), we went to have a picnic lunch by the museum. After some tasty nibbling, we visited said museum, which was full of fascinating (if poorly explained) art, especially of the C20th variety, and which itself was incredibly well-built with a good layout and excellent natural lighting.
From here, we proceeded a short way back along the Isère as far as the "telephérique": it was at this point that we realised that within the next half hour it would be thundering and chucking it down…so we ascended the hill in our little bubble and had a quick look (and joke) at the 'little' alps we could see around the town (almost all of them higher than snowdon…). We then sheltered in a rather nice café/restaurant for a drink while the rain fell…looked around a rather disappointing astronomical exhibition, and then walked down the hill while the thunder continued to growl menacingly, mid a discussion involving astronauts and priests (!). At the bottom of the hill, after a little looking, we found what we were looking for: the "musée dauphinoise" which is a sociological museum about the area…the first exhibition we looked at (entitled "Les êtres fantastiques") was not particularly spectacular, but the second ("les gens des Alpes") was rather interesting and nicely set out.
Antonia left at this point as she needed to get back to Lyon, while Rebecca and I began our search for somewhere not too crummy, nor too expensive, open and serving food on a Sunday evening. This proved harder than we had initially imagined, but we did in the end find one which served us some nice crêpes.
Our verdict on Grenoble was…nice, but not very special.
Perhaps the most bizarre part of the day came after this though, as on the train home Rebecca was writing some notes ready for a piece she's writing about Lyon (it's to do with a job application, but I won't say more for now…). At this point she was looking for 5 words that sum up Lyon (in English). This was tricky, and so we were thinking out loud about it. The guy who was sitting next to us in the train decided to join in: he lived in Grenoble, but had studied in Lyon so knew it reasonably well. It turned out, during the course of our 1 1/2 hour conversation with him (not *all* about 5 words for Lyon!) that he is a "secouriste en montagne", in other words a mountain rescuer, super-skier, first aider, helicopter dude. We thought for a moment we might be on the way to an invitation to Chamonix…alas, it didn't quite materialise, but it was lots of fun hearing about his job and entertaining him with my crazy theories and rebecca's travel writing. And, as she said afterwards, at least we now know for sure that we'd be in safe hands on the mountains now!

A 7th flatmate…

I forgot to mention that we have a 7th flatmate…that's the kind of thing that happens here!
Rhiannon came to stay last week, it was lovely to see her and to help her discover a bit of Lyon (although what with her french course and the rain we didn't see everything…). Just at the moment she left, we gained a scottish girl. She's a qualified lawyer and teacher in the UK but has dropped everything to come to France, with the intention of learning French and probably staying here permanently. She was working on a boat but that went a bit badly so we're putting her up while she does the job-search and flat-search. Crazy things happen at number 6!

Les Chansons d'Amour

Yesterday we went to see a film. A French film. Entitled Les Chansons d'Amour. It had good reviews and someone (although I can't remember who) was telling me it was good the other day. The verdict was mixed: Mylène liked it, but was a little put off by the "bobo" parisian setting and thought the storyline lacked oomph and the music was too samey. Jeremie seemed a little more enthusiastic although maintained that he'd enjoyed Spiderman more…and I thought it was really Very Good. Perhaps because the fact that it was "very french" didn't put me off!
The film is set in Paris, in the 10eme arrondissement. It follows a young man named Ismael in his relationships, before, and largely after, a very tragic event (telling you more would spoil the effect). It's organised into 3 sections: Le départ, L'absence, Le retour. It is described, in official terms as a "comédie musicale" (a musical) but this is utterly misleading.
The only resemblance it bears to "musical" is the fact that the characters sing at various moments during the film. But there's none of the cheesy clichéd breaking into song that we automatically associate with "musical". The music is, as Mylène pointed out, very samey, but I thought this was part of the beauty of the film.
Enough waffle, I think. Suffice it to say that I thought this an excellent film. Poignant, sad, but very well made. The bad point? Very poor dubbing at the beginning (possibly intentional but it annoyed me anyway).
Watch it! Then tell me what you think…

A wave goodbye

The end of May brought with it the second wave of goodbyes here in Lyon, as Victoria, Claire and Chiara packed their suitcases and headed off back home. It's the end of an era, in many ways, but I know that they'll all be having fun and it won't be long before I see two of them…hopefully all three!
Meanwhile, I have just under a month left here in Lyon, which seems incredibly short! It's hard to believe the year has flown by so quickly, and these last months seem to be by far the quickest. Lots of people keep asking me what I'm up to now that I've finished my teaching job…well, to be honest, it's hard to say! A few cultural things: recent highlights have included the Fabric Museum, the Rake's Progress (Stravinsky) at the Opéra, and a few trips to the cinema. A fair bit of work: my translation project is plodding along, and I need to think about next year as well as prepare my oral exam topic…and a paid translation got in the way of all that last week! A fair bit of time also spent with my friends and flatmates to make the most of our last month in Lyon…and finally, all the faff that is involved with actually being able to leave this country at the end of the month: clearing the flat, changing addresses, etc.
Plenty of my friends back home have been sitting finals–good luck those of you who've not yet finished! It might still seem like I've been doing nothing in comparison…but then at least you don't have to do them next year :p

May: the lucky month

Antonia believes that this month is this year's lucky month. This is largely because she's had her first two articles published, her exhibition opened and visited by lots of people, and her dissertation is making good progress. Pretty good going, it's true!
Until Tuesday I was a little sceptical about this lucky business. For a start, it only seemed to affect Antonia, and secondly it appeared more like the successful end of several big projects than 'luck'.
However, on Tuesday morning I sat down with my dissertation and just as I began to work, my phone rang. I didn't recognise the number, but when I picked up it turned out to be Isabelle, a lovely girl who I happened to meet at a party earlier in the year, who did an Art History degree at the Courthauld, has a boyfriend as English as they come, and is currently working on a master's here in Lyon. When I met her she was looking for a viola player (what a surprise) because she wanted to form a quartet…and it so happened that I knew Rebecca, so I put them in touch with each other and they've been quartetting every week since!
In whatever time she has spare, it turns out that Isabelle also works for a company that make audio- and video-guides for museums. On Tuesday she desperately needed to find someone with the time to translate 70 minutes (14000 words) of French audio-commentary into English…by next Friday! The place in question is a Roman archaeological site in the North of France.
Now, as most of you know, at the end of April and beginning of May I 'deposited' (as the French like to say) 8 or 9 copies of my CV, carefully translated into French, together with wonderfully phrased covering letters (thanks to my flatmates) in various shops and cafés that were advertising job vacancies. Apart from a letter from the tourist office several weeks later simply informing me that they had no job available, I heard not a squeak from anywhere. This is not very surprising, as the French are very insistent on one having a) very specific vocational qualifications b) experience (i.e. 101 internships) and c) lots and lots and lots of motivation that will make you want to go back and nag the place every day for a week until they give you the job, oh and d) perfect 'presentation' which is their way of saying you must be beautiful.
I had pretty much given up, then, on the idea of making my rent money for June and July, or of working in a real French job…but then this came along, out of the blue, from somewhere I'd not even waved my CV past (because I didn't realise it existed…) and it is far more interesting, far better paid, and far more useful to me than any of those other jobs would have been. Hooray!
No sooner had I accepted the job, than I told Antonia. First of all she says, see: May is the lucky month. Then she says, hang on a sec, what's the company's name? And yes, it turns out that the world really is tiny, because the company is run by her Godfather.

In France, as elsewhere, it's not what you know that counts, it's who you know!
(I may disappear for a few days now: 14000 is a lot of words!)

A second 22nd

On Monday I was treated to an official birthday, as if (says she), I were the queen. Well, perhaps not quite that extravagant…but almost! Because my birthday fell in the week when Mymy and Jéjé had their exams, my flatmates decided that we would simply move my birthday to a suitable date later in the year: and that day happened to be last Monday. Unfortunately Max couldn't be there as he was on a 24hr stint at the hospital, but as he made my cake on my real birthday I forgave him ;-). The rest of us went to the Theatre des Celestins to a concert entitled "musique et poésie francaises" given by two Solistes de Lyon (the same singers I had worked with on and off during the year) and musicians from the Orchestre National de Lyon. The programme was very daddy-friendly, and included some wonderful Ravel and Poulenc. It was a lovely concert, although they didn't make as much of the "poésie" side as they could have: it was mentioned in the programme notes, which one can of course read in one's own time, but we weren't even given the printed text of the poems and no-one explained at the time what was interesting about the way they had been chosen/set to music.
After this little cultural morsel we went to get a totally different kind of cultural morsel which came as a total surprise for me. The place? Les Chats Siamois, a little Thai restaurant hidden behind place de la Comédie. Very calm atmosphere without intrusive music, excellent service and most of all absolutely exquisite cuisine. It's expensive as french restaurants go, but it is definitely worth it. We were very impressed. Strongly recommended! Oh and I didn't mention the dessert, hot chocolate and ginger cake…mmm.

Les Berges du Rhône

When I arrived in Lyon at the beginning of the year, the area on the other side of the Pont de la Guillotière, on the East side of the Rhône, was an enormous building site. What I didn't quite grasp when my flatmates were explaining that this was in aid of smartening the area up, was that previously, the banks of the Rhône had just been one big car park, and that now they were making a big effort to transform them into something nice (which, incidentally, Lyon badly needed as it lacks recreational green space in the centre). Ten days ago the work all finished and the Berges officially re-opened to the public, with two weekends of entertainment to get the people enjoying themselves along the river. And they're great. Each section of the river bank is named after an important woman (the nearest to my house is Marie Curie), and there are pretty boats, lawns, flowers, a stream-cum-paddling-area, climbing frames for children, roller-blading/bike paths, pretty lights in the evening, sitting space and so forth. Yesterday we went and sat on an area of decking and had a picnic. Very pleasant indeed. Well done Lyon.

Les Nuits Sonores et La Nuit des Musées

The last few days have been full of the crazy kind of event that I have only encountered in Lyon. The first of these (which is also the reason for a mass bike exodus late last night), is called the "nuits sonores", and involved about four nights of electro music all over the town. And not in particular venues: just in the street, dotted around the place all over Lyon, there were little temporary stages, and the whole place was taken over by a hoard of festival-groupies. Crazy, but fun!
The second is called "La nuit des Musées". It happens once a year. All (or rather, several) of the bigger museums in Lyon stay open all evening and, furthermore, are free (for a change). We went for a wander round the Musée des Beaux Arts, it was full of people and a lovely atmosphere, and there were students wandering round explaining various of the paintings, and I think also a few pieces of student artwork dotted around here and there. A very good idea!
While we're on the topic of "les nuits…", there will be "Les nuits de Fourvière" starting in June and going through til August I believe, which is a music festival taking place up on the hill. We'll see what that brings in the way of fun…

Les Velo'v

At the beginning of the month my bicycle plans were proving difficult because of the rain. Now everyone is using the bikes, which is proving almost equally difficult. This morning I went to seven stations on the way to church all of which were empty (so I walked all the way), and I went to five empty stations (different ones) on the way home, so ended up walking back too. ALL the bikes had gone from the centre of Lyon. Now I know why that is (post thereupon to follow…) but that doesn't make it any less annoying!

Commerce Equitable

For the uninitiated, that's the French for fair trade. This week I went for the first time to volunteer as a waitress at a café in the 7eme, that is a tiny fair trade place. Great fun: will be doing more of that. Meanwhile I learnt that although France has lots of (ex-) colonies in Africa from which it ought to be sourcing lots of lovely fair trade things, all of these are under the monopoly of fat French companies who don't allow fair trade a look-in and so all that is fair trade comes only from the english half of Africa. As a result, fair trade is not nearly as big or as popular here as chez nous, and these kinds of places have to fight really hard to exist.
How silly.

Didon et Enee

I've mentioned to some of you that I was helping out with my lycée's production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas this year, at first by singing (and attempting to correct the choir's awful English), and later by playing the violin (and attempting to introduce some concept of 'baroque' to their playing). The performance, with dancers, costumes, 'thunder' sound effects and all, was on Wednesday. It was okay. The soloists, especially Dido, the sailor and the two witches, were fantastic. The dancing was good. The choir was decent if a little lacking in oomph at times, the orchestra got the right notes in the right places and the continuo put on a good show, so all in all, everything was very good standard for what was, after all, a school production. Comments were flowing in very favourably at the end. *Phew*.

Further than beyond…

Yesterday I went on a choir jolly. Well, not quite just a jolly because it did involve a concert. Anyway, it was at Banne, which is a little village lost in what is apparently actually the middle of nowhere (if what we saw on the way was anything to go by). In the last village we went through before arriving, the three old men sitting in the village square looked like they hadn't seen a coach for at least 25 years.
Although Banne is in Ardeche, which is a region that begins not far south of here, it is in the south of Ardeche and there are no good roads, in fact, there is nothing in Ardeche except vineyards and campsites, so it took us 4 hours to get there in our coach. This was rather dull, especially as Keegan, whom I was sitting next to, has a strong dislike for being cooped up in a bus, and as a result commentates the passing of the minutes…aaah, it was joyous. That said, the countryside was very pretty and the place where we arrived, that being the Château de Bannes, or at least its stables, which are most of what's left of it (it was destroyed apres the revolution on the grounds that it was a kind of royalist idea), was magnificent. The stable block had been temporarily re-fitted into concert venue, although no-one had de-cobwebbed, de-stalactited, or even made an effort to even out the floor. After a very delicious buffet supper (someone in the organising team for that choir gets a good deal for us every time!) we gave our concert, which was a collection of spanish polyphony including the 14th century Livre Vermeil de Monserrat, a Victoria magnificat, some silly spanish songs from the 15th cent, and various other bits and bobs. It was a lovely collection of music, and we were accompanied rather spectacularly by an early music ensemble who also gave a wee explanation of their instruments–fascinating :-) That said, we sang most of the programme far too loud (perennial problem of almost all choirs I've been in, but also this was not the right music for a 50-strong choir…), and it's a good job my sister wasn't there, as there were bats in the stables.
Some snapshots of the pretty countryside, along with the obligatory choir-on-the-bus photos can be found at The back end of nowhere
And with that, the end of my year singing with the Choeurs de Lyon Bernard Tetu/Choeur d'Oratorio de Lyon, as I'm missing out on their last concert, Poulenc Stabat Mater, in order to be back in Cambridge for May Week. It's been a good year. I've sung lots of lovely music, visited some places I certainly wouldn't have otherwise, sung in the Lyon Auditorium, learnt lots of things about France, music in France, etc, eaten lots of good French food, met lots of interesting people and made some lovely friends. It's gone very quickly, but it certainly made a good interlude in my Selwyn career.

Amandine

Here's a story I forgot to write up here. It was very movingly told by a young father who goes to lyon anglican church, when i was there with Mymy on Easter Sunday. His name is David and he works in a village outside Lyon (there are a few details that I don't know–like what he does there–but they are not important for the story).
In this village lives a family with a young daughter (age 4 if I remember rightly) named Amandine. One day in March, Amandine was hit by a car (more details missing) and suffered head injuries. She was taken into intensive care, where she remained in a coma. Two weeks later, the doctors at the hospital took her parents aside and explained that it was time to consider switching off the machine: Amandine was brain-dead, she wasn't going to wake up. And yet her parents kept hoping, and everyone kept praying for little Amandine.
In week 3, in her coma, Amandine shed a tear.
The doctors said this was impossible: the part of the brain that controls the tear glands was long since utterly inactive. But Amandine proved them wrong. She woke up, she can now walk and talk a little and is on the way to making as full a recovery as one could hope.

Is that a miracle, or does it just demonstrate the limitations of modern medical science?

After three weeks, where did that tear come from? Why a single tear? What made Amandine capable of 'resurrection'?
These are questions I want to ask–we all do– but I think (those who were in the Ignatian group with me a few years back will understand the formulation I use!) that the question we should ask first and foremost is Where were God in this?
Some, including many of the people who were following Amandine's condition and praying for her recovery, explain it as entirely God's healing. They can't all explain all the why and the how– but they know that this time, their prayer was answered, and they trust that God has a why and a wherefore, that's part of their faith in Him.
Others believe God has no part in Amandine's recovery, and that we can't put scientific anomalies or dilemmas down to faith or miracle. Perhaps you believe that in a number of years medicine will be advanced enough to explain Amandine's case, and perhaps even to repeat it?
Some, of course, aren't quite sure what to think.

Fair enough–but put yourself in Amandine's shoes in a few years' time, and give it some thought. None of us have all the answers, but I'd be interested to hear what you think.

The hazards of Lyon

Today I encountered the worst case this year of one of Lyon's speciality hazards: pollen. It's a very windy day and the horse chestnut trees that grow all over the city, especially along the banks of the Rhone, are just at the right moment to be losing ALL their fluff. This fluff is not at all soft and fluffy when it is flying into your face, and quite apart from ensuring that you arrive at your destination utterly streaming with hayfever, it also prevents you from being able to see where you're going on a bike, which is sort of dangerous. If only I hadn't already sent my ski goggles back home…

and continue?

Tonight all is calm in Bellecour, but Jeremie and I just went to the kitchen to get a drink and happened to look out of the window. There were six minibuses of CRS and one unmarked police car, the men themselves were mostly just standing around doing nothing. At a certain moment, the boss gave the thumbs up and they all jumped into their buses and raced off with sirens blaring and lights flashing. My judgement is that they were lurking here for a reason: problems in Place des Terreaux methinks.

And continue…

I haven't yet got the pics Jérémie took this evening but will post one or two when I do. Second day, he's not even officially the president yet…but this lunchtime I went to school for a rehearsal and a bunch of students were making enough fuss in the road outside that it had been closed off. And this evening about 150 people were causing a certain amount of havoc (less than yesterday, however) in the form of a protest up our road, and the riot police arrive and chuck their bombs at the crowd who all run away very fast, like lemmings (hilarious to watch and very effective: we understood why when it came in through our windows…). Road closed for about an hour afterwards but nothing very dramatic. That said, we're sat here with the windows open now to get some fresh air in as our flat is still full of tear gas (we had the windows open to watch what was going on at the moment they let the bombs off…)!
This France is exciting, but what kind of chaos will ensue when something actually changes?!

And the riots begin…

Here are the photos I took from our flat window last night: unfortunately you can only see police and not much of the actual action. For that, you'll get a better idea at video of bellecour manif

According to the papers 367 cars were set alight and over 150 people arrested in France (as a whole) last night. And Sarkozy doesn't even become president until May 16th…

Update

My road is closed, and occupied by numerous police vans and an army of riot police. The riots to which they refer are in Bellecour. It is exciting and involves tear gas and gunshots. Jeremy is home safely and we are celebrating his birthday!
Photographic reportage to follow…