Briancon

This is actually La Clusaz. I haven't really taken or uploaded any pictures from here yet.

Well, I'm sitting on my bed in the loft of the chalet. No way they built this room with a 5'10” person in mind. Agathe and I are sharing it. Not gonna lie, this week is already the kind of adventure you enjoy remembering a lot more than you enjoy being on it.

I took the train down to Ardeche on Thursday. I love Ardeche. Anne picked me up at the station around 1:00 and after lunch an intense game of tag where I was it with the kids we went to one of the cities dating from the 1100's for a walk. The weather was in the 60's and with the sun out we got pretty hot walking around. I was given the same room with a queen sized bed. The room also entails a salle de bain.

If you don't know what a salle de bain is let me enlighten you. Before I came to Paris I knew that there was something odd about the bathrooms but I never was really clear on what until I experienced it at the house in Ardeche. At the Bonnailies there are regular bathrooms and half baths and it's all very normal. Well it's not quite like that in Ardeche. I will never understand how in the separation of bathroom elements they ended up with what they call a salle de bain and a W.C.. In the salle de bain there is everything you could want in a bathroom...except the toilet. In a W.C. there is nothing you want in a bathroom.....except a toilet. There really is nothing in this but a toilet. No mirror, no trash can, and most importantly, no sink. It's rediculous. Why would I want a sink in a bathroom solely for showering? This can only promote bad hand washing habits.

So now that I have that out of the way; I had a salle de bain and everyone sort of shares one or two toilets. It's so weird, I can't get my head around it. Usually there are more toilets than showers but that is not the case here. Anyway, we left Ardeche to drive roughly four hours to a ski resort near Briancon. Well, that four hour plan rested on a pass remaining open. Because that pass didn't stay open we went instead on a eight hour trip. The view was beautiful...especially when I was trying to maneuver the stick around the tightest mountain curvy roads I've ever seen. Yeah, I drove a couple of those hours. I hope if I'm doing any of the driving back to Paris it will be in the daylight hours.

We arrived at the chalet at around five and met the family we're staying with. I've met them before. They have four kids and are pretty cool. The thing is, that many people in a little place can get pretty hectic. My strategy is to just sit with a book and by drawing little attention I can also minimize the participation. Not that I don't participate, I just happen to be staying in the coolest room in the chalet so there is no place to go to get away from all the craziness. AND the internet is only by cable and someone else has pretty much monopolized that from the first moment. I was welcome to check my email but those keyboards are kind of terrible.

My first lesson was really nice. It's an English class and everyone is really English. I'm the only non-English one. It was snowing and really foggy so the long ski trail/slope down the mountain was beautiful. I'm really happy with the ski part of this trip so far. Family issues and the length of this trip have rendered other parts of it a little difficult but it will be good and when we get back things will all settle down.

Strasbourg!!

A Strasbourg Quai
Cathedrale de Notre-Dame
Sarah and I on our boat tour


For the Valentines Day weekend Sarah and I took the train to Strasbourg. It was nice to get away from Paris and see something different. Before I left Anne told me that it's really cold in Eastern France and advised me to bring this massive coat that she leant me a while ago but that I only wear on the rarest occasions. I feel like a New Yorker in a not good way when I wear this coat. It's pretty much like a sleeping bag. But I was at least happy to be warm.

We left early Saturday morning and took the train out. Lately it's been snowing fairly often in Paris but as we were leaving the city we saw that there was a light snow all the way. Fortunately Strasbourg is well suited to snow and there was lots of vin chaud to be had(pretty much mulled wine--incredibly tasty but not so good if you haven't had anything to eat). We dropped our bags at our hostel and went wandering around the cobble stone streets that were absolutely adorable. It was cold but we ducked into churches, museums, patisseries and souvenir shops to warm up.

Strasbourg is right next to the German border and is in the northern part of the French region Alsace. Alsace has hopped across the border a few times and I think was last in Germanys possession(except for a few years during WWII) before WWI. There is a dialect of German called Alsatian that is spoken there but everyone we spoke to also spoke French if only a little. Strasbourg is small and academic and full of hte most beautiful churches(Catholic and Protestant). The Cathedrale Notre-Dame was by far the most beautiful cathdrale I've seen.

The city was so small that it took no more than fifteen minutes to walk from our hostel and the trans station into the center of everything. On Saturday we went into a few churches and walked around Petite France. One of our main plans was to eat lots of hearty Alsatian dishes. We began that for lunch on Saturday. We had an onion tarte and then Sarah got Choucroute which is sausages, ham and lots of saurkraut with potatoes. I got the chicken with reisling with fried noodles. It took us about two and a half hours and we were so full that we only ate an apple for dinner. We went to an Alsatian museum after lunch tat was set up like a traditional Alsatian house and had courtyards, wne cellar, wood working shop and much more.

On Sunday we got up and walked around some more buying a couple souvenirs before taking a boat tour. We then went to a museum of mediaval art before walking around until dinner. We got the Alsatian escagot and I had tourte vigneronne.

So it was absolutely beautiful(if freezing) and we both want to go to Germany and study German and walk by Notre-Dame(strasbourg) everyday.

Family and skiing

Liz, Sarah and I at the Arc de Triomphe. Pretty sure Liz didn't know what was going on.


I went to church yesterday for the first time in three weeks. It'd been too long. Weekend traveling kind of compromises my church attendance and thus a large part of my social life. Unfortunately about half way through I developed a splitting headache. I went to late lunch with a few friends anyway and made it home and straight into bed.

Yesterday was somewhat of an emotional roller coaster. Before leaving for church I witnessed a complete breakdown that made me feel helpless and insufficiently sympathetic. I've seen enough family dramas from afar but I've never been close enough to understand whats going on and why it is. I don't know if you can be close enough to see those things but I know that being in the middle of it is heartbreaking and confusing.

One of the most difficult things is that for the msot part, outside of practicalities, whats going on in the marraige is not talked about and I haven't been given details or reasons or even seen any of the conflicts. But the control with which the situation was presented to me, the control I thought would probably last because I couldn't see them letting their personal issues interfere with the kids or with my job, is now starting to fall apart. It's alarming and difficult.

If you're wondering, I don't have any opinions about who's in the wrong or how it's being dealt with or any of that. I just want everyone to be happy and I hope that means everyone being together but I'm not sure if it does. And I find myself questioning what my role is here. I know I'm more than just someone who works here but in the end that is what I am, as I will be passing through and I'm paid for my time. But this is my family also, I live with them, I'm as much a part of their lives as they are of mine. This widening chasm in the family effects me largely even if it doesn't drastically effect my job and my duties. It also makes me wonder on a more cosmic level what my purpose is here. I've wondered this before; or more like I haven't stopped wondering that since the moment I got here. If my purpose has something to do with this circumstance I feel gravely inadequate for it.

But to move on to other things; I mentioned my skiing trip in my last(too long ago) post. At the time I wasn't really considering skiing again anytime in the foreseeable future but recent events have landed me in the family ski trip that lasts---a whole week. I have feelings of ambivalence about this. I'm relieved to know that my lessons(daily) will now be in English. I guess the reasoning behind that was if I wanted to spend time with other skiiers they would also speak English. But then there's just the whole skiing thing which in and of itself is hard for me to have a defined opinion of. I'd like to like it and I'm not sure that I don't but I'm pretty sure I'd like it more if I were good at it. Then there's the possibility that I won't own my life at all while I'm on vacation with the family for a whole week. To be fair I've always been given a choice of what to do and as much space as possible but a whole week is a long time for a chronic hermit such as myself. Not only that but there is also the fact that another family will be with us. They have four children(in the same chalet) and only speak french. So what I mean to say is that it will be awesome and I'm going to grow a lot as a person. This is a hard thing and I'm going to do it. I like to challenge myself. I know...my life is so cushy.

In other traveling news I'm going to Strasbourg next weekend. Strasbourg is near the German border and we'll be taking the train. I love the train.

Happy week!