La route des vins d'Alsace

J made the statement early on today: "We could not have picked a better day for this." "This" was our bike trip from Seléstat to Colmar, along La route des vins d'Alsace, and he was completely right.

We woke up at 7, in time for a lovely breakfast at the hotel, then pedalled over to the train station, where we boarded our train for Seléstat, a town about 20 minutes south of Strasbourg. We quickly happened upon two locals who were able to direct us to une piste cyclable, a bicycle route, but their expertise was not the best part of the interaction. The coolest part, for me, was that they spoke Alsatian, a mixture of French and German that is the regional dialect. They spoke to me in French (in which I have regained my confidence, the product of many sustained conversations during the days I was by myself, as well as a few well-placed compliments), but would consult with each other in a language I kind of understood, but mostly did not. I was so happy I got the chance to hear it.

Then J and I were on our way, zooming through acres and acres of vinyards, corn, and sunflowers. We stopped in Bergheim around 11 to have a degustation with a lovely man, who inherited his vinyard and winery from his father. Three sweet sips of white wine later, we got back on the road with a bottle of our favorite in my basket. We wandered through Ribeauvillé, and then headed up into the foothills, where the biking got a little harder, but the views got even more impressive. We finally hit the brakes in Colmar around 4, unable to believe how beautiful the entire ride had been. Between our aching quads and the bottle of white that we neatly put away while sitting under various trellises and sprawled on lawns through the trip, we we able to soundly sleep slumped-over in our seats on the train home. Now we have showered away our grime, and eaten a serious dinner, and are calling it a night. Another early wake-up call tomorrow, for our 7 am train to Caen!

Deux étoiles, minimum

Sitting in the lobby of the THREE star hotel that J and I have decided upon for our stay in Strasbourg, France's most German city. I am supremely content with these accomodations, which are a departure from our original plan, and respresent the second time this week that I've privileged cleanliness over cost. While travelling alone, it made sense to stay in hostels (and I found one EXCELLENT one in Marseille, called Vertigo), since I was often able to meet and hang with people there. However, now that J and I have met up, we've made a collective decision to direct some funding towards pristine accomodations.

One change of plans from earlier this week, which also landed me a sweet spot to sleep, was a trip to Dijon. I spent less than 24 hours there, but enjoyed a good run in one of the several parks, as well as an afternoon at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, where I fell hard for an artist named Picquart, whose style reminded me of Chagall in form and Gauguin in color. From Dijon (where, by the way, I did make a point of buying mustard), I made my way to Paris to meet up with J and a friend of his.

Now we are enjoying the very different feel of Strasbourg and are excited for a day-long bicycle trip tomorrow, from Sélestat south through Haut-Rhin to Colmar, along La Route des Vin, or the Wine Road. We are also planning a foray into French cinema tonight, and are looking forward to testing our comprehension skills with a movie called Le premier qui l'a dit, or The first one who said it. Neither of us cares too much about the plot, which may end up being a good thing!

Cuisine courage

I'm rounding out my time by myself, which has been a circuit between the three largest cities in France, with a trip to Lyon, about halfway between Marseille and Paris. Considered the gastronomic capital of France, it is quite a different feel from Marseille: more pig cuisine, more hipsters, less sun. In general, the French people I've spoken with would agree that it is "plus tranquille."

Speaking of cuisine, it is only fair that I give it some attention: I AM in France, after all. Marseille represents a cool mix of Provençal style with north African: I went from papetoun, a tower of goat cheese and tomato, doused in olive oil and basil with olive tapanade in the middle, to a tajine of chicken. Les pates au pistou is like pasta with pesto and alfredo sauce, another classic from Provence. And today, I tried a popular dish from Lyon, unfamiliar to me at the time. I grew suspicious when I dug in, and then did the background research: le boudin is black pudding, sometimes called blood pudding. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but it was not bad at all. I am what one might call a reformed vegetarian.

Other than that, I'm enjoying croissants for breakfast, and small amounts of strong coffee as often as I can. In fact, I'm planning to search for one now, before I head off to explore Lyon's Musée des Beaux-Arts!

Marseille, c'est le pop.

Had a lovely trek to the beach today, many kilometers away. It was windy, and much sandier than Nice, with lots of people doing lots of extreme sports. Sometimes I like to do extreme things, but today I was happy to alternate between watching others, and reading my wonderful book, A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, which paints a remarkably detailed picture of India on the heels of partition. (...1474 pages worth of a picture. The inscription at the beginning, attributed to Voltaire, reads: "The secret of being a bore is to say everything.")

At dinner last night, I got into a conversation with my waiter about how much he loves Marseille. I mentioned that I had been to Nice, and that I preferred Marseille, to which he responded, "Nice, c'est la musique classique. Mais Marseille, c'est le pop. E le pop vient du corps." (Nice, that's classical music. But Marseille is pop. And pop comes from the body.)

I quickly glanced at the tome that had been my dinner companion, turned to my pithy waiter, and replied: "Je suis absoluement d'accord."

Heaven on the Mediterranean

I have found a crazy, noisy, combustible and beautiful version of heaven on earth. I spotted the pearly gates from the train, where the man in the cafe car complimented my accent (an instant path to my heart). Within 2 hours of my arrival, a local on a mo-ped careened to a halt in front of me to say, genuinely, "Ou vas-tu? Je t'emmène." ("Where are you going? I'll take you."). I politely declined . But it was my two waiters last night, both named Philippe, who convinced me that this is a version of paradise, with its mix of Miami heat and midwest openness. Philippe #1 slipped me a note with his number, ...si j'avais besoin d'un guide, and though I turned this would-be guide down graciously, I left him something like an 80% tip for my drink. Philippe #2 not only m'a offerte un p'tit kir (French-restaurant-speak for giving it to me for free), but loaded me up a zillion calissons (marzipan candies) on my way out the door. He seemed truly disappointed that I will be heading up to Alsace-Lorraine soon, telling me "Mais, vous allez geler!" ("But you are going to freeze!").

Aside from the lovely Marseillais, my hostel is also heaven-like, and not only because of its seemingly bottomless coffee-pot. After taking advantage of this feature this morning, I set out for a walk through the open-air market on the other side of town. After enjoying myself tremendously, and having purchased a few small things, I decided to walk up the enormous hill that I saw to my right, assuming that I'd find the Marseille's famous basilica, Notre Dame de la Garde, at the top. I did: in the form of a gorgeous view. Determined, I kept walking, and finally reached this stunning church, as different from Matisse's Rosary Chapel as can be. The mosaics on the domed ceilings, the framed pictures on the walls, and the 6 mobiles of ships hanging down above my head, not to mention the shining golden statue of virgin and child at the very top, captured my attention for a long time.

I spent the afternoon continuing to wander, and booking the rest of my solo-trip: on Sunday, I'm off to Lyon, and will spend Tuesday night in Dijon before meeting up with J in Paris on Wednesday! But, for now, I'm content to soak up this version of what I've realized is actually the Mediterranean life.

Paris, nous t'aimons

Though I sadly said goodbye to A this morning, I've happily begun my solo-travels with a trip to Marseille. My interest in this city originally came from a comment I heard during the rioting in 2005: because it is on the ocean, there is no room for the marginalization that creates "les cités" that can be found outside of Lyon or Paris. Thus, it is a far more integrated community than most other big cities in France. I'm discovering that myself, with hostel-managers who come from any country BUT France! This is great for me, since I seem to feel more comfortable speaking French with these non-native speakers.

But, before A left, we spent two glorious days in Paris, devoting the first to wandering the streets and the second to museums. Activites included: (1) splitting a beer on the steps of Sacre Coeur; (2) finding an urban vineyard in Montmartre, from which 850 bottles of wine are captured each year, and auctioned off for charity; (3) appreciating Winged Victory but skipping Mona Lisa; (4) using newly acquired GRE vocabulary at every opportunity (Nonplussed does not mean what we have taken it to mean our entire lives, or, in a sentence that sounds redundant but is, in fact, not: "The Mona Lisa leaves some people feeling nonplussed, and strangely underwhelmed."); (5) finding a cool street artist from Chile who sold us gorgeous earrings; (6) enjoying chocolate fondue under the watchful eye of a serenading waiter; (7) trying not to break, stain, touch or breathe on any of the amazingly pricey items in Louis Vuitton; and (8) marveling at the challenging and wonderful exhibition elles@centrepompidou.

Now, off to appreciate some bouillabaisse and spend some time imitating Julia Child, at least in my head.

Symphonie, et voyages, fantastique(s)

Currently sitting at an internet cafe in the Latin Quarter, right next to the vegetarian restaurant where we ate last night. A was happy to be able to choose from a menu without skirting 800 different kinds of chicken and beef, though we did have a false start to our dining adventure: for future reference, "faux-filet" does NOT mean "imitation filet", but rather, sirloin. A ha.

Our trip to Aix ended in style: we found 25 euro tickets to see the London Symphony Orchestra play three works by Berlioz, as one of the features of the month-long music festival that we discovered from our guidebooks. I could not actually see the orchestra play for the first half, based on my seat, but I enjoyed listening and going through the program, circling new vocabulary words and trying out various conjugations of the unusal verb tenses I saw. Not only do the French employ the subjunctive, a strange enough situation for Americans, but also a tense called the "passe simple," which is used in place of the "passe compose" when writing a formal document. It has been a shock to my system to realize that while I have a lot of vocabulary in place, I am wrecking up even the regular verb tenses, to say nothing of the complex ones. The single good thing I can see about A flying home in two days is that I will be forced to speak even more French, and will hope to feel more confident by the time J arrives.

From Aix, we took two commuter trains (no reservation required!) to Grenoble, where I studied for 4 months about 5 years ago. We stayed at the fairly luxurious Hotel de l'Europe, where the sheets smelled the same as in my memory; hiked up the Bastille, where they've installed a contemporary art gallery; ate on Quai Perriere, where I was pleased to see that dozens of pizza shops still exist, side by side; and discovered that Neptune Cafe, my old haunt, has shut down its computers for the last time. Before leaving yesterday, we went to the Museum of the Resistance and Deportation, which chronicles the resistance effort in the Isere Valley. The entire 24 hours felt like a trip down memory lane, and I pointed out shops, cafes, streets, even tramcars with fondness.

Now we are in Paris, for the last leg of A's trip. After meatlessly dining last night, we strolled across the bridges connecting the banks to the islands, and found ourselves in the middle of a very choreographed show by an endearing street artist, which he brought to a close by saying, "If you give me 5 euros, I will go home happy. If you give me 10 euros, I will go home very happy. But if you give me 50 euros? I will go home with YOU." His hat was overflowing by the time we left.

Three days of Matisse

We tore ourselves away from the Azure Coast today, and are now in Aix-en-Provence, the first city of this trip that I have never before visited. We feel as though we're walking through a Cezanne painting: perfectly slanted sunlight, various shades of coral and pink buildings, and lavender everywhere. We visited his atelier this afternoon, and I was mesmerized by the huge bay window taking up one entire wall of the studio. We agreed that admission was a little pricey, but felt like that was just an exqmple of cosmic balance: there was no admission fee at all for the Matisse museum we explored on Thursday.

The Musée Matisse featured work from all periods of the artist's life, including the very first still-life that he created. The current temporary exhibition was composed of works featuring Lydia Delectorskaya, his most-frequently depicted model and muse. In fact, there was a period of 4 years during which she was his only model, which we found hard to comprehend. In addition to finished or formal works, there was a section of the museum devoted to sketches, plans and drawings for the Rosary Chapel that he designed in Vence, a work which he completed in 1951, three years before his death, and considered his masterpiece. I had wanted to visit this chapel since the last time I was in Nice, so we took a little pilgrimage to this town up in the mountains yesterday afternoon. It was the simplest, most beautiful church I have ever had the pleasure to visit. A brought up the brilliant point that his four-year devotion to this religious project must be a product of deep faith, but that his unusual approach (for example, in not separating each of the 14 stations of the cross, but, instead, composing one large mural for this part of the sanctuary) demonstrates a willingness to stray from tradition, an interesting combination. I was reminded of Keith Haring's tryptich in St. John the Divine.

Finally, strolling Cour Mirabeau in Aix today, we happened upon an exhibition of his Jazz cut-outs! We feel fully Matisse-stepped.

Other than appreciating art, we spent our time in Nice soaking up some serious sun, checking out the night-life, and making some new friends: two women, one Brazilian and one French, named Lillian; a Lithuanian student and her American love-interest; and a British yachtie among them. We also found a bar with Kylie Minogue videos on repeat, roses painted on the ceiling and a fully functional shower...in the middle of the dance floor. Ooh, la, la: la France.

Le feu d'artifice

Other than learning from experience to book a TGV well ahead of time, I've picked up more French tidbits over the last few days. For example, at dinner last night, A and I learned from a lovely old French couple that if the receipt says "service compris", you should consider leaving a 5% tip, though you are not obligated. (I was reminded about the SMIC, or French minimum wage, which allows waiters to earn more than they would in the States). We also had a small adventure with counterfeit euros, but were forgiven by our jovial waiter, thus inspiring us to leave him something slightly more than 5%.

After dinner, A and I headed to the fireworks display over the ocean, in celebration of Bastille Day, and danced to a slow parade of moving band-floats. The streets were packed with merry-makers, who either held sleeping children or half-empty bottles of wine in their hands.

This morning, we set our alarm to wake us up early, and hit the beach before the crowds. I went on a wonderful run, and wound my way up the Ancien Chateau, to tunes pumped by an ancient accordian-player, for a glorious view of the Mediterranean. It felt SO FRENCH, and I loved every stereotypical second of it. Off to the Matisse Museum this afternoon!

Nice is nice

A and I have made it to the French Riviera, which proved to be more complicated than we anticipated. In the hour before we left for JFK, I decided to play it safe and book us seats on a TGV bound for Nice so that we could hop on as soon as we arrived. Turns out that everyone wants to hit the Cote d'Azur at this time of year, and there were no seats to be had! So much for playing it safe.

However, the guy on the other end of the SNCF hotline was a gem, got us seats on the earliest train out of Paris today, and waived the registration fee. THEN, we had the great fortune of being able to procure a room at a lovely Paris hotel, AND they did not charge us for our cancellation in Nice. So, crisis averted, and we got to spend an extra night in gaie Paris. I think that this is auspicious.

A+

When I studied in Grenoble, our program director always finished emails with "A +." I thought, for the longest time, that she was exhorting us to shoot for 20/20 (almost unheard of in the typical French grading system, where a 17/20 indicates exceptional work). Actually, this is a tricky French shortcut for saying "A plus tard," or "(See you) later."

So, A+. My math camp is finished, with great success, including a discussion of infinity based on an article you can find here. I'm flying to France tomorrow, with a very dear friend from college. She and I will spend our first nights in Nice, and I am definitely looking forward to Bastille Day in l'Hexagone. Last year, I popped French champagne on the hill at Wes. I have no idea what to look forward to, this year, but can't wait to see what is in store for us.

Count me in

I started my math camp today, and am extremely pleased with how the first day went. As background, here is an excerpt from an email I sent interested parents about the version of my camp that I will be running at my town's public library in August.

I have designed this program with three goals in mind: I'd like to (a) encourage teenage girls to stick with math, (b) introduce them to non-curricular math ideas, and (c) show them that math is full of opportunities for group work. My goal is NOT to say that math is easy; rather, I want to convince my students that it is interesting and fun enough to "stick with," even when it seems difficult.

I will be introducing students to studies showing that even babies have some "number sense," show them how to read a stock page, address some basic ideas of economics, have them find examples of the Golden Ratio in nature, and demonstrate to them some mind-bending proofs about infinity. I hope to also teach students how to play the game "Set," during our break time each day. I will use a variety of techniques and materials, including a "Great Books"-style seminar, an excerpt from NPR's Radiolab, the Business Section of the New York Times, and lots of collaborative work.

The Radiolab excerpt is really great. If you're interested, check out Numbers. We listened to minutes 2 through 18, avoiding the reference to Johnny Cash's "25 minutes" (a countdown song to the gallows, something I thought might not sit very well with a group of 13-year-olds...or their parents).

I am looking forward to the rest of the week!

Home!

I made it back last night, after 3 train rides and 2 flights. The trip itself felt dream-like, maybe because it is so incredible that one day can begin in Kyoto and end in Princeton, but more probably because I dozed for most of the time in the air. One of the unanticipated benefits of this trip is a heightened tolerance for flying: I only gripped C's arm in panic once.

I finally figured out, with some help, what a few of the unidentified things I ate are called. The yogurt-like pasty stuff is mashed mountain yam, or yama imo. And that evening we spent with our new-found friends (who we hope like hosting as much as we like to travel), we ate okonomiyaki, a savory pancake, and monjayaki, similar to okonomiyaki, but slightly runnier, and eaten directly off the griddle with a miniature spatula.

Now, I turn my attention to my math camp, which I've entitled Count me in! I'll spend the next two days running around, not from shrine to tea house, but from Staples to school, getting everything prepared. Though I'll miss my travels, and my traveling companion, I am looking forward to working, and being a teacher again (at least for one week).