franche-comte

Last weekend was one of my favorite weekends ever.

Charly came to visit last weekend and it was a total revival, and a bit of “home.” Charly lived with our family for a year back in 2000-2001 and we have kept in contact with her, each of us doing our fare share of visiting. I probably see her about every two years, and it was certainly time for another visit. It was really nice having her around for three full days (plus some) to be able share experiences with her, to relax, and to discover new things! The big bonus of the weekend was that she came in her car! I was excited to introduce her to Besançon and the Franche-Comté region and it’s unique (and tasty) culture.

She arrived on Thursday night, and we went out to Vieux Comtois for a Mont d’Or dinner. Mont d’Or is a winter cheese fabricated in the region. It is produced in round wooden boxes and the traditional way of eating it is one of the best ways to eat cheese .... MELTED. You drop a bit of white wine in the middle of the cheese, stick it in the oven for 20 minutes, and voilà it’s like fondu (but stronger and better). It’s served with boiled potatoes (of which you remove the skin, of course) and varieties of ham (dry, smoked, cooked) and sausages. Miam!

After, we grabbed a glass of wine at the Green Man, one of my favorite chill bars!

When we awoke on Friday morning our plan of going to the Citadelle wasn’t looking so bright and neither were the skies. It was cloudy and raining. So, using a regional guide book I’d borrowed from a friend, we decided to make a little day trip in the car to explore the Jura (the region just below Franche-Comté, covered by the Jura mountains). Another bonus that Charly brought along with her car was her new, fancy-schnazzy GPS that works throughout all of Europe! Literally all we had to do was type in the next city, town, or village we wanted to go to and the GPS would lead us directly there. In German. First, we hit Arbois, the town known for it’s Arbois wine and Louis Pasteur’s home base. The town was cute, but it happened to be 12:30 in the afternoon and raining, so everything was closed (as it always is during lunchtime in France) and no one was out. But it was quaint nonetheless ... and we caught the closing of a fresh market where we picked up some dried apricots and figs.

We stopped and got lunch in Poligny, where there is a large factory for the production of the famous Comté cheese. We didn’t have comté with lunch, but Charly bought some at a fromagerie just next to the restaurant after we ate. We also shared a small pitcher of Jura Sauvignon wine. Little did we know that 10 minutes later, en route, we’d get waved down by the douanes (immigration) police! As we approached the four men in blue, Charly was like, “oh no, are they asking us to come over? I just had a glass of wine!” Sure enough, they asked for our identification, our reasons for traveling, and (logically) if we had any firearms. Because we look like we’re ready to shoot someone.

“Do you have anything to declare?” asked the interrogator.

“Um, no, we just bought some cheese though,” I replied.

Let’s just say he let us off the hook. I guess some cheese can’t do any harm.

I didn’t have my passport, either ... but I spoke charming and impeccable French so he took my word for it when I explained that I lived and worked in France (yay!).

We continued en route to Champignole and passed through many farm villages (Louille, Pont-de-Chaux), typing each carefully into the GPS. Sometimes it told us to go down what looked like a cobblestone driveway, but somehow ended up being a road. Quite fun. We continued to catch the beautiful N5 route along the Ain river and lucky we found this:

Gorges de la Langouette. This place was absolutely breathtaking, I mean I was actually trying to catch my breath, all I could say over and over was, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” It was the most powerful and naturally astonishing construction of nature I’ve ever seen. A deep mossy limestone crevice (13ft wide, 154ft deep, according to the guide book) cuts straight down, and the water is forced to flow in this beautiful narrow split.

We parked close by, and as we were walking up to the footbridge I said to Charly, “I hear it but I can’t see it.” Once we stood on

the bridge right above the crevice, we caught the glimpse of the flowing water. But this was not even the breathtaking part. We spotted a little pathway on the other side of the footbridge and followed it up to the real gorge. A waterfall came falling to a river and all of a sudden the gorge took a sharp turn and all the water was forced into one concentrated enigma of bursting, blasting explosion of water! And man, was it moving fast .. “renne und renne schnell!” (a German phrase I “learned” [it’s most likely incorrect here] while trying to read Charly’s German version of Twilight to her...clearly I butchered the language and she laughed at me making what were supposed to be German-sounding words. But I learned at least that one phrase, “I’m running and running fast!”...in case I’m getting attacked and want to unnecessarily state the obvious). Anyway, the gorges was a hidden treasure, which is part of what made it so remarkable. This is how I felt:

We continued en route veering through more small villages (Syam, Conte, for example) and stopped to catch a view of la “Source de l’Ain.” We stopped listening to the GPS for a moment and followed some road signs in an attempt to find the source. We stopped where we saw a car park and stared at the tourist sign for about 3 minutes before we decided to follow a lady down some steps, agreeing that of course she must be going to the source! We walked down a bunch of steps and a small path to see a pretty mini waterfall, but it was not the source. Ha. We hiked back up to the car (haha, “hiked,” it took about 3 minutes) and drove a bit deeper into the forest, where we again got out of the car and discovered the source. It was very dark back there and everything was thoroughly moist. Pictures didn’t really turn out, but it was beautiful. Droplets of water were spurting from all sides of the gooey stone walls that surrounded a calm basin of extremely clear water. Refreshing.

Our last stop of the day was at Métabiéf, capital of the Mont d’Or cheese! There is a cheese factory there, but by the time we reached it the daily tours were no longer running. Luckily, however, the store was still open. Charly picked up some Mont d’Or to go with her Comté and Morbier that she had purchased in Poligny...as well as a bottle of Jura Chardonnay.

We stopped at a large grocery store on the way back to Besançon to pick up a (cheaper) bottle of white wine to go with dinner. And that is were I had some displacement issues. As we were driving along the highway, I saw a Buffalo Grille, then a Halles des Chausseures, then a Kiabi, and there was also a Casino Géant, and a McDonald’s, and an Intersport.....ALL the same stores that rest at the bottom of Besançon at a place called Chateâufarine, where people do their big discount shopping at the giant commercial chain stores. I was totally confused. Surely we weren’t already to Besançon, plus our faithful GPS told us that there was still a 50 minute drive to be had ... and it definitely wasn’t 50 minutes from Châteaufarine to my apartment! Where WERE we? It was the like SAME place! There literally were all the same stores, and all situated in very frighteningly similar proximity to each other. I was confused even as we were walking up to the Casino Géant. There, I came understand commercial France. It wasn’t much different from commercial America (the only difference is that nearly all of America is commercial). Things are planned once, then multiplied. The Casino Géant had the exact same floor-plan as the two other Casino Géants that I had ever been in, just like most Targets and Wal*marts are the same. I could be standing in Wal*Mart in Michigan City, Indiana and literally have no idea that I was in the midwest and not in College Station, Texas, for example. They’re the same. The Casino Géants are the same, but what was even more astonishing was that even the stores surrounding the Casino Géant were the same. Perhaps it was also so surprising because it was unexpected. I mean, we had just been driving around rural French farmland all day and then BOOM! there we were next to huge warehouses full of mass-produced discounted anything you need! It reminds me of numerous occasions in Texas when a bit of my materialistic excitement was crushed when I’d discovered a store or restaurant was really a chain that started in another city and not a unique College Station establishment (like Freebird’s, for example). It’s like this:

My mom’s friend, Tommy, gave me big reusable grocery bags to bring here to France that she found in China, there’s large Chinese lettering on it. I use one as a laundry basket. The other week I was at my desk with nothing to do, just looking around my room, and I realized in small letters on the side of the bag it says, Carrefour! CARREFOUR! What the heck? She bought the bag in China, brought it the the states and gave it to me, I brought it to France, and the whole time the people who ordained its production were the French??? Everything is coming from the sky and going in a circle.

But back to the weekend extravaganza with Charly!

Saturday we went to the Besançon Citadelle, architect Vauban’s masterpiece and Besançon’s claim to fame. Louis XIV would stand at the the high walls of the Citadelle and make sure his troops were training to their full potential! Cool.

The city of Besançon is surrounded by the Doubs river, which is surrounded by mountains. It is the perfect city for defensive battle, as long as there’s a fort, that is!

Today the Citadelle is not only the Citadelle...it’s also a ZOO and there is an incredible (and very large) museum on WWII and the occupation and resistance. Besançon stood in part of the occupied zone of France during WWII. In the museum there are very morose photos of the holocaust (this was a part of the museum particularly touching for me. The museum displays the very heavy subject to an extent that doesn’t let you think about it for a minute before before showing the freedom troops. They have very detailed, gruesome photos for four enitre exhibition rooms). During the occupation, resistance fighters and those involved in any way in the resistance were captured and hundreds of men were shot to death at the Citadelle itself. This is chilling and real.

After the Citadelle we putzed around centre ville and for dinner we ourselves prepared some of the famous Saucisse de Montbéliard, potatoes, and salad.

Saturday we saw the Astronomical Clock here in Besançon, which is quite cool and you can walk behind it and see all the dials. We then went to the Musée du Temps (time museum) which has the most complex watch of the early 1900s displayed - made in Paris by a company situated in Besançon.

Sunday was also CARNIVAL! People celebrate Carnival all across Europe. Charly told me that she heard the tradition of the celebration is to dress up and scare away the demons of winter to welcome spring. This is ‘word of mouth’ and she said she cannot promise that it’s right, but it sounds good to me! I was impressed with the parade that went around and around all afternoon. It was something quite impressive for Besançon, I must admit!

Sunday night we went out to La Cornemuse, a crêperie in Besançon! MIAM!

Charly sadly left Monday morning .... but not before we had some quiche lorraine and cafe in a boulangerie.

mars est arrivée

February came and went like a needle slipping through my fingertips. It was there and I could feel it it’s pinch - the blistering cold of the central cities and the soothing sting of ginger tea...but at the same time, it felt lightweight, delicate, and barely there. February seems to have gotten cut short, in large part because there’s only twenty-eight days in the month, but mostly because just when it seemed like time was slowing down, the snow was gone, the sun was out, and voilà, spring was on its way.

When two to three days just disappear from your schedule, it makes you realize how much a month actually counts. I tend to get thrown back into the calendar when a new month rolls around - and there’s always something exciting to me about what’s to come. Retrospectively speaking, the middle of a month has got to be the least interesting. The beginning and the end are what make your heart race. Like a novel or a marathon run. It has to do with balance of extremes, I suppose. Yin and Yang - Moon and Sun - Birth and Death - that kind of stuff. What I find most fascinating about existence, though, is time. Time balances without a beginning or an end, it just steadily continues. It is constant, but it’s opposite does not even really exist. Therefore, it balances without extremes. And this is its phenomenon. All that can be said about it, really, is that it continues moving forward.

What stays are things like love, belief, greed.

What dissipates are things like cement, shoes, computers.

There is that saying, “the only constant is change,” that comes from a greek philosopher...but if you think about it, change comes from time. So I say, the only constant is time. Don’t lose it because it’s not going to stop. Or, as Ferris Beuller would say, (obviously much more wise than Heraclitus) “life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

T'as l'heure? Zero, thank you. Forever.

A girl named Natalie asked me if it would be okay if she could call me Kel Bel. Naturally, I said, "yes." (Profound response, I know). It wasn't until she discovered the homophone for it that it became even more charming than it already was. Voila le titre, "Quelle Belle."

This blog is not to chronical my time in France piece by piece. It is much moreso to note whatever (n'importe quoi), whenever, and however. I have a lot of time on my hands, and Besançon is all about time. They have a clock here that apparently tells the time in 82098203957 diffrenet parts of the world, in many different ways (i.e. by the tides and by the moon!), and with many intricate/complicated dials, switches, and twitches. It does all of this astronomically! It'd probably give Dali a heartattack upside down on pogo stick, but he'd survive (naturally). And then he'd contort and melt this masterpiece into oblivion in a glorious painting that they would sell in Besancon on screen-printed t-shirts. Tourists would buy them. I'd probably buy one. (Would that make me a tourist? Am I a tourist?). I doubt Dali ever made it to Besancon, which is an unfortunate thing. Anyway, I haven't seen the Besançon clock yet. I'll be here for 9 months (although now it's more like 8; the weeks seem to be moving with the minute hand), so I'm not worried about not getting to see it. I'll certainly the find the time. Unless it finds me. What if it does find me? What will it catch me doing? Typing on a blog (so painfully modern-day, eyes dry, legs crossed, and a pretty pixel-perfect screen waiting for me. letter by letter. at 2h25 here, 7:25pm home, and awake everywhere else). Otherwise, time might catch me watching it, frustratingly, waiting for the next browser to load or the next French person to answer my next question. There's a lot of waiting that goes on in this country. Waiting for buses. In banks. At consulates. In grocery lines. In kitchens. In pages. I've been getting stuck in pages a lot. Somehow I still have to look up a lot of words in French...but that's not really a matter of waiting as much as it is progressing. I've been frustrated lately at this minor little conundrum: I still cannot understand French. Mostly it's when French people blabber together quickly. If you know me, you know that I have a hard enough time keeping up with conversations in English, so you can imagine the difficulty that arises in French. I realize, though, that this is not something I can wait out (just like life in general, of course). It is something I have to wait on, while working on it. It'll come in time, maybe. Maybe not. (Because, I mean, what else would it come in? installments?) I realized after enough boringly amplified sighs and imaginary pouts in my little tête, that I've gotta bite the bullet, ride the horse, and take life by the reins. With effort. (Yes, those were three cliche phrases put together in a corny way to get across an obvious point concerning the way we live).

Speaking of the way we live, I read a lot today about how the world we live in influences the way we see the world, the way we think, the way we act: the way we live, essentially. How our society shapes who we are, whether or not we like it. I've been reading on how inarguably ignorant it is to not face the things you hate, fear, or loathe. It's way to late in the night for me to get into this now. But briefly, all I want to say is that it's important to know the importance of understanding ourselves in terms of our surroundings, because as Jiddu said, "nous sommes le monde" ("we are the world"). Who is Jiddu? Here is a story of how I found out about him:

The kindest Frenchman began a conversation with me this morning (while I was waiting on getting some questions answered, of course) about how the journals and newspapers cannot, are not capable of, telling the truth. He pointed out how one article in Liberation factually contradicted an article on the page right next to it, and how La Monde said something completely different. For some reason, he went on to talk about Linux and free business enterprising and all sorts of things you wouldn't expect an elderly Frenchman to be passionate about. But he was. I barely said anything because (as I described earlier), I'd been feeling down on my French. He didn't care. In fact, he wanted to share his passion with me so badly and he actually went home and returned 15 minutes later with a packetfull of essays discussing Linux for me to read. As an added bonus he gave me Jiddu Krishnamurti's Vivre dans un monde en crise ("Facing a World in Crisis," in English). He kindly gave me these two reading materials and his address and told me to return them whenever I wanted! He said he lived just down the street so it was no problem. And also, if I ever want to just talk or practice French to contact him and he'd be obliged. What trust, to give me these things! What freedom! What...what...thankfulness I had for his peaceful and welcoming manner. And I don't even know his name! (That's a French thing, they don't give out names very often. I still don't get it, but whatevs). He is a reminder of why I like Besançon so much. The best part about this place is the people. Hands down.

I'll end with a link to this cool little music video, complements of Lauren introducing me to "pomplamoosemusic"
http://www.youtube.com/user/pomplamoosemusic?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/0/xycnv87N_BU

[compliments to two people for inspiring me to start a blog, even though they don't know it yet: Geena and Jordan. Merci.]