Belated Blogspot About Chartres

My roommate and I took the train from Paris to Chartres on one of the coldest Sunday mornings I had ever experienced. I was wearing my short peacoat and immediately knew it was not going to be warm enough. I figure dealing with cold weather is part of the cultural experience for me, so I tried to think of my shivering as expanding my capacity to understand other cultures. But it just felt damn cold.

We didn't have a map, but we were there to see the famous Chartres Cathedral and it was easy enough to find.

(It was easy to find because it was big. I know it looks like a nice day, but it was FRIGID! The towers don't match... I can't remember if one fell down due to war or fire, but at any rate the towers don't match and it is rather off-putting.)

(The Cathedral peeking through the buildings of Chartres. A lot of older French "batiments" kinda lean off to one side, and France is fortunate it does not have to contend with earthquakes.)

When we reached the Cathedral, we paused in front to admire the elaborate stone decorations.

(A sundial!!)

However I could hear organ music coming from inside and wanted to check it out. We tip-toed into the ancient church about halfway through mass and snuck into one of the back pews in time to catch the end of the sermon. As a non-Catholic, the Catholic-y parts of mass always seem like complete gibberish to me, but my French is strong enough that I can mostly understand the sermon, which is therefore my favorite part of mass. A man wearing an ornate robe, whom I assumed to be the priest, was talking about faith. After he finished, a younger man stepped up to a podium and made the following announcement:

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us on this special day. blah blah something incomprehensible... for the 750th dedication of the Cathedral at Chartres. Rumor has it that... blah blah something...Saint Louis may have been present on the date of the dedication of the Cathedral 750 years ago."

So... whaaaattt...? J and I just happened to visit Chartres Cathedral on the 750th anniversary of its dedication...? Without planning it...? But this story gets even better. Next, the priest sat down in what I can only refer to as a throne (calling it a "chair" does not do it justice) and one of the many robed young men gathered at the altar stepped up to the priest and placed a hat on his head.

Even I, a non-Catholic, knew what that meant. This is what went through my head: "Holy **** that's the m*****-f****** bishop!!!"

Thus, J and I were blessed to be in Chartres on the freezing 750th anniversary of the dedication of one of the oldest and most well-known Cathedrals in the world in the prescence of a bishop. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayers.

(Chartres from the back. As a word of advice, Cathedrals often look even more magnificient from the back.)

(Chartres is known for it's stained glass windows for a number of reasons. First, the French people of Chartres dismantled and hid all the "vitrines" during World War II so they would not be smashed by bombs, and as a result many of the windows you can see today date allll the way back to the 13th century. Second, the windows are generally exemplary of religious vitrines of the time period. Last, the windows are unique in that some depict ordinary scenes of carpenters, butchers, or bankers from 750 years ago. This is because wealthy tradesmen donated many of the windows. A rich banker might donate the money for a series of religious windows then ask that one be put up to commemorate his trade.)

(A labyrinth!! French priests didn't amways understand the significance of Greco-Roman labyrinths in Catholic Cathedrals, so a lot of labyrinths were destroyed after about 1500. The one at Chartres is still visible but the statue of Theseus and the Minotaur that used to be at the center has disappeared.)

Je m'appelle...

Photo cred to Kaylen, Shaun, and Meg! The first photo is on rue St. Michel in the latin quarter, the second is on the metro, and the third is at a Monoprix (a bit like a grocery store combined with Target) in Lyon.

Coca-Cola doesn't even taste that good

Today, to make us practice asking questions properly (using inversion rather than the unwieldly "est-ce que" that I love so much), our professor had us pose questions to the other students in my French class. So things like "in your country, are there a lot of tourist destinations?" or "what's the cuisine like in Armenia?" To start off, he listed the nationalities of the students in the room. We are from the following countries:

China

Turkey

Russia

Armenia

Chili

Colombia

United States (I'm the only American yay!)

Sweden

Venezuela (which I now know has the most dangerous city in the world)

Taiwan

Costa Rica

Canada

Germany

Korea

Japan

^ this is incredible. I could not be more fortunate.

But something came up in class today that made me sad. The Colombian man asked the Russian woman if Russians watch a lot of American films. She said yes and then added that Russia is now very "americanisée", or Americanized. This struck me as tragic. Why give up a centuries-old culture for another, newer and possibly less-wise, one?

This takes me back to a conversation I had last week with my Colombian and Swedish friends. I asked them why one hears so much American music and sees so many American brands in other countries. After some discussion, we decided it has to do with money, consumerism, and mass marketing. For instance, one friend pointed out that the modern conception of "Santa Claus" was actually a character created by Coca-Cola decades ago for marketing purposes and had very little to do with the older conception of St. Nicholas. (Writing this, now, I wonder if our concept of Santa Claus also goes back to the description of such a personnage in a poem you may have heard of called "A Night Before Christmas"...)

The spread of American culture to all corners of the world is not something I can explain in a blog post, if ever, but the replacement of much older cultures inevitably saddens me. At the end of the day, what does the United States have to offer? Coca-Cola and line-dancing? The recession has thrown cold water on the American dream, and I certainly hope that the future of this planet is not one of Nikes and over-processed rap music.

Ah well, luckily I have a cider tasting seminar at 2:30 and my wine sciences class after dinner, so I can do what people from all different cultures have done for millenia: drink away the weight of the world.

(JUST KIDDING MOM)

Return to Liminality in Brussels

Our bus arrived in Brussels after dark on Friday. We drove into the "Midi" station, which we believed to be a 15 minute walk from the Youth Hostel we had chosen because of its cheap prices. After walking with our luggage for a good half hour, we realized our error; the hostel was 15 minutes from the "Central" train station, not "Midi". We took the metro. Signs around the city were in French and a strange language I could not read (Dutch). The city at first appeared to lack some of the useful landmarks of Paris (the River Seine, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame), so even once we arrived at the correct metro stop, we overshot the hostel by about 10 blocks. Yikes. Two students lost in a strange city after dark with bags... cue first roommate squabble of the semester.

Fast forward 48 hours, and things could not be more different.I sit writing in the glass terrace of a hostel where I made numerous friends from all over the world, reflecting on 2 days spent exploring one of the most fascinating cities I've seen.

(glass terrace where I wrote this)

(Brussels is known for the Mannequin Pis, a statue/fountain of a little boy urinating)

(and beer)

(waffles!)

(The Mona Lisa by Magritte)

(maple syrup in Belgium?)

(St. Michael's Cathedral)

In traveling to Brussels, I have come to realize that Paris *is* beginning to feel like home. I know the metro well, I have a favorite bakery, and know which garden I can find my friends in at any given time during the day. But despite all I have learned in Paris, going to a new city will always be a challenge and always make me feel like a fish out of water. Living liminally is not easy, but it is almost always worth it.