Chapter 56 – The 25-hour day (Part 1)

First off…to my worried readers; yes, the milk is pasteurized…have no fear! It is milk as we know it…it’s just not UHT (ultra-haute-temperature) which is the process that makes it’s shelf-life so long (couple with the much more protective packaging).

February 12, 2004 (5:00am)
On mention that I would be catching a train at 5:00am (before any buses are running in Mulhouse), one of my friends offered me a ride to the station. Yep: offered to get up at 4:00am, in order to get me to the train station. It’s official: my friends are all insane (and all the better for it!). Plus, on dropping me off, reminded me that they would pick me up at 4:15 the next morning (although it must be said that that would be on their way home from a party, so not one, but a car load of people planned to come get me 24 hours later).

What was I doing that required such a trip? Well, it’s bureaucracy today, only today’s battle with bureaucracy takes place in Paris (a 4 1/2 hour trip there, and 5 1/2 hour trip home). I’m off to the Czech Embassy in the hopes of getting a visa (yes, Canadians need a visa to enter the Czech Republic, for anyone thinking of taking a trip) to go visit Dave in Prague. I’ll be arriving in Paris at 9:30, and leaving Paris around 10:45pm…which means about 25 hours between the times I actually get to see my bed. The reason for my late return, though, is that I’ve been dying to check out the Moose (a Canadian bar in Paris), so I decided to go there for dinner…it’s not often I’m in Paris! I would have found a hostel and stayed the night, but since there is a formal thing at the school for my ESVs tomorrow, the latest I’d be able to leave Paris was 9:45am (plus all the time getting to the train station etc, so I figured it’d be better to come and sleep in my own bed.

On and entirely different note, I’ve spent this week going easy on my students: we watched movies in almost every class. My economics students watched Clue…well, the first half of it (stupid 1-hour classes) and my business students watched Office Space. Both were a big hit, and apparently my first-years are dying to see the rest of Clue. Yay! Unfortunately, the dialogue moves pretty quickly so the subtitles (also in English, I’m not THAT nice) aren’t always the exact words the characters are saying, which makes it harder to follow, and takes a little away from it (speaking as one who’s only seen the movie about a million times, and still noticing details here and there). Of course, watching the first half of the movie 4 times in 4 hours (and next week I get to do the same with the second half) does help to find details. I’ve decided that at this point I don’t even watch the movie so much for itself anymore; more to see other people’s reactions from it. Of course, a good part of the reactions to Office Space are due to the (ahem) less-than-professional English, but hey, my business students are old enough to get by the bad language (although I distinctly remember my own shock when we watched a movie in French class that was full of swearing, but then again, my prof was retiring that year, not in his mid-twenties (ew…I’m in my mid-twenties) which is part of what made it shocking at the time.

Well, now I’m just babbling, and have only killed a half hour of my 4 1/2 hour train ride, so perhaps I’ll try Cynthia’s tried-and-tested train-induced-narcolepsy. Let’s see if I can make it work for me…

9:10am
Amazingly, I did manage to get a couple more hours of sleep, so that should make my day easier and more enjoyable.

Office building windows open. You know, the buildings that have entirely glass facades? We just passed several that had windows open here and there. Cool. And soooooo logical!

Shopping carts rolls sideways. An observation that I’ve been meaning to pass on. The wheels turn in all directions, actually, so they have an irritating habit of rolling more diagonally than forward, but it’s handy in tight spaces (of which France has plenty) since you can actually roll a cart to the side to get it out of the way, instead of the irritating parallel parking style maneuvers that you usually need.

Chapter 55 – It comes straight from the cow!

February 7, 2004
Having found “lait frais” (fresh milk) in the grocery store, in cartons like the ones back home, I figured I should give it a try to see if it is, in fact, milk as I knew it. When I picked it up, Jo (who I was shopping with) told me that it was bad. When I asked why he told me “because it’s the milk that comes right out of the cow.” I haven’t figured out what makes that a bad thing, but there ya go; different country, different culture, different view of what milk should be. It doesn’t taste exactly like milk back home (at least, I think it’s a little different, but I could be wrong), but the texture is better (i.e. less thick). I’ll probably still keep buying milk that (I can only assume) doesn’t come straight out of the cow, since it keeps so much longer (and hey, you can adapt to anything with enough time), but it was nice to know that milk straight from the cow exists in France too

February 8, 2004
Well, the washing machine went home to its rightful owner yesterday, and while I don’t miss it yet (I cleaned everything I could in the last week), I can’t get over how much space I seem to have in my bathroom all of a sudden…and it’s not like it’s a big bathroom! Ah well, the ability to move around (and properly clean) my bathroom is a feeling I will not take for granted!…at least for a little while…

Chapter 54 – On the road…I mean, in the air again

February 1, 2004 (continued)
Day 3: I (as has been my habit for the past month or so) woke up half an hour before my alarm. I got my stuff together, and headed down for breakfast. We had some good laughs as various people stumbled down the stairs for breakfast. Almost everyone was checking out that day (and check out was at 10:00) so we all went up to clean up and head out. In slight rain, Matt and I headed down to the subway to meet Lesli for 10:30. At pretty much the last minute, we found shoes to go with my dress, and headed right back to the subway to get me on my way. From where we were, I needed a subway for just a couple of stops, then on to the line direct to Heathrow. Seemed simple enough…isn’t it time for this trip to sound more like one of mine?

I got to the station and platform of the subway to Heathrow. From that distance, there are two trains on the line, which split off at Acton Town. The next train was the wrong one, but I decided that it would be fine until Acton town, and then I’d just switch. There were many stops in between anyway, plus the sign said that the train after was for Acton Town, and not Heathrow, so I decided I’d just rather be headed in the right direction. I started noticing announcements at every station that said something about Heathrow and Acton Town, but the doors always closed, or there was always too much noise for me to hear anything useful after “Heathrow passengers should…” Just a few stops from Heathrow, I finally discovered that the line from Acton Town to Heathrow was closed for the weekend for engineering work, and that there would be buses from Acton Town. Wonderful. It moved fairly smoothly though, although the bus guy wouldn’t let me keep my bag with me as I’d hoped. The bus actually got to the airport fairly quickly (there were no stops along the way, as there would have been with the subway, so the timing was probably pretty similar) so I was there in lots of time. I found the check-in and, well, checked in; taking my dress etc in a plastic bag as carry-on, just in case they lost my luggage. I was already going to be arriving quite late for getting ready for the dinner, and considered myself lucky that Jo was kind enough to offer to pick me up at the airport. My ticket had no boarding gate on it (which is apparently normal, as it was later explained to me), and I was told that the gate would appear on the millions of TV screens hanging from the ceiling around the airport within about an hour of the flight; no problem; my flight was in less than an hour and a half (2:05pm). By 1:30 my growling stomach (and irritated mind since there was still no gate indicated for my flight) got the best of me, and I spent some ridiculous amount on a sandwich. At 2:30, I called Jo to tell him that I had no idea when my flight was leaving, and Aurélien (who I was going to the dinner with) to say the same. Inevitably, my gate appeared on the board moments later, just when my stress level couldn’t take it anymore. I must have looked up just the moment after it changed, because I was the first person to our gate by at least a minute or two. We finally got off the ground over an hour late, but the flight time had us arriving less than an hour later than planned. Although Jo had said he might be late to meet me, he and Nero were waiting as I walked out of customs. Things were underway! I suppose that wasn’t the most difficult trip I’ve had to deal with, but it seems inevitable that something had to make life difficult!

En route home, I called Aurélien, who was headed off to the thing, but said that it would be no problem for someone to come get me as soon as I was ready. Nothing but pure luck! I made it home, and was showered and into my new dress in less than an hour. Aurélien came back for me, and although I missed the apéritif, I was there in plenty of time for dinner. It was a relatively uneventful night, aside from the arrival of one of my (youngest) students who was dating one of my friends. That was slightly unnerving, since French students really expect a certain distance between themselves and their professors, and are sometimes very uncomfortable seeing me outside of the classroom…especially the younger ones.

Chapter 53 – A little taste of Canada

February 1, 2004 (continued)
Day 2: I woke up fairly early (around 8:00 I think it was…9:00 French time) and couldn’t stay in bed anymore after about a half hour. I headed down to the bar for the complimentary breakfast; toast or cereal…toast for me. I took my time heading back upstairs, and getting dressed, since Matt was still unconscious. It was about 9:30 when I was ready to get out somewhere, and asked the hostel manager when everything opened (since it seemed like everything was still closed). My main objective was to buy wrapping paper, so he directed me to the Woolworths (I didn’t know that still existed) down the street. I got wrapping paper, and cleared out the 5 150mL cans they had of Dr. Pepper (the second thing on my England shopping list after cream eggs) and 3 150mL bottles of Irn Bru (mmmmmm). Back at the bar, I chatted with the hostel manager as I wrapped the gifts. Finally Matt made his appearance. We shopped around a little in Camden Market (I still didn’t have shoes for my dress) and headed down to Notting Hill, near which there was another market (and even nearer to which was Queen – the group -’s old office). We spent a while in Portobello Market mostly waiting for the word from Lesli that she was in London and ready to meet up. I developed a craving for KFC (something else I can’t get in France), so we headed off on a mission to find the nearest one. It turned out to be back near the subway, and while we were there, Lesli called, to arrange a meeting about an hour later. We had lots of time to eat, get back to the hostel, and meet with Lesli back at the subway. We brought her back to the hostel to check it out, and headed off to our target destination: The Maple Leaf. A Canadian pub in Covent Garden. We had planned to do some shopping there too, but we were all too hungry. We had a nice, relaxing meal with poutine as an appetizer. mmmmm…poutine. Good conversation, and good food later, and Lesli’s jet lag was catching up with her. We headed “home” and Matt and I were back at the bar by 9:00.

Thanks to rain and lack of motivation, we decided to spend another evening at the bar (whose name I’ve now forgotten) below the hostel (St. Christopher’s; decent price, nice place; recommended to anyone that’s planning to be in London, and cage thingies in the room where you can stash stuff if you have a lock to put on it). It ended up being a good night, as everyone from our room decided to hang out in the bar too….along with a whole lot of other people! A couple of people headed up between 1:00 and 2:00, but I knew that there would be no rest until the bar closed at 2:00. When that came, it felt like Turret night at the beginning of first year; people desperately scrambling to find someone of the opposite sex. It was really quite sad. Once the music was off, and most of the people were gone, I headed upstairs, where people were (not surprisingly) still awake. More laughing and conversation, and more snoring, before I finally got to sleep. It wasn’t a terribly deep, or restful sleep, and was interrupted most notably when our last two roommates arrived back around 5:30am. I had to be up relatively early though, since I needed to be on the subway by 11:30 at the absolute latest, and I still didn’t have shoes for the dinner, that was now less than a day away.

Chapter 52 – 48 hours in London

February 1, 2004 (continued)
The Reality: As I walked out from customs, a sign that said 1+2+2+1 caught my eye, but I didn’t exactly recognize the person holding it (and wasn’t expecting anyone) so I walked on. I was more than a little embarrassed to have missed the reference, and to not have recognized Matt (he’s taller than I expected!). Two trips to London, two surprise meetings at my arrival. My friends are the BEST! Matt and I headed off right away to meet Lianne at the Hyde Park subway (underground / tube) station; a meeting which went flawlessly (not bad considering my trips always have some kind of problem…). We walked up to the street, and just wandered around for a while in the cold (which might explain the cold I have now). We eventually ended up in front of a fish and chip shop (but given that I don’t like fish, chicken fingers it was). Our afternoon / evening consisted mainly of hanging out and shopping (I was in need of a dress for a formal dinner that I was going to 2 days later). We kept getting kicked out of stores (each seemed to close at a slightly different time) and slipped into a store that had some cool Chinese-style dresses in the window. We checked out the rack at the back with the dresses, but they were all too big, and some pretty odd colours. Lianne made a comment that a gold-coloured one would be good, and amazingly found the only one, which also happened to be the only dress in my size. She and Matt took pictures and convinced me to buy it. All that was missing was shoes…Lianne’s train would be leaving, so we headed towards the station she would be leaving from, and settled in for some Cadbury Cream Eggs (mmmmmmm) and a bite to eat. Oh right; the cream eggs…we had taken the subway to Camden Town (to drop stuff off at the hostel where Matt and I would be staying, and because there’s a cool market there). When we arrived at the station, I spoke up about me need to buy some cream eggs, since I can’t get them in France. There was a newsstand in the station, but the eggs were 42p (more than $1.00CDN) so I decided to get them somewhere else. About 10 feet later, there was a – no joke – Cadbury Cream Egg vending machine, with eggs 3 for 99p. I figured that that was acceptable, and we put in the money…when the machine finally opened there were 3 … boxes of 3 eggs waiting for us. 9 for 99p was much more acceptable! So we pooled are change, and decided to try our luck again. We didn’t have the same luck, but we had 12 cream eggs! Eventually it was time for Lianne to go, so we saw her to her train, and headed to the hostel. Matt and I hung out in the bar below the hostel, and spent a little time with Mike, from Burlington (yes, Ontario…yes, right next to Oakville) over a couple of drinks. I think it was about 2:00 or so, when the three of us headed up to our room. Unfortunately, a snorer woke up the poor guy (later to be discovered as Andreas, aka “South Africa”) who had gone to bed early since he had to be at the US Embassy in the morning in an attempt to get a visitor’s visa for the US. We finally got the snorer to stop, but spent a good while laughing about it before any of us got to sleep.

At one point, we asked said snorer to sleep on his stomach, in the hopes that it would help. To which he replied (although denied it when confronted while fully awake the next day) “The devil sleeps on his stomach”. Wha?

Chapter 51 – I have a new addiction

February 1, 2004
I’m addicted to taking off. No, that’s not a Bob and Doug Mackenzie reference; I’m addicted to the feeling of being in an airplane as it takes off. It’s simple; when your flight puts the engines on full, and starts speeding along, and a few seconds later, comes off the ground; there’s no better feeling. In part, it’s the physical oddity of the feeling, but mostly its the fact that when a plane you’re on takes off, there is one of two feelings that is suddenly amplified: 1) I’m going somewhere cool, or 2) I’m going home. Both can be incredibly positive (or incredibly negative) but whatever the emotion, it is magnified unbelievably as the aircraft accelerates and lifts off. So where did this train (hehehe…train) of thought come from? I just got back from a (far too) short trip to London. It wasn’t a sightseeing adventure, but a friend-seeing trip. I had 2 days to see a friend I’ve known since forever that lives in England, see another that would be arriving the day after I did (and thus the day before I had to leave again), and meet a third, who was a friend via the second…perhaps names would be helpful; my friend Lianne, who I’ve known since forever, currently lives in Ipswich (east of London), and would be able to come into London for an afternoon to see me. Lesli, a friend since a horrible French class in first year (with a prof who was personally offended by the mistakes that students made, and the fact that not everyone could understand his accent – oh yeah, and he was nuts). Lesli had just enough time for a week-long trip to England (thus a visit down to France was out of the question, hence my trip up). And finally, Matt, who lives in Cornwall (yeah, not Ontario) is a friend of Lesli’s, who she met in her travels after graduation, who I’d been in touch with since the summer.

The Plan: Time was tight (for everyone) so the plan was key. Lesli figured that with all the visiting she needed to do in a week, she probably wouldn’t have much more than a day to hang out, so we picked the Friday (the day of her arrival) so that I could be back in Mulhouse Saturday night for a gala thing that I was invited to. I then decided to go a day early to do a little checking-out by myself, but later was able to arrange for Lianne to come into London to hang out, and then Matt as well. So, the final plan: I was flying (time was just too tight, and, frighteningly even a non-discount airline cost little more than the train, and would take 1:15 flight time, where the train would take 7, plus the ever exciting break in Paris, where I would have had to change not just trains, but train stations. So, I was to arrive at Heathrow around 1:00pm, Lianne was to arrive at the other hand of London just a few minutes later, so we picked a subway stop in between, and made plans to meet. Matt was to get into town later in the afternoon. Lesli would then arrive in the morning, meet with the people she was staying with, and meet up with us (Matt and I; Lianne had to be back in Ipswich the night of the day she came) in the afternoon.