Living The Glamourous Life

So I've been really slack in posting lately, and I do apologise. My life is crazy. Apparently moving to another continent hasn't changed a thing. Between uni and work I barely even have a social life anymore! And my exchange has become fairly humdrum, anyway. All the things that were weird and notable and exciting when I got here are just regular old Paris now. Either way, I offer a series of random stories, thoughts and updates from the past little while.

I got my first piece of homework back from one of my literature classes today. It was the devoir sur table (in-class written assessment) from my Literature and Opera class. I've been worried since I've been doing all my assessments as commentaire composes, since that's all I know, but I'm still not sure I'm doing them right, and I warned the teacher about it. I was worrying for nothing. I got a 15/20 for it, which is supposed to be really good in a French uni, and her main criticism was that my spectrum of inquiry was too broad, so I didn't have time or room to go into detail on any points, but what I'd written was good. There was a bunch of grammatical mistakes and miswrites (typos by hand!) but there were no 'construction' problems and she marked a few areas as 'good', and when she talked about the themes of the extracts and what we should have covered (as a general idea), she even gave the title of my devoir as an example of a good one-sentence analysis and theme for the commentaire. I was amazed! Hopefully I'll get another assigment back tomorrow, but after this first mark I'm feeling pretty optomistic about this semester.

I've been freaking out my European friends with the amount of travelling I do. I spent this weekend in Belgium - went up Thursday night and returned last night, Sunday. E3-Harelbeke was on Friday and Gent-Wevelgem was on Sunday, both major cycling races, and both Harelbeke and Wevelgem are a short distance from Kortrijk in Belgium which is just over the border from Lille and Roubaix. While I was there I spent a bit of time in Gent and its suburbs, lots of transfers through Kortrijk and an afternoon in Brugge. In other words, I'm now really well acquainted with the West Flanders region of Belgium. Feel free to check out Peloton Cafe for my E3-Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem pieces and my profile-feature on Mitch Docker, Australian Orica-GreenEDGE cyclist.

Attached is the beginning of an unfinished post from a few weeks ago about a class trip...

I'm not quite as over-the-top with it as I am with my Disney obsession, but I'm absolutely mad for Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera (though we prefer the term 'phanatics'). I love it so much that the first time I saw an English version of the French novel it was based on (in my university bookshop, of all places) I bought and read it straight away. In fact, the first thing that caught my attention on my first trip to Paris was the Opera Garnier, or Old Paris Opera House. The Opera Garnier was the model for the Opera Populaire in the Phantom of the Opera film, so as soon as I saw it I realised I was in the Phantom city (not to mention the city of many other things that are educated and cultural and have nothing to do with tourist stuff). Anyway, you get the point.

I put my name down a few months back to go to a rehearsal of the opera Cenerentola at the Opera Bastille with my Literature and Opera class. We're studying Cenerentola this semester, since it was developed from the story Cendrillon by French writer Charles Perrault (which later became the Disney movie Cinderella - what, everything relates to Disney!), so I thought it would be good to choose that opera to see, plus the Opera Bastille, I mean, pretty cool, right? So you can imagine the kind of excited sounds I made when I realised there'd been a venue change and we were going to the Opera Garnier. Performer's entrance. Exclusive entry. The whole kit and caboodle. Whoa, dude.

I also made some friends on this trip. I finally talked to some of the French girls in my Lit and Opera class, which is handy, because two of them are in my Medieval Language class directly after Lit and Opera on Mondays. Up til now I've been too shy and unsure of my French to talk to the native French students, so I was pretty proud of myself. I've also made a couple of friends in my Morphosyntaxe class - we've been teamed up for an oral presentation next week, but I like them alright. My linguistics classes this semester are great - Medieval to Classical Language and Morphosyntaxe are really engaging and interesting. Even Lit and Opera and Divine Love Lit classes are pretty good, since I've mostly enjoyed the texts we've studied. It's Thursdays that are a bit trying, but there's only five more weeks of class left, so I'll survive (five weeks! Holy moly! Where did the semester go?) And then after that I apply to graduate and I enter the big wide adult world! Scary thought.

In my quest for the best hot chocolate in Paris, last weekend I went to a teahouse called Angelina's that a friend recommended to me to test his assertion that they have the best hot chocolates. I've never been to a cafe that has a queue before, that was an interesting experience. Unsurprisingly the hot chocolate was rather disappointing - it was Spanish-style, not French-style, and the Spaniards don't know how to do hot chocolate. The place was worth it for the experience though, I'd recommend it.

I think that's all for now. I might post some photos at some point if I get around to it. In the meantime I need to eat dinner and then finish ghost-writing Tiffany Cromwell's blog. Ah, the glamorous life of the professional journalist...not.

A Nice Holiday (Part II)

Nemours, south of Paris

Isle-et-Bardais, just north of Cerilly

Countryside in Cerilly

Irish fan cheering on Nic Roche

The bumblebee van - 10 different flags!

This guy was a (French) legend

The finish line at Saint-Vallier

The big blue and yellow bike...

...and the schoolchildren that went with it.

1k from the finish in Saint-Vallier

Looking down 1k-500m to go in Saint-Vallier

The river Rhone, Saint-Vallier

Looking the other way

An eager fan, Saint-Vallier

Montagne de Lure, south-eastern France

Views from Montagne de Lure

My artsy French-mountain photos

The other side of the road

The technical area (the commentary tribune
on the right is where I hang out)

Late mountain sunshine

So I've just had the most amazing week ever following Paris-Nice. The people were amazing, both the ones I travelled with and the ones I met at the race along the way, the views were magnificent, the riders great, and the experience unforgettable. This was my first time at Paris-Nice, as a spectator or a journo, so it was twice as exciting, and I got the chance to work alongside someone from Australian cycling that I greatly admire, which was an incredible opportunity. I have to say a huge thank you to Mike Tomalaris for his advice that put me on the right track, Matt Keenan for making the arrangements and Phil Gomes and the team at SBS Cycling Central for the incredible faith they put in me to cover the race. For those who are interested, you can read all my articles for them here. Next stop: Paris-Roubaix.

A Nice Holiday (Part I)

*Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, a public service announcement...*

Though I am away from Paris travelling south for the next week, I likely won't be posting much as I'm working (and studying in my free time).  In case the title didn't give it away, I'm following the cycling race Paris-Nice, so while there'll be some photos upon my return, in the meantime check out SBS Cycling Central to see my articles!

Ups and downs

I've developed a love/hate relationship with France.  My mood goes from one extreme to another depending on what new cultural idiocy or idiosyncrasy the day hands me.  One moment I'm depressed by the gloomy Parisian weather, the next I'm as pleased as the cat that got the cream on finding a fast way in and out of the city.  Today was one of those days.

I was in a real funk all morning, wanting nothing more than to curl up in bed with a large pile of Lindt and Pride & Prejudice, even though I had to go into the city to buy my books for class.  Didn't want to.  I was in a real funky funk.  But my sense of duty wouldn't be denied, so I pulled on my crumbling backpack and took the RER to Saint-Michel, just south of Notre Dame.

I heard about this bookstore called Gibert Jeune from the other exchange students as the place to buy cheap books in Paris.  I looked it up online - there's about seven stores scattered around Place Saint Michel, each with a different area of specialisation depending on the type of books.  I was still in a bit of a funk when I arrived, and this didn't improve when I couldn't find any of the books I wanted in the main store, and none of the others seemed to fit the bill.  Eventually I asked the clerk on the third floor where I would find the books on my list.  "Oh, they're livres de poche ('pocket books')," she said.  "You'll find them in the Pochotheque on the next floor."

It was like entering another world. The funk vanished. The whole floor of the bookstore was filled with livres de poche, like Penguin Classics in English, but with better covers. It's all alphabetical, and if there's anything you can't find just ask the staff. They can put their hands on any book with 30 seconds (I speak from experience) and if there are none on the shelf then the pull one from the stock in the cupboards just behind the bookshelves. It's a pretty neat set-up. The best part about Gibert Jeune is it's a combination of a new and a used bookshop. Any book with no markings or stickers on it is 'neuf' - a brand-new book - and those with an orange sticker saying 'occasion' are second-hand, and therefore cheaper. I found most of the books I needed and then got so distracted by the pretty orange stickers that I had to grab a basket. I forgot why I usually avoid bookstores. Oops. You can see the results below.

I had just left Gibert Jeune and was heading into the metro station (which accesses the RER station) when I found my second treasure of the day. I could hear music coming up the stairs of the metro as I descended. Buskers are pretty common around the Paris metro, and some even jump on the trains with their violins, piano accordions or portable microphones and speakers to serenade you on your way to work or class. Most of them aren't that great and are easily ignored. But this one was different.

It looked like a collaboration between one of the two girls I'd seen as I passed through the metro earlier and two guys who had come to take their place when they left. The girl had a violin, one of the guys had an acoustic guitar plugged into a mini amp, and the other guy was sitting on what looked like a large speaker that turned out to be a digital drum kit (where you touch the speaker and with how much pressure determines the type and volume of drum). They were doing an improv instrumental piece between the three of them that was so good it drew a crowd of people, something I've never seen in the metro before.

When they finished, to a loud round of applause, the girl and her partner packed up and left the space to the two guys. I stayed and listened for a while longer. I think I stood there for about half an hour with my huge bag of books and feet sore from standing. I have no idea if the boys were playing from memory or just improvising too, but the choice of chords and the poignant melodies were so lovely that I couldn't help but smile. It was even nicer because they looked like they were genuinely having fun too, and the whole experience made me feel a lot lighter. I was glad I had the presence of mind to grab my camera and take a video. So, guys, if you're out there, c’était absolument incroyable, merci beaucoup pour aviver mon journée.

I got back from my cycling weekend away yesterday.  Sunday went pretty well - I caught a taxi to Chateauneuf-en-Thymerais after breakfast, where I was able to pick up my official press pass and make my way up to the GreenEDGE team bus to introduce myself.  I left the team around 4pm in Tours and made my way down to the press room in the mairie (town hall).  The presence of a tiny, young-looking journo with two big bags on crutches raised a few eyebrows, but with my nice shiny press pass around my neck no-one tried to stop me.  I grabbed a seat in the press room and got stuck into my article for Peloton Cafe, taking a quick break to listen to the interview with race winner Marco Marcato.  It wasn't until the second question that I realised the language he was speaking was Italian (and being translated into French for the journos), since I was writing down the key words in both languages regardless!  Polyglot much?

I left/got kicked out of the press room at 7.30pm and headed down the street to where I could take the bus to the youth hostel.  It was several minutes late, but it was the right bus and I was able to buy a ticket without any trouble.  The driver told me when I reached my stop a few minutes later, and I thanked him and got out.  Even though the street sign told me I was in the right place - rue Bretonneau - I couldn't find number five and saw nothing that looked like a youth hostel.  The couple I stopped on the street to ask directions put me straight - I was on rue Bretonneau, The Suburbs, not rue Bretonneau, Tours.  The husband kindly drove me back to Tours and walked me to the door of the hostel to make sure I got there safely.  And before anyone starts lecturing me about accepting lifts from strangers, it was 8:15pm on a Sunday night and I was on a street far from where I was meant to be, on crutches with no discernible way of getting back, and I've found that it's usually less of a risk when the strangers in question are a kindly older couple who remind you of your grandparents.

Absolutely starving, I dropped my bag off in my room and headed out to find somewhere to eat.  Thankfully there was a whole slew of restaurants nearby, and I parked myself in one of them with some tagliatelle and Tyler Hamilton's new book The Secret Race, which I'd downloaded in Macca's the night before.  Heading back to the hostel, I spend the rest of the evening trying to re-send my article to Jarrod, since my email account had apparently gone on the fritz.

I was up early on Monday morning, checking my computer, packing my bag and having breakfast.  At 8.30am I took my room key downstairs to check out and asked directions to the Tourism Office for my bus tour.  Being too far to walk I was going to have to take a bus, but I was beginning to cut it fine.   Thankfully a bus showed up to the nearby bus stop by quarter to, and by the time I'd gotten off in the centre of town and walked to the Tourism Office it was five to.  But here's the catch - apparently my 'reservation' wasn't a reservation after all!  My bus tour wasn't booked!  The lady in the office made a few phone calls and was able to get me a space on one leaving that morning at 9.30am, and I thanked her profusely.  I was taking a trip to the chateaux of the Loire valley.

I actually really enjoyed Amboise Castle.  Most of the original castle has been pulled down - just two small wings remain, the edge of the foundations and one or two other buildings, like the lovely little chapel where Leonardo da Vinci is now interred.  The gardens are really stunning, but I didn't have time to explore them.  By the time I'd seen the chapel, admired the view of the town and the river over the castle walls and walked through the main building, we'd run out of time and had to meet the bus.

Our second and final stop for the day was Chenonceau.  Some of you might be surprised to find you're already familiar with this castle - remember that giant white chateau in last year's Tour de France coverage that was stretched over the river Loire, like a house build on a bridge surrounded by beautiful gardens?  That's Chenonceau.  It was a beautiful day, misty, cloudy, and raining a little by the time we reached Chenonceau - just lovely.  I'm not being sarcastic.  It's easy to love things when the sun in shining.  Everything looks so pretty and romantic in the golden rays that you fall in "love" with everything you see.  If you can appreciate something in miserable weather then you've really and truly enjoyed yourself instead of just being swept away by the sunshine.  In fact, the misty rainy greyness of the day added a lovely element of wistful nostalgia that you simply won't experience when the sun is out.

I didn't like Chenonceau as much.  The big draw of Chenonceau is its architecture, its unique location built right on top of the Loire, and you can't see that from within the castle.  Inside is standard Fancy Old Western Building - tapestries, paintings, decor, sumptuous four-poster beds, the kind of stuff you can see anywhere.  What I really wanted to enjoy was the view of the chateau over the water, and no matter how much I hung out windows I couldn't really get a good look.  If you really want to visit Chenonceau, then take a helicopter flight over it or a boat trip under it.  Walk through the chateau, explore the gardens and the maze, but make sure you see the castle face-on if you can.  I felt a little like I'd missed the point of the trip for not having had that experience.

I bought my train ticket home at the Tours station and had lunch, followed by hot chocolate, in a mall not far from the station.  It was an easy, two-hour trip home on the TER, the slower regional trains that are cheaper than the TGV.  My plants missed me while I was away - did I mention that I've also adopted some miniature cyclamens that I'm naming Cecilia 1-6?  I'm slowly clearing all the junk that's accumulated in my room, and continues to accumulate, since I moved in and am finding homes for all my genuine acquisitions, like books and fridge magnets.  This place has an unmistakeable mark of 'Caelli' on it now.

For Kiri, after our little discussion

Departures and arrivals at Paris Gare Montparnasse

Double decker train to Chartres

Me at Amboise

Leonardo da Vinci's grave

Looking out on the town of Amboise from the castle

The chapel of Saint Hubert at Chateau Amboise

The chateau

Looking at the chateau from inside the chapel

The grounds of Amboise

So turns out I'm also terrified of suits of armour
(along with mannequins, heights and garbage trucks...)

Amboise from behind

The sweeping drive of Chenonceau

Chenonceau from the landward side

The Great Hall at Chenonceau

Looking across the Loire at the castle

The outbuildings and gardens

The castle from the second floor

There's 12 books here and I got change from 50 euros.  Not bad

Studies of everything

So I'm writing this from my hotel room in Chartres, staring out the window at the city as I sit on the bed. I'm sure for most of you this then begs the question: what am I doing in a hotel room in Chartres? I'll get to that in a moment, but before I start in on the chaotic but momentous events of today, I need to provide an account of my first week of classes at Sorbonne, which is now a good day overdue (and not looking likely to happen unless I do it tonight!).

My uni week starts on a Wednesday afternoon. My free time so far, of which I admit I've had a fair bit, has mostly been given over to administrative tasks - shopping to stock up my wardrobe, kitchen and pantry; completing documentation for France or Sorbonne, slowly; and generally acquainting myself with the city, not to mention a good deal of cycling work. I put all this aside on mid-morning on Wednesday and headed into the 5th, since classrooms would be published in the foyer of Sorbonne during the first week. I checked my classroom and then headed across the road for lunch, since I was starving. I was also a few hours early. Given I have no idea how anything operates around here, I've deemed it wise to allow plenty of extra time for important things like trains and classes - where possible, at least.

I dropped into the bank to pick up my new bank card, visited a few shops that I'd been interested in around the 5th arrondissement, and still had an hour or so to kill, so I headed for my favourite hideout in the 5th, Saint-Medard, for a little while. Finally it was getting close to four o'clock, so I tripped back to Sorbonne and headed to the classroom number indicated. Of course, when I wrote my timetable in my notebook, I should really have noted the class NAMES next to the codes. I had no idea which class I was walking into!

It became evident pretty quickly that I was in the literature/culture class called 'Sacred Miracles, Profane Miracles' (yes, they explore the oddest concepts in their classes at Sorbonne - much more delightfully eccentric than Monash!) It also became evident that the girl next to me had as little idea as I did of what was going on - yes, an exchange student! Aida hails from Barcelona and had two other Spanish friends in the class too. But wait - there's more. It turns out the lovely Swedish-born Ana who studies in the US while her family lives in the UK was, obviously, an exchange student. I suspect there were more than just the five of us, too. We made it clear to the teacher that we were all exchange students (and therefore have mediocre French and little to no clue of what was going on), though the teacher was unyielding on the methodologies that the French students learned in earlier years of their degrees and which would be needed for our assessments. None discouraged, we all headed home, where I cooked up a late dinner (three-hour class finishing at 7pm means I get home a little after 8) and called it a day.

Thursday started a little earlier - classes started at 2pm. After my usual morning tasks I packed my bag and raced out the door so I wouldn't be late to class. It wasn't until I got to the metro that I realised my problem - having left at 11.40am would get me there by 1pm, not 2pm. I took the opportunity to head to the CROUS canteen and have a leisurely lunch by myself, re-reading Paul Kimmage's Rough Ride which I'd finished the day before (and yes, I'm aware I'm a very fast reader!) Stopping for a hot chocolate at the uni canteen, I was a little late for class, mostly because I wasn't sure which of the two Spanish classes was mine and I was a little too terrified to ask anyone - assuming, that is, that anyone I could have asked would have known anything.

Spanish class was kind of unexciting - the teacher spoke beautiful polished French for the first half of the class as he explained assessments, requirements and so on. When he finally did switch to Spanish, having described a curriculum that sounded like everything I covered in first year, he handed out a small excerpt from a Spanish novel that even I found a little difficult. Even in class here they send mixed messages. Again, I made sure to inform the teacher that I was an exchange student, etc., and though I'd imagined that this would be the one class where my French ability wouldn't matter, since we'd all be in the same boat (more or less) when it came to our Spanish, I guess my imagination needs a tweak. The grammar textbooks that he recommended were all based on French (hello, Schaums' grammars!) and even the vocab explanations were all given in French!

I ran into Lisanne as class ended - she was in the same Spanish level but the class after me. I had to run, though, since I had another class directly after, thankfully also on the third floor. I had finally found the room, or so I thought, when a face jumped out at me - Paul. I hadn't seen him for a week either, but I had no time to chat - I had to get to class. Upon finally realising that the door opened inwards (oops...) I was thankfully only a minute or two late, to be expected in the first week. At least I was doing better than the cinema kids who all wandered in thinking it was their class...

The teacher was lovely - one of those vibrant, happy people who just never seems to get down. She gave us a short quiz designed partly to give her some weekend reading material but also to see how much we knew about French literature (oh, the class was Contemporary Narrative Fiction, by the way). I wrote on my quiz that while I could hold my own on the topic of contemporary English-language or Australian literature, I knew nothing about contemporary French literature and was here to learn. I had a little trouble following a lot of what was said, maybe because I was feeling really tired and the lovely teacher really was speaking very fast. I gave her the standard speech after class about being an exchange student, not having a brilliant grasp of French and therefore being a slow reader, and Sabrinelle, who apparently has a very unique name even in France, seemed quite pleased to have an Australian student and was very sympathetic with my potential difficulties, telling me not to hesitate to raise my hand and ask for help if I was struggling. Reassured, it was home again for an early night before Friday morning's class.

Friday started at 7am, definitely not my favourite time to start the day. I was out the door by 10 to eight and on my way to uni, arriving with just enough time to check my classroom and be waiting when the preceding class finished and ours filed in (8am class? Really?). I liked this teacher almost from the get-go. She spoke very clearly and not too fast, and even as she outlined the course I was getting excited. History of the Orthography of the French Language, before I forget. It seemed surprisingly popular, too, as more and more people kept filing in until we ran out of chairs and tables. Our teacher seemed a little taken aback, but simply told us to make sure we were enrolled so that our marks would officially count. We got straight into it, examining a copy of a letter from George Sands to Gustave Flaubert in which Sands made three of the 'orthographic errors' about which he was so vocally critical in others! Also, you've got to love a class whether the teacher gets distracted and goes off on a tangent about regional accents in class, using students to give examples as well as incorporating the accent of her native region following a discussion about....I can't remember what. It was all fascinating to me, though, since I know the English-language equivalents of most things we discussed (like the first known written record of the language - the epic Beowulf in English, in French the Sermon de Strasbourg) but the French is a whole fascinating undiscovered country. This is definitely shaping up to be my favourite class.

I dropped into Carrefour again on my way home, picking up some things that I can get at Franprix in Le Bourget and some notebooks and folders for uni. Spending the afternoon in more of the administrative tasks (and preparations for Paris-Tours this weekend), I headed out again around 8.30pm for the RER station. Martin had invited some people over for pre-drinks before heading out to a party, and since his nearest metro station had turned out to be also an RER station that was 20 minutes away on my line, I wanted to catch up with my friends. The walk from the station felt as long as the train trip, though (but that could just have been because I had no idea where I was going) and I was nearly ready to kill Martin when I arrived at his building to be told his apartment was on the fifth floor up five flights of rickety wooden stairs!

I made it without dying, though, and I saw Paul and Lisanne as soon as I walked in the door. The other two people there quickly introduced themselves, Simone and Chris from - you guessed it - Germany! The language was therefore a strange hybrid of English, French and German - Martin in particular would speak in very rapid German, insert a three-word sentence in English without pausing and then use a French word for something else a minute later. They were also very amused by my gobsmackedness at how much they knew about random aspects of Australian or Anglophone culture - I'm aware that English-language music is very popular in Europe, but knowing Green Day and Oasis on the guitar or singing Red Hot Chili Peppers word perfect - really? The bit that really floored me was that Chris was acquainted with Waltzing Matilda - and then, before I could blink, he goes on to reference Midnight Oil's Beds Are Burning! I feel so culturally ignorant only knowing Anglophone culture, music and history.

Now as towhy I'm in Chartres this evening and not catching up with the Germans at Nuit Blanche before the early night I always want but never get, it began with a phone call. Well, several phone calls, actually, which I slept through at 7am today. I was blissfully asleep until almost 9 o'clock, when I got out of bed and sat down at my computer with a bowl of cereal. I logged on to all the usual suspects - Hotmail, Facebook and Skype, for my morning convo with Down Under, though no-one seemed to notice I'd come online for our usual weekend phone call. I started reading my emails while I waited for them to return to the computer and accidentally came across what Mother had been calling to tell me.

On a whim, Mum had asked Jessi Braverman, Orica-GreenEDGE's press officer, if I could ride with Joachim the soigneur in the GreenEDGE team car for Paris-Tours as part of the official media contingent. Jessi consulted the GreenEDGE DS for Paris-Tours, Lionel Marie, and amazingly Jessi came back with a yes! The catch was that Lionel wanted me at the race start an hour early. Unfortunately Chateauneuf-en-Thymerais is nigh on inaccessible by public transport, hence I'd already dismissed the idea and was heading to the race finish at Tours. There were no buses from the nearest town, Chartres, before midday and in fact no trains to Chartres arriving before 9:30, either. This meant that I needed to stay the night in the area so I could make my way to Chateauneuf early Sunday morning. An examination of my press pack also revealed a list of team hotels, so with some quick internet work I lined up a train to Chartres, a room in the hotel where GreenEDGE would be staying, the bus tour I wanted for Monday morning in Tours (I already had a hostel booked for Sunday night) and a train ticket from Tours back to Paris.

Anyway, it took me too long to get to Gare Montparnasse and buy a ticket to make the 3pm train, but by then it was a short wait for the 4pm. One note on the trains - double. Decker. Wicked cool. Naturally I chose the upper level, crutches and all. After a misty ride through rainy, condensation-obscured Eure-et-Loire, I descended the train, to use the French term, at Chartres and headed for the bus stop. Successfully finding the right bus, I boarded, bought a ticket and got out at the stop the driver indicated, following the directions he'd given me to find the right street. The woman he was talking to was correct - it was a long walk, but the misting rain didn't bother me too much.

The hotel, when I found it, wasn't snazzy, but it's clean, perfectly adequate and warm and dry. Dinner was the ever-so-sophisticated Macca's next door - not fancy, I know, but it was close and they even did vegetarian for me!  So far no sign of GreenEDGE, though I can see the Saxobank and BMC team trucks across the road from the hotel in a warehouse yard. Anyway, if not beforehand then I'll see them at the race start in Chateauneuf-en-Thymerais once I've picked up my official press pass! Keep your eyes peeled for a post from Tours tomorrow night or else the race report and/or articles to appear on Peloton Cafe the following morning!

The little traveller

Today was my first trip outside Paris. I headed north to Soissons to watch the start of Paris-Brussels, my first race in Europe. I was up at 6am, headed for the RER at 6.20 to take the TER train to Soissons from Gare du Nord at 7.01.

Though I gave up on the tickets at Le Bourget and managed to make the 6.40am RER, the rabbit-warren-like nature of one of Paris’s major train stations meant that by the time I figured out where to buy tickets and where to find the train, I had missed the 7.01. Fortunately there was another one in an hour, so I didn’t have to amuse myself for too long. Southern Cross can’t hold a candle to Gare du Nord. It reminded me of one of Monet’s more famous paintings of another Paris train station, the Gare-Saint-Lazare. Paris, and France in general, still retains a lot of its history in the most subtle ways, giving it an old-world charm, as in the construction of these huge, ancient centres of transport.

The train was lovely, as nice as any Vline train you’d find at home (though a lot more expensive). I parked myself on a bench seat and watched avidly out the windows as my seatmates all slept. Soissons is in the region of France known as Picardie, a truly beautiful area. Think of any stereotypical tourist photo you’ve seen of France – small hamlets of white houses with matching brown roofs, surrounded by miles of woods full of deciduous trees in their bright green glory, or acres of farmland in the tricolour of freshly-turned deep brown earth, the pale yellow of a recent harvesting or the vivid green of a new planting. That’s Picardie to a t. It’s just stunning.

There was just over an hour of French countryside on the trip, stopping here and there at train stations that all have the ridiculously long names that the French seem to favour. The conductor was a sight worth seeing – think of British train conductors from Enid Blyton books and you’ve got a rough idea. The royal purple vest and a matching old-fashioned conductor’s hat looked great; I really wish Melbourne had kept those kinds of uniforms!

I arrived in Soissons ready for the race. Unfortunately, the excellence of the Paris public transport network and the coverage of the trains don’t seem to have expanded into the country. My limited choices of buses wouldn’t arrive in time to get me to the race start, so Shank’s pony was my best bet. Using my French on passers-by to ask directions, I made my way to the imposing Abbé de Saint Jean des Vignes, a huge crumbling building that would have been a wonderful sight in its day. Though I only spent a short time there, I was struck with a sense of sadness, having seen other huge cathedrals and monuments throughout other parts of Europe and France. To see the statues on the tower missing heads, grass growing along the upper stories and the walls reduced to a couple of metres of crumbling stone was an ignominious end for a building that was constructed for a far greater purpose than that which it now fulfils. It felt like the abbey itself was mourning the loss of its health and vigour, unable to do anything but sit and watch itself slowly wither and die, useless. It was an eerie sensation.

I eventually found the start of the race, a ways further on. I won’t go into the cycling part of things – if you want to read that, go to Maillot Jaune to Maglia Rosa or Peloton Café and read my article there – but I will say that I got rather excited to see Jeremy Roy riding away from the FDJ van, and yelled out “Allez Jeremy!”, to which he looked at me and smiled. I saw him again at the départ, a metre or two from me, so I called again “Allez Jeremy! Bonne chance!” I think he gathered he had a fan there that day, a nice feeling given everyone was focussing on his teammate, the youngster Arnaud Démare.

I found the local boulangerie after the race had left and grabbed a croissant and an Orangina, my French food lunchtime staples. I’m going to come home so fat from all this butter. After a quick meal, I began the looooong walk back to the Gare de Soissons, arriving just in time to make the next train, thus saving myself a three-hour wait for the one after. I was so tired by the time I boarded that I sat down and promptly fell asleep for the first half of the voyage, missing much of the scenery.

I arrived at Gare du Nord, now with some idea of how to work the public transport system, bought myself an RER ticket back to Le Bourget and jumped on the next line B train heading my way (the TER went right through Le Bourget RER station, but there was no button to stop the train…). A visit to the boulangerie to pick up a demi-baguette (a half-baguette) for dinner and an afternoon snack and the supermarket for some butter, and it was home to collapse and let my poor body recover from the ordeal I’d just put it through. Suffice to say my hands are mutinying and preparing to abandon ship… 

Sunset in Paris from my window.

Please note who makes the TERs...

Love the uniform!!

Another train parked at a station.

The Abbe de Saint Jean des Vignes from behind.

On the tracks to Soissons - the scenery of Picardie.

Jonas Aaen Jorgenson gives me a smile.

The Abbey of Saint John of the Vines from the front.

An Irishman in France..sorry, Mum, I thought it said Dan Martin!