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march 31th, 2004
Lacoste I
| Hey everyone! I just have a few random photos to upload, some are from the trip to Nimes and somehow I forgot to upload them. The photos of the church are taken by my friend Joanna. They are of a Catholic church in Apt. What makes it really cool though is it has a real crypt (rotting corpses no longer included) and "relics". Relics is a practice that the Catholic church used to do that entailed cutting off parts of dead Saints, sticking them in boxes, and putting them on display. Ewwwwww! But its cool none the less, and the boxes are works of art in their own right. There are two types in the photo, the first ones are shaped as the head of the dead Saint, and to the left |
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Catholic Church in Apt, the body parts are in the photo on the left. |
| Below is a series of random photos with captions: |
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A cool fountain in Nimes, Joanna sitting with me. |
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Gives whole new meaning to chicken fingers |
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Hey, we have our own line of clothing in Nimes |
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Gentlemen, I think its time we had a cup of Jo! |
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Has nothing at all to do with Lacoste or France, complete shameless plug for my cat Smokey. |
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Well that’s it for the photo update, here's what has been going on in Lacoste for the past few days. We all have been walking on pins and needles a bit because the president of SCAD, Paula Wallace is visiting this week with a bunch of rich people in effort to try and get them to give the school money. We knew this was happening when we were still in the states, but it has created more drama then I had anticipated. Most of the students are not impressed by her presence, and some are down right bitter. I myself am somewhere in-between that. Most of us don't like the fact that they have brought in artwork, new expensive flowers, better food, and busily fixing things up just because her royal majesty Palla-Walla is here. As soon as she is gone things are going to return back to the way they were. So the first night she was here a few dumb students, who shall remain nameless, said some retarded things and that got her and he staff's panties in a bundle, and we got a little chat from our teachers as a result. My personal part in this drama was Monday night at dinner they put these stupid grass pots on all the tables, to make the place more classy I suppose, my friends and I made a crack about it, and I started singing "Santa clause is coming town" only substituting Palla-Walla for Santa: "She knows when you are sleeping, she knows when you're awake, so knows if you been bad or good...". Well we all thought it was funny, but apparently one of her minions/flying monkeys heard and went and told her. As a result at dinner Palla came to MY table and talked with us for 20 minutes trying to play the "I am here for you all, I am nice approachable person" bit. Well I didn't buy it, and all I wanted was for her to go away. Three out of four of us were just smiling and nodding. Unfortunately one child who some how slipped past natural selection took her "you can tell me anything" to heart, and I damn near choked on my tator-tot! The first thing out of his mouth was "do you sometimes feel people hide things from you?" followed by, "I feel my teachers are overworked", and the grand finally was "Why do you think you seem untouchable?". Well I damn near took one for the team by reaching for my fork to stab him in the eye! Fortunately between the remaining sane three of us we got him to shut up and Palla left without incident. The one positive thing to come out of it was Brad in effort to change the subject suggested the we get shower curtains in the our shower room, since currently we only have clear glass, which limits the showers to just one at a time (we have two). Well sure enough yesterday morning there were curtains sitting on the shelf ready to be put on. Our joy was short lived though because in true SCAD form they had indeed gotten us curtains, but the curtain rings were too thick, not to mention had no way of opening up to attach the curtain or rod! So we shall see if we ever get working curtain. Well I will keep you all posted on what happens with her, I am sure the drama is far from over.
Oh, and the weather here is INSANE! You can’t keep up with it. One day its cold, next warm, and yesterday we had hurricane force winds, and now they are gone! I can’t keep up!!!!! (Insert Lewis Black angry finger pointing)
One more little venting complaint. There are some people here who took a tumble off the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down! One girl in particular every time she opens her mouth it takes all my effort not to reach across and smite her! There is also a fair share of just WEIRD art students, which is no different from back in Savannah. This one guy wears these bright orange camo pants constantly... you DON'T wear bright orange camo in southern France! Oh well, as Harry Chapin once said, "If only the world were as wonderful as I...". The good news is there are plenty of cool people here to balance out the crazies, just pray for me that I don't take one of them out.
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Today was an adventure and a half! They made us get up at 9am and loaded us on the bus for an hour bus ride to the city of Nimes. First let me explain the "culture shock of the day". Apparently the French, and much of Europe, equate driving with the air condition or the windows open as too cold and will make you sick. So our driver refused to put on the AC on for more then 5 minutes at a time, and we all baked and got carsick on the curving roads. Once we finally got to Nimes we drove a short distance to a 2,000-year-old Roman aqueduct! This is THE Roman aqueduct that you see on Discovery/History channel all the time. There is NO "cement" or anything else holding the stones together, they stay together just by their own pressure and weight! So a bit of a history lesson here... this aqueduct system was built to get water to Nimes for retired legionnaires who lived there. The water source was 20 kilometers away (that river is not the source), and only SEVENTEEN feet higher then where it ends, but the aqueduct itself is just over 50 kilometers long. That is some hard-core engineering. And it was still in functional use until a few hundred years ago! Now the bridge portion is all that remains in that particular area, but you can still climb all over it, its very solid bridge. The water itself was carried only on the very top level in a small tunnel. Oh, it was also bitterly cold today, as you can tell from us shivering in the photos. In addition the wind was so strong at points I had to grab on to something for fear it was going to fling me off the aqueduct.
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LOTS, of photos from the aquduct. |
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I apologize for it taking so long for me to get to this, but I guess I should start from the beginning. The trip over here was hell. It took three flights to get here! I left last Thursday at about 2pm out of Savannah to Atlanta, at which point we had just over a two-hour layover. From Atlanta I got on a British Airways Boeing 777, which is a pretty cool airplane! Unfortunately SCAD travel did a shit job booking our flight, so all the scad people were scattered throughout the "world traveler" class of the plane, which is British Airways nice way of saying "poor people to the back of the plane!" They make you walk past first class, which let me tell you looked choice! (They had full-fledged couches to sit in with little dividers so they didn't have to look at each other I suppose). So for the next eight hours I was crammed back in an itty-bitty seat, and I was fed something that resembled beef tips and gravy. They gave out free wine and it was really cheap and tasted shitty, so I ended up watching Matrix Revolutions then sort of passing out for the rest of the flight. We arrived in London thirty minutes early so I made my connecting flight no problem. The flight to France was only about an hour and a half, and by this time I am tired and out of good. On the flight I think it is worth mentioning I ate my first (of what soon will be many ham and cheese sandwiches, the French appear to LOVE their ham and cheese sandwich). We finally arrive in Lacoste and we are met by Reid (our resident director) and the bus. It is at this point I experience my first of many culture shocks as I attempted to exchange travelers’ checks for euros (Mom, I now know what Stuart was talking about in regards to culture shock). Neither I nor the woman working the counter had a clue what the other was saying, and I completely froze. Fortunately Louren came over and used her French speaking magic and the exchange was made. We all then got on the bus for the final journey to Lacoste, which I slept through and awoke to find myself at the foot of a small mountain, with Lacoste. Dad, you would have totally shit your pants driving on this road up the mountain. VERY narrow, very steep, very winding. I am not sure how the bus made it. Hungry, exhausted, and cranky we stumbled off the bus... and the adventure officially begun!
In Savannah they described Lacoste as "perched upon a hill". I say NAY NAY! It’s a fuckin mountain! Words cannot describe as we got off the bus for the first time and took in our surroundings. We all stood with our jaws on the floor starring at the mind blowing beautiful valley below us covered in farm land (mostly grapes) and then realizing we actually had to hike our shit up this cobbled stone road that made the hills in San-Francisco look like the great plains! Finally we made it (gasping for air from the hike) and were assigned rooms. My room is straight out of JR Tolken! I live in a hobbit hole! It’s slightly built into the mountain itself, and must have been an oven or some sort of giant smoker at some point in its life. There are three other people living in it with 2 separated bedrooms. There is a connecting bathroom and showers. The room is way cool. The other rooms are mostly remodeled and look fairly modern, but ours has character with the original stone walls still showing. I have a small desk with a window overlooking the valley. Just outside our door is a small grass courtyard/terrace, which is actually built on someone else’s roof. The view from there is incredible. We can see almost the entire valley and walking out to it every morning will never get old. After settling in we had some dinner, and 36 hours after leaving the states I settled in for my first night in France.
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| Views from the courtyard, and a small part of my bedroom |
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| Saturday we went to in open air market in a near by town called "Apt" to get art supplies and anything else we needed. This was quite an experience. It was several city blocks long and they sold everything from fresh fruit and meat, clothes, toys, electronics, EVERYTHING, and it was all outside. We spent a few hours there and I got to hang out with my roommate Brad for the first time (we are good buddies now). After we were finished there we went back home and I spent the afternoon exploring Lacoste. The city is so beautiful. They have been literally been building on top of itself since the Romans! So the bottom part of a wall is much older then the top part. Certain passages look biblical, like Jesus or someone will march through it at any moment. The other fact I cannot stress enough is how steep the cobblestone roads are. If it ever rains here walking will be impossible. Going anywhere is a major endeavor. Especially to the top where the ruined remains of the Marquis De Sade castle are. I will have lots more photos of the town itself later. |
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Views from within lacoste |
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Sunday was a day for us to do whatever we wanted. Brad, Joanna (a girl who was in my 3D Design class last quarter, and who the three of us hang out a lot) decided to hike to the town across the valley; you can see it in the photos above. It was about three miles, and just absolutely beautiful walk. The valley is mostly grape farmlands, and a few houses, including Demi Moore's and John Malcovich's. I forget the towns name right now, but back in the day, it and Lacoste used to kill each other on the weekends for shits and giggles because it was catholic and Lacoste was protestant, and apparently they still don't think much of each other. It's a lot more touristy then Lacoste and not nearly as pretty, nor as friendly. Several French teenagers thought we were the funniest things they had ever seen, got a good laugh as we walked by and took a photo. After briefly visiting a local bakery we walked back to Lacoste.
I am going to wrap this up a bit quickly because I am tired as hell right now. Between Monday and now I started classes, and they seem pretty cool. The really cool thing is that today we went to a Roman bridge for my art history class. This bridge is over 2000 years old and is in still use by lots of traffic! We had a picnic lunch and climbed all over it. On the way to the bridge we also stopped at an old abandoned complex that in the course of a few hundred years has been a bar, hotel, brothel, etc.
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| The sunday walk |
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| Photos from the abaondoned complex and the roman bridge |
| Well thats it for now, sorry for such a long novel. I hope to get lots of photos up soon includding my trip to the Roman aquaduct which is happening friday morning. If you have any questions about whats going on here please ask me! I would love to hear from you any of you. Chow! |
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photo journal entries
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