Oh No!

That was the exclaimation I made when Deb informed that I had left my passport in my pants when I washed clothes today.  It is very damp and wrinkled, but things still seem legible.  I hope I can still use it!  We travel to Barcelona next week.  Then we have a long weekend in Venice before Paris the following week.  After that, it is on to Ireland for a short break.  If my passport doesn't work, I'll probably end up in a foreign jail!

Before you get the wrong idea!

Some people have asked me if I am enjoying my vacation in France.  Vacation could not be further from the truth.  I am teaching an Intro to Women and Society course here and one on line at home.  I also have a directed reading for an honors student and a tutorial in International Social Work with a student here.  I am attending a French class, and am teaching a 6 credit course using teleconferencing back in the US.  I am also driving to and attending most excursions.  I don't think I have ever been busier.

This is a great opportunity, but to call it a vacation would be a real misnomer.

Traveling Again

Once again our troop went on an excursion to visit a very interesting church and museum in the village of Conques (Conch in English).  It is an amazing village that is built into the side of a mountain and was known for pilgramages in early Christian times.  Here is a picture from the opposite mountain. 

I knew it was going to be a rough trip from the beginning.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, the roads here are very different from the U.S. roads.  They are tighter and windier.  Both Lori (Dr. Woods) and I were driving one of the cars with 5 passengers each.  Half way down the hill from Ambialet, Ed noticed a smell of burning rubber.  I quickly checked my emergency brake and it was fine.  Joh then noticed that Lori's car was smoking in the back.  I beeped our horn, flashed my lights, but couldn't get Lori to stop until we were through Amialet.  Now what you should no is that the car I was driving has around 88000 km on it while Lori's has around 1000.  Its virually brand new.  After this start, I worried that it may be one of those days.
After a 2 hour and some odd minute drive, we arrived at the mountain from which the picture above was taken.  To get this view, we had to drive up a very tight (kind of a theme here) road.  I guessed it was only one lane up the hill and maybe would just continue back down on the other side.  I was wrong, of course.  So we very carefully drove back down this ridiculously tight road, with the valley and steep cliffs on one side and the mountain on the other.  But luckily we made it.

We went to the church first and looked at the facade in front.  That's it above.  In order to get there, the students took the final journey of the pilgrimage done by believers since the abbey and shrine to Saint Foy was opened in the 10th century.  This meant walking up a huge hill.  Being that I am so magnaminous, I did not walk this wonderful traail, but instead drove up the mountain and parked around 1/4 mile from the abbey and church.  Boy, am I a nice guy (volunteering to park the car was suggested by Tim, who runs the entire Ambialet project here).  The students arrived, exhausted, about 20 minutes later.  During the instructor's discussion of the facade, a priest came out of the church and requested he lower his voice because mass was occurring.  The priest went back in and Eric, the instructor, proceded to boom away again.  I half expected flying monks to come out of the abbey to attack us.  Luckily, that wasn't the case.

We also got a chance to see relics that were stored at the abbey, in a museum.  One was a statue of St. Foy herself (now a quick quiz "what city in the US is named after St. Foy?) whcih had been stolen by monks from Conques to try to attract pilgrims in the 10th century.  Sacred destinations.com has the following description that was given by a pilgrim in 1010....
"The crowd of people prostrating themselves on the ground was so dense it was impossible to kneel down... When they saw it for the first time, all in gold and sparkling with precious stones and looking like a human face, the majority of the peasants thought that the statue was really looking at them and answering their prayers with her eyes." 
Saint Foy's claim to fame was that she cured the blind and helped free captive Christians.  While we had no blind, I wondered if any students thought they could be considered "captives".

We also met a very nice barmaid at a local pub while we waited to leave.    As is a growing theme of bars in France, the barmaid was not a French women, but a Brazilian.  Seems that most barmaids we meet are from countries other than France.  Maybe we will meet some French barmaids when I travel to Ireland next month.

We made it home safe and sound.

The Ghost of Le Prieure

We've been having quite a few interesting evenings with students and some staff reporting strange events.  People have been hearing steps around 4 in the morning, and yet the lights (which are on a motion sensor) do not go on.  this has occurred many nights.  I, of course, do not believe in ghosts, and think it is just the vivid imagination of a group of people staying in a building that is over 1000 years old. 

I think that much of what is happening is due to the students imagination.  One incident occurred when Shane heard a voice speaking in the middle of the night.  He seemed to think there was a ghost, meanwhile Melanie, another student had been trying to talk to something she imagined there.  That's the voice that Shane heard.  The night before that Ed was walking down to the old dark arc room and when he retruned his footsteps woke many people up.  No, not a ghost, just Ed. 

Saturday night, everyone but Deb and I went to a villiage fete.  This is a party with lots of food.  Since Deb was still sick, I stayed back with her and we had a chicken, rice and some salad for supper.  As we sat eating, we kept hearing a banging door.  We'd run and check, and there would be no one there.  Occasionally the dogs would bark.  As we discussed the "ghost" making door slam, it occurred to us that we may have left our door open.  Low and behold, that was the case, no ghost, just me being born in a barn.

With Hallowen approaching, I believe we will have increasing ghostly tales.  Stay tuned as I debunk each concern.  Or, see my own vision of a ghost.  LOL

The more I hear of there stories, the funnier I think people are when they are in strange surroundings.  So as we are now a month or so from Halloween, I'm sure we will have more and more ghost stories.

Working out

We have an exercise room.  I have been going down lately to work out and have been very upset.  I honestly felt I had been losing my strength since coming here.  I regularly work out with about 80 lbs on free weights, so I put the weight on the bar and tried to lift it.  I couldn't believe the straining I was doing.  I reduced it after a while to 70, but it still seemed like too much.  I reduced again, and finally at 50, I felt like I could at least do a little, but what a strain.  Finally, I gave up, put the weights on at 40 and was able to actual do a normal work out.  But I thought "how did I lose so much strength?" 

As I was bench pressing I looked more closely at the weights at the end of the bar.  Instead of lbs.  there were the letters kgs.  I thought that maybe kgs were more than lbs so I went on the internet and discovered that the conversion was 1kg=2.2 lbs.  No wonder I couldn't budge 80 kgs, that would be 176 lbs.  No wonder I am so sore.  And at 40kgs, I'm actually doing more than I normally do.

The weight machine is in lbs.  You can do a number of different exercises on it.

The exercise room is coming along and I am going to try to get it cleaned up and maybe add a thing or 2 to it.  It is in a great space that allows for all sorts of individual and I assume, group exercise (I am the only one I know that uses it in our group, though we just may not be crossing paths).

Another exercise I have been trying to do is a run and walk.  Its great because I never have to go alone, JayZ and Brune are always happy to join me.  Brune goes about half way and stops to rest, JayZ runs ahead and looks back impatiently at me while I catch my breath.

I am determined to not gain weight or get out of shape in spite of the great food.  Wish me luck!

Bar Hopping in Albi

Saturday couldn't come too soon for the group.  As much as we enjoyed all the traveling and touring/learning, the group is tired.  Deb is sick and had to be taken to a doctor on Friday, so she is rather incapacitated.  Several students asked if I would be willing to go into Albi with them.  After making sure Deb was OK, I decided to join the students and John.

The firs thing I wanted to do is find a French to English dictionary.  It won't do much good at this point except to help me read words.  I am still having a great deal of problems listening to the French.  Between my hearing and their pronunciation, I feel like it will be tough going.  The students (Ed and Gabe) had someshopping to do, and John decided to go into town to try the dessert that I had the previous week at a Cafe there.  We were going to meet at the Australian Bar an hour or so after we split up.

John and I also looked at a church I hadn't seen on the original tour of Albi.  It was really beautiful inside.  There was statue of St. Rochus, who seems to be very popular with the French, and his dog.  There were also several statues of St. Theresa of the Rose.  It was an enjoyable visit, but I started noticing something that puzzled me.  It appeared that many churches were actually tourist attractions, and I'm unsure when they celebrate mass.  There is no reverence to the church as I often see in the U.S., at least not by many people.  it just seemed strange. 

After we left the church we found Ed and Gabe at the "Aussie" bar.  I expected to go in and find Crocodile Dundee type individuals, watching sports, belching and arm wrestling (I know, stereotyping is a terrible thing) and drinking some great Aussie beer.  Instead they had a French version of  MTV on the several Tvs in the place.  They had no Australian beers, and there was no one in the bar as big as me.  It just seemed like false advertsing or something.  There wasn't even a crocodile picture or anything!  But I did discover a pretty good French beer, so going in was not without its rewards. 

We then left the Aussie bar to go to an Irish Pub.  At last I thought, this place will be genuine.  The irish are a very genuine people and no one would dare be playing French MTV.  There would be Irish beer and a pretty Irish barmaid.  And you know what, it was close.  There was rugby on the TV, Guiness on tap and a generally bit of the blarney beng thrown around.  Everything fit until I approached the bar to buy a few pints of Guiness for me and the "boys".  Before I go any further, I have to say this, John does not like beer or any other carbonated beverage.  So when I went to get the pints, I said to the barmaid "Three pints of Guinness" and in a very low voice "and you don't have hot chocolate do you"?  Low and behold, the barmaid said, of course.  She then proceded to pour the Guinness and started looking for some cup to put ho chocolate in for John.  But the thought of hot chocolate in an Irish Pub bugged me.  Her English was very good, so I asked her where she was from.  "Germany," she said.  OK, maybe thats why they had hot chocolate.

We drank our pints and headed for the garage to leave town.  I know it doesn't sound like much bar hopping, but it was at least one hop.

The class back home

I have been teaching, using a program on Blackboard called Illuminate, a class in process of therapy 2 days a week for 2.5 hours each.  I have found that my computer has power for 2.15 hours.  I found this out because in the middle of my special point today the computer went out.  Oh well.

The students at home have been patient with the glitches thus far and have responded quite well.  Sue Black, my colleague, is also in the class helping to get things shaped up.  I hope it continues to work well.

Some pictures from Toulouse

The first picture is of our intrepid band!

The next picture is of St. Rochus and I (I'm the one in the orange shirt).  At the side of the picture is his dog.

The next picture is the first church, but I don't remember the name.  It was very beautiful inside, but we went through it very quickly. I think the students and I are going to return and take our time there.

This picture is where St. Thomas Aquinas' remains are placed and where the Inquisition started.  Its not a church anymore, for some reason.

Toulouse

We went on our first major excursion today, a trip to Toulouse.  Toulouse is a fairly large city.  Our guide was a gentleman named Eric, who is teaching the students religion.  He is a very impressive teacher with a great deal of knowledge about religion, art, architecture and a host of other subjects.  He came to the Prieure on Tuesday night and had class until around 10:30 pm.  We then loaded ourselves in to the cars and drive to Toulouse the following morning.  I was driving one of the cars and half way there one of my students said, "Is there a bag in the car?"  Well needless to say, she was getting car sick.  We called Gerry in the lead car and told him we had a sick kid and may have to pull over.  Gerry proceeded to slow down and we spent the next 45minutes going about 70-80 km an hour (that's between 42-48 mph) on a 130 km per hour road.  Cars were passing us and staring at our short, very slow caravan.  meanwhile the student was anxious to get to where we were going.  She told us as long as we didn't slow down or stop she thought she would be okay, and the next thing that comes up is a toll plaza and we are stopped.  I kept waiting to be drowned from the back seat, but the trooper our student was, she kept things in until we got her to a bathroom.

The parking garages over here are very tight.  Going in, you are just about touching both walls.  Spaces are unbelievably small.  We then did a marathon around Toulouse to a museum, and a couple of churches.  I don't think we really rested until lunch.  The art and architecture was something else!  We also went into the hall where the Inquisition started.  I decided to get a souvenir, a medallion of the building they did the Inquisition hearings at.  Well not quite hearing, it was an accusation of being a heretic and then torturing you until you admitted it.  Sounds like some classes, huh?  Anyway, here I am with my souvenir of the one of the most horrific places in church history.  Pretty neat though.

We had lunch at a truly French cafe in Toulouse.  The picture depicts Dr. Lori Woods, Deb and I.  The wine was complimentary with the meal!


On the way home I was driving again and following Gerry through some of the tightest streets and craziest drivers I've ever known.  Gerry went through a light and I got caught at the red.  Our fearless leader, John, was sitting in the back seat and as we accidently passed Gerry, he said, "Go ahead, we'll find the road".  Famous last words, right.  We drove onto a freeway and followed what we thought was the correct road until we started see signs for Paris and Bourgeiose.  Now I don't know much about France, but I knew if I wanted to get to Ambialet, Paris was the long way around (about 14 hours there and back).  I couldn't exactly pull up to someone and ask, didn't know how, so we just drove.  For some reason, we decided to take an exit and try to find our way back to where had started from,(which we would have NEVER have been able to do), and saw a sign for Albi, which is what we needed.  I call it the New Miracle of Toulouse!

Tonight we had rabbit for supper.  Quite good, bit one student protested because he has a [pet rabbit at home.  We tried to convince him that this wasn't HIS rabbit, but he still wouldn't eat it.  I guess it was his loss!

Deb and I arriving in Paris

French Class

We had our first formal French class today.  I am convinced that I will never learn the language, but it will be fun trying to learn.  Our French professor, Marie, speaks nothing but French to us.  For me this is a problem, because I instictively look to others for help and they look as puzzled as I do.  The person I was depending on for help, Dr. Woods, was corrected several times in class ( and she is from Canada) so what hope do I have.  It was so bad at one point that the professor had me hold her throat and mine so I could feel what the sound felt like, so I could pronounce it.  And don't get me wrong, it was not even a word, it was the letter R.  I mean come on, he want me to speak in phrases and i can't speak the letter R.  It seems fitting to some extent because I couldn't say my Rs in grade school and was put in speech class.  I guess the more things change the more they remain the same.

Deb, my lovely wife, wouldn't even let me cheat in class from her notes!  WHat's the use of being married if you can't cheat.  Wait, that doesn't sound like what I wanted to say.  Anyway, here is a picture of our French teacher after we gave her lunch and bribed her with ice cream.  I hope it helps!

Riding with John

John in happier pre-driving days!

Our fearless leader, John, is learning to drive our six speed standard Mazda. Learning to drive a standard anywhere is tough, learning in France is very near impossible.  There are driving circles in almost every town because they don't have stop light.  They have massive speed bumps, that you need to go down to second and sometime first gear to go over, and of course I mentioned the tunnels.  In Albi cars are parked on both sides of the already narrow road, plus bikers and walkers all over the place.  It is like an obstacle course wherever you drive.  But John is doing okay.  Except for a few times forgeting to down shift or put the car in neutral when we are stopped.  So far no one has had serious whiplash, which we all see as a major plus!  Of course when he went to the store earlier with Deb, Gabe and Kerstin (good for her) he had a very exciting adventure.  But I heard this second hand, so it will be up to them to tell the story.

My first day of teaching

I have several classes I am doing in Ambialet.  Intro to Women and Society, International Social Work and a directed reading on Death and Dying.  I find that the students here seemed very focused and genuinely excited by the material. 

Of course, I was disappointed when I lost out to a potato chip.  Here's what happened.  A student (Kierstin(?)) indicated she was interested in auditing the Intro to Women and Society class.  Since I had only a couple students, I was happy to have her sit in.  Then our fearless leader, John came in and said "I'm taking a car to Albi, to the grocery store, is any one interested in going?"  Deb and I thought that Deb could go and pick some things up, particularly some junk food.  When I mentioned potato chips to Deb, Kierstin's eyes lit up and she stated that maybe she wouldn't be sitting in today, and joined my wife and John on the trip.  To be honest, I may have chosen the opportunity to get chips over class as well.

By the way, here's the view from our window.  Not bad, huh?

Going to Mass and driving the tunnels

We went to mass for the first time today at the Prieure.  It was really quite nice.  We had no clue what the words were, but the ritual is about the same.  The priest seemed to be a nice fellow.  Deb and I were also invited to visit a Member of the congregation from Ambialet who is a former English teacher in Freench schools.  It was really nice to hear fairly good English and we will take her up on her invitation.

After mass and lunch, Deb and I decided to venture out and try driving the 6 speed Mazda.  The tunnels here are old troop train tunnels that were redone as road tunnels after WWII.  They are so tight, it is amazing.  They make the Parkway tunnels near Pittsburgh look like the Grand Canyon! Anyway, as I entered the first tunnel, we detected a light coming towards us from around the corner.  Sheer panic ensued as we pulled over as far as we could, and then around the corner came a motorcycle.  The situation reminded me of cartoons when I was a kid in which a huge shadow would be approaching a cartoon character who would be paralyzed with fear and then a small chipmunk or bunny would come out of the dark.  Just when I felt some relief, 2 vans and a car came through.  Now the vans seemed to leave me no room.  We actually bent the mirrors in so we would not knock them off!  After we made it through the second tunnel, we breathed a sigh of relief.  As we drove I noticed a large number of cars parked in the villages near Ambialet with mirrors knocked off or badly scaped sides of cars.  Coming back was even a bit scarier, because we turned out of the curve of the tunnel, seemingly leaving less room, and we had a number of cars come at us.  Still we survived.
When we got back to town I decided to take another walk down to Ambialet via Heartbreak hill.  I am convinced this was misnamed by a French person, who really meant Heart Attack hill.  When I arrived at the bottom, I tried to find some students, John, Lori  and Tim.  They were supposed to have been heading, I thought, to some ruins.  So I walked over the damn and down along the river because it seemed many people were going that way.  It turned out they were just walking along the river.  So I tried to fnd someone that spoke English to help me.  I found no one out of the 10 or so people I spoke to during the search, so I tried to pantomime a ruin.  Placing rocks neatly and kicking them over, placing them leaning on each other, whatever I thought looked like ruins.  People looked at me oddly, some laughed and shrugged (I guess that is  universal), one man hastened his wife up the path away from me, and a few looked and merely stared.  I started to realize it may have been looking pretty crazy.  In my old mental health days someone that was speaking in a strange language, putting rocks on to of each other and kicking them over would probaably had earned at least a 72 hour commitment to the psych ward.
Tomorrow is my first couple of classes to teach here.  I look forward to having some semblance of control and some knowledge of something I am comfortable with at this point.  Au revoir.

St. Cecille d'Albi

On Thursday we visited the Cathedral of St. Cecile.  What a beautiful place!  For those that know St. Cecille, I have her story from what Dr. Honigblum and a few other sources;

The story of S. Cecilia is not without beauty and merit. There was in the city of Rome a virgin named Cecilia, who was given in marriage to a youth named Valerian. She wore sackcloth next to her skin, and fasted, and invoked the saints and angels and virgins, beseeching them to guard her virginity. And she said to her husband, "I will tell you a secret if you will swear not to reveal it to anyone." And when he swore, she added, "There is an angel who watches me, and wards off from me any who would touch me." He said, "Dearest, if this be true, show me the angel." "That can only be if you wil believe in one God, and be baptized."

She sent him to Pope S. Urban (223-230), who baptized him; and when he returned, he saw Cecilia praying in her chamber, and an angel by her with flaming wings, holding two crowns of roses and lilies, which he placed on their heads, and then vanished. Shortly after, Tibertius, the brother of Valerian, entered, and wondered at the fragrance and beauty of the flowers at that season of the year.

When he heard the story of how they had obtained these crowns, he also consented to be baptized. After their baptism the two brothers devoted themselves to burying the martyrs slain daily by the prefect of the city, Turcius Almachius.  They were arrested and brought before the prefect, and when they refused to sacrifice to the gods were executed with the sword.

In the meantime, S. Cecilia, by preaching had converted four hundred persons, whom Pope Urban forthwith baptized. Then Cecilia was arrested, and condemned to be suffocated in the baths. She was shut in for a night and a day, and the fires were heaped up, and made to glow and roar their utmost, but Cecilia did not even break out into perspiration through the heat. When Almachius heard this he sent an executioner to cut off her head in the bath. The man struck thrice without being able to sever the head from the trunk. He left her bleeding, and she lived three days. Crowds came to her, and collected her blood with napkins and sponges, whilst she preached to them or prayed. At the end of that period she died, and was buried by Pope Urban and his deacons. She is the patron saint of music and is always seen with an instrument. The story, with a few changes to shorten it a bit was taken from http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=34 and Dr. Honigblum's discussion.

Big walk!

You will notice that in the background is the Prieure.  We had walked down Heartbreak Hill and climbed its twin on the other side just to get this picture.  Were all smiling because we forgot we still had to walk back up Heartbreak Hill when we were done!

SOme pictures, I hope, from France

The great race (kind of)

Is was an interesting day.  It started with auditing an Art History class by a very interesting and knowledgeable instructor, Dr. Gerald Honigsblum.  I was delighted to learn that I know as much about art as I do about the french language.  Eh,bien.

The day was interesting, I found the exercise room and did some lifting and a bit of running (before my hill climb).  We then did a team "Amazing race" in which we were placed on a team and had to scavenger hunt for objects in several areas od the Preiure that corresponded to French words.  My team was doing great until I had the word "la serviette" for the dining room.  I went in and found many things, but the only thing I could guess was this thing was a tray.  Of course I was wrong, it was a napkin and our team went down to ignoble defeat.  Realize that others had been given such difficult words as "le table" and "le bol".  Table and Bowl?  And I get la serviette?  Lynch luck.

We had two of the students up from University of Albi.  They are helping our kids learn French as we help them with their English.  As we interacted, we also had wine and some kind of vodka laden Kool-aid.  The French students refrained due to the drive back so as the American students became increasingly snookered, the young French women started to joke between each other about the students.  They eally enjoyed the stay and plan to return tonight for a birthday party we are having for John.

Deb just pointed out that the university I am calling the University of Albi is really the "Centre Universitaire Jean-Francois Champollion".  I told her I am sticking with the University of Albi. 

Bonjour

                                                         Le Prieure a Ambialet
My first Blog, so bare with me.  I arrived with my wife Debbie, a colleague, Dr. Lori Woods and 8 great students.  Unfortunately we have only 7 students still here because one had allergy issues and returned home. Our French home is a beautiful monestary in Ambialet.  There are 34 people in the village and we live high on the mountain.  It is very rustic, with no TV, no store within 22 km except a small cafe, and very few roads.

I'm learning French slowly but surely.  Today I had an experience that was evidence of my  minimal verbal skills.  One of our resident dogs, JayZ, coaxed me into taking a walk with him down "Heartbreak Hill" which is about a mile straight down (and of course back up).  As I approached the villiage, both of the calfs on my legs started to tighten up.  JayZ kept turning around to look for me, would see me finally catch up, and take off again. As I approached the small park in the center of the villiage, which is located on the Tarn River, two children, ages betwwen 8 and 10 approached me.  Bon jour I said, at which they both started laughing and shaking their heads.  As I hobbled over to the river they followed me.  I pointed to the lake and said "poisson" which means fish in French, again they laughed and started to skate away.  When JayZ reteurned from his run I started to walk towards "heartbreak Hill"  The two kids skate up to me and say, in better English than I speak 'goodbye sir", started laughing and took off again.  I determined I would work harder on learning the language. 
JayZ continued to show is concern as we walked up heartbreat hill on the way back to the Prieure. he'd walk about 100 yards ahead and then slow down until I caught up.  At one point I stopped to rest my aching legs and he actually looked back, saw me sitting and returned to stay beside me.  I'm not sure if this was protection or what.  Just interesting behavior in a chien (dog).
I started a French class at the University of Albi yesterday.  Students looked at us like visitors from another planet.  In the French aptitude and assessment test, I scored a 2 of 100. I new my name and that I was from the USA.  That's it.  The professor looked at me, shook her head and said bien.  This I learned  means good.  What bad would have been, I have no clue. 
The food has been very good.  The chef makes enough for double the number of people and we have wine for dinner each day.
I miss having soda.  he first 2 days I had none.  This is first for me since I was about 5.  The addiction is bad, so I was pleased when we able to stop at a Geant store (Kind of like super Wal-Mart) and got a 24 can case for 10.75 Euros.  That is $15 in our money.  Gas is about 7.00 a gallon.  They have tunnels in the mountains that have two lanes with barely enough room to have one car go through.   I haven't driven yet and don't really look forward to it.
We have another guest at the Prieure.  The program manager's 93 year old mother is here until October.  She is just a joy!  She's funny and sharp as heck.


Well, I'll tell you more later.  My first blog hopefully won't be my last and as I learn I will put some pictures up.  I will also tell you about the first day and tour in ALbi next time.  Au revoir for now.