Picture it: the lovely Elizabeth Bates and I were strolling through Mainz around noontime on Tuesday, wandering through the market and admiring fruits and vegetables (particularly squashes), when, all of a sudden, three individuals approach us, each armed with their weapon of choice (a microphone, a camera, and a stack of papers). They politely ask if they can ask us a few questions. Elizabeth immediately takes a giant step backwards ("Kein Deutsch!"), while I explain to them that I would be happy to (in German, of course). The gentleman with the microphone explains that it will be a sort of culture quiz--fairly simple, but quite fun. I kindly explain to him that I come from the US, unsure as to whether or not that will effect the results. He doesn't seem to hear me.
"Ok, first picture! Can you tell me the name of this guy?"
I look a the picture. The man featured is somewhere between the tender age of 48 and 52 (according to my oh-so-accurate estimations), and I have never seen him before in my entire life.
"No idea."
"Excuse me?"
"No idea."
The three individuals (yes, including the camera guy) look at me as if I'm crazy.
"Are you sure? You've NEVER seen him before?"
"Never."
"Where is it that you come from?"
When I once again tell him "die USA," the three newspeople start laughing and tell me that they completely understand why I don't know this man pictured. It's "a German thing." They then politely excused themselves, realizing that I would not be helpful in their version of trivial pursuit, where the target is ultimately pop-culture savvy Germans. All I got out of the deal was a handshake and a compliment on my German. Dagnabbit.
Despite my failure to make the evening news, I did manage to do some travelling and go to France for the weekend last Friday to visit the lovely Elizabeth Bates in Poitiers. Although my original intention was to practice my French while visiting, it wasn't as easy as I thought, considering that my mouth was full of French food for the majority of the time. The first night I was there, Elizabeth and I (along with the help of her host family) made crepes for Bernard and Olivier, the brothers of Elizabeth's host family, as well as Elizabeth's host-mother. Eating dinner with them was very fun, and I probably would have enjoyed it even more had my French been good enough to understand the sarcasm and speed that frequented the brothers' speech. Olivier is about a year or two older than Elizabeth and I, and Bernard is 28, so there was a little joke at dinner that I shouldn't be served the hard cider (2.8% alcohol, oh the horror) because I wasn't yet 21. But seriously, it's Europe. Who are we kidding here?
The first day (Friday) that I arrived, Elizabeth walked me around to a few churches and the main cathedral, St. Pierre, where Elizabeth sings from time to time in a choir. It was absolutely amazing, especially the exterior of the cathedral--but I'll wait for you folks to actually scroll down and see the pictures before I start babbling on about them. This is what captions are for.
The next morning we went to the market outside L'Eglise Notre-Dame-la-Grande that takes place every Saturday. I bought peach jam with honey that was delicious and inevitably disappeared within days. Then, by chance, Elizabeth and I ran into Lauren and Hallie, two other Midd students studying in Poitiers, and decided to meet up in a local park for a picnic. Elizabeth and I bought baguettes (tres francais, non?) and made our way over to this gorgeous park (pictured below for those of you with a) insatiable curiosity or b) fatigued imaginations) with an ampitheater, where we drank more hard cider (it's REALLY good), brie, and strawberries. Later, Elizabeth and I went to a boulangerie to get delicious and deocrative desserts (featured below). Life is rough on my end of the ocean.
Later on, Elizabeth took me up (approximately) 217 stairs to climb a cliff that overlooks the entire city of Poitiers. The view (and the hike) was absolutely breathtaking! You can literally see the entire city, and, with the river right below you and all of the churches scattered throughout the city (there used to be, at one point, over a hundred churches in the city of Poitiers), I'd say the lactic acid plaguing one's quadriceps is a small price to pay.
Elizabeth and I also went to a mass at St. Hilaire that Saturday, making this weekend my first French-mass experience ever. I did understand more than I expected, but I do have to say that, after this weekend, it felt like a comfort to speak German rather than stumble through French. It was such a comfort, in fact, that I accidentally (no, really) proceeded to speak to Elizabeth (who knows how to count and order a pretzel in German, thanks to her week in Mainz!) in German on several occasions, convinced that she could understand. Silly, silly Amanda.
On the train ride home, however, I did get an opportunity to practice my translating abilities. Somehow my train reservation was in a six-person cabin, where there were two Middle Eastern men who spoke a little English, a man with a cat and a crazy swirly beard that spoke only French, and a couple that spoke French, German, and English. At one point when the train stopped, and the aforementioned couple left our cabin, about fifty more people poured onto the train and had to stand up for the remainder of the ride. Apparently there were some issues with some of the axles on the trains, so, to follow the advice of Mama Q and be safe rather than sorry, those trains were out of commission for the day. The man with the cat and swirly beard (seriously, if I had no scruples I would have taken a picture--it was wicked crazy) stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and, inevitably, lost his seat. When he came back there were three new Germans in the cabin and controversy as to who had reserved what seat, or, more specifically, who had had a reservation in the first place.
My efforts to explain to both parties what exactly was going on was pretty difficult. The difficulty, however, existed less in the translation sense and more in the sense that these people, frustrated with the situation, got a little bit snappy when I translated a message from somebody else. The other two men that spoke a little bit of English were totally confused and also a little bit curious as to what was going on, and were trying very hard to listen, regardless of the fact that they didn't understand a word. At one point, the older man, presumably the younger man's uncle or father or something, picked up on the German word "super" and proceeded to repeat it over and over, happy that he had understood at least two syllables of the five minute conversation. It definitely made the atmosphere a little bit more light-hearted. Then we all took turns sitting down. It was almost a PBS moment at its finest.
Elizabeth, unfortunately in a different compartment on the train, also accompanied me back to Mainz for the week, and just left this gloomy (and now rather lonely) Friday morning. While she was here, we made a short trip to Wiesbaden, a city close by, but otherwise wandered through Mainz quite a bit. Hannah and I took her to the huge Rutschbahn, or slide, which is featured below:
At least someone got fifteen minutes of fame.
Random fact: I know I haven't mentioned it before, but Deutscher Federweisser is the greatest thing that Mainz has to offer--it's really sweet wine that tastes like carbonated grape juice. It's delicious.
We also took a trip to the brewery in Mainz--Hannah just needs some Dirndlkleider and she'll be a real German.
Fabulous!
This cheese---oh this cheese. It is so good. Espeically with these fresh pretzels. This is the German experience, people.
Zweibelkuchen, or "onion cake"--SO German and SO good!
The Rutschbahn :) There's a sign that explains a theory that a very large windmill used to be in its place. Hence the windmill thingamabob on top.
In Poitiers: The first day that I was there there was a craft fair of some kind featuring art from Africa--a lot of wood carvings and that sort of thing. I took a picture of these paintings because the colors were awesome.
Palais de Justice in Poitiers
Really cool and really old (1554) building in Poitiers
Ok, so this is just the post office, but still--it's pretty!
This is actually a chimney. The whole thing. Wicked cool, right?
Jeanne D'Arc! My patron saint!
This is L'Eglise Notre-Dame-la-Grande, my favorite church that we saw.
Still Notre-Dame: on the facade is the history of Christianity, starting with Adam and Eve on the left side.
There was, at one point, a crucifix here--above the timeline featured earlier.
Poitiers!
Inside Notre-Dame
It's a little blurry, but you can still see the painting on the columns.
Notre Dame again
Our weapons of mass destruction: crepe batter and crepier!
Part of the market outside Notre Dame on Saturday morning
The back of St. Hilaire--we were too close to the front to get a decent picture. This is where we attended mass on Saturday night.
St. Hilaire
The altar in St. Hilaire was really cool--stairs like this on either side led up to it and made it look so majestic, espcially with the columns (also below).
One of the stations of the cross in St. Hilaire--I thought that they were really cool just because they were so modern and different. This one is when Veronica wipes the face of Jesus.
Jesus dies on the cross
Jesus is nailed to the cross
Voila, je suis en France!
Our picnic--Elizabeth eating a baguette. Yum!
The park where we picnicked.
The ampitheater where we sat
More of the park!
A failed action shot...
Our promenade through the park :)
View from the park
Goats! IN THE PARK! Oh, the madness. Please look at his little legs.
Le Lion Amoureux
Still in the park!
More statues --I'm telling you, I always feel compelled to capture them via digital photography...
This is for Alyssa
Where Elizabeth and I bought our scrumptious desserts
WHat I had--sort of a crumbly cookie outside with nuts, and the inside has a jam-like filling. C'etait incroyable.
What Elizabeth had--unfortunately that raspberry ran away. But, we made up for it--Elizabeth kindly brought back macaroons (a Poitiers specialty) to Mainz, along with more cider. We don't go without here.
The bridge by Elizabeth's house
You can see Eglise St-Radegonde here, which is pictured further below...
The view from the top of the cliff! C'est belle, oui?
Proof that we were there
St-Pierre in the center, St- Radegone on the right (right next to Elizabeth's house) from the top of the cliff
Inside St. Pierre, the cathedral: apparently it is tradition for the students of Poitiers to go under this tomb before finals just for good luck.
Hotel de Ville
Okay, so before I mentioned how there used to be a hundred churches or something in Poitiers--well, instead of destroying all of them, some of them were made into something else. Like a clothing store.
A cute street in Poitiers
The Cathedrale St-Pierre. Gargoyles included.
The AMAZING facade of St-Pierre. Look at that detail!
A blurry inside view of the cathedral
Inside St-Radegonde--for some reason I can't find another picture of the front of it. If there's more interest, see Elizabeth's blog--she's got pictures (and more info)!
Next stop, Vienna!
Peace, love, and cobble stone streets,
Amanda (German translation: Emmenda; French translation: Aah-mon-daah)
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