Autumn Promenade

The weekend was beautiful and I took the opportunity to go for some long, exploratory promenades.  I found some discrete "impasses" very close to my home that are little shortcuts to the adjacent town of Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire (literally, a five minute walk to a new city) and found lots of opportunities for photo taking.  There really ARE fall colours and changing maple leaves in France and I'm enjoying myself immensely in this beautiful French autumn.  Enjoy some of my favourite photos.

These signs mean that I am now leaving Saint-Cyr and entering Tours

Trees seem a lot older and more interesting here.

This is someone's back garden.  They had raspberries too!

There are still a lot of flowers in people's gardens--particularly roses and some hollyhocks.

There were a lot of interesting clouds combined with a lot of jet streams on Saturday.

Commercials and Cranberries

I've recently had an epiphany to the fact that cranberries are native to North America.  I probably already knew this, but it's striking me lately because of a commercial that is airing here a lot at the moment and because my French housemate has been buying Ocean Spray cranberry juice lately and remarking at its goodness as though it is a newly discovered thing.  The bottles here are a lot smaller than in Canada and kind of expensive and the first thing I noticed was the label "Cranberry" since in Canada, our bilingual label says "Canneberge".  I questioned my housemate and then my French dictionary about it and neither knew of this "canneberge" word so I made the exciting discovery that it is a Canadian word.  (Seriously, I really do dig language things like this.  And the origins of plants and such--kinda neat, I think.)  So yeah, France says "cranberry" with a French accent.

One day I decided to find this Ocean Spray commercial online so that I could post it and that's when I found a lot of other Ocean Spray commercials...some of you may know those Straight from the Bog commercials in English with the two cranberry farmer guys standing in the bog with the cranberries...well apparently they exist in England and Australia too.  In all of them, the two guys have a kind of North American farmer accent.  Funnily, the French one has two guys who are meant to be from Québec, so their accents definitely stand out on tv here.  I've assumed that they're not really from Québec and that they are some French actors imitating Québecois and in my YouTube search, I found that Quebec has its own version of the commercial in which they actually ARE Québec guys, with farmer accents (I'm assuming).  Here they are...whether you speak French or not, you should be able to hear the difference between the two.  Also, you may be able to pick out the two different ways that they pronounce "Ocean Spray"--the France one says, "Océ-an Spray" while the Québec one says it in English.  The French imitation of the Québec accent commercial is actually a little easier for me to understand than the actual Québec one.

#1 Québec


#2 France


And just for fun, here's another French commercial that's on right now that's kind of fun (and there's no talking, so you'll get it)!

Modes of Transportation

So the other day, I saw a twenty-something women riding one of these in a skirt. -->

Then, shortly after, saw one of these weird things.

These are not things you see everyday in Canada and it got me thinking about writing this blog entry. I was just going to grab more google images, but then I looked through my own photos and realized that I already have some of my own shots of transportation methods here!  I wish I had a shot of the woman on the scooter. Speaking of "scooter", I've recently realized that that word can signify many things in my Canadian English. The above, "push scooter" and then the following Vespa-type "scooter"

This is my own photo meant to display an interesting corner...a Medieval style building, and various methods of transportation.  Note the car in the process of parallel parking--a staple to any driving here.

We also call these "scooters" and I've seen a couple of these here, just motoring down the road or sidewalk, whatever was most convenient.

This is not my photo obviously.

But that analysis of "scooter" types is slightly off-topic and I will continue on now...





 You've seen some photos of cars (and another scooter) in this blog post and yes, cars are definitely around.  As you imagine, most are a lot smaller than in North America.  Here is a glimpse of the tiny Nissan I drove to La Rochelle a couple of weekends ago.

And here are some cars (a little larger), parked outside of my apartment building. (Yes this is where I live!)

Parked behind my building, are a lot of these!  A classic and popular French car.  I'm hoping that we get a Renault for our upcoming road trip, because I have yet to drive any French model.

Ok, then we have the ever popular bicycle!  (You saw some already parked at that corner in the shot above.)  Here's another attempted artsy shot from my first week here.

And, as evidence that bicycles are ridden in La Rochelle too, here was another artsy shot attempt.

Since La Rochelle is at the sea, one also finds boats!  Imagine!

Above and below you can also see the always popular choice of...

This is a random man walking in Vieux Tours

...walking.  In September, I was doing a lot of this!  Then I got sick.  And school got busier, so I bought a bus pass!  And now, this is my primary method of transportation.

Notice that it is one of those "accordion" buses, AKA "articulated" buses.  And notice the ever-present construction, making way for the future...

This is obviously not my photo!  That is the City Hall in the background.

 ...TRAM!

This is the front of the Palais de Justice and behold another, yet non-articulated, bus.

Nearly every day, I go here...

...beside the Round About and bus stop called...

.

 ..."Trois Rivières.  (Look, the sun isn't that high yet...it's quite cold in the mornings on my way to school.)

This is across the street, where I get off the bus (or get on, if I'm heading north to the supermarket or mall).  La Chevalerie is a Tabac, or convenience store that sells tons of magazines and newspapers and it has a little bar in it too.  Definitely a different combination than what one sees in Canada.







And then we have...

...the gypsy caravan!  I haven't seen many of these (just this one, in fact, at a bizarre fair thing).

And finally, the bull.  (Also not too common, but found at bizarre fair things.)

Un peu de musique française

I've been trying to get a taste for current French music, but the charts and radios are full of English and American music!  There is, however, one French artist who I hear quite a bit and who I'm digging, Christophe Maé.  Here is his current single Un peu de blues.


Then there is the current number one, slightly over-played, but quite fun Elle me dit which I've learned is actually by the Brit Mika!


I honestly can't really think of anything else that has caught my attention (besides the various tv programs that play old concert clips, 90s music and such, during which I find myself feeling bad that I don't know the Québecois singers besides Céline).

Well, there is this one interesting song called Double Je, which I was surprised to find out is sung by a man.  Here is a bizarre video for it...obviously the radio only plays the song and not these weird video clips, but I thought this may be slightly entertaining for you.





Tomorrow night I am going to a concert on campus by Les Voleurs de Swing who are apparently originally from Tours and, from what I've read, seem to put on an entertaining show.  We'll see!

Castles of the Loire Valley

So it's been a little while since my last blog.  I've had a cold for over two weeks and that with school and language keeps me pretty tired and just wanting to watch tv when I have free time.  The cold was gone I think, but then there was bit of a heat wave the last week of September, so I went to the beach!  That evening, the cold came back and much worse...and it's lingering.  Now it's cold here!  Amazing that the temperature went from 29 degrees C to what feels like 10!  (The reports say 15, but it's that damp cold I detest, so it feels colder to me I guess.)

Anyway, there have been lots of happenings and photos and such and I wasn't too sure where to start, so I thought I'd go with the castles!  Tours is located in the Loire Valley, a region that is known for its  wine and castles! 

 

I have yet to go to the most famous châteaux, but I imagine the opportunities will come.  I'm feeling pretty excited about the road trip some visiting Canadian friends and I are planning for the end of this month (I have a week off of school)!  We will certainly be checking lots of places around France and even a little in Spain!  (At least, that is the plan.)

artsy shot of tower of Château de Tours

But so far, I have visited three châteaux.  The Château de Tours inside the city, which really wasn't that exciting.  The inside has been made into an art gallery which I did get to see on a free day, but...picture me trying to feign interest in an art gallery at the end of an afternoon, after taking part in a two-hour walking tour that visited main points of interest of WWII of which I understood very little of what was being said...mostly cuz it was hard to focus in.  (That was during the European Heritage Days in September.)

Next, I've visited the Château de la Bourdaisière around whose grounds I wandered with a couple of friends while we waiting for the jazz fest to start in the nearby village of Montlouis (see previous post).  

assuming that used to be a moat

in the forest around the Château de la Bourdaisière

Finally, I went to Château du Grand-Pressigny a week ago.  It was the hot weekend and I really wanted to get out of Tours and to, as you say in French, "profit" from the sun and warmth at a beach.

So I was able to convince four friends to split the cost of a car rental, gas and hotel to do a weekend trip to La Rochelle and on our way home, we decided to jump off the Autoroute (save some money and actually see something nicer) in search of a château by just following signs.  Well, we found this one...about 50 km off our route!

Apparently it is now a Museum of Prehistory, but since it was Sunday evening, it was closed.  We could only just wander around and take pictures.  The village itself was very quaint and definitely worth the little jaunt out of the way.