Saturday was awesome. Wonderful! I had such a great time doing everything.
Durring the day I got together with Carol. She's from Brazil and was thinking about moving into the appartment where I live but eventually found something else. Being alone in a foreign country, like myself, she gave me a call and invited me out. Saturday and Sunday were the European Days of Patrimony, to celebrate heritage and art and history and public records and old stuff in general. My kind of stuff! We decided to investigate.
The first place Carol and I went to was a tour of a restaurant which was serving typical medieval food. Among the proposed dishes were rosé/basil wine, black potatoes with cinamon, sausage and saurcraut, lentils, almond cake, and cheese with fruit. We sat next to some French people and talked about biking vacations- they were very friendly. Then we went on a tour of the building. Origionally it was a church, then a hospital, then a theater. Here's us in the restaurant:
Durring the presentation they revealed the origions of the Wearwolf myth! So once upon a time... people ate a lot of bread. They usually used only the kernel of the wheat to make the flour, but in times of famine they would use the sheath and the grain. The cause of the problem was a bacteria which grew on the sheath. When consumed in great quantities, it caused an illness called... H something or other. A very bad illness- people felt as though they were burning from within! (gross!) It also caused halucination. To relieve their aggony and not disturbe the neighbors, the ill would leave their villages and go into the surrounding forrests, scream their heads off and halucinate, and return in the morning (refreshed?). There their neighbors would be waiting for them wondering about the strange screams they heard last night. Perhaps they were transformed into a beast! As punishment for their sins! Enter... Wearwolf!!!!!!!! (dun dun duuuu)
Lyon was crowded. Walking around we stopped in a church and experienced an impromptu discours from one of the tour guides which dragged on. Some of it was interesting; Lyon has been an important european city for centuries, being at the junction of two important rivers. It was also the seat of the Bishop of France until Vatican II, being the first evangelised city in France. Next we went to a Luthier's shop which was giving tours but it was too crowded to see the examples and we arrived in the middle of the presentation. Our last stop was the fine arts museum. I didn't make it to the 20th century paintings but the medieval collection was a riot.
I love paintings.
Carol and I parted ways and I went to Daoud's party. We were all invited to his house for a dinner, 15 people total, to celebrate his birthday and housewarming. He made couscous and stew with roast chicken on the side. "Couscous is always served with whatever vegetables are in season. We eat it with potatoes!" he explained. The other French guests teased him about there not being any raisins in the couscous or chickpeas in the stew. It was a very calm get together, his friends and students and their families. When I told them I was from Chicago everyone's first reaction was "Al Capone!" They wanted to know how I was able to support myself for three years and where did I get all that money? They also were curious about what made me choose Lyon. I told them that "Like Chicago, Lyon is a 'Second City'" and that got a good laugh.
Here's a picture of Daoud, Frank, and Frank's girlfriend Carol from a couple of weeks ago. Taken at Daoud's new appartment:
Daoud talked about what it's like living in a fanatically religious society. Orthodox scientists. Every year in grade school he had to take an Islam class which was inevitably taught by a short hairy smelly bulbous man. Contrasted to the French classes which were always taught by beautiful foreign women with impecable french, dressed fashionably and wearing parfum. Somehow, he excelled in French and usually failed Islamic studies. Once in Algeria a group of musicians thought it would be nice to set the Koran to music; the entire Koran- an ambitions academic project. Someone declared Jihad on them, and now to play their music on the radio is illegal. Eventually he had to leave Algeria. Daoud said people lived in two ways: as a lie, or alone. Someone says "Allah said this" and you must agree, "Ah yes, Allah was right!" In the privacy of your family you can let your real opinions out and be yourself, but not in public (reminds me of Iran). Worse still, according to Daoud, the law addressing murder and religious murders in particular is losely applied. People will definetly buy a gun and kill someone because they disagree with their interpretation of the Koran. Of course this kind of religious fervor is going to produce fanatics.
He misses the countryside. Waking up in the morning and looking out his window, it was like looking at a postcard. He and his mother went on a month long trip into the Saharah. They would meet people in the middle of the desert and be treated like dear guests for three days- invited into their camp, treated as friends, fed whatever they had to offer. Nobody rushed; the idea of time as miniutes and hours being nonexisitent. Returning to France after that was depressing, he said. It made modern stress more apparent to him and he resented it for months afterwards.
After the main meal, which was the couscous, the first words out of the guests mouths were "Are we going to have a cheese course?" Of course! Daoud brought out a styrofoam cheese tray, still shrink wrapped by the deli. Not much of it got eaten, I think because there wasn't any bread, but the cheese course is an important part of French meals. We ate coconut deserts, vanila pudding, and chocolate birthday cake. Then people took turns playing the guitar and singing. I had brought wisky and it was happily consumed. I sang in english and played the drums (the darbuka?). One of the guests fell asleep in the armchair, being 12 and all, while others smoked cigarettes and told stories about foreign travels. Someone had lived in the Antillies for 15 years, he talked about how each island in the chain was colonised by a different European country. For a successful vacation, just go to the island that wasn't colonised by your country! The French talked about old territories, discussed they're current political tribulations. No mention of Iran, Israel, or Mexico. It was interesting to be around people whose idea of relevent foreign news is different from an American's.
That's about it! I made sure to shut the shutters because it was already early by the time I got home.
