UK Trip: Cambridge

Entrance to King's College

This past week, we've been on our mid-term break and we spent much of that time in the United Kingdom. The primary reason for going was that Lisa was invited by a colleague, Bill Burgwinkle, to present a paper at St. Catherine's College in Cambridge University. Because of that and because we had the week off, we decided to spend some time traveling around the UK to Canterbury, Cardiff, and Edinburgh after we left Cambridge.

To get to Britain, we flew directly from Rennes to Southampton, about an hour flight. Now, the Rennes airport is pretty small. It doesn't own any of the standard bridgeways to the aircraft, so we had to walk out of the airport, across the tarmac, and board the plane through the old-fashioned stairways. We sort of felt like we were in a 1950s movie or something! Plus, the discount airline we flew (Flybe) only owns a few actual jets. The rest of their fleet is turbo-prop planes and that's what we took to Britain. I don't think I've been on a turbo-prop plane in 15 years!

Guest room at St. Catherine's College

Once in Southampton, it took us a little bit of time to get through passport control, I think because 1) unlike everyone else on the plane, we're not EU citizens; 2) the woman who checked our passports was in training and wasn't entirely sure what questions she should be asking; and 3) the UK immigration service has been under political fire lately for being overly lax at border control points. So we were asked a lot of questions about who we were, where we going, how long we were staying, why we were in France, how long we'd be in France, etc. Anyway, after getting through passport control, we took the train from the airport train stop to London, transferred across town on the Tube to another train station, and took an express train to Cambridge. We got a cab from the station there to St. Catherine's College where we stayed in a very nice guest room (although the porter on duty at the college gate wasn't terribly friendly!). After we dropped our bags off, we had dinner with Lisa's colleagues and hosts then she presented her paper to a small group of graduate students, faculty, and undergraduates. It was a rousing success, if I do say so myself!

Richard Lloyd Morgan, 

standing in triumph on 

the roof of King's 

College Chapel

The next morning, we moved our stuff to King's College, where Lisa's colleague had arranged a guest room for us, and dealt with much friendlier porters. We then met Richard Lloyd Morgan, chaplain of King's College, who's a friend of a friend of Lisa's mom. Even though he had e-mailed us the week before to tell us he would be happy to talk to us and show us around, once we met him, he didn't seem to have any idea who we were. Still, he was very pleasant and we had a lovely cup of tea in his office while getting to know each other. Near the end of our conversation, he told us that at 10 am, he was leading a tour of newcomers to Cambridge on the roof of King's College Chapel and would we like to join it? Naturally, we said yes!

On top of the ceiling of the King's
College Chapel

The tour was great. We got to meet some of the people in the group, including two younger American women whose husbands are getting degrees at Cambridge and an elderly American woman who lives in Cambridge and volunteers to help with this newcomers' group. Anyway, we started by climbing 85 steps to the vault between the top of the chapel's ceiling and the beams of the roof. Richard walked us along on top of the ceiling while telling us a little about the chapel's construction history, then we climbed more steps in a corner tower to come out on the roof of the building, several stories up. We walked along the edge of the roof (fortunately, the parapet was tall and thick so there was little danger of falling over the side!), climbed over the top gable, walked along the other side,

The roof of King's College Chapel

then climbed back over the roof to the first side to get back to the stairs and the exit. Climbing over a pitched roof with nothing to hold on to was a little nerve-wracking, but everyone survived! It was also an overcast day with a kind of misty rain, which meant that, unfortunately, the views from the top of the chapel weren't as dramatic as they might have been on a clear day. At the end of the climb, we learned that there was a 93-year-old woman who was with us that day and had wanted to go on the roof her whole life.  Life goal: accomplished!

Cambridge from the roof of King's College Chapel

Scaling the roof of King's College Chapel

Once we got back to the floor of the chapel, the tour continued with one of the women who organizes this newcomers' group (whatever it is). She led us through the chapel proper, explaining more of the construction history and some of the iconography of the decorative carvings and the stained glass. It was very informative and the chapel is a truly beautiful space.

At the conclusion of the tour, we thanked Richard and headed off to meet Bill in his office for lunch. His office is exactly like the offices of

Bill's office is the window to the right of Henry VIII!

Cambridge/Oxford professors I've seen on British TV shows - big, with tall windows, comfy couches, and stacked to the ceiling with books. He took us for lunch to the Fellows' Room in King's College, a sort of private lounge where Cambridge professors can sit and order lunch from the kitchen. It was very nice and a little awe-inspiring to know we were surrounded by some of the most prestigious intellectuals in the world. The lunch was delicious, too, including the pea and mint soup, which is not a combination you'd think would be good, but it was. It was very kind of Bill to take us there and after we finished, we thanked him and headed out to explore more of Cambridge.

Interior of King's College Chapel

Like any good academic town, Cambridge if full of used book stores and Lisa and I went to a couple because used book stores are one of my favorite things in life. We found a lot of good treasures at G. David's, including a guidebook to Edinburgh from the 1950s for 50p. We also happened to be in Cambridge the weekend of a large used-book fair, which we saw advertised in banners hanging over the street. It cost a pound a piece to get in, but it was worth it. There were all kinds of antiquarian books, many from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I was on the hunt for two kinds of books in particular that I collect - either Macmillan commentaries (little red classical texts and commentaries published from the 1880s through the 1930s) or old Baedekers (little guidebooks to Europe published from the 1860s to the 1920s). I found many Baedekers, although they weren't very cheap. But I decided to splurge and buy a 1909 guide to northern France in remarkably good condition.

This is where we sat for the evensong service.

Following the book fair, we walked to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge's art and classical archaeology museum. Unfortunately, we got there only about an hour before closing, so we didn't have time to see much more than the Greek, Roman, medieval and Renaissance stuff. It was all very nice, but it wasn't anything spectacular. After, that, we walked back to King's College to go to the 5:30 evensong service, led by Richard. We saw him on the way in and he told us to tell the usher that we were guests of the college, because that would mean we could sit in the fancy wooden choir stalls with any of the college fellows who were present, rather than in the regular pews with the tourists. It was nice of him to suggest that and it was really cool to sit in the choir stalls, closer to the amazing King's College boys' choir. The service was very lovely and the choir sang beautifully. It was also very cool to be in the chapel at the end of the day; that meant that when the service started, the stained glass windows were still well-illuminated, but by the end of the service, they were completely black. On the way out, we thanked Richard (once again) for his generosity and hospitality.

King's College guestroom: not as fancy schmancy as
St. Catherine's, but still quite nice.

After the service, we went back to our room at King's College (which wasn't nearly as fancy as the one in St. Catherine's College) then headed out for dinner at an ethnic restaurant that somehow served Greek, Indian, Italian, and Czech food all at the same time!

The next morning, before we left, we got some more pictures of King's College chapel and, on the way from our room to the chapel, we were stopped by a porter wanting to know why were in the college (since it was closed to visitors). We explained that we were guests and had spent the night. He then asked what room we were in so we pulled out the key to show him. That was proof enough and he let us go on our way, but at least he was amazingly pleasant and not rude about it! We then walked across town to the park where the coach buses stop ready for the next stop on our trip: Canterbury.

Winter in Cesson-Sévigné

Snow in our parking lot.

We haven't traveled since Jimmy and Jenny's visit for several reasons. First, we're going on several longer trips this term than last (one to the UK next week, one across northern France, Belgium, and western Germany over Easter weekend, and a week-long trip to Greece in May) so we need to save our money for those. Second, Lisa has been invited to give a paper at Cambridge University next week so she's been hard at work on that on weekends. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Europe (as you may have heard) has been suffering through an awful cold spell since January 25th. It stays below freezing most of the day and it's been rather windy much of the time, too. The newspaper last week said it's the worst cold snap in France since 1985 (although it's unclear how they calculate worst - coldest? longest-lasting? affecting the most people?). Last Monday, France set a new record for the most one-day electricity consumption because most people in France have electric heat, not gas heat as in the US. We even had a couple inches of snow the first weekend of February! So all of this has reduced our desire to leave our house and travel on weekends. Fortunately, though, this sub-freezing weather seems to be ending and we should be warming up nicely this week.

Our Saturday market runs year-round, despite the cold. Some of the vendors we got used to seeing in the fall are no longer there, like some people that only sell tomatoes. Most of the produce is now shipped in from Spain and southern France, but the apples we buy are still local and the cheese, meat, and seafood vendors aren't affected by the season much so they're all there. I think we're becoming regulars at many of these places. The cheese vendor actually asked us "How's it going" this week and her husband said good-bye to us when we left, even though he was helping another customer, neither of which have ever happened before. The couple from whom we buy free-range eggs also chatted a bit with us, too, asking us to compare the weather in France with the weather in the US (they learned we were American on one of our first ventures to the market last fall). It's sort of nice to be able to establish something of a rapport with our food-sellers.

Lisa's former student, Nathan, came back for a brief visit at the start of the month. His study-abroad program in Dijon ended so he was traveling around France for a bit before going back to the US. He stayed with us for a Sunday night, went to Mont Saint-Michel the next day to spend the night there, returned to our house on Tuesday, spent the night, then got up very early Wednesday to get a train to Paris for his flight home. I didn't get to spend very much time with him, but I was very glad to meet him and I'm glad we could provide a free place to stay around his visit to Mont Saint-Michel.

We've also gotten to spend time with some American Mormon missionaries whose church is about a mile down the road from our house. Two of them overheard Lisa speaking English on the bus during Nathan's first visit, introduced themselves, and then invited her to their weekly Wednesday night ping-pong games at their church. We've gone a couple of times. They're very friendly people and they promised not to try to convert us. It's actually sort of nice to spend time with some very committed Americans and I think they enjoy being able to speak English to other Americans, too!

Geneviève serving food, Aaron looking anxious.

The highlight of our time since Jimmy and Jenny's visit, though, was probably the party we were invited to by one of our colleagues, Geneviève, and her husband, Jean-Paul, the last Friday in January. Our fellow American lecteur Andrew also came, as did two other Americans and a French person in our department and two of their partners. Geneviève and Jean-Paul live in a wonderful old house in Rennes near Sainte-Anne, although initially we had some difficulty in finding it and tried to walk into someone else's house first! We began with champagne and appetizers in their ground floor sitting area before adjourning upstairs to the dining room for a dinner of quiche, salad, cheese, fois gras and, of course, wine. The dinner also involved quite a bit of lovely singing from Geneviève and Rémy (the partner of our colleague, Nicolas - the ones who invited us to their country house back in the fall). Todd sang Carmen Ohio and I tried to sing with him before realizing that I don't actually know the words, just the melody!

The galette des rois.

After dinner, though, I tried to play Geneviève's piano, but it was difficult without sheet music and after not having played since last May. Nicolas had also written a quiz game for us to play, which, according to Geneviève, is perfectly in keeping with Nicolas' love of teaching.

The main point of the party, however, was the "galette des rois." This is the French version of the king cake traditionally served around Epiphany in many Catholic countries (and in New Orleans during Carnival). It's a puff pastry with a filling of frangipane and containing a small ceramic favor. Whoever gets

Pour qui, Andrew?

the piece with the favor is declared the king of the party and he or she then wears a paper crown for the rest of the night. To make sure that the pieces are randomly distributed, the youngest person at the table climbs under the table, the server asks, "Pour qui?" ("For whom?", although to me it sort of sounded like, "Porky?"), and the person under the table has to name each of the guests in turn. For our party, this meant that Andrew was the person under the table, which was quite enjoyable to watch! In case you're wondering, Rémy found the favor and was named king. He
promptly declared Nicolas to be queen since they have been together now for nearly twenty years.

King Rémy, showing off the favor to Anthony.

It was quite a fun night of good food, good spirits, lots of laughter, lots of French (some of which I understood), and it was a wonderful way to break up the monotony of these cold winter weekends!

On American Visitors, Closed Castles, and Snails

The weekend after our visit to Chartres, we hosted our first visitors as a couple in what is going to be a very visitor-filled semester - and we love having visitors, so it's very exciting! These particular visitors were our friends Jimmy and Jenny from North Carolina. They took a multi-week trip through northern France the UK and in the process, visited us and another friend in Durham, England.

After renting a car in Paris, they drove to Rennes on Friday night. After a few hours of talking and catching up, we went to bed. Saturday morning, we took them to our marché in Cesson to buy food for our dinner that evening. (Unlike outdoor markets in the US, here in France, they run year-round, not just in summer.) Two of Jimmy's goals in France were to have a traditional four-course French dinner and to eat escargot. Since he hadn't done either of those yet and since our house was their last stop in France, we did our best to plan a full meal before their arrival so we knew exactly what we needed to get at the market, including several kinds of cheese for a cheese course. Our regular cheese-monger was very helpful in this regard, recommending several different types he thought would be appropriate. We also purchased some snail-like creatures from another merchant (although it's not clear if these were actually snails or just some other kind of shell-creature) and he, too, was very helpful in explaining how to prepare them.

Lisa and Jenny both agreed that this
would be a cool place to get married.
Their husbands both wondered why
they were still thinking about getting
married.

Jimmy, braving the
castle stairs.

Following the shopping trip, we came home, packed a lunch and headed out in the rental car to show Jimmy and Jenny around our area. Fortunately, Jimmy can drive a stick-shift since it's nearly impossible to rent an automatic car in France, making it difficult for Lisa and I to drive anywhere! Our first stop was a ruined castle in Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier (about a 25-minute drive northwest of our town). Lisa had heard about this castle from two American Mormon missionaries she befriended on the bus. (They're very nice and we've even played ping-pong with them at their church, but that's a story for another time.) The castle dates from the 13th century and was meant to guard the border between the two baronies of Fougères and Vitré, although I don't know why it's ruined. Anyway, despite the cold misty rain that was falling, we climbed all over the ruins and explored several underground passageways (they didn't really go anywhere, sadly; no buried treasure here). It was very cool because this is the first ruined castle we've seen in France and the first one where we can literally climb and walk anywhere we want!

Castle ruins at St-Aubin-du-Cormier.

After the castle, we got back in the car and headed to Fougères in order to see a castle that wasn't in ruins. We ate our packed lunches in a municipal parking lot then set out to find the castle. After a couple unsuccessful attempts to figure out where exactly we were, we decided we should stop in the tourism office to get a map. Unfortunately, finding the tourism office also proved difficult until Lisa asked in pharmacy. After waiting in line behind a middle-aged French couple who seemed to be using the sole employee of the tourist office to help them plan a weeks-long trip through Brittany, we finally got our map and some disappointing information: the castle in Fougères is closed in the month of January! (The young Spanish couple behind us were also disappointed to learn this and even more disappointed to learn there was no direct way to get from Fougères to Mont-Saint-Michel. Hopefully they found something else to do.) However, the trip wasn't a total waste because we found another fresh seafood store that seemed to be selling something much closer to snails than what we saw that morning so we got a few of these, too. Jimmy and Jenny were also able to buy some chocolates to take home with them as a gift.

Lisa and I at Vitré.

Still determined to see a non-ruined castle, we drove southeast to Vitré. It was a very cool castle and worth the trip. Inside, there's a small municipal art museum that had some nice 19th-century paintings of Vitré and its area. Lisa obviously described much of the castle in a previous entry, so I won't rehash it here. Instead, I'll just point out that Jimmy set off an alarm while trying to open a door in the castle, but fortunately, there were no armed guards or nasty dogs or anything.

Mmmm butter.

Should we really try these?

We then drove home and Lisa and Jenny prepared the four-course meal (which turned out to be five in the end!), Jenny bravely digging the snails out of their shells (which looked like quite a chore) and Lisa making most of the rest of the meal. The snails were cooked in a butter garlic sauce and we all tried one (except Lisa, of course, being a vegetarian). It was a very similar texture and taste to calamari and pretty good, I thought. We also had two kinds of wine and champagne; bean soup; galettes (Breton buckwheat crepes) with ham, egg, cheese and mustard; salad; a cheese course; and a pear tarte tatin for dessert, along with some chocolates that Lisa and I had purchased at our local bread and pastry shop, unbeknownst to Jimmy and Jenny. One of the chocolates was shaped like a snail-shell and called escargot so we made sure Jimmy got that one! In good French style, the meal and conversation ended up lasting four hours or so and finally we realized it was late and we had to go to bed to prepare for our big day on Sunday.

Jenny, me, Jimmy at Mont-Saint-Michel.

Sunday, we woke early and piled into the rental car to head up to Mont-Saint-Michel. Our goal was to get there around 9:30 when the abbey opened and before all the busloads of tourists arrived. We met the goal pretty well. I won't repeat everything about Mont-Saint-Michel since it was my third trip and Lisa's fourth trip there other than to say that, unlike our last visit, this time we got to walk outside on the seaward side of the abbey to see the fortification walls, which was pretty cool.

The American Cemetery

After Mont-Saint-Michel, we got back in the car, ate our packed lunch on the road, and drove to the Omaha Beach D-Day site, about an hour or so away. Lisa had been there before, but I had not. The military cemetery and museum there are actually on US soil. The French government gave to the US in perpetuity as thanks for helping to liberate them from the Nazis. (Despite this, though, all the employees are French!) The museum was very interesting with lots of information about the

Walking down to Omaha Beach

D-Day planning and execution. Because it was cold and windy, we didn't walk far into the cemetery proper, but it was still an impressive sight to see the neat rows of white crosses in well-manicured grass. We also walked down to the beach itself, although there's not much to see except a beach. The hike back up the hillside was a bit tough and I can't imagine what it would have been like trying to make that climb carrying 70 pounds of gear and being shot at by German soldiers.

The next goal was to get to the city of Caen for Jimmy and Jenny to return the rental car and make their ferry to England. Along the way, we stopped at Arromanches to see what's left of the artificial port built by the Allies (see our previous blog entry on Normandy for this) and we also had quite a time trying to get gas. We made it to Caen shortly before Jimmy and Jenny's bus to the ferry terminal was scheduled to leave, the last one of the night. However, the rental car office was closed (it was a Sunday night) and the sign on the door gave almost no instructions on how to drop off a car after-hours. It just said to talk to someone in the train
station across the street. By the time we did and figured out where to move the car, Jimmy and Jenny's bus

The train from Caen to Rennes is semi-direct. That's an understatement.

had left (although the ferry itself didn't leave for another five hours. Lisa and I were taking the last train to Rennes, but that, too, didn't leave for another hour or so. That meant we all got to spend some time hanging out at the train station (watching, along with everyone else, a couple of teenage boys get thoroughly searched by about eight policemen!) and saying a more leisurely good-bye. Finally, we put Jimmy and Jenny in a taxi to the ferry terminal and Lisa and I got on the train home.

It was a lovely weekend and a lot of fun to be able to show friends around the area where we live. We're looking forward to the many other visitors we have coming in March and April!