Don't Make Me Pull Out My Freedom Fries

Bienvenu à Besancon

As my flight from Frankfurt arrived in Geneva, Switzerland at 7:30 p.m., I was mentally prepared to have to stay the night in Geneva and travel the next day on to my destination city of Besançon. The last train out of Geneva left out of Besançon at 8:30. Not alot of time for an international arrival.

Fortunately, a flight attendant told me that the train station was right next to the airport. Once I got off the plane, I ran so I could wait 10 precious minutes for my bags to come out. I grabbed those bags, ran to the train station where I found out that I would have to transfer to another station downtown to get me to France. "Merde!" After another train I was finally at the correct station. I ran up to the ticket office and with a little less than 3 minutes to spare, I bought my ticket, literally ran through customs since noone was actually there working, and jumped on the train and onto Besançon, France.

I am taking French classes this summer at the Centre Linguistique Appliquée here in Besancon. These classes go towards my Masters Degree. I have to say that my first week of classes and living in Besançon had been really interesting. First of all, the set up. We have to attend 3 classes a day from 8:30 to 3:00 with an optional forum after these classes. My classes have either been really well organized or poorly organized along with forums consisting of a presenter reading statistics for an hour and a half in a monotone voice or interactive presentations. Classes are either right on the mark or off in left field.

One of the stereotypical qualities of France is their food, but considering that we have been eating in a school cafeteria, food hasn't been the true treat that you might imagine. On the other hand, our classes are extremely international. Compared to my classes last summer in Argentina which was comprised mostly of Americans, classes here are comprised of students from Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Ireland, France, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, Syria, Botswana, Senegal. You can definitely say it is eclectic as Crawford, Texas.

My diverse classes

The majority of the students are staying in dorms. During the first week, I stayed in the dorm named Jérome. I soon found out that Jérome was the dorm where French students that didn't return home for their summer vacation stay to drink and talk right in front of the entrance of the building. Unfortunately, my room just happened to be situated right above the entrance. For 5 consecutive nights, they felt like sitting in front to drink, talk, sing, and yell a few times for extra flavor as it prohibited everyone trying to sleep to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning. That's completely bollocks isn't it?

So each night, I would go down in between midnight and 3 a.m. to ask them to take their ass somewhere else. Finally, on the last night, I went down and had a heated discussion about the fact that I had to go to class the next morning while they didn't. If I had a better vocabulary in French, I would have peppered the conversation with alot more colorful words like bollocks and you smell like catfish. I changed dorms on Monday.

One of my goals on this trip was to make a side trip to Westvletern, Belgium to purchase the number one beer in the world. This beer, the Westvletern trappist beer is very scarce and tough to wrap your hands around. You process requires that you make a reservation two weeks before you plan on buying it, then two weeks later, you drive up, give them your name and your money, and then they give you best tasting beer in the world. That was my plan, BUT, what a big but, there was one big item impeding my visit. When I was looking to get a train ticket to Belgium, it was going to cost a nifty $500. I enjoy beer, but not quite that much. Maybe sometime in the future.

Enough of this negative crap. Now for the uplifting and the bit odd to make you laugh. A great way for me to integrate with locals has always been basketball. During the first week, I found a set of basketball courts where guys come and play three times a week. I quickly put myself in the mix. I have been playing basketball for a good two to three hours each time. I know that makes you feel better.

Now the school that we attend tries to provide several cultural activities within Besancon for us to take advantage of. One of the first activities was a French movie preluded with a concert from the guy that produced the music for the movie. Sounds great in theory. Two other graduate students, Norah and Sarah, both came and we were a little perturbed that we were a little late for the start. Once we entered, we were glad we were late. Up on stage was the musician making odd music with his clarinette. He reminded me of Will Ferrell in Anchorman when he starts playing his jazz flute. The French musician would play a note and then use his computer to change the sound. Basically it sounded like a whale under water in a great amount of pain from constipation. He felt the music and began to levitate using his one leg to push himself up and tucking the other one behind his other leg. It looked more like he was practicing yoga.

Finally the movie started 40 painful minutes later. This didn't mark the end of pain, just a pause, and then a continuation of another long dragged out piece of French cinema. We left early and ate some ice cream.

Leading up to the Citadelle

Looming high over the city of Besancon is the Citadelle, a place that protected the old city below and was designed by Vauban. I took a Sunday afternoon to visit it. To my surprise as I walked across the drawbridge, underneath were a couple dozen baboons. What?!?! Baboons up in the citadel. Unknown to me, the back of the citadel is a zoo containing kangaroos, several types of monkeys, lions, tigers, fish, flamingos, and llamas.

The funniest moment came by a few monkeys. It always has to be the monkeys. One male monkey, we'll name him Santa Fe, felt it best to swing around the cage quickly until the female, Albuquerque, was away from her baby. Santa Fe would then quickly swing over in her direction, and seemed to be trying to jump over Albuquerque. He wasn't successful since he kept trying in rapid succession to jump over her. There's nothing like humping monkeys to make you laugh.

That was the first week of Besancon. The next week brought the Tour de France to town.

Peace
John