A Little History...

Okay, so this blog is going to be a little bit about the history of Nimes and Boissiéres. I say a little because I don't really know that much about either at the moment, but here's what I do know.

The city of Nimes was originally called Nemausus after a spring that was discovered when the Romans first started a colony here. Nimes and the surrounding area was inhabited mainly by Roman soldiers, who were given plots of land after serving in Julius Caesar's army for 15 years in his campaigns of the Nile. And I believe that's also the reason that the city's major symbol is a crocodile chained to a palm tree, because there are crocs in the Nile and the climate here seems to support palm trees pretty well. If you walk around the city you can see lots of evidence of Nimes being a Roman city.

The Arènes, a giant amphitheatre, is probably the second-most well preserved after the amphitheatre in Rome. Two Feriàs (festivals with bullfights) are held in the Arènes every year, as well as some other smaller events. Another Roman monument is the Maison Carrée, or in English "Square House," which is actually a rectangle. It's still in amazing condition, and in the past it was used for government purposes more than anything, although the Romans originally built it as a temple. The other monuments I've already mentioned a little bit about. The Jardin de la Fontaine was built by the Romans, part of it was either destroyed or just dissapeard eventually, and it was added onto by the French in the late 18th century. I went to the Jardin today and took a ton of pictures, so be sure to check them out on the picture link. The Jardin also houses La Temple de Diane, another Roman temple that isn't in such good condition but still nice to look at. And at the top of the hill is the Tour Magne, which is the oldest monument of all. Also, although not in Nimes (and I haven't seen it yet), the city is famous for the gigantic aqueduct that used to carry water to the colony.

A couple other facts about Nimes. The city has had quite a controversial past. Nimes has always been a very Protestant city. At some point all Jews were kicked out of the city, and another point in history there was a small massacre of Catholics, including 5 bishops that were murdered in front of a church. But on a nicer note, Nimes is also the birthplace of the material serge that is used to make jeans! That's right, in the 19th century an immigrant to the United States with the last name Levy (which I guess later was changed to Levi), decided that serge would be the perfect material to make pants for cowboys! Possibly because the cowboys of the Camargue marshes wore similar pants? Anyways, "denim" is a mispronunciation of "de Nimes," or the material "from Nimes."

Okay, this is getting really long so I'll finish quickly. Boissiéres is a town of 560 people, and it was a town of about 230 people in the mid-17th century. That's not much growth in over three centuries if you ask me... Also, the town has a castle that I don't really know anything about other than nobody lives there now. I'll try to find out more about that.

Okay, I'm done. On a side note, I ate kangaroo in my school cafeteria on Tuesday. Not bad. Thanks for caring if you've gotten this far, and good night!

"But calzones are Italian and chili is Mexican!"

That's what my host-mother told me last weekend after I cooked them dinner. I made calzones and they liked them and now they want me to make dinner once a week, so I don't know what I got myself into there! But anyways, I said I would try to make dinner for them once a week and I would try to make some"American" food, or at least dishes that I thought maybe they had never eaten. I agreed with her that calzones definetely were Italian and not American, but dammit, Chili is Tex-Mex and Texas is part of America! (Of course I was dissapointed in myself for making an argument that George Bush would have made, but then again, Lance Armstrong would have agreed too, and as long as he's not a doper, that makes it a little bit better.)
So yeah, this weekend I'm making Chili and in the future I don't know exactly what. Because I did realize that America doesn't have a recognized cuisine like a lot of other countries do. Or at least America doesn't have recognized cuisine that you would want to eat every night, because Philly cheese steaks and Chicago deep-dish pizzas can get pretty unhealthy. So post some comments with suggestion if any pop into your head please.

But I've already made one post about food, so what else is going on? I posted some pictures a couple days ago that I took when I went out riding Wednesday. They're just of a local "climb" and the view you see while a the top, which I think is awesome.

Yesterday I walked around le Jardin de la Fontaine with a friend of mine but I forgot to put my camera in my backpack, so I'll have to go back and get some pictures. It's not really a magnificent garden in the way of various flowers and other plants, but it is an amazing Roman ruin. It's quite large and includes canals that are sourced from an underground river! Plus if you walk all the way up trough the garden and up through the hill you can see all of Nimes and another monument, the Tour Magne. However, this tower costs 2.70 euros (or about $3.78 at the moment) to climb to the top, so of course I didn't do that. I'll definetely take some pictures n the next week and get those up.

That's it for now, I hope everyone's well and have a good weekend!

Jonah

This is HARD!

Yeah, this is the hardest thing I've ever done. Everyone is probably reading this going "Oh, Jonah sounds like he's settling in well and having a great experience." And I am. But man is it difficult when everyone around you is speaking a language that you don't speak very well and sometimes you want to scream AHHHHHHHH but then you would just have to explain yourself in another language, which is very diffiult. Or they'd just think you're that crazy American. And it's not jst the language barrier, but also being thousands of miles away from people I know really well and the fact that all my classes (with the exception of English) are in French. At least I've seen most of this stuff before so that helps me towards understanding, but man is it difficult! At least my French teacher is letting me off the hook and not making me read the 500-page novel L'Education Sentimentale.

But besides that rant on me struggling, I'm pretty good. I'm learning quickly and I've noticed I'm conversing much more easily now. I had plenty of time to practice today because I didn't have class for five hours! That's right, in France when teachers can't make it there's no substitute, you just don't have class. Both my French teacher and Sciences de la Vie and Terre (Geology and Biology) teacher were absent, so from 11-4 I ate lunch, played foosball, talked, and sat in a beautiful park in Nimes called Jardin de la Fontaine. (Come visit me and I'll show it to you).

A couple things I forgot to mention in the last blog. Both are about the creation of the drink that France loves so much: wine. There are wine "breweries" spread throughout France called Cave Cooperatives. The word cooperative is used because the grapes from the surrounding vineyards are taken to the cave (which is a building, not a cave) and made into wine. Hence, it is a cooperative effort between the cave itself and the various vineyard owners. The caves also smell very bad, so you should be happy you don't live near one. I have to hold my breath every time I ride by one. Also, the grapes are driven to the caves immediately after they are picked by these gigantic tractor-like machines that I don't know the name of. As they are driven there some of the juice from them falls onto the road and the sugar of the grapes creates something the French call coal. It's very sticky, and as I learned last bike ride, slows you down quite a bit if you try to ride through it.

Okay, c'est tout! Bonne nuit!

France est trés jolie!

So this weekend I had more French biking experience. Yesterday I rode to Espace Bikes, a shop in the nearby town of Caveirac via the Voie Verte (bike path, which translates into "green route") with my friend Benjamin. Much much much smaller than what I'm used to, but the guy who owns it is real nice. Then on the busy road into Nimes and through the city to another shop, which I forgot the name to. It was full of beauticul Colnago and De Rosa frames and even a Pinarello Prince, which, for anyone who doesn't know, costs about $10,800. At the second shop I bought a powder drink mix and some gels, and now my host father is accusing me of doping. This morning I rode with Pascale, the father of one of Axel's friends, for about 53 kilometers, or 32 miles. Went a sligtly different direction and evetually caught a group of five riders, who we hammered with for a little bit. I talked a little broken French with a woman in the group who was wearing an old USPS Berry Floor jersey. Anyways, I can't wait to get back out riding again, I really wish I didn't have to go to school. I'm planning rides into Provence to see the lavender fields and south to the Camargue marshes and the Mediterranean.

I'm settling in a little better now. I still miss everyone a ton but I'm making friends and now I feel a little less like the outsider, because I'm understanding people when they talk much quicker and I can respond without having to pause and think as much about what I'm going to say.

Friday when I didn't have class for two hours me and a guy in my class walked to a bike shop in Nimes, which was closed because shops have the strangest hours in France. But we walked around Nimes a little more anyways, an I saw all the preparations for this weekend's Féria. Unfortunately I didn't go to the Feria, which is a weekend of corridas (bullfights) and live music and food and drunk people in the streets. Maybe I'll make it to the even bigger Féria that happens in April, I believe, during the Pentecote weekend.

That's it for tonight. Sorry I didn't take any pictures this weekend, but I'll try to get some when I go out riding Wednesday and/or Saturday. Bisous, et bonne nuit!

Jonah

Manger

So today at lunch I had an interesting experience that I would never have in the U.S. From 12-3 I didn't have class, so I went with a couple guys in my class to a local café to play bébé foot (French for foosball). Some of the French kids were pretty good, and they had a few interesting rules I didn't quite understand. For instance, if you lose then you have to crawl under the table to the other side. Anyways, it was a lot of fun and making friends is definetely helping me learn French. Plus, I think I represented America well in the area of bébé foot.

Oh, and the food in France is BANGIN'! When I'm not at school my French family eats lunch and dinner together. The food is tasty and usually there is a lot. For example, on Sunday we had a big casserole of potatoes, onions, and cheese for lunch. MMMMMMMMM. Then a few hours later some friends of the family came over bearing fruit, lemon, and chocolate tartes. Everyone sat around eating those and drinking strong coffee or tea. Dinner was the rest of the casserole, a tomato salad, and a leftover dish of yellow rice with auid, mussels and shrimp from the previous night. And I wouldn't usually want to eat all that seafood, but I've decided this is the year to culture myself and eat more things. I haven't had any snails yet, but maybe some time...

Following every meal is either salad, fruit, bread with chesse or butter, nuts, and/or dessert. In the case of my family, amazing chocolate ice cream! But okay, I'm done being fat. Tune in again soon for another update from the beautiful south of France!

Speaking of Biking

I went on an amazing ride Sunday morning with the father of one of Axel's friends. We rode about 55 kilometers (yes, I'm learning the metric system). The first 10 were pretty flat but somewhere in between kilometer 10 and 15 we climbed this nice hill. Long, gradual, and surprisingly easy, and at the top you could see everything. Beautiful! Sorry, I didn't bring my camera with me but next time I go out riding I definetely will. We rode through the town of Sommiéres, which is the second biggest town in my immediate area besides Nimes. Then a bit after Sommiéres, back on the Voie Verte (the awesome bike path) to finish the ride.
And for you mountain bikers, I actually saw a bunch of people on nice dually bikes coming down when I was starting up the climb. I think there are actually some pretty good trails around me. I'm probably going to go mountain biking with a few guys from school soon, so we'll see!

Off the topic of biking, I also wanted to write about a few things I'm still getting used to:

• Camembert in the school cafeteria
• Having to continually hold the water source while showering
• Eating salad after the main dish
• Being at school from 8 til 5
• Commas instead of decimal points
• Eating acorns
• The toilet being in a seperate room from the shower and sink.

French School

So after a couple days of moving around between classes (in France you have all your classes with the same group of people unless you're taking a different language), I am finally in the correct class with my host sister Marine. French school is very different from American school. They count down instead of up, like we do in the U.S. So your juior year, which is the grade I am in, is called Première (1st), while your senior year is called Terminale and your sophomore year is Seconde. And French lycée, which is high school, starts with Seconde, so I guess there really is no official Freshman year.

So anyways, a French school day is completely different from an American one. This morning I woke up at 6 and left the house at 6:40 to get on the bus. Chemistry class started at 8, then math at 9. We got books for all or classes from about 9:30-9:45 and then had a break while some people changed classes before our second half of math. We had math until 11, lunch from 11-12, history from 12-1. Then from 1-3 we sat around and talked (I attempted to at least), and another hour of history until classes were over for the day at 4. Yeah, I know, it's weird! And actually, I have a few classs that double as two subjects. For example, physics and chemistry are the same class, history and geograpy are the same class. French lycée has a week A and a week B, so chemistry is taught during week A, and physics is taught during week B, for example. Not all the students are finished classes at the same time, either. Some days I finish at 4 while others I finish at 5 and wednesdays I finish at noon.

Last year students were allowed to smoke on school grounds but this year they have to go right outside. Oh, and students can leave campus whenever they want if they don't have class, with no pestering about having a pass. So sometime during one of my two hour breaks, maybe I'll go grab something to eat at one of the magnificent local bakeries. We have cards that, when scanned, allow us to open the gate to the school after it opens, and keeps track of meals.

School is of course very hard for me right now because I don't speak French that well. But I'm getting better quickly! The lesson on the industrial revolution in history wasn't hard to follow today, and I even managed to catch on to a joke about soccer when the teacher told us about the Manchester-Liverpool railroad line. But this morning I was really confused as to why the math teacher was talking about croissants when she was talking about croissance (a graph increasing)!

That's it for now. Make sure to check out the pictures I'll put up later tonight. They're only of my town, another small town, and the bike path, but I'l take more as soon as I can.

L'école est demain!

Hello all! Some of you want to know more about how my trip is going, so I figured I would post some information about my town, my family, and Nimes. Boissiéres is a town of about 500 people. It is trés jolie (very pretty), with very arrow streets and an old chateau that nobody lives in at the top of the hill that the village stands on. Don't worry, I'll post pictures of the village and the chateau as soon as possible! Boissiéres is bordered by the villages of Nages, where the running of the bulls took place, and Bizac, which I rode my bike through today and is even smaller than Boissiéres.

I walked around Nimes this morning with Laurence and Marine after dropping Caroline and Axel off at school. They start a day before Marine and I. (Yes, unfortunately I have to go to school tomorrow...) I saw the amphitheatre Arènes, where corridas (bullfights) will take place next weekend, and the Maison Carrée, another famous Roman remain.

School is tomorrow and I have absolutely no idea what to expect. I will be in the same class as Marine and Benedict a friend of Marine's who attended the running of the bulls with us. And, oh, by the way - the running of the bulls isn't simply a bunch of idiots running as fast as they can so they don't get gorged. What happens is the French cowboys ride with their horses very close togethr so that the bulls running behind them canot pass. Meanwhile, the young men try to catch up to the head of the ulss and grab its horns until a number of them stop it from moving. People are allover the streets and constantly awaiting the next bull or bulls so that they can get out of the way.

I think that's it for now. I hope everyone is doing well, and I'll post again soon. Bisous!

Jonah

Salut!

I am inBoisseres, France at the moment typing on my French family's computer. The keyboard is different so it takes me a very long time to type. If you want to reach me, use my address wayfarer4900@yahoo.com please, not jonah.meyers@verizon.net. I will put pictures up as soon as I can, but not until I can find a way of getting internet on my own computer.

My stay in France so far has been quite an experience. I have been slightly overwhelmed because everyone around me is speaking a language that i do not speak very well. But I am learning fast. Boissieres is a beautiful, small village with narrow streets and red-tile-roofed houses. My family is very nice and I've even been to the local running of th bulls! Sorry I have to stop now because I really need a shower and typing is so slow. I will find out where I can get wireless internet and then write about everything. Missing everyone already!