Paris by night

This is a beautiful city. It'll be hard to leave.

Carcassonne

In our last post, Talia described our recent trip to Barcelona. It ends with us boarding a train bound for Carcassonne, a town in the southeast of France. (It's roughly halfway between Toulouse and Montpellier, if you know where they are. If not, just imagine a line due south from Paris but stop about 65km from the Spansh border. Or just look it up on a map.) What adventures would await us there?

Something Talia didn't mention about Barcelona is how cheap everything was! It's a major city, but the prices in supermarkets and restaurants compared very favourably to Paris. I suppose the real lesson from this is that it is expensive in Paris, and we've just got used to it...

Anyway, the train ride to Carcassonne was lovely. It was just as the sun was setting, and we had great views of the Pyrenées and the Mediterranean. It was around Maëlys's bedtime, so she was a little grumpy, but we were all still able to enjoy most of the trip.

Water, hills, as viewed from the train from Barcelona.

The only thing that marked our entering France was that the automated announcements switched from Spanish, French, and English to just French. This was strangely comforting, in a way. While Talia is pretty competent in Spanish, I am very weak, and being in Barcelona - while enjoyable - it was very clear that I was in a foreign country.

By contrast, coming to Carcassonne, a place we've never been before, was very much like "coming home". The train station was basically like every other provincial French train station. We made our way to our accommodation (an AirBnB), and spoke only French with the host. We knew all the quirks of the French apartment and the French appliances. That it was all so familiar was surprising, as to a large degree France is still a foreign country to us. But it helped us to realize how much of a home it's become.

The next morning was Sunday, and I ventured out to one of the supermarkets to pick up supplies. (Being "at home" means realizing that not many supermarkets will be open on Sunday, and knowing that those which are are probably only open for the morning.) The town was dead quiet. It was a real contrast from Barcelona, full of people and wide thoroughfares with cars and mopeds. Here, I wandered down some cobbled streets, passing only a couple of people. The other people in the supermarket were tourists too.

One of the main entrances to the walled city.

Carcassonne is most famous for its medieval city. This dates back to Roman times, with fortifications being added over the centuries, to defend against threats from outside (those barbaric Spaniards!) and inside (those dangerous commoners!). After falling into some disrepair, a lot of it was rebuilt in the 1800s in an attempt to restore it to its former glory. As it turns out, a lot of the "restorations" were actually just people imagining what they thought a medieval castle should look like, rather than historically accurate rebuilding, but that seems to be part of the appeal. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Another entrance!

A view over the rooftops. Yes, those are houses - people actually live here.

A view from the ramparts down to the town and countryside below.

A view of the southern end of the city.

As you can probably tell from the pictures, we had cracking weather. It was about 25C (77F) and sunny, with clear skies. Great weather for a holiday!

A window in the Basilica of Saint Nazaire, inside the old city.

You may also be familiar with Carcassonne as the name of a board game. The game, inspired by the real city, involves building cities and roads between them in rural medieval France. We saw it for sale in one of the tourist shops, which I thought was quite appropriate.

The aptly-named "old bridge" over the river Aude.

Naturally, each region of France has its own culinary delicacies. Carcassonne is famous for cassoulet, which is a type of stew consisting of white beans, pork sausage, and duck meat, all cooked in lard for hours. Talia had some for lunch, and didn't need any more food for the day.

When in Rome...

After our trip to the old city, we meandered our way back to our accommodation, which was in the newer part of town. Because there isn't really too much to do in Carcassonne, there was none of the usual "tourist-pressure" I feel of having to go and see everything and maximize the amount of experiences enjoyed. Instead, it was extremely pleasant to have a leisurely time. The next day, we enjoyed a relaxed morning before taking a little boat trip along the canal. In the early evening, we took a local train to neighbouring Narbonne, before boarding the high-speed train bound for Paris. Again, the train ride was excellent. For the first portion, the track mostly hugs the Mediterranean coast, providing excellent views. Then, turning left, it's northward to Paris, through the French countryside. We got home at about 11pm; a sleeping baby and tired parents.

Carcassonne was a lovely break. Of course, it's definitely a tourist town, but that doesn't really detract from the beauty of it. (And we live in Paris anyway, so being around tourists is just part of life...) If we had the time, it would have been great to rent a car and just explore the region, stay for a week or so. The pace of holidaying in rural places is quite different from that of Barcelona, and I'm glad that we managed to fit both of them into this trip. I'm also glad that we did it in this order - the quiet timidity of Carcassonne and the comforting familiarity of France was an excellent sequel to Barcelona. The other way round wouldn't have paced itself quite as well. Roll on our next holiday adventure!

¡Barcelona!

A colorful market in Barcelona

When I first learned we were moving to France, I was both excited and a little disappointed. Disappointed because throughout high school and college, I spent a considerable amount of time learning Spanish, and had always wanted the chance to try out my language skills in a Spanish-speaking country. I thought Spanish would be a much more useful language to know than French, what with the number of Spanish-speakers in the US and the proximity to Mexico and Latin America.

Imagine my surprise, then, to find out that I was moving to France. I had to shove my hard-earned knowledge of Spanish to the back of my brain and start cramming French in there instead. I enjoyed the challenge of teaching myself French and have done reasonably well at learning the language. But I still harbor an appreciation for Spanish and Latin cultures and that dream of communicating in Spanish. Thus, the close proximity of France to Spain was something I wanted to capitalize on while we were in Europe.

Amazingly beautiful gelato

It took us nearly two years of living in France, but I finally realized my goal of seeing Spain. Last month we took a short trip to Barcelona and had two-and-a-half days to see the sights. Here's what we found.

Barcelona is full of life. Compared to Paris, it felt sunny and open and friendly. On our first full day there, we did a walking tour loosely based on the one in the back of the novel The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. One of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind is a page-turner of a gothic novel set in Barcelona in 1945. Zafón sweeps you up into a twisting story of shadowy characters and intricate mysteries, while expertly painting the scene of a dark and dismal post-war Barcelona. I was keen to see some of the places that figured so prominently in the story, so we took a stroll down the Ramblas, a long pedestrianized street that takes you through the heart of Barcelona's gothic quarter. We saw an epic outdoor market with amazing foods, then joined the sea of tourists that made its way past the flower vendors, souvenir shops, theaters, restaurants, and living statues, and ultimately emerged at the marina in front of a massive statue of Christopher Columbus. In addition to the Ramblas, we saw a wide variety of architecture, including some fantastical buildings created by Antoni Gaudí in the late 19^th century, as well as the outside of La Sagrada Família, the enormous modern basilica designed by Gaudí that has had construction ongoing since 1882. Rounding out the day was a trip to Jansana, a lovely gluten free bakery.

Going incognito and keeping the sun off

We did a lot of walking that first day, and in our vacations pre-baby, we would have felt obliged to go out again in the evening to cram in as much sight-seeing and experiencing as possible. But now with an 8-month-old who goes to bed around 7:30 pm, we had a perfect excuse to have a quiet evening in our AirBnB apartment, cooking ourselves a simple dinner and having hot chocolate on the patio. It was a relaxing end to an enjoyable day. Despite my initial worries about vacationing with a baby, it all worked out splendidly. Maëlys seemed to enjoy the new sights and sounds and she managed to sleep fairly well in an unfamiliar environment. Plus, Spanish people seem to love talking to, smiling at, and touching babies, so she made us quite popular with the locals.

I should note, however, that on the speaking Spanish with locals front, I failed miserably. First of all, Barcelona is part of Catalonia, so they speak both Catalan and Spanish there, and Catalan sounds rather like a mixture of French and Spanish, which confused me. Secondly, my brain is now wired such that when I hear a foreign language, I automatically respond in French, regardless of the language I hear. I kept saying “oui” instead of “si” and “merci” instead of “gracias”. So when trying to order in Spanish at restaurants, I would stare blankly at the server while my brain cycled through the English and French words before coming up with a French pronunciation for the Spanish word. It was frustrating but amusing.

Casa Batlló, designed by Gaudí

GF cake at Pasticelía

On our final day in Barcelona, we first got lunch at another excellent gluten free bakery, called Pasticelía. This time, after again being struck dumb at the sight of the waitress and having to order in English, I mentally rehearsed a couple of Spanish sentences explaining that our sojourn in Paris had left me struggling to speak Spanish. She chuckled and told me (in Spanish!) that she didn't know any French, so she appreciated the effort. It was a small victory.

Sagrada Família basilica

Afterwards, we took the subway, a funicular, and a cable car (excellent views of Barcelona) up the hill to the Montjuïc Castle. Montjuïc was a 17^th-18^th century military fortress that was the site of a number of battles and symbolized Spain's defeat of Catalonia in 1714. It served as a prison and a house of torture for three hundred years, and is mentioned in The Shadow of the Wind as the grim place where one of the characters was tortured. There is a small historical exhibit inside the fortress, but we mainly just walked around the grounds and on the ramparts. The castle's unpleasant past is not really on display too much, but a somber air pervades what's left of the fortress. At the end of our visit we walked down the steep hill through well-tended gardens and back to the funicular. In the evening we hurriedly made our way to the train station and caught a two-hour train to Carcassonne, a medieval town in the south of France.


I would love to spend more time in Spain. Barcelona was a very colorful and inviting place and with two-and-a-half days we barely scratched the surface. But at least we made it there and at least I was able to use a little of my mostly-dormant Spanish skills. The next part of our vacation took us “back home” to France, and was a great contrast to the bustle of Barcelona. Rory will tell you about that adventure in our next post. Stay tuned.

Statue (should be) entitled, Naked woman pondering ice cream cone.

Giverny, the home of Claude Monet

Spring is in full swing here and we are trying to make the most of the two and a half months we have left in France. Although we're eager for our Hawaiian adventure to begin, there is so much of France left to see and experience. Having a baby made us put some trips and activities on hold, but we're back in the game now. So yesterday we took a trip with two of our good friends to the tiny village of Giverny.


Giverny was the home of Claude Monet, the renowned late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Impressionist painter. The village of Giverny is in the southeast of the Normandy region of France, and Monet moved to a house there in 1883 at the age of forty-three. By this time, he was already well into developing his new Impressionist style, a disparaging term coined by an art critic in 1874 after an exhibition of his and other similar artists' work. Monet was attempting to artistically document the French landscape using a method of painting that conveyed his impressions and perceptions of the scenery, rather than striving for realism. Much of his progress in exploring this new style occurred at his home in Giverny.


Monet designed and created elaborate gardens on the land surrounding his house. As he sold more paintings and his wealth increased, he was also able to add a water lily pond, the one that would figure so prominently in his later works. His house and the gardens and pond are open to the public, so we spent the afternoon exploring where he created his masterpieces and enjoying the idyllic landscape. Unbeknownst to us when we planned our trip, mid-April is an ideal time to visit as the gardens are dazzlingly in bloom. The vibrant gardens showcased blossoming trees, leafy plants, vines snaking across trellises, and row after row of fragrant flowers, with particularly magnificent tulips of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The water lily pond as well was encircled by bamboo trees, flowering bushes, and a wide variety of other plants, though there were no actual water lilies at this time of year. It exuded peace and tranquility. It was not difficult to imagine Monet being constantly inspired to paint his surroundings.


After visiting the house and gardens, we strolled down the main street of Giverny, taking photos of the picturesque old homes, many of which peek out through a dense layer of bright purple wisteria. There are a couple of cafés and galleries, as well as the Museum of Impressionism, where we had lunch but didn't have time to otherwise visit. At the other end of the village is the twelfth-century church and the cemetery where Monet and some of his family members are buried. And that's about the extent of the town of Giverny. It's tiny and beautiful and even with plenty of tourists it still feels like a charming and refreshing getaway from the rush of Paris.


For any parents of young children among our readers who might consider a trip to Giverny, it should be noted that it works fairly well to bring a stroller/push chair/poussette, though it can't be taken into Monet's house as there are many stairs, and there are also stairs leading to the water lily pond, so it's good to have help carrying it up and down. We alternated the stroller with our baby carrier, and Maëlys seemed to appreciate the variety of views. Also, there are nice baby changing facilities and toilets for children next to the parking lot.

At the end of our meanderings around the village, we took a fifteen-minute shuttle bus back to the neighboring town of Vernon, where we caught the train back to Paris' Gare St. Lazare. The baby enjoyed watching the countryside fly past on the 45-minute trip and was nearly asleep by the time we got home that evening. For a small village in the middle of nowhere, we found it surprisingly easy to get to Giverny via public transportation. It's not a super cheap trip, as a return train ticket from Paris is about €25 per person and the shuttle costs €5 each way. Plus entrance to Monet's gardens and house is €9.50 per person. Still, a visit at the height of springtime is well worth the money and effort; it provides a marvellous escape from city life and allows you to feel the same tranquility and beauty that inspired the paintings of Monet.

Château de malmaison

Two weeks ago, March 20th, was Naw-Ruz, the Baha'i New Year. I took the day off work and we decided to go on a short day trip to welcome in the new year. The weather was pleasant -- bright but cloudy, dry and reasonably warm. It was a welcome change from winter.

The château de malmaison.

We settled on visiting the Château de Malmaison, the former residence of Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife. This is in the suburb Rueil-Malmaison, a short train or bus ride west of Paris.

If you know some French, you probably realized that "Malmaison" sounds like "bad house": mal means bad or wrong (like in the English words maladjusted and malnutrition), and maison means house. Sometimes when you see curious expressions like this in place names, it's actually a coincidence, and the name originates with some other words, perhaps words which are now archaic or forgotten, or even from a different language. For example, the names of the English towns of Puddletown and Catbrain are actually derived from Middle English phrases meaning "farmstead on the marsh" and "soil mixed with clay and stones", respectively.

In the case of Malmaison, however, it really does have the meaning we think. In 846, a mansion in this area was burned to the ground by Viking invaders. The area was then dubbed malmaison, meaning "mansion of back luck". Looks like the name stuck!

On the way to the chateau, we bumped into the parc de l'amitié, the park of friendship, a local park with some Japanese gardens, a rose garden, and some other features. Given the name and the Japanese theme, I thought that perhaps it was a garden of international friendship -- perhaps the results of the town being twinned with somewhere in Japan, or something like that. But I was unable to find any evidence of that. As far as I can tell, the city planners just wanted to build a cool park. That's okay with me!

The Japanese garden featured a pond and a scenic bridge. And blossoms, lots of blossoms.

In the grounds of the chateau itself is an art collection of Daniel Iffla, a 19th-Century French financier and philanthropist who named himself Osiris (yes, the same name as the Egyptian god). It was a modest collection of various objets d'art from various cultures around the world -- China, Persia, Greece, Rome. It was also really dark inside (presumably to protect the art), and quiet. It doubled as a good place to quickly change and feed Maëlys, too.

Osiris himself!

It was lunchtime when we arrived, and the chateau closes for lunch! The gardens were still open, however, so that afforded us some time to enjoy our own lunch (we'd packed a little picnic) and look around. The gardens are home to a large rose garden, not in bloom at the time of our visit, and several statues and little streams dot the area. Attempts have been made to have the garden resemble how it was at the time of Empress Josephine, although in her day the gardens extended much further in all directions. Josephine grew up in Martinique, in the Caribbean, and so apparently having a well-tended, diverse garden was a particular source of joy for her. There used to be a greenhouse where she grew pineapples!

One of the garden paths, with the chateau in the distance.

As you can see in the picture at the beginning of this post, it is a nice building, but not particularly grand. That is, it is an excellent example of a stately home, but if you had asked me to guess who lived inside, I would not have imagined "empress". The reason for that is because Josephine purchased the mansion way back when Napoleon was just a general, busy invading Egypt. When Napoleon returned, apparently he was upset at her for purchasing such a run-down mansion that would require so much work to renovate! He didn't have much time to be angry, however, as he was busy planning a coup d'état to overthrow the unpopular government and install himself as emperor. They divorced in 1810 following acrimonious disputes about affairs and Josephine's infertility, although she remained Empress.

Anyway, the inside of the chateau was decked out as it was at the time of Josephine. There were lots of grand paintings, intricate timepieces, and fancy chairs. Absent was any kitchen or obvious servant's quarters, but apparently they were in other buildings in the grounds which have since been destroyed.

One of the receiving rooms inside the chateau.

There was a lot of Napoleon-themed pieces around, including the original version of the famous painting Napoleon Crosses the Alps, which depicts (in grand heroic style) Napoleon heading from France into Italy in 1800. Not pictured: his army!

Napoleon Crosses the Alps!

After we'd seen around the chateau, we hopped back on a bus and then a train and made our way home. It was a lovely trip outside of Paris for the day, and we're going to try to do more day trips like this as our move to Hawai'i gets closer and closer! As I looking back on the pictures from the chateau, it all looks a little drab and grey in comparison to the weather we've had here in the last week or so. It appears that we did a good job of welcoming in the spring!

Winter travels part 4: Hawai'i

If you're counting, yes, this is my fifth trip this winter, the third trip that involves crossing the Atlantic. I've seen a lot of films on aeroplanes now. This wasn't a trip I had anticipated making, but I got a call inviting me out to Hawai'i for a job interview! (All travel costs covered, of course.) This wasn't totally out of the blue -- I'd applied for the job, and I'd had a preliminary Skype interview, but there are usually so many applicants that the odds of being invited for an in-person interview are very low. So, it was time to pack my bags!

As you may know, my contract here in Paris ends at the end of August, so I've been looking for new opportunities. As I explained in my post "What is a postdoc?", my goal is to get a permanent position in teaching and research. That'd be a "lecturer" in the UK, an "assistant professor" in the US, and a "maître de conferences" in France. The Hawai'i job is an assistant professor job, so it's a big deal if I can do it right.

It's nearly 7,500 miles from Paris to Hawai'i (that's nearly 12,000km), and that's plotting a straight line. There are no direct flights from Europe, so you have to fly via some major hub in the US (or in Asia, which is slightly longer but doesn't make that much difference). All told, it was about 24 hours from takeoff in Paris to landing in Honolulu. The time difference from Hawai'i to Paris is 11 hours.

The Sans Souci State Recreational Park. Yep, sans souci is French for "no worry".

Given all of that, I decided to arrive in Honolulu on Monday evening, which gave me a couple of days to adjust my internal clock before my visit formally began on Thursday. Academic job interview visits in the US are fairly intense. In this case, it involved meeting one-on-one with each faculty member in the department (for 30 minutes to an hour), presenting a research talk to the whole department (faculty and postgraduate students, plus any other interested parties), teaching a (real!) class as a demonstration of my pedagogical methods, being formally interviewed by the entire faculty of the department, meeting with the dean of the college, meeting (and being interviewed by) the postgraduate students, and then also going to dinners with various faculty members in the evening. It's a real marathon, designed to test your skill and aptitude as a researcher and educator, and also your collegiality and ability to get on well with others. Those extra days were crucial for me in de-fogging my jetlagged brain, and also in allowing me time to explore the island and investigate what it'd be like to live there. This last part was especially important as it's not a temporary position, so any relocation to Hawai'i has the potential to be permanent.

Of course, you don't want to know the details of the interview process -- you want to know what was Hawai'i like?

A view of Honolulu. The hilly crater in the distance is Diamond Head. Buildings on the left are part of the university campus.

Well, it was quite lovely, especially in contrast to Paris in February (rainy, cold, dreary). It was apparently a little colder than usual when I visited, but I didn't notice. Since records began in 1877, Honolulu has never been colder than 11C (52F) or warmer than 35C (95F). It's usually between 23C and 27C year round (73F to 81F), so it's extremely pleasant.

A lovely tree at Kailua beach. Hawai'i has lots of lovely trees.

Some miscellaneous observations:

• Everyone wears flip flops.
• No-one is in a hurry.
• Apparently there are centipedes and flying cockroaches. (I didn't see any myself.) They lurk.
• I had been in Hawai'i for three days before I heard a car sounding its horn. (You might get three minutes in Paris if you're lucky.)
• A quick scan through some radio stations while driving revealed chamber music, reggae, Japanese punk rock, Korean slow jams, and surf rock.
• This will sound strange, but the closest point of reference I have is New Zealand. Hawai'i is like New Zealand, but tropical and American rather than temperate and British.

There are several dramatic cliffs with secluded beaches below.

The island of O'ahu, where Honolulu is located, is about the size of the isle of Skye in Scotland, and is home to about 950,000 people. (Skye has 9,000 people.) This means that it can be pretty crowded, especially in the city; but it also means that you can find most goods and products that you need, like any major city. You will pay a lot of money for them, though. Most cost of living indices put Honolulu at about the same level as San Francisco or London, just behind New York. It's not cheap to live in paradise.

Part of this is because most goods must be shipped in on planes or container ships. At more than 3,000km from the closest continent, Hawai'i is by some measures the most isolated archipelago in the world. Unlike the isle of Skye, there is no convenient bridge connecting you to the mainland.

A panorama of the Mānoa valley, the neighbourhood where the university is located.

Even with the extra time I built in, it was a whirlwind trip. I was able to tour around Honolulu and some nearby places, but there's only so much you can do and see, especially when you're fighting an 11-hour jetlag! The 11 hour time difference also made it difficult to stay in touch with Talia. We'd talk in the mornings and evenings while we were both awake, me sharing stories of banana trees and mangos and her sharing stories of baby poops and interrupted sleeping. Before I knew it I was on a plane back to Europe and home in sunny Paris.

PS, I got the job! I start in August.

Winter travels part 3: Christmas, Scotland (and Texas)

Following on with my recap of our winter travels (see part 1 and part 2), we went to Scotland over Christmas. This trip mostly consisted of Maëlys meeting friends and relatives for the first time.

Great Grandma Turnbull with Maëlys.

Ken, a family friend, with Maëlys.

Me, Maëlys, my cousin Kathryn, and her daughter Jess. Jess is two days younger than Maëlys!

We've been to Scotland many times before, so we didn't do any sightseeing or anything. Strangely, it was unseasonably warm for most of our visit. I think it was about 12C (52F) on Christmas day. It's usually somewhere between 2C and 8C (35F and 46F), and doesn't get into the double figures until March.

Sunrise! At 8:30am. Gotta make the most of those 7 hour days.

It was great getting to see everyone and I was strangely proud when "showing off" Maëlys to people. A little like an enthusiastic schoolchild showing off their class project, "I made this". Except better! She seemed to enjoy the attention too, and wasn't afraid to meet new people as babies sometimes are.

After Hogmanay, I left for Paris, while Talia and Maëlys remained in Scotland. After three days I was leaving for Texas, for another conference (in Austin). We had originally intended to all go to Paris together, but Talia decided to stay in Scotland with my parents rather than be in Paris alone with Maëlys, which was a sensible decision, I think. Of course, my parents were thrilled to get to spend more time with their favourite granddaughter!

I had a couple of days in Paris, which was enough time to unpack and re-pack and to digest Julien Barnes' excellent novel The Sense of an Ending. Then I was off to Austin, Texas for a linguistics conference.

I don't have any pictures for you from Texas, I'm afraid. I was travelling light so I didn't take my camera, and I was in fact travelling so light that I forgot my phone charger, so I don't even have phone camera pictures. In any case, I spent most of the time at the conference hotel, so there isn't much of interest to report. It was in fact unseasonably cold in Austin, also around 12C (52F). I understand that normally it's more like 20C (68F).

It was a good conference, with excellent scientific content and good opportunities for me to meet other academic linguists, new and old. Still, I was very happy to get home, this being the longest I'd ever been away from Maëlys. It was also good to be stationary for a while after all this travelling.

Stay tuned, one more "winter travels" post to go and we'll be all caught up!