Anyway, on to the good bit. It turns out that French schools have a two week half term October holiday, conveniently placed just three weeks after the assistants start work! Obviously I wasn't going to spend all that time hanging around in Guebwiller when such a beautiful thing as the interailing ticket exists in the world, so at a horrible time of the morning I set off for the 5 and a half hour TGV journey which would take me to the south of France. The only thing I have to say about my journey from Mulhouse to Marseille is that it turns out France is a pretty big country. It especially feels like it when you are sitting opposite a man who feels the need to tap out the rhythm of the song he is listening to on the tabletop all the way to Provence and when you sit next to a woman who decides that the best way to practice her English at that particular moment was to blatantly stare at my Good Food magazine over my shoulder while I was trying to read it. Admittedly, the pumpkin pie recipe did look pretty appetising, but it didn't make for the most relaxing journey of my life, and I was happy when we finally pulled into Marseille. At first we went through the banlieues that Marseille is infamous for, and I couldn't help asking myself at this late moment why we'd chosen to start the holiday in what is often perceived to be the most violent city in France. But soon enough, the Mediterranean Sea came into view and I felt like Mr Bean when he finally gets to Cannes and sees the beach and all is well with the world.
The waiting room at Marseille St Charles train station is the nicest I have ever had the pleasure of using. There were old suitcases plastered to the walls, a warm mediterranean breeze was wafting in
through the doors, and it even had it's own library where you could sit and read or take a book in exchange for leaving one behind. All that and it was perfectly suited to people-watching, which made it pretty much my ideal place to wait for a couple of hours, despite some difficulties buying lunch (a French woman tried to explain to me how to form a queue... at least maybe I'm not coming across as so British anymore, if she had been able to figure out my nationality she would have known that I know perfectly well how to form a queue thank you very much). But anyway, nice as it was, I can't
ever go back there because my stupidly overstuffed rucksack managed to knock over a flowerpot on my way out. It didn't break thankfully, but there was soil all over the floor so I can't see myself being welcomed back with open arms anytime soon unfortunately.
All was well again though when Amy arrived and I no longer had to be solely responsible for navigation. And of course having a proper catch-up for the first time in 4 months was pretty good too! We made our way to the first hostel of the trip, a converted townhouse building between the train station and the seafront. It was a really nice size- big enough that there were always people around but small enough that it didn't feel weird to strike up a conversation with strangers while cooking dinner. The accommodation consisted of small southern-looking buildings with terracotta roofs and we were in a six bed dorm with, coincidently, other English language assistants from Canada and
Ireland! It was a great place to start the trip and probably the nicest hostel of the entire holiday. We spent the first evening exploring the Vieux Port area of the Marseille waterfront and walked up to
a fort. Everything seemed so far removed from what I've been getting used to in Alsace that it was hard to believe that I hadn't actually crossed an international border. There was definitely a Spanish
feel to the architecture and an unfamiliar twang to the accent that sounded almost like a dialect when compared to the Alsatian way of speaking that I've been dealing with.
Our full day in Marseille involved climbing a hill. Yes, we did actually exercise on holiday believe it or not! As murderous as the last few flights of steps were, the Notre Dame de la Garde cathedral at the top was absolutely incredible and despite nearly being blown off the top, the views were stunning too.
Next up, was the beach! Being on the beach in 27°C heat at the end of October is not something we had been expecting, and as a result looked a bit silly- me in my jeans, Amy in her walking boots- trudging towards the sea. I had my first ever dip in the Mediterranean though, and even if my clothes were covered in sand for the rest of the holiday and the sea air turned my hair a horrible crusty texture for at least 3 days afterwards, it was so worth catching those last few sun rays of the year. It felt very strange to be back in summer, when just a week earlier I'd been wrapped up in a scarf and wearing gloves and a wooly hat to survive the cycle to work, but it was much appreciated.
Obviously, when we passed a merry-go-round on the walk back, it was too much of a temptation to resist...
Next up, was Aix-en-Provence! As the twin town of my favourite city of them all, I was really looking forward to seeing how similar Aix really is to Bath. Unfortunately we only got to spend a few hours there, but I really liked the café-culture feel of it and the familiar studenty yet classy-ness. Put you hand up if it reminds you of somewhere...
The third city we visited was Grenoble, and we didn't really know what to expect. I think in all honesty we chose to spend a couple of days there for it's convenient location between Marseille and Geneva. I vaguely remembered something about Grenoble having skiing, but I wasn't really sure and neither of us had done any research beforehand. However, as the main city in the Rhone-Alpes region, we expected at least some hills.
The train ride from Lyon to Grenoble revealed pretty flat scenery and even over halfway into the
journey, the hills weren't getting any bigger. It got dark pretty quickly and then the train suddenly came to a standstill between stations. Nobody knew what was going on, there was a thunderstorm raging outside, and we couldn't understand what the lady on the speaker system was saying due to her heavy southern accent and stressed out tone. I suspected dementors, but it turns out that it was nothing so exciting and French trains are just too pathetic to run when there is lightning in the vicinity. I know that British trains are useless in the snow, but a thunderstorm? Really, France?
Anyway, we finally reached Grenoble in the dark and took the tram to the hotel. Still unsure as to whether the city was actually famous for it's mountains, or if we'd ended up in the back of beyond, we ended the day deciding just to try to find a tourist information centre to look for something to do in the morning.
By now you are all probably yelling at your computer screens and asking how we could be so ignorant because it turns out that, yes, Grenoble has mountains. Pretty big ones! And it is also in the middle of France's number one area for skiing in the winter. I'm glad in a way though that we had no clue though because it meant a lovely surprise when I opened the curtains the next morning to find a huge mountain, and my first ever glimpse of the Alps.
The tram ride back into the city confirmed that Grenoble is absolutely beautiful, and it was appreciated even more because we hadn't expected it. The accent was really easy to understand, at least compared to Marseille and Alsace. Nobody heard our accents and insisted on speaking English, everybody was happy to let us practise and make an effort which was much appreciated. There was
just a really laid-back atmosphere and a big student population, while at the same time the whole city was incredibly family friendly, which gave it a really homely feeling. I even found myself having a peek at the estate agents advertising boards to see what apartments here are like- definitely a good sign of a place worth going back to!
There is something strange about having palm trees and mountains in the same place...
On the advice of the lovely people at the tourist information office, we headed towards the "telepherique" (apologies for the lack of accents on the e, if anyone can let me know how to get French symbols on an iPad, it would be much appreciated!) Basically, the telepherique is a cable car that resembles a series of poke balls which shuttle you up and down the side of a mountain. We bought aller simples, deciding that climbing up another hill was pushing it for one holiday, but resolved that we would walk down. The journey itself is much like any other cable car journey you might take, but it's when you reach the top that you are rewarded with the most insanely beautiful views. We were extremely lucky that the weather was perfect, and a clear blue sky punctuated with the dark silhouettes of the Alps in the distance with the city stretching out from below made for some excited photo-taking and bewilderment at how we could have ever thought that Grenoble wouldn't be anything more than a convenient place to have a look round. I think we both agreed that it was our favourite city we visited, and if you ever have the chance to see it for yourself, there telepherique is a great place to start.
We decided in the evening that we'd earned a decent meal, and that it would be a good idea to sample some local dishes. I have to say that Amy was brave and got the regional dish but I chickened
out and stuck with what I know by having pizza. Although the piazza we sat in was gorgeous and there was a great atmosphere, the cook had for some unknown reason decided that it is healthy to eat raw eggs. My pizza arrived with an egg cracked over the top of it, presumably because the heat of the pizza would cook it, but the pizza wasn't nearly hot enough for that and I ended up with a raw egg plonked randomly on top of my dinner. If that wasn't bad enough, we kept getting stared at for being the only ones eating dinner at 6pm. The staff had to set the table especially for us because no one else started eating until we had finished. We didn't really care though, not even raw food and being judged for our eating habits could spoil our image of Grenoble as a really quite amazing place.
So next up was not just a new city, but a new country as well! We were really excited getting into Geneva, being for both of us our first time in Switzerland, and overall it really didn't disappoint. I was surprised at how different things seemed from France from the moment we stepped off the train. I expected that the French speaking area would be just like France, but there were definite differences in the accent and the language, and just the general feel of the place. Our hostel here was very big, more like a hotel really and the stereotype of the Swiss being overly paranoid manifested itself in the way we had key cards for everything from the front door to the loos, and we were given these industrial-looking lockers in which to leave our stuff during the day- a stark contrast from Marseille where the attitude hade been more laid back and trusting. On our way out that first evening, we noticed a school group outside. It had never really crossed our minds before that schools might use youth hostels for accommodation, and they even turned out to be British! I admit that I quite enjoyed having other British people around, and while not as much as a novelty as it had been in Italy, hearing English being spoken by natives is a lovely thing when you're far from home. Something that really struck me about the hostels we stayed in was that the language automatically opted for was English. Even though we were in predominantly French-speaking areas, you were more likely to meet English speakers in the hostels. It was quite nice to chat to people in English for a change and being as we were on holiday, I didn't feel too guilty for not taking up every opportunity to speak French
The reason that we were surrounded by A Level physics groups was that Geneva is the location of CERN, where they built the Large Hadron Collider- something that both of us had completely forgotten about, but which we ended up visiting during our one full day there. We had planned on going to the UN headquarters, as being Languages and European Studies students we had more hope of understanding a bit of what was going on there, and we wanted to check out the interpreting labs to see what working there would be like. After somehow gaining a following of several dozen Chinese tourists, we headed towards where the tours started from, only to find the place empty. After wandering round for a while, we managed to set of a security alarm and get sent off by a gun wielding security officer. He was lovely though and immediately started talking to us in English so we really must have been giving off lost tourist vibes!
So we ended up at the hadron collider, where we really had no clue what was going on. I tried to recall some information from GCSE physics, but that was difficult enough in English so in Swiss French I had even less of an idea as to what was occurring. Despite not really understanding anything, we actually had a lot of fun reading about quantum foam, singing the Big Bang Theory theme song, and annoying members of a Czech astronomy society by clogging up the gift shop with my big rucksack. Here is me sitting in a particle, as you do...
I came out of the museum feeling as though I'd actually learnt something, and if my absolutely non-sciency brain managed to absorb some information, then it must have been a good place. I'd definitely recommend popping over there if you're ever in Geneva, although to see the actual machine and go underground you have to be with an organised group and book ages in advance. We just went to the museum and gift shop. It doesn't just have stuff about the hadron collider though- we saw the server on which the internet was invented and found out that I share a name with part of the LHC!
Geneva itself is a lovely place. I struggled to picture in my head what a Swiss city would be like before we got there because I always imagine Switzerland in my head as full of mountains and cheese. My first impressions of Geneva were that it was horrendously expensive, there were sports cars and super cars everywhere, even in the hostel car park! And that Lake Geneva, or Lac Leman as they call it, is huge and beautiful. It felt like we were at the coast and the waterfront area has a great atmosphere. If you stand in the right place, you can even see Mont Blanc from the lakeside! A view of the biggest mountain and the biggest lake in Europe at the same time is always going to be a great thing to see, as long as you can dodge the city's main attraction which is hard to avoid wherever you are lakeside. I am talking about this...
No, it's not a burst water pipe, it is the Jet d'Eau, one of the city's main landmarks. I am undecided on it's purpose and can't help thinking that they could've come up with a better way of drawing visitors to the place. But there you go, the Swiss seem to think this is what people want to see on their holidays...
After CERN, we headed towards the old town area. It felt much more like France than what we had seen up until that point with the pretty European buildings and plentiful supply of continental-style cafes, and we visited the Sainte-Pierre cathedral, the Ile-Rousseau, and the red light district. The last one accidentally of course.
On our last evening in Switzerland, we'd had enough of food being expensive and waiting for restaurants to open at times that didn't suit our eating habits as English people, so we took the easy way out and ate in the hostel canteen with the British school kids and two ladies who were in the city for a university reunion. The food consisted of a regional speciality. Now we hadn't had much luck with regional specialities thus far, so when they rolled out a cheese fondue I was pleasantly surprised. Even if it did stink like death, and wasn't as inexpensive as we'd hoped, I was glad we had the opportunity to eat like the Swiss do!
The next day was the day on which we had the most trains to catch. In order to get from Geneva to Saarbrucken and cover three countries in the space of seven hours, we had to get three trains with not a great deal of time between each one. I was slightly worried because so far, every single French train we'd caught had been delayed in some way, and the day started off with a bad omen when it tipped down with rain as we were walking to the station, meaning a long day of sitting in wet jeans loomed. Everything went according to plan from there on though and we finally arrived in Germany. It was my first time in the country and Amy and I had a great couple of days recovering from moving around so much and going shopping! I got a bit overexcited because there is nothing that could be accurately described as a shopping centre in Guebwiller, and it was my first time indulging in a bit of retail therapy since leaving England! I don't know if it's just the shops around Guebwiller, but I have found that French clothes shops are a lot more expensive than I was expecting and there doesn't seem to be a lot of choice. So you can imagine my glee at having a three storey Primark, Forever 21, H&M, and a shop that strongly resembled Boots, at my disposal!
Anyway, that pretty much concludes our interailing (I'm still not actually sure how to spell this word, if I've been doing it wrong and it has been annoying you for the duration of this post, I apologise) adventures. For now anyway. I definitely caught the travel bug and getting a little taste of what it would be like to travel for an extended period of time has further strengthened my desire to have the gap year that I was never able to have. There is nothing that excites me more than the thought that I could just set off somewhere after university and see a new country every few weeks! For now though, I'm back at work solidly until Christmas. I won't bore you with any of the details from the last two weeks, it has pretty much been more of me being left to my own devices when it comes to lesson planning and teaching. I think I am definitely settling into some sort of routine now and I'm learning who's who in my classes and learning about what they do and don't respond well to, although I don't think I will ever get my head round their names. They all seem to be called Florian, and they call me Aleeeeese. At least we've moved on from Aleechay.
If you've made it this far, you are brilliant, I hope it was 15 minutes well spent.
Until next week!
Aleeese.
