Airplanes, Buses, and Cars...the ABCs of traveling (Days 1-4)

While I’m in France for these next two weeks, I’m taking a class about the history of the area I’m in. I’m supposed to keep a notebook and do my assignments on my blog, but I figured I would keep the notebook on the blog as well so that everyone at home can see all of the amazing things I’m doing! (plus I hate when notebooks are disorganized...this will be much neater than my little spiral notebook!)

We left Tuesday night for the airport at 6:30. We got through the airport very quickly and got to meet everyone before boarding the plane. We took a 7 hour flight to Paris, which I was actually able to sleep on, which was lucky, as you’ll see. Unfortunately our flight was delayed 45 minutes. We got off the plane and moved as quickly as we could through customs and baggage claim. When we got upstairs to check our baggage for the connecting flight to

Toulouse, we were told we had missed our flight. Dr. Maret was amazing and took care of it all. He found us a 9:30 flight; it was 8 hours later than our original flight, so we had quite a bit of waiting to do, but at least we got there! It was actually a blessing in disguise waiting in the airport. We all got to get to know each other. I attemped to learn a card game called Euchre, which I told Katie and Katie I will attempt to bring back to New Jersey, if I can remember all the rules. We made a wall of our suitcases and sat in there the whole time. We finally got on the plane. From my seat, I could see the moon on one side (I’ve never seen it brighter or more beautiful) and a magnificent sunset on the other side. When we got there, people were waiting for us and I finally got to see Sister Kathleen. We got our bags and got on the bus for an hour ride to Fanjeaux. It was an exhausting day, but fun nonetheless.

The next day we got to sleep a little later and then went to breakfast. We had fruit, coffee, and bread. I loved it. Then we went to orientation. We learned about St. Dominic and got a brief

overview of things that had happened in the area at the time of his life. I remembered things from the Preaching Conference from last year, which made this introduction very interesting. After the orientation, we went to lunch. We had celery roots (which I think were in vinegar), scalloped turkey, and another celery dish. I had no idea celery could be prepared so many ways! After lunch we walked to Prouilhe. It was about a 40 minute walk down the hill. When we got there, a nun from the chapel spoke to us. She talked about how it was built by St. Dominic, but has been taken over, burned down, and broken in other ways since. It is even in renovation now. Then we went to see Vespers. I really enjoyed this. We learned about this in my music history class, but it’s so much more fulfilling to see it actually done than to just hear about it and listen to clips from a CD of professional singers. Even though their church is being renovated, the sisters still do this. They do it in the sacristy, which is quite large, but in comparison to the whole church, it seems like they are doing it in a hole in the wall. Then we drove back to the

Belvedere. While we were waiting for rides, some of us got to talk about our experiences of the day and get to know each other more, which was, of course, interesting. When we went back, we had dinner. We had salad and ham. I like how we have a bigger meal in the middle of the day, and a smaller meal at night. After dinner, the students hung out for a while and then we decided to walk to the pub. It took us a while to find one that was open, and

it really wasn’t. When the bartender saw us, he stayed open so he could serve us. They only stay open until 9! I didn’t get anything to drink, but I enjoyed walking around the town and getting to experience something like this in a different way than home.

The next day, we had class first thing in the morning. The main thing we talked about was the Song of Roland. On one hand, I enjoyed this poem, and on the other hand, it was difficult for a squeamish person like me to read about the gore. We discussed the four different levels of Medevial society – peasants (which make up 90% of the population), serfs, clergy, and nobility. A vassal is someone who gets land, called a fief, from a man above him in return for protection and support. If these things are not homored, the fief is taken away. Allegiance was sworn in levels. You swore allegiance to the man right above you, and he swore allegiance to the one above him, and eventually this led up to the king. This is different than how we do it. We are all supposed to respect (even if we don’t agree with) our President, not just the man/woman directly above us. Then we looked at slides of stained glass windows depicting the Song of Roland. He typically wore red and blue, because those are the colors of Christ. He was regarded as a saint at the time. For the following generations, all of France’s monarch’s claimed to be descended from 2 saints: Charlemagne and

King Louis IX. In the afternoon, we went to the Abbaye de Fontfroide, which is a restored monastery. The Benedictine monks used to live only with themselves completely removed from material things and the rest of society. Not only did the religious brothers live in the monastery, but so did the lay brothers. However, they had to live completely separate from each other. They did not even celebrate mass in the same place – they were in different parts of the cathedral. The stained glass windows were beautiful, though not all of them were there at the time the monastery was used. It was a very plain looking building, because the monks did not want to be distracted by other things. When we got back, we went to dinner, wich was certainly a different experience. We had rabbit! I never thought that this would be something people would eat, so I was brave and tried it. I was surprised that I actually liked it. We also had carrots and vegetable soup. While we were eating it, Sister Kathleen sang “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” I can’t get it out of my head!