Chalets, Cheese and Chocolate

First of all, I have to thank Teresa for the fabulous advice on where to stay in Switzerland!

Second of all, this blog has taken a little twist as I am no longer in the trenches but on top of the world. I've been in the Lauterbrunnen valley in Switerland in the middle of the Swiss alps for about 3 days now and I'm sad to have to leave. The rainy weather cleared up right after I got here and it's been gorgeous ever since. It's amazing that people live up and among these mountains. I did a couple days of nice easy hikes and then yesterday I attempted a full day hike on what proved to be a rather challenging trail. The views from the top of the trail were well worth it though. I climbed over 700m in 2 hours. Needless to say, I was huffing and puffing, but up at the top of this plateau, I encountered a British man who told me this was the clearest day he'd seen in all his visits to this part of Switzerland. I had this whole mountain range spread out around me - it was incredible! I then hiked over 1000m down to the bottom of the valley before taking the cable car back up to my hostel. That was a great deal of hard work to put my weak little leg muscles through, but fortunately the hot tub at the hostel remedied that situation. I can't believe this place. Like I said, I'm sad to leave.

Nice to be able to hike by myself in these mountains and not have to worry about wild animals attacking you. The biggest hazard on the trail is cow flop! There are little hotels dotted all throughout the mountains and so half way through the hike I stopped for some tea on a hotel terrace with waterfalls cascasding down the sides of the mountains around me.

The Jungfrau region of Switzerland (named so for the highest mountain in this area) has been the icing on the cake for me. I guess I'll be seeing some of you soon.

Out and About

Naomi has been seeing and doing many things this past month or so. For example, I went to Nice in the south of France on the riviera. I don't much care for the south. I know, I know, how can you not? It just wasn't my thing. Beautiful coastline, but it seems to be mostly over-developped and over-crowded. I'd rather spend my time elsewhere. The most interesting part of this little trip was skipping over to Monaco for a morning. Here I can be seen in front of the famous Monte Carlo casino. It's incredible how small and clean Monaco is. It's literally a strip of land along the coast. You could walk from one end of the city to the other in an hour or so.

This is the view you get as you exit the train station. Guessing by the reactions of other male tourists about me, Monaco is full of 'hot' cars. Ok, I'm not so clueless, I know I saw a Lamborghini in front of the casino! But the car that interested me most was this convertible Smart car that had no windshield or doors. Pretty much a golf cart!

The other fun thing was looking at all the luxery yachts down in the harbour. Monaco is definetly a playground for the rich and richer. Funny thing is, other than that, I can see absolutely no other use for it.

A place that I did love was Amsterdam. Can you find me in this picture?
Amsterdam has more bikes than cars. The bikes are virtually all this style and are literally everywhere. Every available pole, railing and bike rack is covered in bikes. Every road has a bike lane. It's very cool. Good thing I went with a friend though, because I had this really bad habit of stepping out in front of the bike traffic without looking. Shannon prevented me from causing great dammage to both myself and the cyclists of Amsterdam on many occasions.
We had a great time walking along the canals looking at all the houses and houseboats, and we also spent a lot of time hanging out in funky cafes. One thing I've missed in France is relaxed coffee houses. Tons of cafes here where you can have a wee cafe creme, but you always sit on a wicker chair at one of those typical little round cafe tables. France just doesn't do the relaxed coffee bit. We were able to find a few relaxed cafes where we could hang-out and watch the hipsters of Amsterdam. You have to be careful though, a "coffee shop" in Amsterdam mainly serves-up pot, with a few beverages on the side. You really have to look for the coffee house style cafe for the "other" type of coffee shop that I know and love. Actually, it's not that hard, the "coffee shops" are very clearly marked for the tourists.

Arras Nightlife

There is definetly some sort of operetta being performed just accross the street from my house at this very moment. It looks a little bit like this (see above) from my bedroom window. The ominous-looking mansion across the street is still a bit of a mystery to us. Sometimes we hear lots of music lessons drifting out of its windows, other times we see people practicing archery in the yard. It's tough to tell just what is going on over there. Is it a conservatory or an outdoor sports school? Tonight, the side of the building is being used as a backdrop and setting on which to stage a play of sorts. They're even making use of the second story balconies! Every now and then I hear the can-can. What excitement here in Arras.
And since we're talking about evenings in Arras, this would be a good time to show you the town's beautiful belfry. There are many of these Flemmish style belfries in this area of France and Belgium and together they have been made a UNESCO world heritage site.

When not gazing at the belfry, one can also sit in the streets of Arras and ponder the marvels of a tiny bar fridge and how exactly to move it into your supervisor's new apartment, as you can see some of my roommates doing here:
It's hard to keep a blog interesting, ok?

General Harpo

Back in July, General Harpo (a.k.a. Stephen Harper) stopped by for a visit. I had the honour of passing him a wreath during a very brief ceremony in the cemetary. It was a nice ceremony, though the woman running the visit sort of ruined it by whispering (rather loudly): "10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds" from somewhere just behind the Primeminister throughout the 2 minute silence. The most interesting thing about the visit was watching the media, the entourage, and his handlers. This visit was a photo-op, nothing more, and so at each stop on site, the media bus went ahead, and all the little media-types scurried off the bus to get in position for the perfect shot just before the PM arrived. My co-worker from Nova Scotia who had a few minutes to talk with him about what he could see on the battlefield below the monument was impressed that the PM would not let his handler rush him, but insisted on asking some questions about the Vimy battle.

In under an hour the whole visit was done and we were left with this sweet little photo of us guides and our PM.

What I thought was more interesting than his visit to Vimy was his visit to another cemetary with his wife just before coming to Vimy. They went to visit the grave of a great uncle of his wife's who died in WWI. Mrs. Harper shed some tears and this made for a great snapshot but what the media didn't report was that when they arrived at this little cemetary in the middle of a field, the entire nearby town had shown up to greet them. I guess they had heard Mr. and Mrs. PM of Canada were coming and they all turned out waving Canadian flags. I thought that was sweet. I can't get over how much they love Canadians here. It's like we can do no wrong!

And while we're on the topic of people loving Canadians, now would be a great time to tell you my little anecdote about clearing British customs. I have travelled to London on the Eurostar out of Lille (a city one hour north of here just next to the Belgian border) twice now and both times I have been complemented by the British customs officer.
Customs: "What are you doing in France?"
Me: "I'm working at the Canadian war memorial at Vimy."
Customs (in a very thoughtful and sincere voice): "You guys do great work there. Have a great trip!"
It's very nice to be so appreciated.

Is school out yet?

I have come to love the British schoolchild. Sadly though, the school year is now done in Great Britain. There is a remarkable difference between giving tours to British school groups and giving tours to North American school groups. By some miracle, the British are generally able to discipline their students and keep them in line. The sounds of British teachers doing roll call (and they do it often) and students calling: "Sir, sir!" is music to my ears.

Most of the groups we have seen at Vimy are very well educated in the history of the First World War. It's amazing to give a tour to a class of 15 year old boys and have them not only listening to what you have to say but actually looking interested!

School in GB has only been out for a few days, but already I miss those schoolchildren. Today I gave a tour to a Canadian grade 10 class on a French course here in France. It's been a while since I've interacted with a North American school group (I think back in horror to my days at Parliament) and I'd forgotten how wiggly they can be. It's been a while since I've had to *shush* a group while I was trying to talk (not including the time I shushed a blind kid who was having things described to him...whoopsie! But that's a story for another time.). Oh, and those Brits are so polite! They always address you by name or "miss" and when a tour was done, all would say "thank you," without having to be prompted! Keep in mind, there are exceptions to every rule, but by and large, we loved the British kids.

The French kids on the other hand, well that's an entirely different matter. Generally their teachers don't seem to believe in discipline, and if they weren't snickering at your accent, they'd be mocking your grammatical defficiencies. It never came to it, but I was just waiting for the group that would push me to the point where I would stop the tour midway and switch to English and then see how much of the rest of the tour they would enjoy. I did, however, threaten this once or twice: "Tu veut continuer la visite en anglais?" I thought not.

My goodness, what my grade school teachers put up with!

School is out all over this part of Europe now though, so make-way for the boozy late afternoon French visitors. They come en masse!

It's not so much that we're opposed to the French visitors because they're French, it's moreso because the local French people view the memorial site as a park, a nice place to enjoy the sun. There was a time (and they remind you of this often) when they could picnic on site, as well as wander right through the shell-holes and mine craters. We have more recently realized that if this continued, those land features would no longer exist for future generations to see. The site has also placed a bigger emphasis on commemoration, and so were you to have a site full of sun bathers, picnickers, and screaming children in what is, essentially, a vast cemetary of unmarked graves, it would be much more difficult to maintain an atmosphere appropriate or condusive to commemoration.

And that's your lecture on the challenges of being a tour guide.

Allez les Bleus...

(the French cheer)

The World Cup has made my stay here in France quite a bit more interesting, but it all ended tonight.

For the last few matches in which France played, they would set up big screens on the square in front of the train station here in Arras. The whole square would be packed with people just standing around watching the game together. Then, after France's semi-final win, the whole town errupted. There were firecrackers and flares being set-off, people shimmying up flag poles, dancing in fountains, and parading through the crowded streets. It was general madness, though fairly well behaved.

Tonight I went down to the square for the first half, but once the game became tied, the mood became way too serious and I decided that it would be more comfortable to watch from home. Now, one REDICULOUS head butt, extra time, and a shoot-out later, Italy has won the "Cup du Monde" and France will take 4 years to get over it. I poked my head out the front door right after the game ended and the streets were oddly quiet. What a change from the other night when you could hear the commotion and horns until well past 2am. If I were Zinedine Zidane (France's very good-looking come-back kid who just ended his career by inexplicably head-butting an Italian player) I would think twice before returning to France any time soon. Poor guy.

I know my roommates will be crushed that tonight is not the biggest party to hit France since the last time they won the World Cup, but at least we'll all sleep in peace...

Oh, and the World CUP is not a cup at all. Why call it a "cup" then? You can't even drink champagne out of it.

All these things I can ponder later. For now, I need to mentally prepare to meet the Prime Minister of Canada next week at Vimy. That's right, Stephen Harper is coming to town. Maybe he'll bring me a uniform that fits. Or a stetson like the one he gave to George Bush.

Depeche Mode

Tonight I saw Depeche Mode in the Arras town square (with about 25,000 other people), fulfilling a 6 year dream. Gee, that doesn't sound as impressive as a LIFELONG dream, but it was still a good time. Here you can pretty much see as much as I could.

Though all the cobblestone streets in Europe sure look nice and quaint for the visitors, they really aren't ideal for dancing in place. A very uneven surface below the feet makes this quite difficult.

Nevertheless, this did not stop me from grooving along with the boys of DM. Despite the crowds, poor sight lines, and cobblestones, it was all worth it just to hear "Personal Jesus" live in concert. Made me quite nostalgic for my "rave days." Oh dear, how fun it would be to dance the night away again. But alas, my advanced years require that I turn in at a decent hour these days! It was a beautiful night, not too hot or too cold, the stage was huge and the light show perfectly enhanced the strong beats making it a gorgeous time to be rocking-out in France. What more can a girl ask for? Oh yeah, maybe a couple more hours sleep!