La Rochelle

La Rochelle is a small port town on the western Atlantic coast of France. My dad constantly says "These are the waters that the Americans sailed up to for their invasion on D-Day. This is the English Channel and that in the distance is England." This is why you can't believe a thing my dad says. We are hundreds of miles from the cliffs of Normandy. However, boasting about my geographic knowledge only lands me as the navigator and thus blamed for any sort of road/direction mishap. So I try to keep things to myself. Anyway, La Rochelle was an important port town for France until it was burned and sacked by the British at some point (hah, remember what results you get when you google "French military victories"?). Evidence of other sea attacks and battles or invasions is present throughout the town.

Along the city walls is a canon ball presumably from some attack and the largest church boasts architecture from different ages.

The church was built first to replace a Roman style church (if I remember correctly). It was burned down and only the bell tower and part of the façade remained. The rest of the church was rebuilt in a different style. When you enter through the doors of the narthex you can see the rubble and ruins of a previous archway. Regardless it's still been a major center for the French navy and it has an interesting system of locks and gates to accommodate its various marinas.

Walking around the town is pretty easy. It's a small inner town and there are several streets for only pedestrians. One of these was a tiny little alley (Allee de Canards, I think, Alley of Ducks). What did we find there? None other than a Cuban cafe-theater called Mojitos. Cubans, they're everywhere. There are also these quaint little light houses, one green and one red, that used to guide sailors into the port. I'm not sure if they still light up since it stays light out so late. Shopping is really the same here as it is elsewhere. My main purchases were postcards and some concealer from Sephora. My adventure at Sephora has actually been one of the highlights of my trip since the girl that was helping me out didn't speak any English or Spanish so I really had to work out my French. I got what I needed in the end and probably creeped her out after thanking her a zillion times. It's still a bit awkward for me, however, that people here say hello and goodbye to you when you enter or leave a store. It's not that strange since a lot of them are small but what I usually say when I leave (if it's a small store) is something along the lines of "Thanks" or "Si, gracias" in response to "come back soon!" Here it's all bonjour and au revoir. I use "goodbye" and "adios" so infrequently that I hardly know how to use them anymore.

Another interesting encounter was on our first day here. I spotted a guy wearing a Yale Bulldogs sweatshirt. I'm a Yalie through and through, you see, and I can recognize the Yale bulldog and Yale blue from quite a ways away. I pointed him out to my mom who told me that I should ask him if he was a student even though both of us thought he probably wasn't. So I didn't because I thought it would be awkward.

Later we stopped by a candy stall where we bought banana and strawberry gummies and one of those alligators. Some sour key thingies too. Just as we've paid I turn around and find myself face to face (or bulldog since the kid was really tall and the bulldog was at my eye level) with the kid. I had to ask there was no excuse! Surprise surprise, the guy is not a Yalie, nor is he American. What he is is a Dutch teenager on vacation with his family (neither parent was anywhere close to how tall he was. He definitely didn't fit in the little candy tent). He had bought the sweatshirt in Holland along with some other US school jackets. I showed him my humble little Y for Yale on my jacket (which I've been wearing every single day since it's soooo cold) and he asked me if our mascot was really the bulldog. "So this is what they call you?" He took off his outer coat (seriously it's been that cold. These people were Dutch and freezing) to reveal "Bulldogs" printed in caps on both sleeves. I didn't laugh but it just seems so ridiculous to me that some Dutch kid decided to buy an ostentatious Yale sweatshirt with no intentions of seeing the school (he didn't know where it was. I don't blame him but he was wearing the sweatshirt, come on). This is just one example of the ridiculous euro-fashion where patterns and prints and excessive details are still in. It reminds me of German dude in my chem class who frequently wore printed shirts and pre-torn, pre-bleached jeans with even more decorations. American gaydars don't work in Europe. I've also seen about four different people wearing Franklin & Marshall shirts and jackets. Somehow I get the impression that these were bought because it sounded like a brand...maybe like Abercrombie and Fitch? One of these people I saw coming out of a residence so I'm pretty sure he's local and didn't go to school in Pennsylvania.

One of the water locks. Very steam-punkish

I'll write another post on La Rochelle later on since we walked the city again today. There's this giant beautiful aquarium that we didn't go see because we were too tired. I'm tempted to feel bummed but hey, there's always Sea World! Also coming up: FOOD (I was going to make an acronym with that but realized that if I used "oral" which I basically had to if I was going to make it about food it would sound really sketchy) and our day trips to Rochefort, Cognac, Ile de Re, and Meschers and Talmont.

We leave for Spain tomorrow morning and I don't know how internet will be. And my sister has also TAINTED US ALL so we've all got the sniffles. I want to take the cold medicine we bought here (the gooood stuff as my mom says, since it has pseudoephedrine) but it might knock me out beyond the point of waking up at a reasonably early time tomorrow.

Scene from the food market (La Marché). More on this later... I have to feed you pictures or else you wouldn't make it through my posts, n'est-ce pas?