An Acute Case of Parisitis

There is an abominable, centralist idea that Paris is France, and the rest is, well... the rest. And even though this city is absolutely gorgeous, I do think it is worth it to wander around the smaller cities and towns because there are a lot of beautiful places to see; different, granted, but beautiful nonetheless.

It is an obligatory part of the Reid Hall program that you stay with a French family (that you have never met before) for a week, in Auxerre, Lyon, Besançon or Aix-en-Provence. Despite my open-mindedness about France dehors Paris, I spent a week of hell in Auxerre, but please let me explain why before you jump to the conclusion that I am a spoiled, megalopolitan brat.

For starters, I am a firm believer that it is all in the head. I spent a good part of the week thinking that I could be seeing any other place in France that was not as depressing, and the mentality didn't help.

Auxerre is not bad at all- 40,000 inhabitants, centuries of history (of course, like most places in France) and very beautiful churches and things to see. My problem? The family I was staying with does not live in Auxerre but 40 minutes away (by car) in Laduz that is of the impressive size of 301 inhabitants. 302 counting me for one whole week. I could walk around the town twice in half an hour, and the architecture was nothing out of this world. If you wanted to buy a loaf of bread in this town, you had to order it from the neighbour who makes the bread, so that you could pick it up the next day. Impressive change from Paris where there is a boulangerie in the places where you least imagined you would find one.

The weather didn't really help because the vast majority of activities were outside and it was between –2 and 5 degrees, cloudy, grey and all around dreary. Your mouth might be watering at the thought of 0-degree weather if you are in the North-Eastern United States right now, but it is not precisely pleasurable if you are being forced to take a tour of something you would rather see in the summer. We visited innumerable places that I couldn't help but wonder how beautiful they would be if the sun was shining and there were actually people around; I can't tell you how many tour guides told us, "c'est dommage que vous venez dans cette époque parce que en été c'est vraiment sympa." Well, gee, thanks.

My host family organized every activity and they were actually really nice. They gave me more cheese and wine and exceptional food than I have ever had in my life, and the host mom taught me several recipes. If any of you want to volunteer, I need guinea pigs to try them on and test my cuisine-memory.

The last day we went to a cave with Palaeolithic paintings that was absolutely beautiful and worth the entire week in obligatory Abaddon. I would do the whole Auxerre-trip to see that cave again. The cave deserves its own little entry, so I will leave my thoughts on it for another time.