First few days of the PRUNe Stage

Okay, no I am not on a theater stage or going through  a stage (or so I believe). I am in a two week language immersion program sponsored by Lyon 2 (the university).

On Monday...

I had to take a language placement test.
Not. Fun.
It was like taking the SATs all over again. There was a poorly written reading comprehension (there was I double negative...I can't...) and an essay prompt that didn't not lend itself to complex answers.
SHOVEL PLEASE!
I completely made stuff up. Like actually. But the language construction is what's important. But in the end, IT DIDN'T EVEN MATTER. Earlier in the spring, we signed up to be in different programs, and we were all ready in those programs so I don't even know.

On Tuesday...

I had my first class of the stage (the a is pronounced like the second a in garage). I'm not sure how I feel about it. My teacher is very expressive and really wants to help us, but at the same time, I don't really understand the purpose of her teaching methods. We did some exercises that forced us to speak, which I totally understand and appreciate. But then she taught us how to take notes. I take after my dad in not liking it when someone tells what to do. I know how to take note. Don't tell me how to abbr thngs. I have my own system. How about instead, tell us how lectures are conducted and so that we can alter our own note taking methods. After a frustrating three hours, during which I felt like I didn't understand anything that was said in French (i.e. all of it), I sat along the bank of the river and read. I am reading Nana now and it is a little hard. And by a little, I mean I have to look up words about 7 times per Kindle page. My host mom told me that people in France call young women a "nana" in the same way that we (as English speaking Americans) call young men "guys." And I people watched. Man, that was fascinating. But people don't take too well to being stared at. Oops.

Renata was on her way back from a run when she spotted me. Photo Cred: Renata

This is for Michael B.

On Wednesday...

Arrived just on time for class because I can never leave house on time. The exercises today were based on the topic of our program, A historic portrait of Lyon. The big key word of the day was patrimoine (English link on the side) which translates to patrimony. Not that that was helpful. I really did not understand what patrimoine meant. We talked around it a lot, mostly about UNESCO preserving French cuisine, which I don't fully understand. 

Our group and two others went on a tour of Lyon, but really only went to Fourvière, which is this giant hill that overlooks all of Lyon.

Big church!

A recreation of the top of the Eiffel Tower to offset the overwhelming religioness of the church 

Our guide is another professor. She was so fascinating. She was talking about patrimoine and what thing should be passed down and preserved. Btw, I was still confused. I was the very last person she asked about what should be preserved and I was the first person who asked what does patrimoine means. What was really frustrating was that people were give stereotypical answers that showed that they didn't really understand what patrimoine meant, or at least it didn't encourage further conversation.

Our guide said that patrimoine is a ministrative decision to preserve public culture (and I am using culture as an all inclusive term for language, food, work methods, traditions, etc). Patrimoine provides an official history (which is a scary concept). This idea of stopping time and preserving what remains started with the 3rd Republic, as a response to the mass destruction of the old regime of the French Revolution. Just so you know, this is a real thing that still exists and there are like 15 people that decide what gets to be kept as French culture. Yeah. I know.

This is where the annoying stereotypical answers come in. So many of them came from Americans. Without any explanation, the idea of patrimony didn't make sense; literally, I couldn't even comprehend or grasp that idea. What makes America unique is the individualistic nature of its history. Its history can't be decided by a few people (hence so many editions/varieties of textbooks and the abandonment of history textbooks in college) but is a collective memory that is enriched by everyone's personal story. Thanks to Meg for having this conversation with me on the way to the mall.

Back to the church. What's interesting about it is that it was built in 1870 and is an aesthetic mix of gothic, byzantine, and roman architecture. It's a physical representation of the church's decline of power (institutions that need to prove their power proves that they don't have it). She pointed out, as noted in the pictures below, the lack of images of God, Christ, and stories from the Old and New Testament. Yeah. It's a church and doesn't show anything about the birth of Christ. In a church dedicated to Mary. The mother of Christ.

Think about that.

Yeah, those candles are the colors of the French flag...

The artists copy and pasted landmarks from a different hill and put them on this one. The image you are looking at is the hill you are on.

WEEPING ANGELS IN THE CHURCH

Battle scene in a church? That happened in the 1500s? And that dude is not God or Jesus but the Pope

Oh yeah, and that's Joan of Arc

These images are all very political in nature and are representative of a selected collective French/Lyonnais identity and history. And then my camera died so I don't have any more pictures of our trip.

We then went to the roman theater, which is also on the hill. It is super cool and super old and completely reconstructed because the real ruins were torn down in the 1930s because they weren't the ruins of the amphitheater! Yay patrimoine! Nevertheless, the theater is a representation of the importance of Lyon as the largest city in roman Gaul and the ideology of preservation in the early 20th century Lyon. And back to the church, the amphitheater was to be reconstructed in the first place because Christians were killed there, which marks the beginnings of a Christian presence in Lyon. We learned about two out of three laws that were set in motion to preserve historic sites, such as Vieux-Lyon (yeah, they wanted to tear that down), and the resulting gentrification of those parts of town to finance the restoration.
After our trip, Meg and I sat down and had a tarte au chocolat and it was just like eating straight up fudge but better. And oh yeah, there was cacao powder on top. We then went to Carrefour in the GIANT mall (which is actually a really nice mall). Allison called it the Target of France. It was crazy in there because of all the back to school shopping but I got all the stuff I needed (expect a lunch box). Meg and I got lost on the way back, kind of. I like to think of it as an adventure.

This is the church and the tower from the kitchen window at night. This is picture does not do it justice.

Best wishes!