To see snow

To see snow I had to take a train five hours south, then take a ride with the brother of the room mate of guy I was staying with two hours on a road winding into the mountains. This happens is the French Alps.

I didn't bring my camera skiing. But there are other pictures, here. mostly of mountains.

A bit of preliminary information. I decided to save money by using couchsurfing.com, a website for budget travelers. The idea is let people stay at your place, and stay at their's. As usual, (think freshman year of college, summer on the farm after freshman year of college), I ended up staying with one of those "silent" people. Someone who is capable of living in the same space with someone and not sharing a single thought, impression, or figure of speech. The gullibility of these people is amusing, and slightly depressing. Freshman year I pulled a prank on my roommate: he had giant wicker chair, with a round base, round bowl that fit inside, and then the pillowy padding. Walking back from class one day I found a round bowl that was identical to his, except it had been washed to shreds by the river. Naturally, I took it back to the room, switchted it with Misha's, and waited in my friend Danny's room for the results. I heard him open the door, waited five minutes then walked in. He gives me a look like my mom does when I smash a plate because I don't want to walk the dog (hypothetically). I say, hey, yeah, Misha, my friends and I wanted to see if we could float your chair in the river. It didn't really work though. Luckily I found a new wicker on the street, I'll sell it to you for two bucks. His thought wheels start turning, "two bucks...that's like two hot dogs..." "O.K." he says, as if he's trading his dorky button-up shirt for a red camero. I say yeah, actually, I'll just give it too you. My heart was too soft to not explain that I had found the other one, and switched it as a joke. He didn't seem to get it.

After my second day of skiing I returned the skis to the rental shop, and went back to the appartement. Nick asks me where my skis are, I say that I lost them. His face drops, and I start to laugh. Yeah, I say, I just lost them. He looks seriously relieved when I tell him that I'm joking.

As any young man might hope, whose bank account is padded monthly with stipends, and who dares to vacation alone for a week, I had a luxurious and memorable experience. I started Tuesday morning, with the 6:45 train to Grenoble. I arrived at noon, and since the appartement wouldn't be open until 8PMish, I had planned to visit the museum. The museum was closed, so I took a lift over the river and to the top of a cliff where a fort was built before nuclear warheads were invented. My backpack was heavy, my overpreperation for the alps reminds me now of my mother's worriedness. I could have skiied two weeks without have to wash my clothes, with the amount I brought. "You never know" she might say. But as I become more comfortable traveling what to pack becomes more obvious, and I'm picking up the skill well. I packed a lot of food, and in six days away, spent 45€ on food. Thanks mostly to having a stove where I was staying.

I wanted to talk about the train, a cozy environment, beautiful country, and I wrote dozens of pages in my journal. I met a beautiful French literature professor on the train ride to Strasbourg, in a tight cotton dress, and a perfume like the most purple of springs; we flirted for awhile at the end of the trip. She got off the stop before me, and we didn't bother changing numbers. The fatal "if only" look in our eyes made for a pathetic goodbye, and I tried easy my suffering by banging my head on the window. The French country side--it's small farms, lines of tall naked trees, and sunset layered as if Van Gogh painted sandstone, make the train heartwarmingly romantic.

Allow me to personify Grenoble. A tourist town. Home to visiting amateur-snow-sporters and professionals-snow-sporters alike. Mountains surround the city. Some blocky, come craggy, the city is entrenched in their romantic atmosphere. A student city, the young and they hippy doze in the many parks and squares. The sun baked faces are a friendly reminder that I'm in the south of France. Health stores are everywhere, due perhaps to the fact that you'll see more short-shorts and halter tops in the summer than in the north, and the wealthy chaps sporting their stuff. I bought sun screen right away, the service was slightly rude, as is stereotypical for Southern France, but mostly the people were nice. Tourists, after all, bring money, smiles, and easy conversation.

I rented my skis from a place in town, friendly dudes, and 31€ for two days. I took them on the tramway to the appartement, a big clumsy armful of plastic and metal. I finally found Nick's appartement, and settled in for the night, trying my best to be interested at his soirée, where his friend's told inside jokes and laughed. I ate a lot of raclette, my first time. It was a perfect heavy-stomach filler for skiing the next morning. I finally snuck away to sleep around 1AM. I woke up the next morning, and read French translations of Russian poets of the XXth century, while waiting for the two other skiiers to wake up, wondering if I would have been better off taking the bus to the mountains. I prodded them a bit, and we were out by 9:30. The drive to the mountains was beautiful. Tiny bridges, tiny streams, old painted houses, cliffs, facades, and rugged trees. The winding road lasted about an hour and a half, myself capuchioned comfortably in the back, snacking on dry fruit and nuts.

My ski experience is limited to: Minnesota. It had been about four years ago, and my memory of rocketing down slopes, however accurate, turned out to be less skillful, and more dangerous, than I thought. After 3O minutes, however, I felt comfortable with the sport, and headed to the top of the Alps. My thirst for altitude was fulfilled at about 3600 meters, where, in the midst of clouds and snow, a dinky pull lift ramped me over an imperceptable elevation (the exit point for the day) and for all my efforts to hold on, to the lift handle, my poles, and my upright position (a lost cause), I finally let go of the handle. I then realized a man who had been maybe 10 meters ahead of me (though invisible in the snow and fog) was standing 10 meters behind me, and I figured I should have gotten off at the point of the ramp. Embarassed to have fallen, I looked down at my boots and saw my left ski pole, bent like my trumpet horn in 10th grade after a misjudged "correction bend", at an acute angle of about 35 degress. My embarassement turned to disappointment, then more embarassement, then anger. I snapped the pole and futilely tossed the bottom half aside downslope, into the bank that had trumped me. It took an hour and a half of careful winding to get down, adjusting slowly to my handicap. After five hours of ski I had had enough, and my new friends, who had gone off to do tricks, had stopped early because of the bad weather, so we went home.

The next day the guys had gone home, so I took the tram to the bus station in the morning to a smaller ski resort. I had an adventurous day, although nothing like the pitch white mountains of the day before, where I sometimes lost my sense of movement and I could only tell by the sound of my skis if I had stopped, or was still descending. The beauty reminded me of the romantics, Shelly and his mountains, Byron and his mountains, and I found a few rare moments of tranquility among the throngs of tourist skiiers.

Friday I said goodbye to Nick, and spent my afternoon at the modern art museum. My friend from school, Lucie, texted me there, told me that her aunt had come to Strasbourg, and it would be better if I found somewhere else to stay. After seeing enough Matisse for the day I went to a cyber cafe, had some coffee, and booked a hostel. I found a pizza place, and caught the train to Strasbourg at 2PM. I arrived at 10PM, a head full of letters, fantasies about professors, and legs needing to be stretched. I walked to the hostel, stopping to get some fries for dinner on the way. The city was quiet, the trees trimmed, and the architecture made the walk worthwhile. I had the hostel room to myself, a lucky buy for 18€, and slept like a king for eight hours.

I was on the sidewalk around 9 the next morning, after a decent breakfast and large coffee. I had two destinations in mind, ten hours to get there, so I took the long way to the cathedrale, and "Little France." I stumbed on a great market, where I bought some hazelbank tea, and a tea infuser, and an apple. I made it to the cathedrale around 11AM, after seeing enough of the ugly residences on the outskirts. Tired, I dozed for two hours in the sun, on a small notch in the wall of the cathedrale. Some passerbys stopped to take a pictures of me, and I was hardly disturbed to feel like a cat in the zoo; I purred like a leopard.

I left my perch, perhaps the most perfect two hours of my life, and had lunch at a Greek restaurant. Moderately priced, delicous and healthy food, a vegetarian option, and interesting patrons, I'm sure I picked the best restuarant in town to keep myself in high spirits. I can't remember the greek name of the meal, but the main course was rice wrapped in olive leaves.

Destination number two was a mystery for me. I was expecting a sort of China Town, but instead saw a few old houses, a random wall, two towers, and classic Alsace architecture, whose technical name I stumbled upon in my dictionary: columbar. I decided to hit my second modern art museum in two days, and had a full range of emotions: jealousy--dada movement, anger--poor art, boredom--XVth century, love--Matisse, and inspiration--Malevich. I left a changed man, not with the cynical comment "I could do that," but rather, "I'm going to do that." I hope to be in the Poor Art scene within the next three years. I've got a collection of crumpled cabinet hinges and striped wrapping paper for my first sculpture.

I met my friend Lucie on the train and we took the three hour train together. I read her some of my poems in French, she didn't correct my grammar mistakes, and said she liked the images. I told her about the professor I had been fallen in love with, and we joked about the professors at the school who reference me being American as often as possible. Just one letter from my dad waiting for me in the mailbox at the residence. I buckled in for the night, bought my soup ingredients the next morning, and carried out Sunday as usual--hating only a little the cold and the hollow sunlight of Lille.