Friends, neighbors, country folk and other folk: lend me your eyes [1]!
I admit that my contributions have been spotty, and my blog, dusty. Nevertheless, I shall plug the breach with the very same gripping commentary and cutting analogies that have come to define the musty, refined flavor of a hand-crafted Wlog. It is without further ado or any other embellishment that I welcome you, loyal partisan, to Wlog #9 [2].
Two weeks ago, my sister and I traveled through the aged streets of Nimes, France. A decidedly southern city, the climate is Mediterranean and the cuisine is marked by the region: olives, fish and fascinating Spanish influence. Ope, sorry, my Rick Steves-O’-meter is beeping. Let me go turn down the levels a bit… []. Thank you. The city is also notable for having plenty of old rocks, specifically, rocks chunk-a-lunked out of the earth and flopped in place by Gallo-Romain folks a couple thousand years ago. There is indeed an almost entirely intact ancient arena smack-dab in the middle of town; an arena that in its contemporary usage played host to hunts, executions and gladiatorial bouts. In modern times, the arena continues to be used, although the capacity has downgraded from 25,000 to 13,000 [3]. Tourists wishing to get a piece of bloodthirsty spectacle may be interested in an upcoming Taylor Swift concert in July 2020, where the artist’s rendition of Me! is likely to provoke murderous thoughts. Oh Taylor, how far you have fallen! In any event, the arena’s well-preserved state results from it being used as a castle and living space after the fall of the Roman empire, when violence, previously confined to the sands of the arena, seeped out the walls into an everyday reality. It was only until the 19th century that folks finished clearing out various homes and “constructions parasites” that dotted the arena.
Aside from arenas, there is a magnificently preserved Roman temple, an old watchtower, an old building celebrating a dynastic cult and the second most well preserved Roman water distribution center in the world (the first being in Pompeii). In my opinion, the most magnificent of all was the Pont du Gard, a three-story piece of an aqueduct spanning a river. It is majestic and demands a great deal of reflection about history, architecture and our tendency to build things. There’s also a lot of goofy graffiti on it, from ancient to contemporary. Mostly along the lines of “I was here”, which is an entirely understandable thought when in the presence of the Bridge. I certainly wanted to be a part of that majesty, too. But I didn’t carve anything, aside from a neat new memory of spending time with my neat sister!
Taking a break from old Roman stuff, there was also a magnificent park filled with a lot of olive trees. I explored this park thoroughly, because I was lost. It is a beautiful park, if the trails are somewhat reminiscent of the Woodland park rollercoaster hills. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please discuss these hills with any member of the Metro 3A cross country district.
I would also be remiss not to mention the magnificent town of Alès, about an hour’s drive south of Nimes. We had no idea what we were doing there, so we stopped by a café to regroup and chow. Now, it is an unspoken rule in French culture that if you aren’t ready to order your food on the first pass of the waiter, then you won’t be ready for another hour and a half. Being ignorant fools, we failed to get on the train at the first go around. With a solemn nod, the waitress left. We pondered, then decided, then made increasingly desperate eye-contact, then resigned ourselves to our fate, drinking a whole lot of water and counting how many cigarettes the guy in front of us smoked while we waited: 4. Indeed, this was a four cigarette wait. But I enjoyed it. Waiting in the company of good people, a subset of which my sister is an element, is little more than an unplanned opportunity to converse. And since we really had nothing to do, it turned it quite well for us. My sister, however, in a burst of energy that I, having just begun the digestion a delicious pizza, did not immediately pick up on, wanted to go on a hike. And so we went on a hike. It was awesome. We had very little idea of where we were going, relying on vague directions from a vague website my sister had found. It involved the traversal of a river, the navigating of alleyways and 45-degree paved slopes. Dogs barked at us, motorcycles snarled and darkness threatened. Eventually, legs burning but souls alit with the fires of exploration, we hit the limits of an ancient Gallic oppidum, marked by a crumbling stone wall. You see, wherever you go in France, visible old stuff awaits. Continuing from this wall, we reached the summit of the mountain, marked by a medieval hermitage. The view was spectacular, as Alès sits on the edge of a national park (though I’m not sure the concept of national parks translates exactly). There was a small garden in the center of the hermitage with a gurgling fountain and a low stone wall that overlooked Alès. Very neat, and easily defensible: I added it to my notebook of places to survive the zombie apocalypse.
I now turn to matters of utmost importance: the French “r”. Pronounced with a distinctive and difficult to master growl/gurgle, it is, to employ gamer terminology, the “skill check” of the French language. This means, in essence, that to use a vast swath of French vocabulary (almost any word with an r), the French student must master this watery growl. Otherwise: catastrophe, confusion and giggles. Indeed, I met a few family friends of my host family who had a young daughter. Her r’s were decidedly un-growly, and every time she attempted (saying triangle, for instance), a near audible wince emanated from the gathered French, followed by a flurry of gurgly, growly r’s to show the proper technique. It was fascinating, from a language learning perspective. I give it another two months before she masters it. Granted, to me she already sounds pretty good, but therein lies the problem: I remain a padawan amidst Jedi.
Finally, I recently came up with another analogy for learning the French language. Speaking a foreign language is a bit like trying to lasso a cow, where the native speaker is the cow and the rope is the sentence. First, the moment of tense concentration as I aim my rope: does the verb “demander” require “pour”? How do I say lightning without offending anyone? Then the toss: I whip my sentence into the aether. Confusion and a furrowed brow. Alas! The throw was too far, my ambitions too high. Then comes the adjustment: “I’m open to eating all sorts of new foods” becomes “I’m open”. Another toss, less powerful this time. Comprehension dawns, but the sentence, lacking nuance, leads them to mistake my meaning: I have lassoed the cow, but it is now racing off in the other direction, dragging me along with it as I yell: “that’s not what I meant!” to increasing embarrassment. Every conversation is exciting, failure and success sway on the knife-edge. This, friends, is learning a foreign language: not for the faint of heart, or those who can’t handle getting dragged around by a cow. Inevitably, however, I get back up, dust off my trousers and pick up my rope. Though it is a cliché, I must repeat it: mistakes and language-learning go hand in hand!
Bonus for those interested in my hair: recently, between September and October, my hair has stopped being curly. What was once a passible ‘do with a few brush strokes down the front is now decidedly not passible. After some deliberation, a new form has arisen. Yes, the sweeping lines and casual class may lead some, callous and rude, to knight it the “douche flip”. I, seeing this current stage as only an intermediary between two rulers, deem it “the interrex” [4]. I will leave you to your own decisions.
So ends what I believe is the meatiest Wlog that has ever sailed the binary seas of the internet. I may update this with photos later on, but for the moment I will leave things here.
An excellent weekend to you, dear reader!
[1] Shakespeare enthusiasts will note this is a remix of a famous quote from Antony and Cleopatra, delivered by the aforementioned Marc to kick off a big speech. I had no idea this was the case before writing that sentence, and only later, being curious as to where it got plopped into my brain, did a quick Google search. Likely, the characteristically Roman grandeur of the phrase piqued my subconscious, which had just spent a great deal of time wrestling with an essay on Germanicus, nephew of Caesar Augustus and the named heir of Tiberius. Unfortunately, he dies before he can do any succeeding. If you believe his wife, it was a poisoning!
[2] I have no idea. These footnotes are getting out of hand.
[3] Information acquired from this Wikipedia article
[4] Though the Latin student will know the meaning, only the Roman scholar will note the ancient origins of this term. According to our occasionally implausible but always exciting ancient historian Livy, to the Roman Senate upon the death of Romulus; the “interrex” was a rotating position that ensured the transition of power from one king to another, a period known as the “interregnum”. See Livy book 1, chapter 17. Sorry. I tend to regurgitate Roman facts for a few weeks after writing an essay. The condition should pass soon.