Nimes!

Warning: very long blog post for a very long day with lots of details, lots of pictures, and also lots of history. 

I didn't give a very good impression in my first blog here. I'm really sorry, I feel very stupid and stuck up. Let's restart on a more positive note: yesterday. Sorry if this seems rushed or is written weird, I feel like their is so much I have to do I don't even have time to sit.

Yesterday was great: we went to Nimes (capital of the Gard department in the Languadoc-Roussillon region) and le Pont du Gard. Soooo much better than the first day here. As I said, everything here is closed on Sunday (or is it? We'll get back to that later), including the University cafeteria. So...there was no breakfast. We got on the bus at 10:00, and I overheard some guy telling another guy he was from Seattle, and I asked if he was from UW, he said yes, and I said "oh! Do you know so-and-so?I think he told me about you," and he said "oh yeah, so-and-so, really cool guy," etc., and we started talking. He's also in the Jackson School, typical International Studies kind of guy, laid back, etc. But more importantly than anything: he had trail mix. And he shared. So he was my favorite at that moment in time.

When we got off the bus they did give us each a little piece of bread. Answer to the age-old question of why the French eat cheese and stay so skinny? They barely eat anything, I guess.

We drove for a while, all just sort of talking among ourselves. There's an interesting vibe: most of us don't know each other, but it seems perfectly fine to just jump into anyone's group conversation. I would compare it to Dawg Days at the UW: jumping from place to place, trying to learn each other's names, too exhausted to remember them, exchanging information, "where are you from?" "what are you studying?" "are you staying in the dorms or a host family? Oh you're living in an apartment, how is that going?" "how long have you been taking French?" etc. etc. I'm not going to lie, it's pretty cool. Very chill. Hopefully it's not temporary. It's even making introvert me feel oddly social.

Now I'm going to let the history nerd of me take over, because traveling is really hollow if you don't get the importance behind it, you can skip this if you don't care:

"The modern city of Nîmes has a history that dates back 2000 years, but in fact various prehistoric peoples inhabited the area of the Vistrenque River plain up through the Bronze Age.  There are monolithic reminders of this most ancient past. Later the area was the home to various Celtic tribes, and during the Wars of Gaulle the region fell under Roman control, becoming a colony of Rome in 50BC.

The city grew in size and stature during the Pax Romana era and much of the Roman buildings still remain to be seen by visitors today. The town declined due to barbarian invasions that began in the 4th century, and after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West the town was controlled by the Franks but faced invasions from the Moors in Spain.

The town suffered greatly during the Middle Ages when there was a lack of central rule in Southern France. Even once the city of Nîmes was part of France its troubles were far from over. In the 14th and 15th centuries the city faced a series of invasions, and during the various religious wars of Europe, Nîmes was one of the last Protestant strongholds in France. Finally by the 17th century the city rebounded with the late arrival of the “Renaissance” to the region. During this century numerous improvements were added to the ancient city.

Following the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars the city became a cultural French metropolis in the south of France, and today serves as a reminder of its turbulent past."

(http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g187154-s203/Nimes:France:History.html)

We had this guy as a guide who told us a bunch of stuff. He was really awesome, he even offered to take us around individually if we would be interested. Surprisingly I understood everything he said, but I'm sure the snail speed with which he spoke coupled with a complete lack of slang helped quite a bit. This was him:

We started off with a tour of the amphitheater in Les Arenes, or the Arenas of Nimes, constructed in the first and second centuries by the Roman empire. It's one of the best conserved antiques in the world. Gladiators fought here! We learned a lot about it, I only remember the bits and pieces I found most interesting: slaves, women, and children (because slaves = women in those days) sat at the top, important people sat at the bottom, citizens sat in the middle, each separated by a kind of mini wall. From what I could understand, it was constructed by the Romans for the people (people were encouraged to come, it was free, they even gave out bread and coins) in order to control them (like: hey, so my empire just took over you, but I don't want you to be mad, so here's some bread and a penny and you can watch big men injure each other. Truce?) 

There were three types of entertainment at the amphitheater: Hunts, where two animals fought each other, executions of prisoners sentenced to death, and gladiator combats, which was the most popular form of entertainment. 

In the middle ages, in response to increasing attacks, the Amphitheater was transformed into a fortified city with houses, two churches and a chateau. 

Today it's used for various different spectacles, concerts, tennis, and I think even bullfighting. 

Fun random fact: jeans were invented in Nimes in the Middle Ages. 

Anyways, that was a really rough, patchy history lesson, hopefully it made a little bit of sense. Time for pictures:

In this one you can see the walls that separated the social classes

I tried to take a video, it's a little choppy but you get the idea. 

  

 We then went through Nimes a little bit. I was asking one of our UVP grad students how to set up a cell phone here, so I only half heard everything the guide was saying. He took us to this building which I think is the modern political center of Nimes. You can see the French flag, the region's flag, the Nimes flag, and the EU flag. The closeup of the doors shows the Nimes symbol of a crocodile chained to a palm tree. I'll restrain myself and not go into the history of that, but if you're interested here is a pretty good explanation.

We then walked to the Nimes Cathedral:

After that we went to the Maison Carrée, built around (from what I can find online, although I keep finding different dates) 12 BC. It's one of the best conserved temples of the Roman world, and was one of the expressions of the new regime introduced by the Emperor Augustus.

After the Roman Empire fell the people continued to use to temple for various things, which explains why it has survived so long and in such great shape. 

Then we literally turned around and looked at the Carre d'Art, a contemporary art museum and the city's library. Half of the nine-story structure is underground. 

I have to be honest though, by this time it was hot, we were all hungry, so not many of us were listening. We got to walk in and take a peek, and then we tried to go get lunch. That was interesting. We supposedly had 15 minutes to find something and get back to Les Jardins de la Fontaine. Most of us went in a big group (remember: Sunday, most things are closed) and ended up going into a little Kebap place. Now, imagine owning a tiny little restaurant in France, and suddenly having something like 12 hungry Americans barging in. I have no idea how we ended up getting our food, but we did. It was described by someone as a bit of a cluster****, and rightly so. I hate to do this, but I think you had to be there. 

Our bizarre attempt at getting food:

Then we walked by this thing, which I'm sure has historical significance but to be quite honest I don't have the energy to research it, and a lot of you (Ewelina) probably don't care much:

And then we ate in the garden. I wish we had had time to walk around a bit.

Then (yes, there is more, for the two of you who are actually still reading this) we hopped back on the bus to Le Pont du Gard which was my favorite. 

There are different ways to travel: you can walk and look, you can walk and look and learn the history, or, my favorite, do all of the above and then also experience the place, which is what we did here.

We were actually able to swim under the Pont which one professor described perfectly as "swimming under 2000 years of history." It really was fantastic. The Pont dates back to the first century, and was used as a bridge and an aqueduct used to transport water to the growing empire. 

Seeing it was cool, but swimming under it was the best, partly because of the history thing...but probably mostly because it was almost 100 degrees. 

It looks really dry from here but there is actually a river flowing under the Pont. 

See, told you so. 

I was photo-bombed by boy-who-provides-trail-mix. 

See that cliff in on the left side? A lot of us jumped off of it which was freaking terrifying and I almost lost my swimsuit. Worth it though. If you look closely you can see some girl in mid-jump. 

We only had about an hour to swim. I jumped twice, a couple girls jumped and ended up hurting their eardrums so... that may have been a stupid idea. At one point I was sitting on the rocks and I saw a guy JUMP FROM THE PONT. In the picture above you see the ledge? He jumped from that. It sounded like the most painful belly-flop you can imagine. For a second I though he had actually died, but he was fine. A little stupid, but fine. 

And then...we were done. Sort of. We got back at eight-ish, starving again (that seems to be a running theme so far). I was convinced nothing would be open and I would be eating paper, but thankfully there is a little convenience store (think 7-eleven) that is open until 10:00 pm (EVEN on Sunday! Bam!) We went there and got the most random stuff ever. We went in three huge waves of students, the owners probably hated us. I got some sort of bread which ended up being the kind of dry bread you use for breadcrumbs (oops) some ham (I think), yogurt and lentils in a can, soup, and tomato sauce. Then we somehow all collectively decided to take over the dorm and just eat in front of the door on the stairs. Because that's what the cool people do...? We ate without utensils, we drank things you'd usually eat with a spoon, ate random things out of cans. It was strange, but it was pretty great. 

After that I left my extra food with trail mix boy and went for a walk with some people. Me and another girl ended up walking farther, getting a little lost, and getting back after everyone had left. So I went up to get my food from trail mix boy and saw he was studying with another girl and drinking a beer, and would I like to study with them (for the placement test the next day) and I said sure, and it was more talking than studying, but that was fun. 

And then I Skyped with my mom, and then I went to sleep. The end. The was ridiculously long. I refuse to go back and proofread.