not climbing

So I indeed found the GUCEM building, at the right time, and it was even open! And with people inside registering people for climbing, hiking, etc. trips. But, as misfortune would have it, the canyoneering trip was full for this weekend. However, due to popular demand, they made another one next weekend (now this coming weekend) and I signed up. Yes! Canyon-hopping water-sloshing mud-sliding here I come!!!

I told my roomate Gael the other day that he is going to be very successful in the tourism industry. He is studying for a master's in tourism and recreation, with the full intention of living a super sweet life... as the name might suggest. Oh, and working in the tourism industry and stuff.

The reason I told him he is going to be very successful was because of the day he organized/inspired last Saturday...

There is a very strange sport here called Via Ferrata. It is sort of like climbing, but if you say that to any climber you might want to be wearing a helmet lest you get whacked with the butt of a rope when you least expect it ("oh, I'm sorry, I must've forgotten to yell 'rope!' before I pulled it down."). Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little. But you will be fairly aggressively corrected if you refer to "via ferrata" as "escalade." It's different.

So what is it? Well, first let's discuss the philosophy of climbing. Hokay, so there's a rock - you climb it. Good. And then there's the problem of falling - okay, so you fix yourself to the rock in some manner so that if you fall you don't fall to the ground. Right.

So now, you ask, what is the philosophy of via ferrata, and how is it different? (Or maybe you just ask, "what the heck is it?") Hokay, so there's a rock - you climb it. Good. And then there's the problem of falling - okay, so you fix yourself to the rock in some manner so...

Hm.

Right. In the images I've posted on my flickr site (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lyrafp) you can see the general concept of via ferrata. It's a way of climbing up cliffs without needing all the technicalities (well, a few) of actual rock climbing (nor the finger strength). Some time ago, people set a route with bars and cables to climb up the cliff face. It resembles climbing a ladder on lead... that is to say every 3 meters or so you clip in to a new fixed cable (you have two carabiners attached to your harness so you are always attached to something when you make the switch). Climb up another 3 meters, repeat.

I can't say it grasped me the way climbing did, but it was sure a fun way to hang out with my roomates! And I do have to admit, it sparked a little enthusiasm from the little kid in me who's always wanted to be 008 or a character in Mission Impossible...

What got me, however, was what we found on the top. I won't say we stumbled upon it par hasard - Gael had had his eye on it for years and has always wanted to go, and what perfect way to get there than to climb there!

Saturday also happened to be the annual Rhone-Alpes parapente (parasail) festival. Y'know, those things that launch from the glider port in sd and land on your head when you're reading at the cliffs? Or maybe that's just my problem... At any rate, lots and lots of parasails and hang-gliders (deltas) in the air Saturday, and lots of funny costumes...

We are unsure about the origin of the costumes - Gael's mom participated flying a hang-glider some years ago (with Gael in her tummy!) - and she said not many people dressed up back then. But now it has become a contest of cleverness and ingenuity in the air.

Some of my favorites included Spongebob Squarepants (Bob l'eponge) and his best friend Patrick (Patrick), Mission Impossible crew, a band that played real music before they took off, Ghostbusters, Jack Sparrow, Dr. Tournesol with a trail of fabric that made the form of a stethoscope (with him sitting in the part that picks up the sound of your heartbeat), some random Canadian animals, some spiders, Bart Simpson ON SKATEBOARD, and my personal favorite, the tree preaching "protegez les forets." This one was incredible because the pilot was on stilts, and the take-off (decollage) involves running. Some people struggled without said handicap - but the tree was a master. The take-off certainly involves a fair amount of coordination, balance, and power, and s/he aced it. It was a spiritual moment when our stilted friend's last peg left the ground...

So that was my Saturday. I had an absolute blast. It was one of those days where I found myself grinning from ear to ear for no apparent reason (except that I was having a blast and thoroughly amused), and caught myself, looking around to see if anyone was laughing at me. Or with me. The latter, usually the case.

Sunday, after a day of "not-climbing," I was feeling rather anxious to stretch out my fingers a bit (those bars - not so friendly). With both of my climbing partners out of town, I flipped through the guide for somewhere I could do some bouldering or find a traverse or something that would lend itself as such. The weather was a bit menacing, but wasn't quite raining yet, so I hopped on the bus across town to try to find the one and only traverse labeled in all of the "climbs in the Grenoble area." Without much hassle at all I found the rock face, threw down my bags and grabbed my shoes.

A very friendly looking pair of 30-something-year-old guys were climbing, welcomed me, and seeing that I came alone offered for me to climb with them. I refused politely, as I'd just come to do the traverse. So I hopped on the rock, exchanged a few more friendly words with them, and was on my way...

I eventually found myself on a very steep-angled slab (that is to say, small small holds angled in entirely the wrong direction), and finally fell off. I worked on that section for quite a while until the friendly pair (Frederic and Martin) came over again and offered to let me climb one of the routes that went up from where I was traversing. Finally I couldn't refuse. It looked too sweet.

It was a long route, and as everything in Europe is "very well bolted" (i.e. bolts every 2 meters or less), it looked to require around 18 or so quickdraws. I had about 10. Hm. That's okay, I'll just skip the easy parts. No problem.

It turned out to be quite comical - I felt like I was playing some arithmetic game where you place one thing in one spot so that you can get another from another spot and place that one somewhere so you can recover the first one... that didn't make any sense, but I think you know what I mean.

I was about halfway up, and on the most slabby part of the route (lowest angle where the most friction and balance is required) when the clouds finally gave in and started drizzling. Bummer. Quick quick quick. I ended up bailing out to the first belay station rather than continuing up the rest of the climb with about 6 or 7 quickdraws still on my harness. My creative-conservative climbing practice foiled!

Inbetween sprinkle-storms we took our turns on a more difficult route just to the left, until finally our feet wouldn't stick to the soggy rock, and it was time for me to go home and finish my homework.

It was certainly another one of those affirmation days - where I remember why I love climbing so much. Some days it's because of the physical accomplishment, other days the mental, but a lot of times it's just the people.

So to summarize, Gael is the future Einstein of the tourism industry, Spongebob Squarepants can fly, and climbers rock.

quelquefois le monde est trop petit

Sometimes the world is too small...

This weekend was free weekend for all the museums and cultural hotspots in, I believe, all of France. They believe that everyone should have access to culture here - a cool concept!

So I went with my roomates Gael and Denis to the Archaeological museum, and after finally finding an infinitesimally small parking spot for Gael's Europe-sized Ford Fiesta (read: small - Ford? Yea, I didn't think that was possible either), we find a note on the museum door that said "Closed. Why? It just is." Bummer. So we walked across the street to the Grenoble museum. No biggie.

After oogling over some works and amusing ourselves with others of the contemporary genre, Denis stumbled upon a friend he knew from his time in Paris. Nicolas, this friend, looked at me and said in French-English fusion, "Hey, you're from San Diego." I looked at him and fumbled for words in some as-of-yet unchosen language, and finally he answered what I think I asked... He knew my friend Aurelien (who is really more of a friend of my friend Aude's, one of my San Diego French friends), who is a grad student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I did not recognize him at all at first, but as we all kept on talking I started to piece it all together. He had worked with Aurelien for 5 months a couple of years ago, and I vaguely remember running into Aurelien on campus with a friend of his from the lab. Timing is about right, because I started working at SIO about 2 years ago. His face looked also vaguely familiar, so that must've been it. Nicolas had remembered me as one of Aurelien's American friends who speaks a bit of French.

How's that for random? The world of Scripps Institution of Oceanography is incredibly small - and gets smaller by the day... or country?

le relais suisse

The swiss belay...

I would say it was definitely worth squirming through the hoards of people last Wednesday and Thursday at "le forum des sports." I would have expected the basketball or volleyball booth to be the ones most swamped with people trying to sign up for the year, but alas, I forgot that I live in Grenoble right now. Mountain town. Right. So climbing/alpinism definitely most coveted.

Again the "mal organise" curse haunted me, and as I circled the booth asking critical people critical questions, I found myself ejected from the booth comprehending possibly even less than when I had entered. The up side - many French natives were having the same problem, so at least it wasn't just my ignorance or the language.

I decided to come back the next day - lots of students were in a mad rush to sign up for the climbing club to get credit for their sports requirement. Not needing that, I had a little more slack time-wise. So next day I returned to find the booth people in much better temperament, and the hall much more navigable.

I joined both the climbing and alpinism clubs - why they're separate, I'm not quite sure (since one has climbing and skiing, and the other has ice climbing and canyoneering among other things), but I wanted to be able to try some ice climbing, maybe some canyoneering, and some ski de randonnee (where you climb the mountain on skis and then attach your heels to the ski and ski down) and still do lots of climbing too, so... and then I signed up for the ecole du glisse (snowsport school/club) so as to have more access to all snow sports (and better learn to ski). It's amazing how much access students here have to everything, and cheaply! So stoked.

Yesterday was my first trip with the climbing club - we went to a location I had already been to with my friend Nicolas (Mathilde's boyfriend, for those of you who remember her and/or him from the occ this summer), but I absolutely love it there, so I was fine with that!

It was a very interesting assortment of a few international students, some French students new to Grenoble, several long-time climbers, and even a few totally new to climbing! A Swiss geography student and myself had been the only ones on time, so we got to chat for a while waiting for everyone to show up. She thought I was French at first, which was exciting for me - but I make the same error with foreigners sometimes, too, so nothing to get too excited about. I ended up climbing with her for the day, and also with a very interesting and very handsome couple - a French girl and a tall guy from Reunion, the French island near Madagascar and South Africa. On another language note - this French girl thought I was German. Hm. I've actually gotten German and Swiss several times before. Interesting... Well, I'm getting closer to France at least lingo-geographically (and yes, I invent words in French, too. Some things never change.)...

It was very interesting being on the participant side of a trip for me... and genuinely so. Sometimes I'll go on Outback trainings as a participant, but I always at least know something about what we're doing, how it works, what to expect, etc. But here, now, I am genuinely a participant. It's an interesting insight into how it probably feels to be a first-time participant on one of our Outback trips. And as a note: all those cheesy, silly name games we enforce so diligently, definitely a must. The morning was so awkward, and it took half the day, and for some all day to break down some of those social barriers. After a day of climbing, the nature of the sport itself inevitably breaks down much of those barriers, and our guides definitely turned out to be super awesome, helpful, approachable, passionate climbers - but a little bit of structure in the morning helps make that transition a little smoother, I believe.

So anyway, back to the real subject of this blog... The swiss belay. The thought had crossed my mind, Hey, I'm climbing with a Swiss girl today - I wonder if they really do only use the muenter for a belay. But it was just a fleeting thought, and I smiled, thinking it was probably one of those stereotypes that gets stuck in foreigners minds, or maybe an old style.

So I thought nothing of it when I saw only a pear-shaped carabiner on Manuela's belay loop as I retraced my figure 8 and suited up for my first lead of the day. "Tu es prete?" I asked if she was ready for me to climb, and glancing back I see none other than the muenter knot! No way! Every day's an adventure, I thought, slightly baffled by this new climbing concept, but also excited to find out how well it lends itself to climbing and especially leading.

Pas de probleme. The only difference I discovered was that, as expected, the darn knot puts all kinds of twists and curly-cues in the rope. But functions just fine otherwise.

Slowly the day came to an end, and people left in shifts. Manuela, the couple I spoke of earlier, and myself were the last to leave. After the day, we were all, naturally, much more comfortable around each other, and it was lovely chatting with them on the ride home. Mostly, we were trying to figure out how the club works, and when the next outings are. Next week there's a Canyoneering trip. I had thought about going, but naturally climbing draws me a little more. My curiosity piqued, I asked what it was all about.

Reminds me of klerf-jumping, as described to me by a South African friend I met in Australia... the general concept is, quite simply, to descend a canyon. But what does this involve? you ask... well, a wetsuit for one. And shoes you don't care too much about. Hm, this is getting interesting. The descent involves, sometimes, rappeling down the canyon walls, traversing the stream, and best of all, jumping into deep pools of water - aha, there it is, one of my favorite things in the world!

So next week I will see if I can find the right building at the right time, and if I'm lucky there might even be someone there to sign me up for the trip. If not, the next blog will be about the circles and laps I ran trying to find it ;-)

Until then, if not sooner, I hope you all find yourselves well in California, or wherever you might be.

chaos

It's become quite comical, really.

I guess it more or less started when I got to Grenoble and started having to deal with various academic logistics. On the third "tour de campus" I started reflecting - hm, not the best organization system going on here... By the seventh or so lap around campus, it was just ridiculous.

[Disclaimer: this is certainly no reflection on the quality of the people here - it's just silliness. I've certainly encountered a very very high number of very very nice people in all of my voyages across campus and town.]

Nothing is online here, so in order to figure out what classes I can take and when and where they are, I have to visit the academic planning offices in person. Certainly not a bad concept - it's nice to deal with real people rather than machines, for sure, and most people I've had to deal with have been exceedingly and quite genuinely nice and helpful. But alas, us California students are a bit confusing (we're trying to take a broad array of classes, which is not really done here).

I feel like the main character in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, when he is sent to New York bearing (unbeknownst to him) documents which sabotage his ability to get a job, when he had been told those documents would in fact help him get a job. That is perhaps quite extreme - but similar idea. Sometimes I think people are just sending me elsewhere, not really knowing if it's where I need to go, but will at least get rid of me and my weird questions. It's certainly not an act of sabotage. I visit one office, blank confused stare, then a revelatory oh, yes, go see Madame Huyghes, she's in charge of that. We know nothing of that here. Okay, where is her office? Oh, um, well, we don't know that either, you'll have to check with the Geology department. And where do I find that? Lap number one. And when I finally found Madame Huyghes, next step, find Monsieur Labiche to register... but alas, he's across town... and then go back to see Madame Huyghes asap. But don't forget to check your class schedule for the Literature classes, it'll be posted today. Oh, no, we're sorry. You'll have to come back tomorrow, it's not going to be posted today. They just didn't get around to it.

So, in short, the bureaucratic organization is not, um, impressive.

But it seems not to be reserved to just bureaucratic things... I decided to go for a swim today at the pool. I stood and watched for a while trying to decipher the pool etiquette. Do they do circle swims when there are 3 or more people in a lane as we do at home? No, not circle swim... hm, some different French system... what is it. Wait, did that person just cut halfway across the pool to avoid that wall of swimmers coming at him? Oh, okay. So more steering than swimming. Well, if that's the way it's done...

Cultural differences certainly abound here - bien sur! - that's why we travel, right? It's been quite difficult at times navigating the organization schemes here, trying to figure out where I need to be when, who I need to see to do what... and my Californian mind often loftily idealizes how much better things could be if they only had things more well organized. As a UC trained student, so much of this feels like total chaos. But how is it that such a civilized culture can function so normally - no, more than that - so healthily and sanely, within such a crazy system? Even the French complain about the organization system!

I am so used to having everything layed out well in advance, concrete. I know halfway through one quarter exactly what I'll be taking the next quarter. If I decide to try to crash a class, I can find the schedule and room online in 2 minutes. But it doesn't work like that here.

So what's better? I don't know - they're different, for sure. But what I am coming to really admire is that within all this seeming chaos, the French are still able to be genuinely kind to me (mostly - as in any country, there are those that are less so), hugely helpful and patient. And the students, while I'm running circles around campus, take their requisit lunch break and sit down with their friends, laugh, smile, and worry about figuring out where there class is when it's time to worry about it. With more logistics to work out, of course I have a little more running around to do, but I think there is something very valuable to be learned here for me.

Ironic, coming from "laid back socal"... I wouldn't say they're "laid back" here. Quite the contrary - one must be on one's toes here, ready to defend his or her opinion at every turn, even if it's just the choosing of a sandwich! But there's a way of prioritizing things here - friends, food, conversation and opinions come perhaps first. Worrying about what class you're going to take next Wednesday and whether or not it will work with the supplemental group work session for another class you started yesterday...? Not even on the list. We'll work it all out as it becomes a reality.

It's going to take some getting used to, but by the end of this year I am fully expecting to be much less of a worrier, and even more engaged in making the absolute most of the present (pardon the cliche). There are far too many adventures to have, recipes to try, and things to learn to worry about fitting them all in. I could spend all my time writing out my plan as to how I can organize my time and fit them all in, or I could just start doing them.

Hey, want to make a gratin dauphinois tonight?

google earth moment

I like to call these feelings "google earth moments." I remember lying in my bed, awakened very early by a cacophony of strange birds and the inevitable effects of jet lag, on my first morning in Australia last fall - and as I looked through my window and into the trees, my vision rose from my bed, my new house, Brisbane, to looking at the whole Australian continent - and then, as if following my command to search for "Vallejo, California," I was swept across the Pacific ocean and lo-and-behold, that little green dot showing the results of my search is where I came from just a few days before.

That happens quite frequently here - the views from the surrounding mountains invite such sensations. As do the circles I find myself running in around campus... if only I could teleport myself from one person's office to another's.

I've spent most of the week doing laps around campus (and it is, mind you, of a size comparable to ucsd - and I am unfortunately sans skateboard) - but things are finally coming together. I've assembled something that resembles a class schedule - as of now I'm taking one, possibly two geology courses (field studies in the alps! wahoo!), a Francophone lit class, two French language and writing courses, and a History of Litterature course. And as of today, I am officially enrolled in two different universities. It's comparable, administratively, to being enrolled in ucsd and uc berkeley at the same time, but fortunately the geology classes are only a 10 minute tram ride/15 minute hike up the mountain to the Institut Dolomieu from main campus where the rest of my classes are.

So slowly it all starts to come together...

This Saturday I have my first trip with the university's climbing club. Here, it is mandatory for every student (at least the native ones) to participate in some sports in order to graduate. In my opinion, an awesome requirement - great for physical and emotional health, and well-roundedness. But, this is not as we would have it at ucsd, by any means. Here, appropriately, most of the sports are mountain-based. So, essentially, if I were a "real" student at this school, I would be getting credit for rock climbing, and possibly even have the opportunity to join the school's rock climbing team (though I'd have to be a heck of a lot stronger - good grief everyone climbs so well here!). How cool is that? There are similar things with snow sports, track and field, mountain biking, tennis, badminton, dance, judo, trampoline jumping (yes, I'm serious - I think the freestyle snowboarders are into it for the off-season), swimming... there are some things the French really do well (bureaucratic organization is not one of them) - something is so right in life when people prioritize food and meals with friends and family, and encourage exploration and adventure.

On a random note - I had one of those true travel adventure moments today. You know, the really random things that can happen - and the small things that can totally make your day? I was listening to music at La FNAC - a huge Borders/Best Buy kind of store - continuing my endless search for the lone good French rock band. Not much rock in France, mostly rap/hip-hop and pop or the classics like George Brassens or Renaud (definitely still awesome!). As with the theme of this country so far for me, I was doing laps around the rock section, listening to this and that, not really noticing the smirk of a fellow listener as I put yet another rejected cd back on the shelf. Here, try this. Nonchalantly, he handed me a strange blue labeled cd with a warped early 1900s version of Mickey Mouse on the cover. No name. I scanned it into the listening station. First track - raw guitar melodies, lovely French vocals, more guitar layers. Next track - violin? Cello? No way. Next - some hip-hop rock fusion. Oh my. And all for 7 euros?

My first French musical purchase. Artist: simply called "M"

ma vie commence a Grenoble

The trouble of starting a blog is that I really have no idea where to start... do I start with the summer leading up to where I am now? Do I explain instead what is really more relevant to why I've decided to study abroad? Well, that would take us back at least 1994, and leaves more than half of my life to describe. Perhaps instead I will leave it all out, and in what ensues maybe they will come to explain themselves.

So I'll start with where I am now - computer, my room, mopeds zooming the street below, Dent de Crolles lurking in the twilight outside my window, Russian roomate on the phone in the other room, my fingers a little resistant to typing due to abrasions and overuse. It's been a good week.

I've been in Grenoble, France, for about a week and a half now - and I fell in love with it the moment our train entered the valley. Never in my life have I thought of myself so much as a mountain person - I've always lived near the coast, and truly love life on the land-ocean interface. But as soon as I saw the Alps, I saw so many adventures, and so much freedom. And for the first time, I felt the desire to see snow (mind you, I've never been a cold-weather person).

For now, as we await the commencement of classes, and winter, I'm enjoying the warm alpine summer, climbing, exploring, eating cheese that makes me depressed every time I buy it because of the knowledge that in a year I will not have access to it (unpasteurized, raw milk cheeses not so kosher in the US)...

Today I went climbing with a couple of French friends in the mountains near Seyssins, south of Grenoble proper. I met Mathilde this summer in San Diego while she was doing a seismology internship - she came in to the Outback Climbing Center on my shift once, and recognizing her French accent, I started to speak with her in French for a bit. Her boyfriend, Nicolas, also a climber, had been at Stanford at the same time. And as the world always seems to get smaller and smaller, it turns out that Mathilde lives very close to Grenoble, and her boyfriend lives in Grenoble.

Nicolas has taken me under his wing this week, climbing at the old Chateau overlooking the whole valley, then scaling the western side of Dent de Crolles (tooth of Crolles, a town just east of Grenoble), the mountain which taunts me every day from my window, and then some falaises (cliffs) in Presles - with a drive and hike that almost surpassed the awesomeness of the climbing (views, tunnels, creeks, alpine flowers, the sighting of a rare alpine snake). And today we went climbing with Mathilde who came to visit for the weekend. C'etait super!

It's hard to not feel a little overwhelmed right now - not by the language difficulties (though that does come and go), nor by some sort of shock from the drastic changes of the past few weeks, but rather by the way I have been welcomed here. My roomates have been incredibly warm and welcoming, even before we had even met in person, and Mathilde and Nicolas have already been such great friends, climbing partners, and exploration-facilitators (that sounds kind of funny and sterils, but I couldn't think of any other way to describe it...) showing me so much of the beautiful countryside.

Classes start next week, and I am quite excited. This will of course wane a bit as the stress and routine sets in, but I am also quite confident that my decision to go instead for a French Literature minor instead of a double major was the right one, and that taking lots of geology classes to supplement my Biology/Ecology major with another minor in environmental studies, was certainly the right one.

To stir up the most appropriate words from my childhood and apply them to my current level of emotional sensations...

Splash Mountain!!!! WOOOOOHOOOO!!!!!