Return from Yemen

Today Emilie returned from her two week vacation in Yemen. Let’s just say I’m glad she’s finally back – particularly given the developments over the past 24 hours regarding some cargo flights departing Yemen.

Based on Emilie’s description, it sounds like Yemen is a truly amazing place that offers a once in a lifetime experience for those visitors who make the trip. While there are indeed dangers that exist, the same can be said with respect to any travel destination that one might choose.

There are clearly rewards for those who go places that the average traveler won’t even consider –in the form of the people you meet, the perspective that you gain and the unique things that you see. And because of that I am definitely jealous of Emilie’s trip. But at the same time, it would have been difficult for me to gather the courage to go on such a trip (even if much of the perceived danger is far from the reality of the experience).

Fortunately, Emilie took hundreds of pictures so I have been able to experience Yemen a bit vicariously. The following are of my favorites.

Socotra Island

Morning calisthenics with Emilie’s father and the neighborhood kids...

Back on the mainland

Sana’a

Yemen Update

I spoke with Emilie last night and got the full update on her first week in Yemen. She and her father are doing well and it sounds like they’re having a pretty unbelievable experience. Here are some camera phone pictures that she text-ed me.


After spending the first couple of days in / around Sana’a (the capital), they flew to Socotra island and stayed the balance of the week there. Thus far they’ve basically done a lot of sightseeing and hiking. And it sounds like they’ve really been “roughing it”. In fact, last night was the first time that they’d had indoor plumbing in nearly a week, I believe.

Now they’re back in the capital for a day and will then spend the balance of the trip visiting different towns and hiking / camping in the mountains. They have a local guide for the entire trip, so everything is planned out pretty well. They’re even going to spend some time with the guide’s family, which I’m sure will allow for a truly local’s perspective.

It was nice to hear about all the good things Emilie had to say about Yemen / her trip and it definitely made me feel (a little) more comfortable about her vacation choice. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that I’ll continue to check cnn.com fanatically over the next week to ensure that there are no Yemen-related breaking news stories. (For any of you who notice some newly gray hairs on my head come Thanksgiving / x-mas, you can thank Emilie’s vacation choice…)

La retraite

I’m not sure how much press the French strikes are getting in the U.S. but they’re all over the news here. It appears that the general retirement age will be raised from 60 to 62 (both the executive and legislative branches seem to support the initiative) and millions are taking to the streets in protest.

Thus far there have been some fairly serious repercussions for a number of industries. In particular, the petrol industry has more or less come to a standstill as workers at nearly all the refineries have joined the strike. As a result, many gas stations simply are going dry and people are unable to fill their tanks.

The major airports have also been affected by the de facto fuel shortage, with a significant number of flights being cancelled because there’s simply not enough fuel getting to the airport. And if you decide to take a train rather than fly, your odds of success aren’t necessarily much better since the strikes are resulting in the cancellation of many trains as well.

As for when all the protests will come to an end, that remains to be seen. The legislative votes are in the coming weeks and – if successful – Sarkozy intends to sign the related bill in early November. Nonetheless, one French citizen in a newspaper article offered his view on the likely timeline – basically, the strikes can’t last much longer because the fall vacation period is coming up and no one wants the strikes to get in the way their vacation.

That made me laugh.

First Class

Last night I had my first private French class and I think that the one-on-one instruction will be a good use of time. The lesson began with me telling the teacher about my background, my family, etc. This part was fairly straightforward as I’m generally comfortable discussing such topics because I can rely on verbs and vocabulary that I’m familiar with.

For the balance of the class, the teacher selected articles in the local paper for me to read and then we would discuss them afterward. This type of exercise is much more difficult because I’m less familiar with the topics that are being discussed and I often run into dead ends in which I want to express a word that I simply don’t know in French. But it’s also a much more helpful exercise because it takes me out of my comfort zone and challenges me a lot.

For future classes, I think we’re basically going to continue with the newspaper exercise. As a result, I think that my teacher has one of the easiest gigs ever. She basically just has to show up, pick out a few articles, suffer through my pronunciation and then respond to what I have to say.

Déjeuner ou cours de français ?

Today I had lunch with Emilie’s mother and sister at the nearby Café Beau Rivage. They were headed to the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Fondation de l'Hermitage in Lausanne this afternoon and were nice to invite me to join them for lunch beforehand.

During the five minute walk to the restaurant I could definitely tell that fall has arrived. There was a chill to the air and a brisk wind coming off Lac Léman.

I had never eaten at the Café Beau Rivage before, but had heard that it was very good. And that turned out to be the case. I went with grilled tuna for the starter, a chicken dish for the main course and tiramisu for desert. Needless to say, I ate much better than I would have if left to fend for myself back at my apartment.

I was exhausted by the end of lunch given that French was spoken the whole time. It basically required a couple of hours of intense concentration on my part to follow as much of the conversations as possible and also make (somewhat) coherent contributions. Lunches like this are definitely much better for my French than any language class.

Bon Voyage

Today Cécile and I took Emilie to the airport so she could begin her two week vacation in Yemen. Yes, you read that right…vacation and Yemen in the same sentence. She’s heading there with her father, though the trip was her idea and he (thankfully) agreed to join her after she had already planned it.

My knowledge of Yemen is probably in-line with that of most westerners – i.e., very limited and biased negatively by media reports. Aside from the Yemen-related cnn.com headlines that I’ve seen on occasion (often terrorist-related) and Chandler’s “I guess I’m going to Yemen” quote in a Friends episode, I really haven’t had much exposure to the country.

It turns out that there are many positives to Yemen that unfortunately get obscured by the more highly publicized negatives. For example, the country offers an environment that is relatively untouched by the Western (and in many cases modern) world. There is also the beautiful Socotra island, which is even more untouched than the Yemen mainland and is home to countless animal and plant species that exist nowhere else on the planet.

That said, I’m still having a hard time getting past my apprehensions about the safety of traveling to Yemen. Even if it’s statistically no more dangerous than traveling to many of the world’s most popular cities, something tells me that I’m not going to get much sleep over the next two weeks…

Versailles

On Sunday we headed to Versailles in order to see the palace in the morning and then visit Emilie’s aunt and uncle in the afternoon since they live in the area and had invited us over for lunch.

One thing that I’ve learned during my travels over the past couple of years is that if you’re able to book tickets online in advance, definitely do so. I’m not sure why we didn’t this time – I guess some people had told us that Versailles isn’t crowded this time of year – but as we arrived and saw the line we immediately regretted our oversight. Particularly since we only had a couple of hours to visit.










There were actually two lines: one to purchase the tickets and another to get into the palace itself. In an attempt to game the system, Emilie headed to the ticket line while I took my place in the queue for the main entrance. Unfortunately, the line that I was in went a lot quicker than Emilie’s, so after about 20 minutes I was basically at the entrance while she still had a ways to go.

It appeared that we weren’t the only ones faced with this predicament. Right before the entrance there was a massive group of people who had reached the front of the line but didn’t actually have the entrance tickets yet. This caused a bit of confusion for those who actually had their tickets already and made the process a bit of a pain for the security personnel trying to maintain order.

Rather than stay in line and let people pass me (as many others chose to do) I took the opportunity to take some pictures.




























And about an hour after we arrived, Emilie found me with the tickets and we jumped in at the front by taking advantage of the lingering confusion caused by those who still didn’t have tickets but had waited in line anyway.

Given that we only had a couple of hours, we only toured the palace itself and saved the gardens (which could easily occupy a whole day) and some of the external buildings (i.e., the Trianon and Mary Antoinette’s estate) for another time. The size of the palace itself was pretty amazing, with beautiful architecture and décor.




























My favorite rooms were the chapel and the hall of mirrors.












Our visit to Versailles coincided with an exposition by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami in 15 of the palace’s rooms. While the art was interesting (Emilie had actually seen the artist’s work at a previous exhibit in Bilbao), I don’t think that Versailles was necessarily the best location for it. There just didn’t seem to be any connection between the palace and Mr. Murakami’s art. But that’s just my opinion, I guess. Here are some pictures so you can judge for yourself.


Since we had a little time to spare after touring the palace, we headed outside to take some pictures.



















Next we walked to Le Chesnay to visit Emilie’s aunt and uncle (Christine and Guy) for the afternoon. The walk only took about 15 minutes and was very nice given the warm, sunny weather.










The afternoon with Christine and Guy was very nice and doubled as an intensive French course for me given that most of the conversation was in French. It was great practice, though, and I definitely felt like I held my own pretty well.

All of the food was great, and after arriving famished we left completely full. The main course was particularly good – des paupiettes et des legumes.

Here’s a picture of Emilie, Chrisine and Guy after the meal.

By late afternoon it was time to head back to Paris so we could catch our train to Lausanne. The trek was fairly uneventful and we made it to Paris’ Gare de Lyon with plenty of time to spare.