Woah... Total revelation!
You know what's really been hitting me lately? New Zealand is severely lacking in terms of historically significant things.
I never used to really think about it because I had only ever lived in NZ, so to say that a building was 100 years old still gave me the "Omigosh, how is it still standing here!" thoughts. Then I arrive in France and I'm visiting churches that have been around since the 1100's, and it's almost like you can feel the presence of people who have been there before - like there has been so many people it's as if a part of their spirit or something has left an imprint on the place.
Take my new school for instance - Lycée Zola. It's more than 200 years old and even though they've had to refurbish and reconstruct a few times, you can still tell that every single part of the building has seen a lot happen through it's years.
There's three floors - not including the ground floor - and the school buildings are divded by four different court-yards (some of which are still cobbled and not asphalted) (is asphalted a word?). I'm not very good at describing the layouts of places, especially this school as because it's so old there's no real sense as to where class room numbers are and things like that - so forgive me for forgoing a more detailed description.
But what I can tell you is that I'm absolutely in love with the stair cases. They're truly amazing - wide and winding their way up through the floors in a spiral ascention, enclosed by wooden banisters with the varnish all rubbed off by the oil from hundreds of different people's hands who have used them. But what I love the most, even though (depending on shoe wear) it's somewhat dangerous, is how the stairs are slightly sunken in on either side - near the banister and next to the wall. I mean, how many people must have walked up and down those steps to have created that impression in the wood? It really just boggles my mind, but in a really good way.
If you ever do visit Lycée Zola (I don't know why you would, but you might!), also to your immediate right there plaques inscribed with the words "A Nos Morts", which is roughly "Of Our Deaths". It's marble plaques dedicated to students and teachers of the school who had fought and died in The First and Second World Wars? It's inspiring but sad to read the names, because you can't help but think what could have happened to those people if they had lived, and who they left behind when they died.
But yes, that's my intense and deeply emotional thoughts of the day :D
I never used to really think about it because I had only ever lived in NZ, so to say that a building was 100 years old still gave me the "Omigosh, how is it still standing here!" thoughts. Then I arrive in France and I'm visiting churches that have been around since the 1100's, and it's almost like you can feel the presence of people who have been there before - like there has been so many people it's as if a part of their spirit or something has left an imprint on the place.
Take my new school for instance - Lycée Zola. It's more than 200 years old and even though they've had to refurbish and reconstruct a few times, you can still tell that every single part of the building has seen a lot happen through it's years.
There's three floors - not including the ground floor - and the school buildings are divded by four different court-yards (some of which are still cobbled and not asphalted) (is asphalted a word?). I'm not very good at describing the layouts of places, especially this school as because it's so old there's no real sense as to where class room numbers are and things like that - so forgive me for forgoing a more detailed description.
But what I can tell you is that I'm absolutely in love with the stair cases. They're truly amazing - wide and winding their way up through the floors in a spiral ascention, enclosed by wooden banisters with the varnish all rubbed off by the oil from hundreds of different people's hands who have used them. But what I love the most, even though (depending on shoe wear) it's somewhat dangerous, is how the stairs are slightly sunken in on either side - near the banister and next to the wall. I mean, how many people must have walked up and down those steps to have created that impression in the wood? It really just boggles my mind, but in a really good way.
If you ever do visit Lycée Zola (I don't know why you would, but you might!), also to your immediate right there plaques inscribed with the words "A Nos Morts", which is roughly "Of Our Deaths". It's marble plaques dedicated to students and teachers of the school who had fought and died in The First and Second World Wars? It's inspiring but sad to read the names, because you can't help but think what could have happened to those people if they had lived, and who they left behind when they died.
But yes, that's my intense and deeply emotional thoughts of the day :D