Sets mode : Matsumoto *I hate paperwork* fukutaicho
I need a passport to go to Korea. To get a passport you need a birth certificate, delivered by the town council of the town where you were born, you can usually get it by mail, but a week and a half after I sent a request for a birth certificate had received nothing. But you have to wait between 3 and 5 weeks to get your passport once you have given all the documents to the administration. The trip to Korea is scheduled on June 28th. I really needed that birth certificate as soon as possible so I decided to go directly to my birth town. Problem is, I live in Normandy and was born in Sallanches near Chamonix. It you've never heard of these two towns before it is on the other end of France, really close to Mont Blanc in the Alps. (And I was currently reading Shelley's Frankenstein at that time).
I thus engaged in a 24hour trip to get… A PAPER !! \o/.
First I took and express train from Rouen to St Lazare station in Paris, then the Paris metro to Austerlitz station in Paris and finally a then a car-sleeper train to Sallanches, for the trip back I took an express train from Sallanches to Lyon and then a high speed train from Lyon to Rouen.
The first difficulty was to get to Austerlitz station on time. I had a one hour gap between the express train and the car sleeper train, but the metro is not that fast, I almost had a panic fit when I realized the next train was 9 minutes later. I barely made it on time to Austerlitz station but fortunately the car-sleeper was five minutes late.
I could not help but take this one. For some reason it made me think of Yami to Boshi to Hon no tabibio (Yamibou), the second episode if I remember correctly.
At 10:24 I was in a most narrow compartment of the train with five other girls. Three small cots where hanged on each wall with not even enough space to sit straight on you cot between each one. Breath and perspiration odors mingling in the crowded space. I red a bit but light was scarce. I also decided to write my impression of this journey on a notepad that, as I found in a morning, I left in the bathroom all night for everyone to read.
I got little to no sleep that night. The swinging of the train of the rail should have lulled me to sleep, but the cots were too uncomfortable to allow me any sleep. I was also afraid I would not wake up and end up in another unknown village. I spent the night tossing and turning and checking the time every ten minutes. Around 8:30 in the morning I finally emerged from my half slumber in the morning with an amazing pain in my back and a stiff neck. The night reminded me of the time I got my wisdom teeth removed.
Since I was three when my family left the area I had absolutely no memory of the village, it was not even where we lived, but where the hospital was. It was a nice place, small, clean, surrounded by mountains. How I missed these mountains ! Call me a romantic but I never fail to be amazed by nature in these areas. Mountain streams turned into small waterfalls when they reach a cliff. Despite the somewhat cloudy weather I could see the everlasting snows on the highest mountains around Mont Blanc (the sky never got clear enough for me to see Mont Blanc itself). Way better than dull flat Normandy. Maybe the fact that it got real sunny after a while (when it was still a bit rainy when I got off the train) added to the pleasant character of the scenery. I was there for less than four hours but I hope to come back there one day and get properly reacquainted with the region.
I lost my way to the city hall, but yet again I'm the girl who got lost in a square room (Kingdom Hearts II) but was still twenty minutes early. Getting my birth certificate was the easiest part of the trip. A woman asked me if I was over 18 (I have baby features), took my ID and handed it back to me with a photocopy of my birth certificate. Five minutes later I was outside and stumbled in a café, still half asleep. "Could you get me a… coffee. Please" I asked the waitress. " Double size?" she asked seeing my face. by 9:30 I was slowly waking up from my sleepless night while watching the sun rise of the small village of Sallanches and the clouds leave the mountains sides.
People here don't seem to have any problem with money. I did not see any council estate and half the car I saw were SUV. In fact there were far too many car for such a small place. The air was saturated with petrol smell, so much for fresh mountain air.
Once awake and out of the café I had no idea what I could do until the departure of my train at 11:45. I went and bought a postcard for my best friend, thus reviving the ugliest postcard contest we have been engaged in for years now. I spent a while sitting on a bench, reading and writing under the sun and finally decided to take some photos of the town and of the mountains.
That is when a man started talking to me. He thought I was a photographer, I was afraid he was a pervert. But he turned out to be of pleasant company, he walked me down to the station and bought me drink. We chatted for a while, he was a native of the region and talked as slowly as the stereotype require. He told me many thing about the mountains and the valley. English people are not welcomed there, because it was them buying estates in the region that made prices exploded for natives.
I took some more photos from the platform while waiting for my train.
They are not very good, but just remember that the white things you can see in the sky are clouds (thanks for stating the obvious, Shiori) but they are actually hiding the higher moutains as you can see on the last pic.
I never got to take any proper picture of Mont Blanc because of the clouds, but along the railway I saw the most beautiful scenery unfolded before my eyes. Never ending pin forests, green valley and vines as we got nearer to Lyon. The dwellings along the railway were either those of wealthy people with neatly mowed grass and pools in their garden (seriously, who in their right mind would want a pool than anybody from the railway can see, so much for privacy!) or they were poorly kept houses than had been there for ages. The latter blendrd within the scenery, for wilderness had more or less taken over it. I was, however, amazed by the number of building site I saw along the railway, I fear in a few decades the area will lost its peaceful and wild character and be nothing but an attractive site for retired people and tourists.
I once heard the tale one of a man from the city who had his house build in the Alps because he yearned for the rural way of life. He had the bad idea to have it build by a meadow where the local farmer sent his cows to graze. The man from the city declared the cows bells' sounds to be bothersome, he sued the farmer. I don't remember who won the case, but I certainly do know who was there first. I was reminded of this story when the train passed a house - the kind of which you can find in any suburbs in America or in any peri-urban area in France - lost in the middle of a meadow. Grazing cattle versus plastic children toys, grass versus concrete, pinkish walls versus wood. To me it looked as if a part of a city had been cut off and pasted on the mountain, they did not even made any effort to blend in the scenery. Maybe it was this house my story was about, or not.
By 3:20 pm we had reached Lyon, my train back for Rouen was at 5:45. I could have met with Aeren, but she had classes so I was alone an had nothing to do until then. As much as I loved this city I did not dare stray to far from the station. I sit down on a sort of concrete bench in front of the station and read. I burned my right shoulder under the sun. I read Memoir of a Geisha and did not do anything else than that until I reached Rouen. I was tired and in amazing pain because of my neck, but there was no way I was putting it down. This book draw me from the very first page and kept me in its grasp throughout my journey across France. It may not be what my teachers would call "literature" but words flew across he pages and through my mind by amazing ease, I think I never read that fast before. I smiled and hurt with little Chiyo, I hated Hatsumomo with my whole being. I had seen and loved the movie, but pretty soon I managed to take my mind off the pictures imposed by the movie. Chiyo / Sayuri could not have been more different from Zhang Ziyi (Chiyo/Sayuri in the movie).
You know what the funniest thing in all this is ? When I got home mom told me she had received my birth certificate by mail this very Wednesday… King of the Demons, what did I do to you ? The photos I had had taken by a professional photographer in order to fit the imposed norms for passports were first refused, so I went back to the photographer this afternoon to have them done again and then back to the city hall but it was still not good enough. I made the trip to the photographer once again and we must have made at least seven tries before I was satisfied with the photo. I had never thought getting a passport would be that much trouble. Now I just have to wait and hope I'll get it before the end of June, otherwise I won't be going to Korea anytime soon.
I thus engaged in a 24hour trip to get… A PAPER !! \o/.
First I took and express train from Rouen to St Lazare station in Paris, then the Paris metro to Austerlitz station in Paris and finally a then a car-sleeper train to Sallanches, for the trip back I took an express train from Sallanches to Lyon and then a high speed train from Lyon to Rouen.
The first difficulty was to get to Austerlitz station on time. I had a one hour gap between the express train and the car sleeper train, but the metro is not that fast, I almost had a panic fit when I realized the next train was 9 minutes later. I barely made it on time to Austerlitz station but fortunately the car-sleeper was five minutes late.
I could not help but take this one. For some reason it made me think of Yami to Boshi to Hon no tabibio (Yamibou), the second episode if I remember correctly.
At 10:24 I was in a most narrow compartment of the train with five other girls. Three small cots where hanged on each wall with not even enough space to sit straight on you cot between each one. Breath and perspiration odors mingling in the crowded space. I red a bit but light was scarce. I also decided to write my impression of this journey on a notepad that, as I found in a morning, I left in the bathroom all night for everyone to read.
I got little to no sleep that night. The swinging of the train of the rail should have lulled me to sleep, but the cots were too uncomfortable to allow me any sleep. I was also afraid I would not wake up and end up in another unknown village. I spent the night tossing and turning and checking the time every ten minutes. Around 8:30 in the morning I finally emerged from my half slumber in the morning with an amazing pain in my back and a stiff neck. The night reminded me of the time I got my wisdom teeth removed.
Since I was three when my family left the area I had absolutely no memory of the village, it was not even where we lived, but where the hospital was. It was a nice place, small, clean, surrounded by mountains. How I missed these mountains ! Call me a romantic but I never fail to be amazed by nature in these areas. Mountain streams turned into small waterfalls when they reach a cliff. Despite the somewhat cloudy weather I could see the everlasting snows on the highest mountains around Mont Blanc (the sky never got clear enough for me to see Mont Blanc itself). Way better than dull flat Normandy. Maybe the fact that it got real sunny after a while (when it was still a bit rainy when I got off the train) added to the pleasant character of the scenery. I was there for less than four hours but I hope to come back there one day and get properly reacquainted with the region.
I lost my way to the city hall, but yet again I'm the girl who got lost in a square room (Kingdom Hearts II) but was still twenty minutes early. Getting my birth certificate was the easiest part of the trip. A woman asked me if I was over 18 (I have baby features), took my ID and handed it back to me with a photocopy of my birth certificate. Five minutes later I was outside and stumbled in a café, still half asleep. "Could you get me a… coffee. Please" I asked the waitress. " Double size?" she asked seeing my face. by 9:30 I was slowly waking up from my sleepless night while watching the sun rise of the small village of Sallanches and the clouds leave the mountains sides.
People here don't seem to have any problem with money. I did not see any council estate and half the car I saw were SUV. In fact there were far too many car for such a small place. The air was saturated with petrol smell, so much for fresh mountain air.
Once awake and out of the café I had no idea what I could do until the departure of my train at 11:45. I went and bought a postcard for my best friend, thus reviving the ugliest postcard contest we have been engaged in for years now. I spent a while sitting on a bench, reading and writing under the sun and finally decided to take some photos of the town and of the mountains.
That is when a man started talking to me. He thought I was a photographer, I was afraid he was a pervert. But he turned out to be of pleasant company, he walked me down to the station and bought me drink. We chatted for a while, he was a native of the region and talked as slowly as the stereotype require. He told me many thing about the mountains and the valley. English people are not welcomed there, because it was them buying estates in the region that made prices exploded for natives.
I took some more photos from the platform while waiting for my train.
They are not very good, but just remember that the white things you can see in the sky are clouds (thanks for stating the obvious, Shiori) but they are actually hiding the higher moutains as you can see on the last pic.
I never got to take any proper picture of Mont Blanc because of the clouds, but along the railway I saw the most beautiful scenery unfolded before my eyes. Never ending pin forests, green valley and vines as we got nearer to Lyon. The dwellings along the railway were either those of wealthy people with neatly mowed grass and pools in their garden (seriously, who in their right mind would want a pool than anybody from the railway can see, so much for privacy!) or they were poorly kept houses than had been there for ages. The latter blendrd within the scenery, for wilderness had more or less taken over it. I was, however, amazed by the number of building site I saw along the railway, I fear in a few decades the area will lost its peaceful and wild character and be nothing but an attractive site for retired people and tourists.
I once heard the tale one of a man from the city who had his house build in the Alps because he yearned for the rural way of life. He had the bad idea to have it build by a meadow where the local farmer sent his cows to graze. The man from the city declared the cows bells' sounds to be bothersome, he sued the farmer. I don't remember who won the case, but I certainly do know who was there first. I was reminded of this story when the train passed a house - the kind of which you can find in any suburbs in America or in any peri-urban area in France - lost in the middle of a meadow. Grazing cattle versus plastic children toys, grass versus concrete, pinkish walls versus wood. To me it looked as if a part of a city had been cut off and pasted on the mountain, they did not even made any effort to blend in the scenery. Maybe it was this house my story was about, or not.
By 3:20 pm we had reached Lyon, my train back for Rouen was at 5:45. I could have met with Aeren, but she had classes so I was alone an had nothing to do until then. As much as I loved this city I did not dare stray to far from the station. I sit down on a sort of concrete bench in front of the station and read. I burned my right shoulder under the sun. I read Memoir of a Geisha and did not do anything else than that until I reached Rouen. I was tired and in amazing pain because of my neck, but there was no way I was putting it down. This book draw me from the very first page and kept me in its grasp throughout my journey across France. It may not be what my teachers would call "literature" but words flew across he pages and through my mind by amazing ease, I think I never read that fast before. I smiled and hurt with little Chiyo, I hated Hatsumomo with my whole being. I had seen and loved the movie, but pretty soon I managed to take my mind off the pictures imposed by the movie. Chiyo / Sayuri could not have been more different from Zhang Ziyi (Chiyo/Sayuri in the movie).
You know what the funniest thing in all this is ? When I got home mom told me she had received my birth certificate by mail this very Wednesday… King of the Demons, what did I do to you ? The photos I had had taken by a professional photographer in order to fit the imposed norms for passports were first refused, so I went back to the photographer this afternoon to have them done again and then back to the city hall but it was still not good enough. I made the trip to the photographer once again and we must have made at least seven tries before I was satisfied with the photo. I had never thought getting a passport would be that much trouble. Now I just have to wait and hope I'll get it before the end of June, otherwise I won't be going to Korea anytime soon.