The trip started off well- first we got ripped off by a taxi driver, who overcharged us about 7 euros. Then, since he was such a nice guy (really, he seemed awesome), I gave him a tip. What a mook I am. So after this ride we are in the airport here in Athens a few hours early to make sure we get through security and all that. Really, we didn’t need that much time. The Greeks have yet to even glance at my student visa. Anyways, we got on the plane bound to Brussels and, after about fifteen minutes, had to disembark before takeoff because some guy got on with a false passport. After booting him off, they had to search the plane to make sure he didn’t leave anything on board. So we got to Brussels about an hour late, which was fine, seeing as how we had a six hour break between the flight landing at the airport and when our train left.
So once we got there, we are looking around for a city map when a taxi driver asks us if we have any questions and what we are looking for. He was really taken aback when we said we would just walk around the city center (usually really safe over here) at night. He flatly told us that it was totally unsafe, and that we had to stay in the airport. So we did. For six hours. We did meet some guy who was from Nigeria who lives in Athens. He was really nice, although a little creepy at times. That was probably just cultural stuff and the fact that everyone there was zombified by lack of sleep. I exchanged cell phone numbers with him, and he’s going to show me a good Catholic church in the area with English masses. Then some clubs geared towards African immigrants. Should be pretty sweet. He had a lot of questions, some got kind of awkward due to the language barrier (his English was good, not awesome) and content. Like, “Isn’t America very unfriendly to its blacks?” We gave him a quick history rundown and assured him it was ok in America for everyone. He was headed to Amsterdam to buy a car and ship it to Nigeria for Christmas. Apparently it was cheaper that way.
Once we got on the train at 6:30 with our new friend and a guy (Danish, I think) we met when I asked him about the trains, thinking he worked on them (to be fair, he was wearing a dirty orange and blue jumpsuit like all the transportation workers wear), we got to the southern train station in Brussels and took our train to Paris Nord, which is the north station. The Paris subway is super crowded and the stops are really far apart. Really, not one of my favorite subways systems. But anyways we had another train to catch bound for Chartres in another station in Paris (Mont Parnasse). Once in Chartres we met up with the big ND group (about 60 students and some priests), and toured a really old cathedral (built around 1026). It was built for Mary, and once contained the clothing she wore when she gave birth to Jesus. There were also more statues than I had thought possible, most of which were missing the heads. Apparently they didn’t like statue heads during the French Revolution, so they broke ‘em all and ripped up Mary’s clothing. Pinnacle of civilization, those French.
After the brief stay in Chartres the group went to Le Mans, a medieval city that acted as the base-city of the CSC (which founded Notre Dame). We got shown around the old city and cathedral and all the religious stuff there. Like Fr. Moreau’s parish church. They had a big stained glass window there that had the Dome and a bunch of guys wearing mortarboards on it. We also had a little reception with Fr. Jenkins and a bunch of the other priests from ND. Some wine, fancy pizza-like appetizers (I can’t spell that French phrase for them, but it sounds like “ordervs”), and, as Fr. Jenkins put it, a lot of schmoozing. Photo op, anyone? On that note though, I am now on the ND website. Pretty cool. The university’s photographer was going bananas (b-a-n-a-n-a-s).
The beatification ceremony was so-so. It was mostly in French (with a little English and Spanish tossed in), so I was a little lost even through we had books with translations. But there were around 4000 people there from all over the world (the States, Africa, Chile, everywhere) and it was in this huge sports arena. A cardinal came by to represent the pope, who elected not to personally attend the first beatification under his papacy. Well, they can’t all be JP 2. The beatification itself involved the bishop of Le Mans formally asking the Portuguese (I think) cardinal to consider Moreau to be called blessed, and the cardinal said, essentially, “Yeah, ok. Il Papa is cool with that.” I really didn’t like it that much. The cardinal stood awkwardly far away from the bishop and didn’t participate in the service outside of reading his script, all the while surrounded by attendants of some sort and sitting in a really nice decorated chair. Basically, a throne. This extreme formality and power display, mixed with the apparent disinterest of the cardinal made me feel like I was watching someone deign themselves to tell us filthy peasants that we can call someone blessed. It was just so impersonal and blasé at times. I mean, I can understand stuff like St. Peter’s being really awesome to display the greater glory of God and revering religious figures and the like, but the bishop, representative of the pope, just came off as pompous and inconvenienced to be there.
Anyways, they rolled out a giant photo of him and we all sang some French song and BAM he was beatified. My favorite part of the ceremony, though, came at the end, when a bishop was getting up to proceed out and the sleeve of his vestment snagged up a little bit, revealing the video camera he held in his hand. This was timed perfectly with the camera being fixed on him, so the gigantic video screens they had set up was focused right on him. He noticed that and, with a sleight of his hand, flipped his sleeve down to conceal the camera.
Afterwards they had really good champagne and amazing cookies for the reception. It was simultaneously funny and embarrassing, watching some of the people there get more than a little tipsy in front of a bunch of priests and nuns. Back in Le Mans, we walked around the city a little bit and ate at this fancy-ish restaurant where I accidentally ordered a raw fish appetizer with my meal. I was hungry and it was pricey, so I ate it. Raw salmon and tuna. Not processed either, just cut right off of the fish. It was really bad on the first few bites, but once I got past the texture and temperature it wasn't too terrible. It got down and stayed down, which is all that really counts.
That night (and the night before, for that matter) we stayed in Le Mans in this cheap hotel. The rooms were super tiny, and they didn’t have soap or shampoo in the bathrooms. Luckily, they did have a hand soap dispenser right next to the shower so I was able to bathe, kind of. But it was pretty much just an uncarpeted room with three beds in a stack, a small table with a stool, and a bathroom, which came with complimentary silverfish (and hands soap). It was rather Spartan. And not in the madness, kicking Persians down the well sense of it, but the other sense of the word. Come Sunday morning, the train left to get to Paris. We had first class tickets, so we got to sit in the nice coach in huge, overstuffed chairs among a bunch of rich old people.
Paris is nice, but so big. And the people are weird. I'm not a fan of them. Some were nice enough to give me directions (I learned how to say “I don’t speak French” and “do you speak English?”) when I asked though. We got to see the big three (Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and Notre Dame) but not go inside any of them. We also stumbled upon the school that Napoleon was trained in. It was apparently the main French military school. I was expecting a small hut staffed by mimes and maids, but it was actually really nice. Anyways, we didn’t get to go inside because we only had three hours or so, and it was a huge stretch to even see the ones we did. The lines to get into all of them were ridiculous. Like, several hours to get into Notre Dame. I did, however, find time to buy a red beret and get a nutella crepe, which I ate while laughing haughtily. We got to CDG on the train and randomly met another student from here in Greece who was also in France. On the flight, they served us food. I love Olympic Air. It was a three hour flight, and they gave us really comfortable seats and a full dinner. In the US, you would be lucky to get a glass of water on a three hour flight.
We came back to Athens around 1 in the morning to see that the New Democracy party (incumbent) had won the national elections, which happened on Sunday. People were going nuts, waving New Democracy and Greek flags out their car windows, screaming, and honking their horns jubilantly. I scored a sweet flag that fell off of a car and got blown over to the side near the sidewalk. I got home, called it a weekend, and went to bed.
Au revoir, I’ll keep you posted the next time something interesting happens.
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