THE END IS NEAR

Well I’m almost done in France. This is not a reflective post, just a preview of what the rest of my time looks like.

This week I have some final exams, two of five. My university is a bit strange. I have one week of finals, two weeks of Spring Break, and then one more week of finals. So next Tuesday I depart on a trip west with another girl from my program that will be explained later, then a bit of time in Aix preparing for my last exams, and then about two weeks in France before I head home.

My flight leaves from Paris on June 1^st, but I’ll be taking the train up the day before and staying overnight just because of how the times worked out. I’m very excited to come home, but less excited for my time in France to end.

If you’ve seen on the Facebooks, I’ll be having a welcome home/graduation party Saturday June 2^nd at my house. More details about that are still in the works, so I’ll keep everyone posted.

My tentative plans for when I get back include working for a Congressional campaign. Unfortunately, since I had to work multiple jobs in order to be able to go to college, I didn’t have time for being active with the College Democrats or get in any experience with a campaign during the past four years. You’re probably thinking, “Carly…you spent the summer with Congress, isn’t that enough?” And no. It’s not. I need to get in some time with a campaign to fill in the last bit of skills I need to be eligible for employment in my field of choice. I’m not thrilled about the idea of working for free, but I’m so excited to jump back into American politics. I’m still waiting to hear if I got a fellowship with the Democratic Party and placed with a specific candidate, but I’ll know in the next couple weeks. I have a concrete game plan for this, but I’m not going to discuss it here. If you’re curious, ask me yourself.

This photo is stolen from a friend because it made me so happy to see on Facebook. If you’re flying into Milwaukee from the west, the planes pass not only right over Greendale, but directly over my house. I’m flying into Chicago, not Milwaukee…but I can’t wait to see this again. From the ground.

Is this real life?

Continuing the theme of “my life is way too cool right now”…last weekend was simply amazing. 

Saturday my program took us on an excursion to three nearby sites that all contained ancient Roman ruins. Back in the day, they settled in the area…so there’s still some stuff left from when they were here. First place we visited was a site called “Pont du Gard”. It’s an absolutely massive Roman aqueduct that has been updated a bit to make sure it stays intact for all to come and see, but it was really, really cool. The next stop was the nearby town of Arles, which I had already visited in January with a group from my university, to see their Roman constructed stadium, theater, and other things. A friend and I wandered around the theater, and there were literally just chunks of intricately carved roman ruin things just laying everywhere. Like they were normal rocks and not really cool man sculpted rocks. And the last spot was a site called Glanum that they found on accident in the 20’s, that was actually full of gallo-roman ruins dating back to 600 BCE. Everything we saw was really interesting, and just the idea that I’m living in a place surrounded by settlements that old is absolutely mind blowing.

Sunday was a bit different. A few weeks back I had an idea for a pastry tasting picnic where everyone shows up with a few treats from the bakery, and then everyone gets to try a little bit of what everyone else brought. There are soooo many goodies in the windows at bakeries and pastry shops here, but you’d go broke and gain so much weight if you actually got around to trying them all. So this picnic was a good compromise. There were so many tasty treats and everyone left happy. I got back to my apartment and sat around the kitchen table with a few friends, who were discussing the apparent carnival that was taking place in town today. They had seen confetti all over the main street through town and an abundance of adorable French children in costumes. Intrigued, I pulled up the website of Aix’s tourist office to see the order of events for whatever this carnival was. We were in luck—from 4:30 to 5:30 there was a parade finale at the town’s main fountain/square and it was currently 4:15.

We walked into town not really knowing what to expect, but weren’t surprised by the copious amounts of adorable children and confetti we saw on our way to the location. But then things started to get a bit weird. The main fountain, which is massive, was turned off and the basin was full of silk pillows and decorated with ribbon. There were several highly decorated floats parked all around the roundabout with people dancing everywhere. A confetti cannon fired every few minutes. I thought that there might be a parade finishing here, or just going around the circle a few times, but I was wrong. I soon noticed some arena sized confetti blowers were placed around the fountain, along with some sacks of feathers nearly the size of twin mattresses. Several minutes later, they proceeded to pump billions of feathers into the air for 10-15 minutes. It looked like it was snowing. If I count every feather I see on every bird for the rest of my life, I will still have seen more feathers on Sunday. For something that my friends and I literally just happened upon, I could not have asked for more. It was way too cool, and I have no idea how they cleaned up all those feathers. It now being Wednesday, there are still a few floating around town but the vast majority were cleaned up by Monday.

We still have no idea exactly what this carnival was for, if it’s every year, or why they were using feathers, but I’m not asking too many questions. I’ll just accept it as one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

Me hanging out at the aqueduct.

Soooo many pastriesss

The aftermath of feather time.

Paris take three.

 Earlier in the semester; I proposed to three of my friends here that we all go back to Paris together for a long weekend. They’re three of the same people I went with back in October, so we were planning on a more relaxed stay in the city since we collectively had now seen all the mega tourist sites. So Easter weekend we hopped a train and headed north. We all got there eventually and I experienced no travel troubles. But I’ll just say that the trip got off to an interesting start for some. 

Looking at the forecast ahead of time, it appeared that Friday was going to be the only day with guaranteed sun. Since the palace of Versailles and its gardens were on our list of “things we must do”, we headed over there first after dropping our backpacks off at the hotel. We were excited not only because everything about this place is beautiful, but it’s also free for us. The gardens are usually free to everybody, and getting into the palace itself is free for European Union residents between the ages of 18 and 24. To get in, I didn’t even have to go wait in the long tourist line to buy a ticket. I just had to walk up to the entrance and flash my passport full of official stickers that say I live in France. It’s awesome. The palace was just as beautiful as I expected and it was insane to walk through the same room where they signed the treaty ending WWI. The gardens ended up being a bit more complicated, because apparently the day we were there was one of the six or so out of the entire year where we had to pay about 6€ to get in, which was slightly disappointing at first. But then we perked up because we realized it was because they were playing music throughout the whole outdoor space and the fountains were actually turned on. So it was nice to see the gardens in their full glory.

Saturday we all split up for the most part, with assorted things that we all wanted to do ourselves. I took the train across town a bit to find this little American grocery store so I could buy an expensive bag of peanut butter cups to help keep me sane while studying for finals. They were a bit pricey (9€ for a 1lb bag) but I regret nothing. But on my way where, the strangest thing happened. I was looking at a metro map on the wall after I bought my ticket to double check the lines/directions I was supposed to take, and a man approached me asking in French how to get from where we were now over to the Louvre. I showed him on the map a possible route and offered to go halfway with him because the station I was trying to get to was a place he could transfer to get in the right direction. He took me up on my offer and we chatted the whole way. He was about 50 and from the city of Lyon, and remarked on the irony of an American who wasn’t even studying in Paris showing him how to use the metro. We got off our train and I sent him on his way. It was a really random, yet welcome, event. And even stranger, as I was leaving that station, some other person asked me in French which way “République” was. What was so strange about it was that was the large square/station near my hotel that I had just come from, but we were no longer near. I was not aware that I was wearing a sign that said, “Hi, I speak French. Ask me how to use the Metro”. I spent the rest of the day doing a little shopping, going to see the tiny cemetery where General Lafayette (the main Frenchman supporting George Washington in the revolutionary war) was buried, and wandering around town a bit with one of my friends who came with.

Sunday began with a little project. A few weeks earlier I had tossed around the idea of doing a sort of “senior pictures” photo shoot in Paris with iconic backdrops and super French props. We selected Sunday morning as the best time to do this, because it happens to be time of the week when there are the least people out and about. IE…the least amount of people who will kick my ass for walking around in a blue/white striped dress, a beret, and carrying baguettes. So after stopping for coffee and fresh bread, my friend and I headed over to the park next to the Eiffel Tower. It was absolutely beautiful that morning, and we got some great shots. After that, we grabbed some rent-a-bikes and rode along the Seine and dropped them off at a station near the Louvre. It was super cheap and super fun. Paris has rent-a-bike figured out.  We had picnic lunch at one of our favorite places along the river, and then toured the opera house in the afternoon. And in the evening, another friend and I headed back to the Eiffel Tower to see it sparkle at night one last time, once again pick up rent-a-bikes, and rode along the river a bit before dropping them off near the Champs Elysees/Arc de Triomphe. It was as close to a perfect day in Paris as you could get.

Monday, we checked out of our hotel and headed to the nearby Pere Lachaise Cemetery. It’s famous because well…it has a lot of famous people buried there, including Edith Piaf, La Fontaine, Moliere, Chopin…and tons more. We then split up a bit and one friend and I went to a café while the other two went to see some stuff that they missed the day before. We found THE MOST ADORABLE CAFÉ I have ever seen. It was on a little random side street, and there was no one in there except my friend and I and the owner. It was amazingly cute. I then spent the rest of the afternoon meeting up with an ex-resident of mine from my days as an RA who’s spending the semester in Paris. We grabbed lunch and caught up, comparing experiences in France and whatnot. She was actually the first face from home I’ve seen since I got to France in August. It is a little sad realizing that almost everyone else in my program has friends also studying all over Europe, friends coming to visit them, or family coming to visit them. Having not many friends in a place to study abroad nor having a few grand to drop on a trip to Europe, and family with other more reasonable/responsible financial priorities, I’ve pretty much been left alone here. I’m not complaining though. As much as I wish I could share this with some of the people I care about most back home, I’m really doing fine here by myself. Just commenting on the situation. But even more exciting, said former resident is coming down to the south for her spring break, so I’m meeting up with her and her travel partner and helping them get to a town extremely close to mine. But back to Paris…that evening we caught a train home.

It was a lovely long weekend and I really, really love Paris. It’s a great place to visit for a long weekend, but I’m still happiest where I am. I’m going to have an afternoon and evening in the city before my flight home leaves in June, so I didn’t have to say goodbye for good.

And it’s still surreal that I can say, “Oh yes, I just went to spend a weekend in Paris. Whatever”. My life is too cool. 

Senior photos at the Eiffel Tower

General Lafayette's grave

One of the fountain shows we saw

Day trips.

So if we’re facebook friends, you’ll have seen that I’ve been busy lately. The last voyage I blogged was Strasbourg, one month ago today. And I have done quite a bit of traveling since then…

March 8^th-9th.
An American friend from school and I took a train west to a town called Montpellier to see M83. If you haven’t heard of them, though they are French, they’re famous internationally and have this recent hit song. So after hopping on a train late that afternoon and arriving early evening, we got lost for a while trying to find out hostel walking in every direction except the correct one. But we got there eventually, and the concert was absolutely amazing. They hadn’t played in the south of France in five or six years, and you could see on the lead singer’s face how excited he was to be able to speak French to the audience in between songs and to just be playing a show in France. The next day we woke up, had two hours to wander around the city, and then catch a train back to Aix. Montpellier was a really lovely city. Not that much larger than Aix in terms of space, but it was definitely more urban and less “cute-provençal-town”.

March 9^th-10^th.
The international organization at my university organized an overnight trip west to the cities of Toulouse and Carcassonne. It was so simple—I give them 50€ and they give me a hostel room with friends, all transportation, and they showed us around both places. It was a great time with friends seeing a new corner of the country. We wandered around Toulouse most of Saturday and then some more Sunday morning. If that city rings a bell, it’s because it was in the news a week or so after I was there. But I saw none of that. I just saw some pretty buildings, pretty parks, and ate some delicious regional food. Sunday afternoon we stopped at Carcassonne. I was there at the end of February with one of my friends before I knew this trip was happening, but it was fun to visit again. Carcassonne is a town a few hours west of Aix that has an old medieval city from like the 12^th century. It used to be on the Franco-Spanish border, but then the border got moved at some point so the castle lost significance. But this medieval city was full of toy stores selling princess and knight outfits. It’s kind of funny how Americans take their kids to Ren Fairs and Europeans can just take their kids to a real castle.

March 24^th.
This semester, my American program organized two trips for us that are paid for out of the tuition dollars I pay them. This first one was to a region just a bit north of Aix called “Luberon”. We visited four small villages, a nature park, and an abbey. The villages were all very cute, and most of them were perched on top of hills so that once upon a time when they were built, they could be easily defended from attacking persons. But the best village was Roussillon, where the nature park was. Randomly in the middle of this area, there’s this little blop of colorful soil. There are a total of 17 shades ranging from browns, to reds, to yellows and oranges and they’re used for a bunch of stuff (pharmaceuticals, paints, dyes, etc). They’re really picky with what it’s used for now to protect it, and part of it is now this nature park. It was easily one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. The last place we visited was this abbey in a valley. It was kind of depressing because if you run a google image search of the name (Abbeye Senanque), almost all results show it in the middle of a blooming lavender field. Beautiful, no? I was just a tad bitter because the lavender booms two months out of the year here…June and July. Literally, those are the only two months that I’m not in France and I don’t get to see the one thing that Provence is absolutely known for. So it was slightly insulting for me to see a field of dead lavender that will bloom as soon as my plane takes off. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It was a really, really lovely trip. I’ll just have to use this as motivation to save money when I get home so I can come back here someday at the right time of the year.

March 25^th.
So I was looking at my map of France and marked off all the places I’ve been, and noticed a gap within my immediate vicinity. So I planned a day trip to Toulon, which is the next major city along the Mediterranean east of Marseille. It has a big port with ferries to Corsica/Italy/Africa, ship building, and it’s where France keeps most of their Navy. Their aircraft carrier wasn’t in town that day, but I hear it’s impressive. So three friends and I hopped on a train for about an hour and ended up in Toulon. We walked inland farther to find our first activity…a cable car to the top of a small mountain (2,000ft). Mount Faron is right next to Toulon, so we were essentially on the outskirts of town when we caught the cable car up. Up top, apart from the amazing views, there was a zoo that specialized in the breeding of endangered cats. Obviously, we went there first. It was a bit sad because the cages were all small and I felt sorry for the kitties, but everyone was happily asleep in the sun…like cats do. It’s sunny over 300 days a year here…so it’s a pretty nice place to be a cat. Or a panther/puma/lion/tiger/etc. We saw the pair of tiger cubs born here 10 months ago staring at a random donkey that was wandering through the back part maintenance area of the zoo like they wanted to go eat it. Super cute. After the zoo, we walked around the park up top some more, taking in the views, and then moved on to the WWII memorial. They turned an old fort into a museum to commemorate the Allied landings in Provence in August 1944 and the liberation of Toulon. After Allied troops landed up in Normandy the previous June, they did the same thing all along the south of France. It was super cool actually seeing stuff like that where it happened, as opposed to watching a film or seeing a similar exhibit set up at an American museum. After that, we took the cable car back down the mountain, wandered around the center of Toulon for a bit, and then came home.

March 31^st.
A while back I was looking through a list of “the most beautiful places in France” and saw that one of them, the French Grand Canyon, was located relatively close to where I am. A few girls and I were talking about renting a car to go spend the day there, but then we discovered that this company in town that plans 25€ day trips to all sorts of neat places was organizing a trip so we decided to just do that. Next to the canyon, which is either called the Gorge du Verdon or seriously Grand Canyon du Verdon, is a man-made lake that is the prettiest shade of green. They don’t allow any gas motors on it, only electric and canoes/kayaks/paddleboats, and it’s a reservoir so there’s no gross stuff draining into it. The trip organizers told us that the water would probably be too cold for swimming, but I wore my suit anyways. A former swimmer friend and I decided to go in anyways, since it couldn’t be any worse than an early morning swim practice. It was…because we couldn’t properly swim with our faces in the water and I think my lungs went into a bit of shock the first two minutes because it was hard for me to talk. But we warmed up a bit, and swam from the beach we were at out to the bridge nearby and beached ourselves like sunning seals on some rocks on the other side. We contemplated jumping off all dramatic-like, but our legs were too cold to ensure that we’d be able to safely leap far enough out. So instead we just played with the mud that covered the bottom of this lake. It was all goopy and pure and made our skin all soft. Then we swam back, played with some more mud, and dried off. There were probably 60 people on this trip,and a few dozen more along the shores of other parts of this lake…but my friend and I were literally the only ones swimming. I don’t think I’ll ever swim in a lake that naturally pure again or have a lake to myself. It was pretty much the coolest thing ever. After that, they drove us through the canyon to see it from up higher/up close and take some picutes. I’ve never been to the American Grand Canyon…but I’m pretty sure it’s hard to compare the two. Either way, the French one was so pretty. The last stop was a small village near the canyon where we saw villagey things and climbed up to a little chapel way up high. It was a great day and I got so many good pictures.

And now for some photos:

Swimming at the canyon, compliments of a friend on a paddle boat.

Cassoulet, traditional dish from Toulouse.

Tinted soil at Roussillon.

Final notes:

-If you'd like to see more of a geographic representation of where I've been, I've been mapping it on Google. Click here for the map, and you can zoom in and click on each bubble to see what city it is.
-If you'd like to see pictures, this album contains everything I've done since the end of February for the most and it's visible to people without facebook accounts.

Trouble with the law.

So today as I was going to class and I saw I had a letter in my mailbox from the city of Aix-en-Provence. Curious, I immediately opened it and started reading while I walked. Turns out it was from….the environment police.

Pause.

The environment police. Here in Aix/France I swear there are close to 10 different kinds of cops roaming around. There are municipal police, there are national police, there are heavy duty military style police, there are unarmed security officers, and there are the environment police. Okay so maybe there aren’t 10, but I know for a fact that there are at least those five.

What the environment police do is essentially ticket people for littering or putting their garbage out at the wrong time. There isn’t one designated “garbage day” like there is in the States. Instead, you’re just supposed to put your neatly bagged trash in the street/sidewalk right next to your building after 7pm, and then someone comes to pick it up. This has actually led to much confusion in my household. If the trash can’t be out before 7pm, when is the latest it can go out? We’ve put it out at 730, to have it taken away within a few minutes. We’ve put it out at midnight to have it taken away at some point before morning. We know not what goes on. Furthermore, we’re not entirely sure what days they come around. Is today a holiday? Will the trash men come? If we put trash out Saturday night…will they pick it up or is that too close to Sunday? We lack answers to these questions. All we know is that the environment police are stricter with whatever mysterious policies they have because of the street we happen to live on. It’s very small, very historic in terms of the rest of the neighborhood, and it’s very touristy. But up until now we haven’t had any problems.

So I get this letter saying that at 8am on March 17^th they noticed I had left my garbage outside of my building when it wasn’t supposed to be there. This probably means that the night before either me or one of my roommates took the trash out “too late” for pickup (again, we’re unaware of any time limit). You might be asking yourself…how do they know that I did it? Well what the environment police do is actually open garbage left outside and look for clues to see to whom it may belong, so someone can get in trouble. There must have been something in the trash with my name on it, because I’m the only one in my apartment to receive one of these notices. I talked to one of the ladies who works for my program and she said that I’ll probably get another letter in the mail at some point making me pay some undetermined fine. Bullshit.

How’s that for an invasion of privacy? Even garbage isn’t sacred. I’m shredding to bits anything that ever has my name on it so the goddamn trash police will have to put together a puzzle if they ever want to try this again.

America, I miss you and your simple garbage law.

If this blog were a living thing, it would have starved.

I’ve ignored this blog a lot. My apologies. I’ve done a lot of stuff, and it’s not like I haven’t had time to write about it. I just haven’t wanted to. So today I’ve forced myself to sit down and write a bunch of it out because I have even more coming up and I don’t want memories to be too buried. A few simpler thoughts:

School is going great. My classes aren’t too boring.

I’m starting to freak out about coming some to be a real person/graduate and enter the job market.

I hosted a Super Bowl party for a few foreign friends who had never watched before. We streamed it on my laptop and it was a good time.

I took a day trip to a medieval castle town west of here and it was awesome. But I’m going back next weekend as part of a trip organized by the international club at school, so it’ll get a full post then.

I went back to the calanques (inlets and cliffs at the sea) in Cassis for a 3^rd time and it was just as beautiful as the two previous times. I will keep going back.

I have a plane ticket home. June 1^st. Mark your calendars.

That’s less than three months from now….holy shit.

I’ve been here over six months…holy shit.

So for more detailed thoughts and stories, there are three posts following this one. They’re posted in order that they happened so that you can just scroll down and travel back in time so it looks like I was keeping up with this better…

Miss you all. Hope you’re enjoying that snow. I’m enjoying not having any.

Let's walk to Germany

Back in December, two friends from my program and I booked a three day trip to Strasbourg for our mid-winter break because it crazy cheap (22€ for a 5.5hr high speed train ride each way) and we found an equally cheap hotel in town that didn't look sketchy. It seems like such a long time ago that these plans were put in place, and all the sudden last week it pops up on us that we’re leaving Tuesday morning and we were in a mad dash to figure out what we were doing, who had the tickets, who paid for what, etc. So we arrived Tuesday afternoon, found out hotel, dropped off our things, and then took the tram back into the city center to wander a bit. Strasbourg is really cool because the region it’s in has been passed back and forth between and fought over by the French and Germans for a long time…but now it’s France. And Germany is just across the river. So it looks a lot like Germany architecture wise, but everyone is speaking French. It’s actually really confusing.

The next day, the 1^st part of our schedule consisted of a walk to Germany. I Googled it before I left (look how much I’m learning!) and saw that the satellite photos made the 30 minute walking route look like it was going through an industrial park. Upon careful inspection, I saw that there were indeed sidewalks, so it was still entirely possible. Google Maps did not lie to me…we essentially walked through an industrial park. We saw a hooker. It was far from the prettiest walk I’ve ever been on, and if I hadn’t been doing it to walk to a different country just because I could, there’s no way I would ever do something like that again. But eventually we made it to the park that flanks both sides of the river separating France from Germany that had a pedestrian bridge connecting both halves. It was super cool to be able to do something like that. And because of a European Agreement that both France and Germany, among others, are a part of, you don’t need a passport to cross between the two. There are no border controls. It’s strange to think about, but extremely convenient.

So we then headed into the little town called Kehl on the other side of the river, found the town center, and stopped at a café. I took two years of German in high school and enjoyed it, but did not have any time in college to continue it…so whatever I have left is pretty broken. But I could still order a coffee politely, and get the jist of the menu. My two partners in travel wanted to have a beer since we were in Germany and asked the waitress for a recommendation. First off, she didn’t speak English…but appeared to understand it, clearly. She responds, “ich trinke kein bier, aber….” Which means “I don’t drink beer, but…” and she recommended something that people normally order. What kind of German doesn’t drink beer? Has everything I’ve been taught been a lie? Also…I’ve heard some statistic that 70% of Germans can speak English well enough. So the fact that the one German we interacted with didn’t drink beer or speak English was quite astonishing. I’m not saying that everyone should speak English…not at all. Just going off of what I’ve come to understand from my time abroad had led me to be a little more hopeful that odds were we wouldn’t be totally shit out of luck wandering into Germany essentially speaking no German. I’ve yet to see statistics of beer drinking Germans vs non beer drinking Germans though…so I’ll have to give her the benefit of the doubt on that one and attempt to ignore the stereotypes I’ve learned over the years. Regardless, it was a lovely hour that I spent in Germany.

After a walk back to France/Strasbourg, we moved onto our next activity. Due to the history/geographical location of Strasbourg, it made it a popular and especially symbolic location for European unification efforts post WWII. The city is home to the Parliament of the European Union, as well as the headquarters of the Council of Europe and their famous European Court of Human Rights. The latter being an organization that was started one year before the start of what would eventually become the European Union. The Council of Europe has 47 member states (unlike the 27 of the EU), and not all of them are especially “European” in the traditional sense. For example, Russia, Turkey, and a bunch of far eastern European countries are members of the C. of Europe but would never ever be allowed to join the EU. Also the C. of Europe doesn’t pass any legally binding stuff like the EU does; they mainly just start initiatives and try to put everyone in a better European spirit. Their claim to fame is getting all of their members do away with the death penalty, making Europe the 1^st entire continent to abolish the practice A while back I contacted the visitors offices at the EU’s Parliament and the C. of Europe’s headquarters asking if my friends and I could hop on a tour group coming through. The EU said no, but thankfully the Council of Europe said yes. So we got a tour of their building in English with a bunch of Japanese students. It wasn’t as cool as the European Parliament could have been, but I was still super glad to be able to join this random group, see their building, and learn a bit more about their organization.

The next day, upon the recommendation of a friend of a friend, we headed to a neighborhood called “la petite France”. I understand places like NYC having “little Italy” or “Chinatown”, but I remain perplexed as to why a town in France has a neighborhood called little France. Regardless, it’s the especially cute and especially touristy old looking part of town. We found a restaurant that served the regional specialty of tarte flambée (like a super thin crust pizza with cream cheese, onions, and bacon) and wandered a bit. Soon enough, it was time to get back on a five hour train home.

It was a lovely short little trip, and it was really nice to see another country/another side of France. My only regret is that I wasn’t able to see the Maginot Line. For those of you not familiar, after WWI, the French decided to build this big fancy wall all along their border with Germany, because they feared they would attack again. It’s not a great wall in the Chinese sense, but more of a really long fort equipped with what at the time was super sophisticated military technology. The French figured that this wall would stop the Germans, and they could just focus more on an invasion through Belgium from the north. Well, Hitler did go into Belgium but attacked the French army in some way/angle they weren’t anticipating, defeated the army, and then swiftly took over the rest of France…thus rendering their especially expensive/advanced defense system completely useless. So since for obvious reasons, it’s not a super popular tourist destination, it only opens up during more popular tourist seasons when the foreigners come…because the French don’t want to see it. And alas, I was there at the wrong time of the year and the museum at Fort Failure was closed. Perhaps in the future…

On the bridge. France on the left, Germany on the right.
Little France