Rennes

It is now Tuesday evening, and I am now on the train on the way back from Rennes, having spent two days and one night there. I am probably going to be posting this entry tomorrow morning, along with the others I wrote, so the timeline might be a little confusing.
The purpose of our trip to Rennes was to meet with a team of researchers at the University of Rennes 2. Rennes is a much smaller city that is two hours away by the TGV, and even right now I’m still not sure which direction from Paris it lies. We left the Gare Montparnasse in Paris at 9:00 am yesterday. I used the train time to catch up on my blog and get a little sleep. When we arrived at the Rennes train station, we were greeted by the professor and two graduate students that would be with us for our stay. We bought metro/bus passes for the two days, then took the metro to the university stop. Just to give you an idea of its size, Rennes only has one metro line, compared to Paris’s 15ish, and it will take you across the city in about 15 minutes. So, we quickly arrived at the station where it was only a short walk to the university dorm where we would be staying. We got our keys, and I was surprised to find out that we each had individual rooms, but I would soon see why. I was expecting a dungeon, but I was pleasantly surprised by the newish dorms where we would be staying. All the rooms were singles and very small, but also very space efficient. There were numerous shelves and drawers fit in across the wall. A smaller bed was set into the right side wall, while the right side was taken up by a desk and more shelves and cabinets. I was wondering how far down the hall I’d have to trek for a bathroom, but then I found it: each room had its own tiny bathroom, practically like a little capsule. The floor probably measured 4x4ft, and in it was squeezed a shower, toilet, sink, and even some shelves. It was almost futuristic, like what an astronaut might be accustomed to. Overall, the room was cute, clean, and new. While it might feel a little cramped after a while, I could definitely see myself living in such a space as a student.
After dropping off our stuff, we went to have lunch at the university cafeteria. Overall, I’d say it was fairly comparable to a US university dining hall, except in this case it was not of the all-you-can-eat buffet variety. Instead, there were little stations where you could get a main item and a couple side things, and then you could still get a certain number of other plates, like other sides or a dessert. I ate with Vanessa alongside Dr. Blondeau and Thierry Bulot, the main professor we would be listening to. They had a lively conversation about various linguistic and university topics that I was glad to listen in on.
After lunch, we headed through the university to the room where we’d be having the day’s conferences. The campus was much more of a real campus, unlike the Nouvelle Sorbonne we had visited in Paris. There were assorted buildings and green space, and cars could not pass through. Even so, it wasn’t as nice as a typical American campus, and the dreary weather did not help the atmosphere. The room we were in was not a classroom, I don’t think, but more of a room in a research hall, but it was difficult to classify. Along with us, some other Rennes university students sat in on the lecture.
First, we watched a short movie that had been made in the past few years about immigrants in Rennes and their different attitudes toward multiculturalism in the city, etc. My general impression was that multilingualism is viewed positively, and people can identify with multiple cultures. After the movie, about 15 minutes long, we started straight into the conferences. Thierry Bulot, the professor at the Université de Rennes 2, presented some of his research concerning attitudes toward multilingualism, and then the two graduate students also presented some of their research. Their presentations were a little harder to understand, not on the level of the language, but because they assumed some prior knowledge that we didn’t really have.

Note: I am back in Gainesville and am just finishing up this post now. Details as I remember them.

After the presentations, we had a little bit of technically free time. However, it was cold and raining and everyone was dead tired, so we unanimously decided to go take a quick nap in the dorms before dinner. For dinner, we went to a nice restaurant near the train station. It was one of the group meals included in our program, so naturally it was very good. In France I grew accustomed to eating multiple courses at restaurants, especially dessert, which I rarely do here. At this particular restaurant, I had some sort of calamari appetizer, steak with gorgonzola cheese sauce, and then crème brûlée for dessert. All the food was great, except for one detail. They gave me fries with my steak, and I wasn’t expecting to get ketchup, but there it was in a little packet on the table. Perfect, right? Wrong. I opened this ketchup and it was the very worst ketchup I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t even know what it tasted like, but I took one bite and could have no more. But regardless, it was a nice dinner (can you tell I ate very well in France?) and I had a chance to talk a little bit with one of the grad students in the group, also.

After dinner, we just returned to the dorms to get ready for bed. Unfortunately, somehow that night was the turning point for me when I began to get sick, beginning with an awful sore throat that since evolved into a nasty cold/congestion/cough business which I am still recovering from. So, in the morning, I wasn’t feeling that great, but I was well enough to go on with the scheduled activities for the day.

After getting breakfast in a little café, we met our two grad students, Claire and Aude, to do a few site visits in Rennes, similar to what we had already been doing in Paris. First, we took a bus about 20 minutes out to go to a small neighborhood market. It was fairly small and seemed to be dominated by an older population. What was interesting was that it was in a more residential area, with actual houses driveways, unlike what I had been seeing so far in big-city Paris. As far as the market itself, it wasn’t anything new, but there were some interesting stands selling organic products as well as varieties of local honey.

After that market, we went to a second one closer to the downtown area, which I believe is kind of a permanent market with a permanent structure. This was also pretty standard, with numerous shops selling various food products. One fish shop in particular had some live items on the ice- I could see some little tentacles or legs creeping around. There was also another that had live crabs in a tank, but of course you can see that in Florida also.

After that walkthrough, we had one more official stop to make. We were scheduled to meet with an organization called Âge de la Tortue (Age of the Turtle), which is an organization for artists. We took the metro out to one of the farthest stops to a neighborhood that is populated predominantly by immigrants. The housing had been built to accommodate those moving to the city at a time when not much other housing was available, so there were a lot of high rise apartment complexes, but not really of a luxurious nature. It was also an area where, according to the survey that Thierry Bulot had mentioned the previous day, people speak the “worst” French. So, it wasn’t the highest-class area, but it certainly wasn’t dangerous. Claire led us to apartment where we met one of the leaders of the organization, and she explained how it functions. The organization has two apartments where artists stay during the duration of the projects, normally about two weeks. Their projects are really varied- she showed us books where strangers can write each other letters; they have done performances in a caravan for one single audience member at a time; and one of their current projects entailed putting up blank wooden boards around the area to see how people would start using them. It was fairly interesting over all, but I didn’t really see the supposed link with sociolinguistics. I found out later that the connection was really more about sociology of language, if that makes any sense. After the little info session, the organization leader led us around a bit in the neighborhood just to get a feel for it. It wasn’t really impressive, but still informative, and we got to see the wooden boards that the group had erected, which had already begun to be used for putting up some notices. She also walked us down to a local social-work type place where people can get help for various issues, as well as a local art center. However, she explained that unfortunately the actual neighborhood residents don’t use the art center as much as outsiders.

After that visit, we had a couple hours to wander the city before heading back to the dorm to get our stuff and check out. We all headed downtown to just do some shopping and looking around. It was a pretty area and great for pedestrians. It also didn’t have the same big-city feel as Paris. People seemed friendlier and less detached and there wasn’t the insane traffic and busy streets as in Paris. Overall, it reminded me a French version of Heidelberg, the small city near Mannheim that we visited on several occasions. My friends and I just went into whatever shops we thought interesting, and it was at this time that I bought my obligatory elephant item. It was in a kitchen gadget shop, and I bought a really cute elephant apron, which is one elephant item that I didn’t have previously.

After a couple hours, we met up with the group to back to the dorms to get our stuff. Then we checked out and headed to the train station to catch the TGV back to Paris. By the time we got back, it was close to 9:30, so I didn’t do much else that day, especially because I was feeling under the weather (and over the weather!). I had enjoyed our little trip to Rennes but was also glad to be back “home” in Paris!

I still have 3 more days to document, so keep reading!