Date: 2008-03-12
To: Villeneuve
Miles today: 0.0

BonjourWalked around the little village of Villeneuve yesterday and it was beautiful, small little streets paved with cobble stones. A bell tower right on the Rhone, another church, and a castle perched up on a big hill with a fabulous garden and views all around of the surrounding valleys. A small town square with another patisserie, I had something with raisons in it, my god it was nice. How do the French stay thin, for breakfast I had 2 croissants and a hot chocolate, so delicious. Yes it is a hard life being a tourist. THe French qre great people and I am starting to get use to their ways. Manners are respected above anything else, polite society is what it is all about, and I think that is why they are seen as being arrogant. Tye can be rather cold and lacking in affection if you do not get the right etiquette. When approaching them you must first start off with a greeting in thier language, and if you wish them to speak English which most can do, you must ask parle vous englais, as opposed to do you speak English. This little things make an enormous difference. If you are a male then you are expected to hold a door open for a female, or to wait on the street as the roads are so narrow for her to pass first. It is very much like the old fashioned way that many australians are raised in. We learn all these things not so much to use them, but more to understand these interactions if we are caught in polite society, australia of course is far more relaxed and laid back. There is a formality about French society and a certain austere coldness which is very similar to the British. Personally i really like it, once you have worked it all out then it is easy to follow. They eat thier food slowly and never zith yoru mouth open, and certainly not with your hands. It is a place that is easy for an australian boy such as me to fit into, being a gentleman and all, oh stop laughing everyone. I am still yet to come to terms with what I experienced in Italy, of all the countires I have visited this one was the most difficult to interpret and understand. It made me ask so many questions, and in many ways that is what travelling is all about. The monuments and history are so large, more significant than anything else I have seen in Europe, From the Roman period, to the Holy Roman Empire, the Renaissance, and the counter reformation. It is certainly not a polite society, you have to fight for your place in a line, but at the same ti,e the people can be very friendly, it is a place of great diversity, where two ideals can be held in the one mind that seem to have nothing to do with each other. It sure is a fascinqting place, and to sit in one spot and just people watch is so much fun, the gesticulations, feverish hand waving, and the clothing that they wear are so much fun to observe. Nothing is simple in Italy, nothing can be taken at face value, jsut when you start to think you are understaning the place then something comes along to challenge everything. I was asking a lot of what I thought were deep and challenging questons about this society, but my travelling partner seemed to disagree entirely, and thoguth all I was doing was making generalisations and pointing out the obvious. Yet not of my questons were answered, not sure if anyone really understands Italy, maybe that is why it is so much fun to travel around. For exmple a simple question is all of the other G8 countires have tight monetqry policy, good governance, relaible tax systems, minimal red tape, Italy has none of these things, but still manages to be the 8th largest economy in the world, it must completely confound an economist. Another question, In france during the 16th and 17th C the citizens would never have allowed such wealth to be spent on chruches, they had already begun to protest long before this about Papal power reaching into thier lives, when the rest of Europe was struggling with the questions being raised about the reformation, why did the Italian people allow such funds to be dedicated to one of the biggest building programs known to man, but at the same time the Italians are renowned for being so disobedient. A greater mind than mine needs to answer these auestions, maybe Mick Stevens can lend his enormous intelectual capacities to come up with some answers.I did not even tip the maid in Perpignan, so maybe now that I have my degree I am turnign to the right, and I am not even paiyng taxes at the moment, imagine how much worse I shall be when I am. I have gone from a left wing loonie to a right wing fascist, all in the space of a few months. THis afternoon I am off to Geneva.