Friday, July 8, 2011

Day trip

The grad students are going on a day trip today to Guise and Noyon.  I know absolutely nothing about either of these places except: they are north, in Picardy; there was a medieval Marie of Guise who married an English king and became queen. 

The point of the trip is to go to this place: http://www.familistere.com/site/english/utopia/prog_utopia.php, a "harmonious" factory/commune community from the mid 19th century.  As much as I love history and historical sites even I am not the least bit excited about it.  The better part of the day will be the second half, coming through Noyon, a medival town, on the way back.  And they're getting us lunch that promises to be good, with regional specialties. 

Even those good points, though, are dimmed by the fact that I have to leave my apartment a little after 7am to make it to the meeting point in time.  Ugh.  This is the first time I've seen 6:15am from the morning side in a while.  And of course we're taking a bus, which means I have little chance of sleeping or getting work done during the 2-hour-each-way journey. 

Update with pictures when I return (probably late tonight). 

2 comments:

tpb said...

have fun on the day trip. you have more (shy) followers of the blog at au than you think. Lynn is even getting her friend Richard back into it once he returns from his travels. I like medival stuff. here it has been very hot and very humid and orientation started wednesday. remember they do that silly scavenger hunt around the offices, so your buddies have been busy. a student came into my office, looking for sfs, and I had to answer a question about how academic choices effect finaid. I knew the answer! have fun and remember that I had to get you up that early sometimes too!

Anonymous said...

I'm interested in the food you will have during this outing and I think your interest in history will outweigh the fact that you had to rise early!

Can't wait to see the pictures. Enjoy!

Sheryl