More pictures of Besançon, or, I discover a garden next door

In case you were wondering what my living quarters look like, voilà! Unfortunately the photos are no longer affixed to the wall because of some deficiencies on the part of the tape (shouldn't have gone with the generic brand...) Hopefully I'll find something better tomorrow because it's nice to have so many friendly faces up in my room. As you can see, the room gets plenty of sunlight:

And the closet is huge! I have all kinds or room (the fronts of both closet doors are composed entirely of mirrors, which explains why this pic might be a little disorienting):

So this afternoon I discovered the park that is right across the street from where I live. Steph and Charly mentioned it when I visited the apartment on Sunday, but I hadn't actually seen it except from the road. It's actually quite idyllic:

This is the view looking down toward the c.v. You can really see here how the town itself is located in a valley. The Doubs is on the near side, at the base of this hill:

And you can see how close the train station is! It's the low white rectangular building in the distance to the right, below the orange roofs. The monument in the left rear is to the soldiers from the canton (county) of Doubs who fought and died in WWII.

The city is covered with these gorgeous sycamore trees. They line the Doubs on the near bank and offer shade for the sidewalks and benches. There are also multiple parks in the c.v. full of enormous sycamore trees like this one:

I thought this monument was sort of interesting. I have found it to be very typical for each town/city to have a monument for the local residents who fought and died in WWII. The inscription on this one read something like "in memory of all the civilians and soldiers buried in France's territories overseas during a war consecrated for the greatness of France."

 

On the left (not pictured, not sure why I photographed it this way) is a giant stone plaque with "North Africa" and names listed (all of the dates are from around the time of the Algerian Revolution). On the right (also not pictured) is "Indochina." Below the names under "Indochina" is another set (I wish I could remember which term was used), dated 2005 (presumably Afghanistan). I thought the wording on the inscription was very interesting considering the contentious nature of all of these post-WWII conflicts. Although it is important to note that the original language is "à la grandeur de la France," which could technically refer to either greatness as in goodness or righteousness or greatness as in physical size. But I sort of assumed it mean the former.

So, I sat in this park and read Au Bonheur des Femmes by Emile Zola. I'm now 90 pages in and really enjoying it. We read Un Page d'Amour in my French class semester (also Zola) and I enjoyed his writing style. And yes, in case you were wondering, there were indeed lots of couples making out in the park. The different social norms continue to boggle me: showing skin on both arms and legs at once is gauche, but wearing super-tight leather shorts with stockings underneath is totally normal. Hugging is weird, but making out (quite demonstratively) in public is totally normal. I was prepared for this, but it still makes me laugh. 

One more quick thing: I made my first meal this evening. I went to the grocery store after my morning run and purchased the ingredients for one of my favorite comfort foods: ratatouille! I know, I know, how can it be a comfort food if there's no melted cheese involved? But I love ratatouille, and it seemed like a perfect first meal in France. And it worked!! The oven here is a mini one (about the size of a toaster, actually), so I had to roast the eggplant and zucchini in two batches, but it still tasted just as good. 

I hope you all dine on something equally yummy this evening. 

Bonne soirée et bon appétit!