Partying up Bastille Day:: my weekend spent at a convent in the mountains

July 14 is Bastille Day. In other words, the 4th of July for France. Since the passing of the 4th in America, I’ve gotten myself in many arguments with the French (mainly my coworkers) about who copied who on the July Independence Day.

After my adamant assertion that the Americans made our holiday first, and their persistent argument that – just like everything else – the French set the example, wikipedia settled it.

Let’s just say Dr. Conn made sure this American knows her nation’s history, apparently unlike the French students.

The reasoning was simple, even without dates. The French, who are perpetually pissed at the English, helped us in the revolution and are probably a large part of why we won. It was then after our revolution that the French held their own civil revolution. On the recommendation of George Washington, we didn’t help them in return since he thought it unwise to involve ourselves in world politics so early. All’s fair in politics and war and tit for tat does not apply.

Moral of the Story: when I say something with conviction, don’t disagree. Oh, and the Americans had the 4th of July first. Bastille Day on the 14th of July is just a copy with pathetic French fireworks.

Bastille Day Weekend

So Bastille Day. This means I got Monday off of work. Since Daddy just left (time flew by this week!) I really didn’t have time or energy or money to make the weekend extravagant.

Most students – both French and foreign – party all weekend long. Going along with tradition, I spent the weekend at a convent located an hour south of Strasbourg up in the mountains.

I know, I know, I party too hard.

This is a trip I’ve been wanting to take since June, but the only way to reach the convent by public transportation is by a bus that runs in July and August.

The weekend was relaxing, quiet, and probably one of the most unusual ways to spend a three day weekend in France.

Mont St. Odile

The convent is perched on top of a mountain and over looks the small villages of the Alsace region. The convent is literally perched atop a giant rock formation and the local surrounds are steeped in religious history; even before the Catholics became ‘King of that Hill.’

To nutshell the life of St. Odile, she’s the patron saint of the Alsace region. She was born blind in 662 AD and the daughter of a duke in the region. He sent her away because she was a girl, and the legend tells that she recovered her sight upon her baptism at 12.

The rest of the story in blatant terms: brother brought her home, ticked off dad, dad killed son, Odile revived him, Odile ran away, dad chased her, dad didn’t read the road signs sign and got hit by falling rocks, Odile nursed him, he built her a convent. She healed blind people and started a hospital.

She’s the patron saint of ocular infections, and there’s a spring in the mountain Odile discovered (by a miracle) and its waters helped individuals regain their sight.

The convent was pillaged in the 30 years war, and then abandoned after the revolution until the mid 1800s when it was restored.

http://www.mont-sainte-odile.com/index.php?lang=en

Weekend Getaway

To the shock (and often horror) of any die-hard, Catholic-raised individual I casually let my opinion slip to: I hate retreats.

I don’t just dislike them, I detest them.

Retreats are great: for some people. Go to as many as you like, but don’t make me go on them. A cobweb filled room in the middle of nowhere filled, with a large group of mostly insincere people, epitomizes a weekend nightmare. No cell phone or internet adds insult to injury.

My point in bringing this up and risk further opening myself to ridicule was to admit this weekend was my perfect kind of retreat.

The only insincere/fake thoughts were my own and I got to do exactly what I wanted to do. Stretch my own thoughts and blank my mind.

Saturday morning I got up and took the bus -- which comes only twice a day -- into the mountains. On the way I was the only person on the bus minus the driver. I arrived and quickly found I was in the language minority. There were lots of French families and tons of German vacationers. Aside from the broken English at the reception, I heard English in passing only one other time. This was a good thing.

Furthermore, no nasty food people lie about to pass off as edible. Breakfast and dinner came with my room and everything had a local Alsatian blend to it. The wines I sampled at dinner were all of a local variety and most of the breads, meats, and dishes were local cuisines. Dinner was at least three courses, and breakfast was decent considering the French tend to eat a baguette and yogurt only. I can probably thank the Germans for this spread.

Exploring, hiking, napping, eating, walking, being cold & wet sums up my weekend.

The entire mountain is covered in hiking trails, which I did a decent job exploring considering the weather.

Notable Activities

Europe’s creating a habit of making me contemplative. Without boring all of you by frittering away the details of my meandering mind, I’m really serious about me becoming a chic-modern-city girl- hippy.

At the least a health, world conscious, meditative, empowered-guru. This all comes naturally with my desire to rid myself of the plaguing self-administered anxiety I drive my life with. The notion that I’m coming to a time in my life where my decisions will affect me until I die also motivates me.

No pressure, right?

I also fully believe in empowering yourself and one’s potential. So….

Bottom line: I’m getting really interested in meditating, world religions, the nature of being happy, and a whole mess of other things. Perhaps it will blow over, perhaps not. Also really getting into cooking/traveling, but this is completely unrelated.

I spent a lot of my weekend contemplating these things (and listening to podcasts about them on my laptop) and reading “The Feminine Mystique.”

As for the more exciting adventures during the day, I walked all around the convent, the pretty mosaic chapels, St. Odile’s tomb, the flowers, the lookouts, the grottos, the “rock” the convent is perched on, down the mountain to her spring of healing water, back up the mountain…you get the picture.

Sunday morning clouds at the base of the convent.

On Sunday I got up, went to breakfast, followed by church in an old chapel. The entire mass was both in French and German and the guy next to me fell asleep. I’m not sure if there were more nuns or tourists.

After mass I went and changed then trekked off into the wilderness. Europe makes me do things I don’t do at home.

Pagan Wall

I find it really interesting when religions overlap, and when there are spiritual “connections” or “relationships” to the natural world that no culture can explain.

From what I’ve read, this mountain embodies a little of that. Starting in 1000 BC with the Celts, a huge wall (over 10 miles long) of stones was built and included Druid sacrifice stones, grottos, shrines, etc. I’m going to admit my history and knowledge of the difference between Celts and Druids is really fuzzy/nonexistent, so if someone wants to comment about that and explain go right ahead. Most of the wall, now called Pagan Wall, is still intact and they don’t really know what it was for.

The best guesses hypothesize that it was either to protect a temple to a sun goddess on top of the mountain or it served as a prayer wall, or just protected nothing.

Then the Romans came and built some roads and used it religiously as well. Then St. Odile came (who’s association with sight may be linked to the history with a temple for a sun goddess) and the rest is as I said before.

Back to me.

I went hiking and got to the pagan wall. All the rocks were moss covered and the forests were beautiful. You could look out into the distance and see ruins of destroyed castles. It was a grey day, which in my opinion always makes Earth look a million times more vibrantly green.

My optimism was great. I started hiking toward another ruin, and about 30 minutes down the path it started to rain. No big deal, I was under trees and had a raincoat/umbrella.

When it rains in France, it POURS.

By the time I gave up and turned around, I was soaked. The picture doesn’t do it justice. By the time I got back to the Pagan Wall the rain lighted up, so I took the other path toward the Druid sacrifice stones. That was neat, and brought my hike to a whopping 3 hours. This gave me a profound sense of accomplishment.

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This statue really reminded me of one of those "I'm with Stupid" shirts/slogans. I'm a horrible person.