I went to a mass in Ajaccio this morning in the same catherdral where Annily was baptised. I asked a church official if it was okay to take pictures, pointing at my camera. He wagged his finger no. This is the same day as the ceremony celebrating the liberation of France and there were several military officials in the church. I often find in my travels that in churches, you usually find a priest who speaks English well......not here. The priest I tried to talk to called what may have been a nun over who did speak some English, but it was time wasted.
After the mass, I went to Charles de Gaulle square where they had ceremony I was talking about. It was a nice ceremony.
In the past 3 days, on each day a large cruise ship showed up and the streets quickly crowded, but they left the same day. I was surprised that things today seemed to completely dry up.
Only a very few restaurants opened and of course the souvenier shops. I had hoped to have lunch at Chez Paulo's, but they too were closed. It's a good thing I went yesterday. I got a letter on FB from Chez Paulo about my visit and I thanked her for her hospitality.
So it was kind of a depressing day because I had hoped to just walk up and down the streets of Ajaccio among the throngs, but there were none.
I did have lunch on Rue Fesch, watching the locals walk by, but unfortunately not the right locals.
Tomorrow I will catch a 7 pm ferry to the mainland and then take a train to Brussels. I hope to rent a car in the morning, then drive up to the chateau that was built from stones from a former Paris palace. I also hope to drive out towards the Blood Islands. I was thinking about having lunch at Chez Paulo's again, but she more or less said good by on FB, so I'm not sure if I should now. I'll probably see if I can get a car in the morning and if I get back in time, I probably will stop there.
One other note, I had stopped in a souvenier shop and bought a couple of things. At the register, on the shelf there, they had a bunch of cds of Corsican music. I asked the girl behind the counter if this was all Corsican music. She understood that and said yes. I said well do you have any music by the Corsican singer Alizee? Well she brought down some cds sand started showing me the songs on them. It was obvious, she didn't know who I was talking about. So she called a pretty young woman from the back room and I told her about which Corsican singer I was looking for and she explained in French to the first woman and then she yellls out "Alizay!!!!". We all had a good laugh, but of course, they had none of Alizee's music.
It never ceases to amaze me that all over France, no matter how many pronounciations of a certain word you try even if it's not about Alizee, they can't figure it out in a million years, even if you pronounce it dead on, unless they know the context of what you are talking about to begin with..
|