What is the best way to kill some time while waiting for a train? There are many schools of thought on that issue, in fact. One school of thought is that if you have any time to kill, you're already too early for your train. The extreme of this line of logic is known as the "Sandra Janosik school", a group notorious for slicing the last millisecond before the train departs into smaller and smaller divisions. Coincidentally, this school is also known for causing severe heart problems to fellow travellers, as well as occaisionally missing their train.

So, you might be wondering where this whole rant is leading, right? Well, the answer is Mont St. Michel, to start. And, as you might well imagine, when Robby and I stepped onto the train to Paris at midnight, we were a couple of travelling companions short.

Mont St. Michel is a ways away from Strasbourg: about 9 hours away. Le Mont is an island right on the border of Normandy and Brittany, meaning that it is a train, TGV, and bus ride to get there. Fortunately, le Mont has the alluring characteristics of being a medieval town with an abbey, situated on an island surounded by tidal plains, i.e. it's only an island when the tide is out, the rest of the time it's attached to the shore by a causeway and quicksand-filled land.

Robby and I spent the day there; walking along the paths, seeing the chapels and gardens, taking pictures with the local wildlife, and failing miserably, by definition, at trying to dissociate ourselves from the other tourists. Unfortunately, since the beginning of the last century, le Mont has become a huge tourist attraction. No longer can it retain the mythological allure of being the abode of a giant killed by King Arthur in le Mort d'Arthur - now it is more of a disneyland for French and English schoolchildren. However, if you are as lucky as we were to be able to go in the off-season, you can still get a taste of its imposing, secluded majesty.

Following le Mont, Robby and I returned to Vernon, a suburb of Paris to meet up with the rest of the class that had spent the previous 10 hours on a bus from Strasbourg.

Thursday 21 June 2001
We were all on a proffessional trip to see SNECMA Moteurs and EADS Launch Vehicles (formerly Aerospatiale), to learn a little bit about how the Europeans build their Ariane launchers. The cherries on top were that: 1) le Bourget air show was on in Paris, 2) la fete de la musique invaded the entire city, and 3) Struan and Ben were in town starting off their Europe trip.

La fete de la musique is a street party, held one night a year, with close to 20 million guests. Bands are set up on every corner, with mainstage performances obstructing traffic at key intersections. It's wild, crazy, and should not be attempted without an afternoon nap or in groups of more than 3.

The air show was incredible. The day we went was the last day of the largest trade fair I've ever seen, as well as an exclusive look at many incredible aircraft. The highlight was not the meeting with astronauts (Reinhold Ewald, Pedro Duque, Jean Francois Clervoy and Claude Nicollier), it was instead the amazing acrobatic pilots, capable of turning their planes into stationary helicopters, then dropping into a flat spin only to pull out and make the plane do a forwards summersault. I don't know who gave them their license to defy the laws of physics and physiology, but I want to thank that person.

Following the air show, Stru, Bengsci and I met up for a surreal night on the town. I can't think of anything more odd than the 3 of us traipsing around the streets of Paris together, drinking really cheap wine (well, maybe I could think of something weirder, but it would probably involve a couple thousand rollerbladers appearing out of nowhere at 1 in the morning, or trying to catch the last train on three metro lines while drunk with a bunch of rowdy Pantera fans.)