Hoorah, today was my first site visit as part of my 'Site & Details' class. Perhaps I should clarify that last sentence. It was actually the second site visit, I missed the first through a combiniation of sleeping in, the train strikes on the same day and the eventual dwindling of all enthusiam that I would ever make it there before dusk. Ok, so back to today's visit.
Both James and I were running late as per usual this morning. We agreed to meet at the metro station near the site, though neither of us knew where the site actually was (aka we had no address) All I had written in my notebook was the metro station followed by INSEP. What the hell that meant was beyond me. (of course if I'd googled it, I would have found www.insep.fr straight away) I arrived at the metro station half an hour late, but James was still 20 minutes behind me so I decide to go in search of this mysteriuos INSEP. By shear luck I took the exit from the metro station that brought me onto the street right outside the local tourist office. They even had a map on the external wall. And on that map the INSEP, marked as a large plot to the south. Woohoo! (the INSEP is the National Centre of Sport and Physical Education by the way, a campus like development in the middle of woodlands)
Now the area this building is in is called 'Bois de Vincennes'/'Vincent's Woods'. This was no fancy urban area either, it really was a woods. I learnt off the map on the wall and headed down a road through the local fauna. The thing about a forest is the lack of landmarks and street signs to guide you. Plus I had no map on me. I got lost, turned back, changed my mind and turned back again and then found a second map standing on the corner of the forest path I was on. I knew where I was for now. All I had to do to get to my destination was go down the abandonned side road and take a left at the end. Not too bad, just down the lane though the thick forest on my own, toward the large vehicle blockades at the end. Ok, it felt really dodgy(think Furry Glen, Phoenix park). Things weren't improved when a hooded guy stepped out from the bushes halfway down the same lane. There are a load of shortcuts through the forest and people seem to use them regularly. Crazy!! Still, easy place to mug someone if I'm short on cash later in the year!! :D
Anyway I found the centre eventually in the end. You had to enter through a visitor centre with turnstyles, so I turned and left. James rang, he was at the centre but at the other side, so I headed over to meet him. I told him the situation and we decided to head home. First though, he talked me into circling the grounds to see if we could see anything. We were an hour and a half late at this stage. Some work was being done on some of the buildings on the other side of the grounds' fence and we both began to realise we would never find the building we were looking for. Its hard to find a building when you don't know which one you're looking for!!
Again shear chance came into play and we went for a closer look at a new build at the end of the site. They had created an entrance here for site works so we stuck our heads in and a guard came over to us. In our dodgiest french ever we tried to communicate the following facts:
1. Is this the building the architecture students are visiting today?
2. Our professor is Mr Poirier
3. We're running really late
4. Excuse our bad French, we're Irish (that comment always gets a laugh. They think we're a bit mad!)
The guy starts blabbing away, I pick up 'follow me' and he leads us into the huge building. Up some stairs, then he stops to question a man; back down a hallway, up another stairs and suddenly we're in a site office. Some more blabbing to the woman at the desk and the 'they're irish' pops up again. A small giggle. She gets on the phone, and another man appears at the door. We follow him wondering what the hell is going on, around a corner and then they're they are - our class. Hooray!! The guide starts giving it loads that we were late etc etc but our escort explained our scenario 'They're Irish'!
So that was it, we had made it eventually and still got another hour of the tour around the building. It was great, I even attached some photos from the visit below for you viewing pleasure! Enjoy.
A bientot
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