Catching up, part 2

Okay, the chronology is messed up; after the day at Café Jade, you'll remember, there were two days at the Louvre, then another day traipsing about, and then on the 8th of July, we took the train to Montpellier

dimanche 8 juillet: Montpellier
Take the 4 from Odéon to Chatelet, switch to the 14 to Gare de Lyon, look for voie 'A,' voiture 16...

On the train, the LAW reads something scholarly and I doze with my iPod on. I'm listening to a Librivox recording of The Prince. I have the LAW listen to part of it and we laugh about how Machiavelli's take on the French government (prince and barons) could be applied easily to departmental (and university) politics.

...

The landscape is lovely: acres of sunflowers (les tournesols); an occasional field of lavender; chateaux; old stone farmhouses; white horses; a sustained glimpse, in the distance, of the Massif Central. The train ride is 3.5 hours long; I sleep through two hours of it.

...

In Montpellier, Sharon heads for the apartment she's been staying at for the last month and we get tickets for the tram (blue line--Mosson). We're to meet up later at the central square, the Place de la Comédie, for dinner (the picture above is of the opera house on Comédie).

At our tram stop (Boutonnet), we get out and realize that we've reached the end of any useful information that the conference organizers might have provided. We know, that is, that the dorm is a 5-minute walk from the tram stop, but not in what direction.

This situation calls for the French "système D," that is, a cobbled-together "system" of luck, self-reliance, guesswork, and stubbornness that each person in France must develop for him/herself. Apparently, the French are so used to the official channels of information not working--if by "working," one means for the individual rather than for the staggering French bureaucracy--that système D has become a situation-specific version of c'est la vie, or (for the Doris Day fans out there) que serrà, serrà.

In this case, we must develop a système de trouver la dortoire, which we do by (1) wandering for 10 minutes, baggage in tow, and then (2) flagging down a student, who helps us with the luggage and points out the accueil, or welcome station, where we get a key and an envelope of meal tickets.