Like resident evil, only diffrent.
There are two bagpipers playing in the street in front of my apartment right now. They’re in full bagpiper wear, too. Kilts and wool jackets. Tall socks with garters. The whole shebang.
It is 10:30 in the morning.
I think this beats the midnight marching band. And the daily opera singer.
Loire Bike Trip: May 8th (Ok, so I’m well over a month late posting this and I’ve been on two trips since then. But I’ve been scanning photos so I thought I’d blog more about France.)
May 8th is Armistice Day in France. It is also the last day of the Fete de Jeanne D’Arc. Orleans celebrates by have two or three great big marches in the morning, the last of which actually goes until the late afternoon.
The first march of the morning involves people representing all the different regions of France dressed up in their traditional clothes. It was one of my favorite things from last year. You have no idea how goofy an outfit can get until you see someone walking around with a highly starched piece of white lace sticking up from their head like a grandmotherly rocket about to take off. Also, you’d be surprised as to how many of these regions claim great big wooden clogs as their traditional footwear. The Dutch are known for these things, but that’s just because they’ve been out of style in France for a while.
That parade goes to the cathedral and then back down to the Place de Jeanne d’Arc where they all get together for a dance off.
For reals, yo.
A.Dance.Off.
All the groups gather around the big Jeanne D’Arc statue and take turns doing various folk dances. I have two favorites. One is the group from Antilles, who: 1) tend to be the only black people in the parade 2) are wearing reasonable outfits involving Hawaiian shirts and light pants and 3) have their own drummers. The other favorite is a group that includes people wearing sheep hides on stilts. I have no idea where they’re from but wherever it is it is awesome. Dancing on stilts! Wearing what appear to be slightly tailored flokati rugs as ponchos! Awesome! 
We watched the dancers for a while and then decided to go find a good spot to sit and wait for the next parade to go by. The second parade that day involved a whole lot of military equipment and marching bands. The Army rolls by in tanks, the police file through. Firefighters roll by in their shiny engines, receiving the only applause in the whole parade. No one likes Gendarmes, I guess.
The first two parades of the morning head down the main drag in Orleans and end at the cathedral. The third and final parade of the day leaves from the cathedral and heads in the opposite direction as the first two parades. I think the parade route is much longer, crossing the river and going to the edge of town before coming back. It’s also the most local of the three parades, starting with a religious procession that includes the girl standing in for Jeanne d’Arc, and bunch of religious officials and slowly devolving into scout troops, the local gymnasts, the high school marching band, and any other notable town clubs. It’s cute watching them all go by and sort of funny watching them all come back, looking exhausted and a bit cranky a few hours later when the parade finally ends. 
After seeing everybody march out, we got some coffee at a nearby cafe and got lunch at the medieval market. I can’t remember what all else we did that day. I think it must have just been hanging out and eating. The lines for food were a bit out of control so I know that took a good long while. I do have to say that the crepes made with ostrich eggs were rather tasty. I do remember that Xena was crazy nervous the whole day. I think she was worried about more canon fire. Poor think is going to have a complex about Ren Fairs for a while, I think.
At some post we walked over to the town hall to watch the end of the parade. By this point it had started raining. A small crowd of people gathered under the dry spot in front of the tourist office and waited for the procession to come by. At the end of the parade, they pass by the church and then go to the town hall where a bunch more ceremony happens. It must be a grueling day for the people involved in all this, what with the walking for ever and the speechifying and the praying and whatnot. The girl playing Jeanne d’Arc looked exhausted as she smiled and waved on her last lap around.
The thing about traditional festivals like the Fete de Jeanne d’Arc is that not a whole lot changes form year to year. Some years there are more people than others or maybe something is tweaked a little here or there. But the core of what actually happens stays the same and the details tend to change gradually over time instead of being really different every year. I mention this because this was the second year in a row that we’ve attended this particular festival and well, it was pretty much the same as last year. As such, I didn’t take that many photos of the parades. I’ve got a couple of rolls worth form 2006 that I’m going to scan eventually (maybe in time for the 2009 festival?) but for now you’ll just have to make due with what I’ve got posted up at flickr.
A few days ago I was in the middle of taking photos of a rather elaborate pulpit in a Belgian cathedral when I heard a strange rattling sound coming from my lens. I looked down and there, in between the lens itself and the protective clear filer I had attached to it was a very, very tiny screw.
Where the heck did that come from?
It turns out that the piece of the lens that you attach filters and whatnot to had come loose and several screws were starting to make a break for it. After about 15 minutes of futzing with the lens I determined that it wasn’t an issue with the glass or focusing but rather the protective outer case that keeps things like dust and water from destroying the lens elements. The fix looked simple but required being able to pry a piece off the front of the lens in order to get at the loose screws. I didn’t have any tools for this job and decided to just take it to a camera store when I next had a chance.
I’ve taken it to two camera shops in two countries, both of which have told me that since the lens is so old, the people that they’d send repair jobs to would be unwilling to work on it. I find this to be rather upsetting and highly confusing since it’s a manual goddamned lens. It’s neither complicated nor difficult to work on if you can fix those fancy schmancy auto-focusing things with all their weird sensors and shit. Just pry the damn thing apart, replace some screws and be done with it!
But no. No, since I’m using a manual focus, bell and whistle free Pentax lens built in the 1980s, I’m pretty much just stuck with trying to repair it myself or looking for a replacement on Ebay. The last shop just emailed me to let me know that I’m probably not going to find a replacement in a shop anywhere since lenses as old as mine are probably all falling apart in the same way.
Meh.
It upsets me that I have a perfectly good lens that just needs a simple repair and I can’t just have it done easily. I guess that’s what I get for trying to use the photographic equivalent of a Model-T.
UPDATE:
I took the camera to a crazy weird photo shop and the very nice-yet-cranky owner took a look at my problem, declared it not a problem to fix, and promised to have it back in about two weeks. Awesome.
Today is the fist day I’ve actually carried a real load on the back of my delivery bike. I mean, I carry groceries and whatnot on the back and front of the bike all the time but never anything that large or heavy.
Today, however, I had to cart our Doggie Ride home from the train station. It got into a bit of an accident that destroyed on of the wheels yesterday (I’ll get around to talking about that in another post.) and I left it tied to a gate outside Central Station last night at about 2am when we got home from Belgium.
The doggie ride weighs about 30 pounds and is ruffly the size and shape of a collapsed kitchenette table. I’m never paying for furniture delivery again! :)
So I’m in Belgium. The Netherlands and Belgium have these national bike highways that take you from major city to major city via pretty countryside and cute towns. They’re very cute and the roads are pretty well maintained, but the signage is terrible. Anyway, we biked to Gouda and then Breda and and from there to Antwerp. We’re on our way to Brussels now. We should be there in two days.
It turns out that crossing the border between The Netherlands and Belgium is much like crossing the borders between Oakland, Emeryville, and Berkeley. You only get the feeling that you’re somewhere different because the street signs and changed and by the time you notice you’re back on the other side of the border. Good times.