Frank Walks to Work

Due to various issues including the requirements of Hamline and the immigration authorities of the United Kindom, we are now in Montpellier, France, collaborating with colleagues at Universite de Montpellier 2.  We spent a sabbatical year here in 2002-3, so we're pretty familiar with the place.  It's beautiful, and are hearts are singing.

Historic center of Montpellier

Today, in order to deal with a regime that allows for too little exercise in general and to ameliorate the aftereffects of last night's rather luscious bottle of Les Quartz, Domaine du Caillou Chateauneuf-du-Pape mille neuf cent quatrevingt dixneuf, I walked the two miles or so to UM2.   The walk took me through the "centre historique," out onto the broad boulevards to the north of the city, through the somewhat tatty but vibrant suburban neighborhood of le boutonnet and finally to the "fac," the sprawling campus.

Montpellier has a lot in common with York.  It's great days were in medieval times, and the city center presents itself much as it must have done then.  It's filled with achingly beautiful lanes and passageways, many of them too narrow for cars or designated now for pedestrians only.  Walking down them is very pleasant because the only sounds are from human voices and human footfalls, and there is much to see on the walls and in the faces of the passersby.

What's different from York is that Montpellier is built much taller, being in fact built on a huge rock.  I suppose the stone for the building, all a luminous yellow limestone, was quarried nearby,  and it was possible to stack it four stories up without adverse foundational consequence.  Also, in the Mediterranean climate Montpellier enjoys, a passageway resembling a cave is well enough lit in the winter and pleasantly cool in the summer.

Barricaded gate to protest proposed retirement plans.

Anyway, as in York, threading my way through these streets makes me happy.  I can hardly contain myself.  I can't imagine it doesn't contribute to the good naturedness of everyone I pass along the way.  I arrive ready for a productive day in front of my laptop simulating stressed populations.  But what's this?  The back gate, our habitual entrance, is blockaded with cartons and wooden shipping flats.  In fact, in this week of protest against the government's proposal to raise the minimum retirement age, there have been many blockades and people filling the streets enthusiastically beating trashcans with sticks.  I walk back around and find a delivery gate open and enter there.  All's normal inside, if a little quiet.  Au bulot! as they say: to work!