SAMPLING IN EUROPE: TRIP TO FRANCE

We left early in the morning at 4:30 AM to catch flight at 6:30 AM to Oslo. We have to fly from Oslo to Charleori (Brussels) at 10:30 AM. We had 3 hours transit at Rygge airport, Oslo. We reached Oslo on time. That was the first time I am using Ryanair, one of the cheapest airlines in Europe. They are very strict for weight of luggage. We saw many people paying a lot extra charges for extra luggage. If you have to pay, extra for one kg luggage, the charge seems more than the travel fare. Also, we noticed many people putting on many clothes and other things in their pockets to avoid extra charges.

According to the schedule, we planned to meet with two Germany internship students (Serina and Jennifer) at Charleori (Brussels) and drive to Amiens, France. They were driving a hired van from Europcar. They were planned to leave Germany at 8:00 AM. After we landed at Charleori, I called to Jennifer and she said they are on the way to airport and it might take one more hours to reach airport. After one hour, I called her and they finally arrived at the airport. We have not met before so, it took some time to find them. Finally we found them. We loaded all luggages in the Van. They seem very excited for the trip and field work.

We left Charleori at around 14:15. The distance between Charleori and Amines, France is 200 plus kilometre. We supposed it might take 3-4 hours to reach Amines. On the way we talked about the research plan, samplings, target plants and places we will be visiting. I had already booked hotel at Amines (Hotel Premiere Classe, Amines). This was for one day. For other days, I booked hotel in Compiégne region because because Olivier suggested me to book hotel in Compiégne region as our sampling sites are near by Compiégne region. I booked same hotel, Hotel Premiere Classe in Compiégne.

When we reached the hotel, the server of the hotel was not working. We were so, tired and have to wait outside for nearly one hour because the boy at the reception do not know about our reservation. We had to wait until the server works. Finally he called me for room keys.

According to our plan, we are supposed to meet at the centre of Amines with Olivier for dinner and he promised us to take for sightseeing.

I knew Olivier before during the FLEUR meeting in Trodheim in February 2011. The sampling I am doing is in collaboration with FLEUR people. FLEUR is a network where people form different regions form Europe (Amines, France; Ghent, Belgium; Bremen, Germany; Lund, Sweden; Stockholm, Sweden; and Trondheim, Norway)  is affiliated and are cooperating with field work for each other.

As per our plan, we met Olivier in front of the Cathédrale d'Amiens at 20:00. We went in one restaurant and ordered food for us. We had nice food (Tourist Menu) at the restaurant. At evening, we went to see the Cathédrale d’ Amiens which is called The Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens. The Cathedral looks so beautiful (appears colourful) during night when they use light projection on it. After that we had walk around Rue de la Dodane. The city looks very colourful during night with gatherings and music.

Next day we decided to visit Compiégne for searching Impatiens noli-tangere. We left hotel at 7:00 AM. The day we first went to the see six populations of Impatiens noli-tangere around Lacroix-Saint-Ouen. Olivier had already found those populations and we were there for collecting samples. The first population was near by Sainte-Penne. So, we went to the nearby office of the forest department. We had lunch and started hunting Impatiens. One staff of the forest office was very helpful who spoke very little English.

The whole day we spent on looking populations and decided to start sampling the next day. After visiting those populations, Olivier returned back to Amiens and we went to the hotel at Compiégne.

The next day (30.07.2011) we sampled all the populations of Impatiens noli-tangere. On 31.07.2011, we decided to visit Paris as this is the first time in France and we don’t want to miss the opportunity to see Eiffel tower and Paris.

As we are finished with sampling, we decided to leave for Brussels after visiting Paris on 01.08.2011. However, the rooms were booked from 02.08.2011 onwards. I made a call to the hostel in Brussels and they said they can change the booking i.e. we will get rooms from 01.08.2011 onwards. At the same time, I have to talk to the hotel at Compiégne because I already paid for 01.08.2011. When I wanted to talk to the lady at the reception, she did not speak English. That was very strange for me that the person working at the reception of a hotel don’t speak English. Later Serina talked to the lady with her little French and she said it should be ok to cancel for one day but we have talk to the hotel owner who use to show up during morning.

We decided to drive our Van for some distance and take train to central Paris because it might be difficult to find parking space for Van and have to pay charge for parking. After parking our Van, we took train to Eiffel tower and walked along the river, Seine River. Around Eiffel tower, we noticed many hookers selling curio items along the street. We noticed some of them are Indias as they speak Hindi when we are near by supposing that we are from India. Most of them seem to be immigrants. This reminded me back to Kathmandu where we find many mobile shops and people use to run when police want not to put them along the streets. We call them Jhole poke (people with big packs on their back pack). We walked along the Seine river to see many historical things. Later we went to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. Serina had already been to Paris for some months so she could speak little French and knew couple of places to visit. So, we followed here. From Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, whole Paris city can be seen. After that, we went to Louvre Museum. It is one of the biggest museum but we did not went in because we were already late and we could not visit all Museum.

We were so, tired so we decided to return back to the hotel. We reached hotel at 19:00. Packed our things and made ready for leaving the next day.

Next day, I talked with the hotel owner and he was ready to return back my money which I already paid.

We left for Brussels at 9:15 AM.