Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Hello, everyone, from Annecy!

Our group spent several great days in Chamonix, visiting the mountains. Our host families there really love the mountains, so much so that the people we stayed with live on top of them, instead of in the valley. From my bedroom window, I could see the Mont Blanc, the tallest point in the Alps at more than 4,800 meters high! The drive down was about 10 minutes of twists and turns, and gorgeous views of the city of Chamonix. It’s quite the touristy town, with many people coming in to ski. On Monday, we rode a gondola to get to the top of l’Aiguilles du Midi, one of the mountains. It goes nearly straight up! Unfortunately there was a cloud sitting right at the top of the mountain, so we couldn’t see much, but apparently the view of the city is outstanding. They warned us to dress very warm, and I’m very glad I took their advice! It was about -10 degrees Celsius at the top, windy and snowing!


It was REALLY cold at 12,602 feet in the sky!

After lunch, we visited the Mont Blanc tunnel, which bridges the distance between France and Italy. It’s nearly 12 kilometers long, and takes about 12 minutes to go through if drivers obey the speed limits of between 50-70 km per hour (less than 50 miles per hour). The other options of getting over the mountain are to take a helicopter or drive the two hours to get around it. In March 1999, there was a huge fire inside the tunnel that killed 40 people and kept the tunnel closed for three years. There have been vast improvements in the safety of passage. The tunnel now has safe rooms in which a person in trouble can seek shelter, and the tunnel is always monitored so a person in the control room will know what’s going on inside the tunnel at all times. Any time a car stops inside the tunnel, an alarm automatically goes off inside the control room to alert the works to a problem. One of the most interesting things is that they have three fire trucks especially for the tunnel, unlike any others in the world. The truck has a cabin on both ends for driving (so it can drive backwards and forwards) so it doesn’t have to turn around in the tunnel, which would waste precious time in an emergency. The French control half the tunnel and Italians control the other half, and though sometimes working together has been a challenge (especially because more than half of the tunnel is in the country of France and Italians work in that part of the tunnel), they have learned to work together in emergencies.


This is the double-sided fire truck that is used to maneuver in the Mont Blanc tunnel during emergencies.

On Tuesday, we visited the Mer de Glace, the largest glacier in France. The Mer de Glace (or “sea of ice”) is a 7-kilometer long glacier that twists like a snake through the mountains. Sadly, because of global warming, it is melting away. We could see the amount it has melted over the years by the marks left on the side of the mountain, and there’s also a restaurant at the top that displays old photographs of what the glacier used to look like. There were photos of men and women dressed up in fancy clothes climbing up on the glacier, the women wearing long dresses!


The Mer de Glace.

Kent checks out the view across the Mer de Glace.

Afterwards, we visited the Musée des Cristaux, a mineral museum displaying a collection of crystals that have been found in the mountains, in France and elsewhere around the world. There was also a temporary exhibit called des Glaciers et des Hommes, which was about the history of glaciers and mankind.

On Wednesday morning, the group trekked down the mountain one last time to visit the Gendarmerie before leaving Chamonix and coming to Annecy. The Gendarmerie is a military body in France, and we learned about the territory this particular office covers. Because of the mountains and snow, there is a huge need for safety precautions, and the Gendarmerie conducts rescues of people in trouble on the mountains. Anytime there is an avalanche, several rescuers go up in helicopters to the area to scan for people who might be stuck under the snow. Rescue calls can range anywhere from fatigue and sprained ankles to people who have fallen into a hole in the snow or are buried under an avalanche. The men conducting the rescues (no woman has yet passed the exam to serve in this way) rotate areas, because it is such a privilege for them to be on the team risking their lives to save people in trouble.

John, our San Antonio police officer, poses with two officers from the Gendarmerie.

After the Gendarmerie got a call about an avalanche, the helicopter took off to scan the area for people buried in the snow.

One of the officers prepares to leave to help with a possible rescue.

On Wednesday evening, the group made the move to Annecy, also in the region of Haute-Savoie. This morning, the group is going to visit the hospital here, and after lunch we’ll do more professional visits. I’ve been lucky enough to be meeting journalists all along the trip. On Sunday, my host father happened to run into a newspaper correspondent he knew while we were eating lunch, so he brought her over to introduce her to me. I explained to her (in French!) that I do speak French, just slowly, and she responded that she speaks a little English, just slowly. So I was able to ask her questions about what she does and tell her about journalists in the U.S. There’s really something very cool about exchanging ideas in another language. Today I’m visiting the public relations department of l’Université de Savoie, the university here in Annecy. This evening, we will have dinner with the Annecy Rotary Club.

Coming up on Saturday is the Rotary District Conference in Chambéry!

1 comment:

  1. I'd be freaked out to be on that gondola! Did you officially make it to Italy while you were in the tunnel?

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