Our Apartment

Our apartment is located between a narrow street and and a courtyard. Driving down the driveway into the parking garage takes nerve and precision. The entry, constrained by the cars parked on the street, requires a sharp turn and then an abrupt descent down an impossibly steep slope. The turn at the bottom is too sharp to turn reliably in the direction of our parking place, so we turn the other way, then back up past the driveway. Getting out requires doing everything in reverse, except that you have to gun the car (manual transmission, of course) up the slope while turning. This is now less terrifying than the first few times, but it sure gets your heart rate up in the morning.

To get into the apartment requires a succession of keys, all different: one for the door from the street into the courtyard, one from the courtyard into the stairwell, one for the outer door of the apartment, and one for the inner door of the apartment. Then there's a different key for the door from the parking garage into the stairwell.

The courtyard, apparently, serves the police station on the ground floor. The fortunate get to park in the courtyard during the day, thus avoiding the descent into the garage. The upper floors seem to be mostly offices. We've met one of the police officers and one of our neighbors, but people pretty much keep to themselves. It's funny, because people in Metz are hugely friendly. When you go into a store, every single shop-person says hello, and everyone says goodbye when you leave.

Contrasts

Faces of Metz

From the Museums of Metz, this portrait is believed to be that of Marie Serre, mother of the artist, Hyacinth Rigaud (1659-1743). This painting contrasts with Rigaud's famous portraits of Louis XIV.

Georgia Tech - Lorraine

Georgia Tech - Lorraine's building forms part of the the Metz "Technopole," a kind of technology-oriented district that houses both educational and research institutions. The area resembles an American research park. The facilities--schools, dormitories, research units, tech companies-- encircle a large pond.

With Metz's winter temperatures, the pond is almost completely frozen over. There's a sign forbidding swimming and boating, but there's not much chance of either for the time being. Runners and bicyclists take advantage of a bike path around the pond; a pedestrian path below the bike path looked too icy to chance. The pond's two unfrozen surfaces are a very small area near where a creek flows in and a slightly larger area where the pond's waterfowl, mostly ducks and a few swans, are able to swim.

Here's the view from my office, looking east across the pond.

Faces of Metz

One of a set of fantastic beasts, from a medieval painted ceiling, conserved in the Museums of Metz.

Celts in Metz

Before the Romans and Gallo-Romans, Metz was founded by a regional Celtic tribe, the Mediomatriques, whose name still lives, in shortened form, as the name the city. The Mediometriques had a pretty sophisticated civilization, with different kinds of coins, export of salt, and the ability to raise an army of 5,000 men. They controlled the valley of the Moselle until the arrival of the Romans in 51 BCE; Julius Caesar mentioned them twice in his writings. The Museums of Metz have a beautiful example of the sophistication of their craft: a bronze collar, decorated with ivory, that served as a funerary ornament for a woman who must have been important.

Getting Started at GTL

The cold weather that has blown across France has reached Metz, which spent the day under sunny skies but shivering with a high around 27 degrees Fahrenheit. And, in what seems to be a theme for our stay here, when Susie and I arrived at Georgia Tech--Lorraine this morning for our first visit we found everyone in their coats because the there was a problem with the heating system. As the day progressed, sounds of repairs echoed throughout the building. The good news is that classes don't begin until next week, so things were less chaotic than they might otherwise have been.

The staff at GTL are terrific--helpful, warm, and funny. They clearly care a lot about the students. They resolved issues of network access, helped me understand the schedule of courses, and generally made Susie and me feel welcome. I spent the afternoon and evening fighting my way through what turned out to be path-variable issues for installing software for a course. But now that's resolved, we've had dinner, and even leftovers are pretty good when washed down with Cahors and followed by rustic apricot tarts.