La visite d'un suédois

When we both worked with the planning and implementation of the French Film Festival in Stockholm 2008, we met Jens Riis.
As a cinephile and studying journalism (among other things), he participated as volunteer and as being responsible for the volunteers, I had the chance to talk to him several times.
He is almost fluent in French after having studied the language at the university for a couple of years, and also frequently having visited France.
After the French Film Festival 2008, I wanted to gather the volunteers in order to get together under more relaxed circumstances.
Unfortunately this meeting never came about as the volunteers went back to studies and work, sometimes in another country than Sweden.
I stayed in contact with some of them and notably Jens.
I knew that he was going to live and study in Lyon for a couple of months and therefore I thought it a good idea to finally meet, either in La Châtre or in Paris.
Unfortunately he didn't have the opportunity to stay more than 19 hours, arriving Thursday evening and going back to Paris and later on Denmark Friday afternoon.
When arriving at Châteauroux, we (me, Aurore and my mother-in-law) met him at the station in the rather spacious car of my mother-in-law. This said as he had warned us that he had a lot of luggage. He arrived with to big and heavy cases filled with, not least, books.
Later that evening Aurore and I invited him to the restaurang L'Escargot in La Châtre where we earlier this year celebrated my birthday. A nice evening ending at about one PM.
Next day Aurore went to work (07.15) as usual and Jens later ate breakfast with croissants, with the local newspaper - L'Echo du Berry - by his side, as you can see.

After breakfast I toke him on a guided tour around the city, displaying all the different shops, bakeries, butchers, clothes stores, a chocolat store, a library, a bookstore, 'maison de la presse', two newspapers, tailors, gift shops, 'l'office du tourisme' and more.
This only to show him what I earlier had told him, namely that this town do have an unusual number of shops and other facilities (five supermarkets), not least compared to a Swedish town the same size (4500 inhabitants).
We also visited the cinema (Cinéma Lux) and talked to monsieur Didier Godet, 'le patron'.
When we arrived, he was showing an old silent movie for school classes but he let us go upstairs looking at the cinema theatre from the balcony and Jens was surprised to see how beautiful this cinema actually is - in the middle of 'nowhere'.
"Somewhat like Cinéma Paradiso" he said.
This cinema is also used as a theater and was usually built as a monastery, many years ago, visible not least in the almost churchlike architecture, interiorally.
We also took a look at the football- rugby, tennis- and athletic stadiums and not least the football- and sports stadium with artificial grass and a running track, open all year round.
La Châtre also have a indoor pool.
In the next photo we find Jens standing in front of the statue of George Sand reading the information text about her and other prominent persons, born or having lived in La Châtre.

The next photo is taken on Friday, with Jens standing in front of Maison de George Sand in Nohant.
Thanks to my mother-in-law - who drove us there - we got the opportunity to visit George Sands home and as being not only a cinephile but also a 'bücherwurm' Jens appreciated this very much. Not least as we were the only visitors having the guide all to ourselves.

Here we see Jens in front of the church in Nohant, being renovated this year.

As Jens time was limited this was all we had the possibility to see.
I wanted to take him to Sainte-Sévère and the Jacques Tati-museum (or rather the museum displaying the shooting of his film Jour de fête in Sainte-Sévère) but we didn't have the time.
I also wanted to show him the museum in La Châtre but unfortunately it was closed.
Châteaux de Valençay and other sites was also on my list but hopefully we will be able to do this some other time.
In the photo below we see Jens at the Châteauroux station looking at his tickets and wondering how on earth he is going to manage carrying these two heavy cases all the way through Europe!

I very much appreciated his visit - and so did Aurore and my parents-in-law - and I hope it won't take to long before we'll meet again, in Paris, La Châtre or why not Denmark, where he lives, studies and works.