10 Details of Grenoble, France

I wrote this as part of a writing challenge.

Know a little bit of Grenoble, is a little town where I spent almost six months as a student exchange semester. This town is the region of the Alpes. Is known for being near amazing places to do hiking and winter sports, the Tacos ( not the mexican ones) and for being a university city and pretty diverse one.

Here are 10 details about this city:

1. Neon lights, these details are my favorite ones, the spoiled ones in my photos. I'm soft for this aesthetic of a nocturne yet always an awake city, however, I've seen those lights up even when there's sunlight. It can be because they turn them on always at the same hour, in the winter, and in the summer, this way, they seem a little bit odd when It's 8 pm on a spring cloudy day.

2. Bicycles, without them, there's something missing in the landscape, there' s all types of them, moving or parked in the street, colorful ones, by the riverside, in the middle of the street. There are bicycles owned by old ladies or young people, some make deliveries for Uber eats. I feel that without them the city loses its rhythm.

3. French guys with their fisher's hat and their urban outfits, huge sweatpants, some with of recognized brand other without it, always in blue or red, but you will also girls that look like they H&M's or Pull and Bear's mannequins, you may think that in any moment a photographer will come out of nowhere to do a photoshoot with them.

4. Warm lights of the bakery, they invite you to come in, in winter it promised heat and only walking by you could almost feel the flavor of a fresh croissant. It stands out near all those cold lights outside.

5. The tram lines in the maps, make everything look farther away than it actually is, in fact, you could get from one station to the next one between 5 to 10 minutes walking. All the map has color-coded lines, everything is perfectly shown. The bus lines are drawn with points, so discrete it can be lost under the tram lines.

6. Arab everywhere, as close as you get to saint-Bruno, the other downtown, the immigrant one, you’ll hear it more and more. The throat sounds replace the close ones and the ''baaaaah,pfff,ouais'' of french people, however, it’s mixed with french words, we are in France after all. It’s actually really common to hear someone greeting with salam.a.leykum.

entering a store in that neighborhood.

7. Water drops that sneak into the tram stations. In the umbrellas, in the car’s windows, going down slowly, making puddles, puddles that the people walking and the bicycles spread around, and now they are drops going down again.

8. Advertisement says welcome to everyone, I was getting so used to it that I barely noticed it, because it’s different from Colombia. In a showcase, the poster of an eastern Asian girl wearing colorful pastel makeup; In the ads of fancy clocks of the bus stations, a black middle-aged man surrounded by white elements with silver details; mannequins with hijab and long clothes. The advertisement in the hearing does reflect the people who walk by them every day.

9. The sound of the tram reaching the station had become one of my favorite sounds, those sounds that are the city version of the sea sounds. It recalls me of the tranquility of knowing that I’m on my way, it reminds me how fast is the tram when you are in it, it doesn’t feel as it’s going fast. Is overwhelming, imponent without being a noise, or something annoying.

10. Prints of African women's dresses they are not totally identic prints, but neither are they completely random, you could say they are flowers, but no, they don’t seem as flowers but they are definitely reminding the nature, the follow a pattern, one dress has the print of seashells, they are big, different between them and placed without touching each other and the spaces between them are not precise.