Ignorance is bliss

That's an expression I'm not really sure I agree with, a lot of the time, but sometimes I can't think of a better way to put it. Ignorance usually has such negative connotations, yet the simple act of not knowing (which I've always regarded in a negative manner) is starting to show its benefits.


To be honest, I spend a lot of my weekdays doing (what I feel like is) absolutely nothing. I arrive at IES, make myself some lunch, go to class if I have it, and lounge around and study if I don't. Today, I headed to the train station while my friends were in class, laid on the grass at Cours Cambronne in the 75-degree weather, and spent a good hour just watching people walk by and getting lost in my own thoughts, then headed to a corner bakery with Lauren for an après-midi pastry (gâteau basque, which is like custard quiche, if you can imagine) to eat on the steps of Théatre Graslin before wandering around and doing a little shoe shopping with friends. Here, I feel like it takes me four hours to accomplish an hour's worth of tasks, but that's life here. That's just the way it is.


Before arriving to France, during my two-week break between summer school and moving to another country, I focused more on preparing my belongings than preparing myself; I figured that I couldn't "cram" to get ready for a change like this, I just had to let it happen. While the thought terrified me-- would that be like not studying for a final? Would that just be stupid? Would I regret it?-- I did it nonetheless, because it was a sort of leap of faith. 


Ignorance is a double-edged sword, a fact that I have been almost hyper aware of after arriving. As a foreigner, it has caused embarrassment, surprise, discomfort, and plenty of awkward moments. In a nutshell, it's created one hell of a learning curve.


However, I've learned that especially while in a foreign country, my own ignorance is something I cannot hide. I'm trying to embrace it, to come to terms with the fact that, by nature of my own nationality, I just don't fit in; I don't know the fashion styles, I don't know the cultural boundaries, I don't know the ins and outs of daily life. But because of this, because I'm not preoccupied with keeping up with myself, society, or whoever I'm trying to be, I have no limits. I'm doing things that I want to do, whether that means I sit in the park for an hour or spend 20 E on food.  I think, but I don't judge. I'm taking everything at face-value. By whose standards would I judge things, anyway? By my own? What are those standards, and how are they different? What's universal, and where does the cultural boundary begin and end? I'm simultaneously painfully self-aware and inexplicably at peace, and it's a weird balance to be living.


Today, we had a delicious dinner, my first non-pasta repeat dinner since I've arrived, and right now, it is the epitome of fall comfort food. The first night we had it, accompanied by an apple compote, I was in love with the way it made the whole house smell. I had no idea what it was because I couldn't remember the name and didn't know what it meant. While it seemed like meat and smelled like spice but tasted like neither, I loved the way it made me feel: comfortable, cozy, welcomed. Today, we had it again, with a chestnut purée from the nuts my family gathered over the weekend. Tonight, I remembered the name, and I looked it up. And you know what I'm in love with? Blood sausage. Go figure.


As tomorrow marks a month I've been in France, I can say that I'm getting there. I feel as though I'm always saying this, but it's always true. I learned today that even if you're waiting at the bus stop, have left the little bus shelter, are standing on the edge of the road, and have your bus card in your hand, the bus will not stop unless it is officially "hailed." Good thing I didn't have class today! (As my friends know, this is probably my fourth or fifth "I missed the bus" story. Public transportation and I... we just don't get along too well.) Today, I also bought a pair of shoes, my first clothing purchase with the purpose of fitting in. Things are moving along. Things are normal. I got to spend dinner listening to four kids try to name all the days of the week in English, and I couldn't be happier.


As for this "ignorance", this lack of knowing my surroundings, it's interesting. I've done things well outside my comfort zone. I've let myself buy train tickets, buy shoes, and go to church without knowing any useful vocabulary (i.e. "shoe size" or "to try on"). I never feel comfortable while I'm doing it, and in fact I avoid the challenge all too often, but with each obstacle, I feel a little better, a little more accomplished, a little surprised at myself. 


I like blood sausage, foie gras, and Roquefort. Who knew?

Mont-Saint-Michel and Saint Malo

Yesterday is better described in pictures than words, so here goes:

Mont-Saint-Michel from the parking lot. We were driving through lots of little villages, and you go around a bend, and it literally smacks you in the face. All of a sudden, there's nothing but flat, flat meadows (where they raise the famous agneau de pré salé, or lamb) and the flat, sandy beach where the tide eventually rushes in. It's beautiful.

The walk up to the Mont (aka Diagon Alley from Harry Potter. Well, not really... but we'd like to think so)

The view from the waiting area outside the abbaye

The cathédrale (or main church of the monastery)

I love this picture, taken before we were actually going to smile for a picture. I didn't even know it was taken until I was uploading them (so thanks Lauren or Maddy, whoever took it!). I think it adequately expresses how much I love my friends and love being here.

Santa Clara girls

It was really dusty inside this church (because they were preparing to film a movie of some sort, so I think a lot of dust got knocked up) but it made the light incredible!

I just like the light and shadows...

I love this one! I believe it was a water wheel of some sort, though it reminds me of a giant clock

senior portraits by Lauren

The absolutely GORGEOUS Saint Malo, which is a town surrounded by ramparts. We walked up on the wall to the beach, then headed down into town for what was most likely the best crêperie experience I've had yet: a galette norvègienne with smoked salmon and crème fraiche, cidre to drink, and for dessert, a crêpe with cooked apples and caramel sauce... yum...

Lauren and me sitting on the top of the ramparts

The coolest thing ever: a walled portion of the ocean to make it like a swimming pool and protect it from waves. You could walk around the thick cement wall if you didn't want to go in, or go off the high dive (which I think were 3 and 5 meters)-- which I did. I didn't have a swimsuit, but thanks to planning my outfit ahead of time, that didn't stop me...

I am in love with everything about France. This is an example.

So is this.

Clare and I before the plunge! We both went off the 5m platform (at an angle because there was a jellyfish in the water) and then I did a couple lineups off the 3m. It felt so good to dive again, and it actually wasn't that cold!

Today (Sunday), I was hoping to go to the Musée Jules Verne and the île des Machines with Maddy and Clare, but it conflicted with my host brothers' singing performance at the cathédrale, so I ended up spending the day at home. It was perfect, as I studied a little more grammar (which was very necessary) and had a delicious lunch at home: 

First course: salad with chopped apples, raisins, grapes and balsamic vinaigrette, bread, and water

Main course: cooked duck with cooked skinless potatoes, and red wine

Dessert: tarte aux pommes with a side of homemade glace that my host dad had recently made; it was glace aux spéculoos, which is a type of crunchy cinnamon cookie often eaten with coffee in Belgium.

After lunch, we walked to the cathédrale for the three-hour-long mass. My little brothers had two hours of répetition before the mass and a two hour practice until 10pm on a school night earlier this week (kind of late for a ten-year-old!) in addition to the normal voice classes at the conservatoire, so I figured it would be great to hear them sing after they've worked so hard. The messe was for the éveque (bishop) for the agglomération of Nantes who was leaving after 13 years of service, so every priest from the area was there-- well over a hundred of them, I'd say. While everyone told us the church was complèt (full), we told them we wanted to hear the boys sing and managed to sneak in the back. Although that meant three hours of sitting on a cold stone floor, it was worth it; there was a closed-circuit video feed (projected onto big screens in the square outside for the rest of the people who didn't know about our entrance; there was plenty of room where we were). We couldn't hear the boys that well (because the choir was probably over a hundred people, and we sat behind them), but just being in that huge cathedral for a real mass was amazing. I caught about half the mass, language-wise, but it's a little off-putting when the responses are sometimes in French, sometimes in Latin, and not written in the livret, but I felt especially lost when I didn't even know how to say "peace be with you" to my family (for future reference, it's "la paix du Christ"). While I'm not especially religious, there is something about being at a huge pomp-and-circumstance event in the main cathédrale of Nantes, and above all, it was time I got to spend being involved with my family. I feel like this week, I'll be really busy/absent (I'm missing two dinners due to conversation group and the opera, and dinner is the only time I really hang out with my whole family), especially if I end up going to Paris for the weekend, so I'm really going to try to be as vocal and sociable as possible.

A bientôt!

"Aujourd'hui est la journée la plus belle de ma vie..."

So, fortunately, as was promised, everything went from out-of-sorts to perfect, and I couldn't be happier. Being here has made me realize lots of things (about myself) that I had thought about, but hadn't expected, if that makes sense. First, I faced the first time in my life where taking a Biology class is purely facultatif (optional), and had planned on finally (finally!) getting a break from such a hard class. And then when I found out I couldn't take it, I really surprised myself with how disappointed I was. I've been waffling over that career path in the first place, so actually feel something towards my major was helpful. Secondly, as I said earlier, having such a horrible day on Monday made me feel... weird. I didn't feel like a failure, I didn't feel super out of place. I felt dumb, of course, but the day finished well and when all is said and done, it doesn't affect how much I love being here at all. Which is weird, because I would've expected myself to blame my mistakes on French culture and be upset about it. And third, I've learned just how slow-to-warm I am, which is a LOT. Today marks three weeks I've been here, and things are getting along. I finally have my own consistent seat at the dinner table and have made a sort of routine out of the chaos that comes with being the sixth child in a family. No matter how many times I practice saying something in my head, for example, "Je voudrais bien, mais j'ai un cours qui commence à 8h demain matin, donc il faut que je me couche tôt. Mais merci de m'avoir demandé!" (I would love to, but I have a class that starts at 8am tomorrow morning, so I have to get up early. But thank you for asking!) I can really only spit out the important parts of the sentence before my host family finishes my answer and gets my point. There's nothing more to do but continue working on it, I suppose!


Here are some pictures from the weekend-- the Musée Dobrée and the Lieu Unique:

Mom and Dad, the ceiling reminded me of you...

The gold container (what's the word for it?) they transported Queen Anne's heart in to/from Nantes... I think.

The outside of the Musée Dobrée

Some gorgeous rings. My photos really don't do the museum justice, as it's actually a Moyen Age museum and has lots of stuff from as early as the 12th century (swords, chain mail, sculptures, portraits, etc.) but the jewelry collection was pretty good. I love that ring on the left...

Cool artwork outside the lieu

The lieu

The tower at the lieu

Yesterday, I had such a good day. On my way out the door to school, my four-year-old sister greeted me with another coloriage in hand. Her plan is to color me a picture every day, and I have a growing stack of everything from Hello Kitty to Robin Hood. They're adorable. I tucked it in my bag and headed to class, where I found out my business class was canceled (or rather, moved to an undetermined date; we'll still make it up), so I took advantage of the 5-hour break by heading down to Cours Cambronne (across the street) to soak up the 75-degree weather and sunshine and lay out. I wish I had brought a skirt or sundress to France! Maybe I'll have to do some shopping tomorrow, if I have time. All the same, I thoroughly enjoyed watching two eight-year-old boys play soccer on a patch of grass in front of me, a mom with her baby and four-year-old girl picnicking next to me, a couple other people my age smoking and reading, and just watching everything. I spent a good hour and a half doing absolutely nothing but half-nap, half-listen to French life slowly float by. It was wonderful.

Place Royale, where we stopped for café after class on Tuesday. We also walk through the Place to and from most things (tram stops, restaurants, etc.)

Walking up my block to the bus stop Wednesday morning 

The cathédrale in my neighborhood (the first of three I pass on my mile-and-a-half to school; I posted the second one earlier)

Cours Cambronne from my vantage point. I think it's also kind of nice to know that the people who live in those apartments aren't as stuffy or pretentious as the façade looks; a mom and her two young daughters were having an afternoon snack and playing out on the balcony of the the bottom apartment with the two doors open. I really appreciate that it's not all for looks; people actually LIVE here.

After my "French Writers and Foreign Nations" class-- which, by the way, I am really starting to like. Our professor is the most adorable oddball. While I had thought he was more of an uptight intellectual, he started singing us a(n English) song he learned when he was little to remember the numbers and animals (example: "Number one is a duck, number two is a goose...") in the middle of class, and he's really sweet. After that, I headed straight home for dinner, where we had salad and tartines (whole wheat bread with chevre, I think, toasted with some herbs on top) and then for dessert we had a surprise: homemade chocolate mousse with macaroons on the side! (I had two-- one orange-flavored, and one that was rose.) YUM. I had never had a macaroon before last night, and they are wonderful. My host mom even said she has a recipe and said we can make them if I want, and I am so looking forward to it! They used to live in Paris, so they told me all about Ladurée and their other favorite (and famous Parisian) macaroon place, so when I go next weekend, I will bring them a box back, I think.

Today, I had a great 6:30am wake-up call (not easy, seeing as how the sun rises at 7:40) because I had to be out the door by 7:30 for my 8am pharmacologie class. I made the quick walk to the tram, only to realize that from now on, I am going to have to arrive earlier, because the trams are so packed, no one can even cram through the doors, and as soon as one tram pulls away from the stop, another arrives, just as full. Everyone is headed to the university. I think I just may walk to the university, as it is only two tram stops away (about a half-hour walk). While it means I'd have to leave the house still earlier (around 7:15), it would be picturesque, as I would walk on a path all along the banks of the Erdre river at sunrise. I think I can try that at least once! I arrived about 10 minutes before class and got worried because I had no idea where this new Amphithéatre was, but found it without a problem. And it was the correct class to boot! My professor seems really nice; she enunciates, speaks loudly, and doesn't go too quickly. I immediately felt better; I now had the same notebook (legal pad) as everyone else, knew what to expect in terms of class setup, and as for the content, I was relieved to realize that today's content was everything I learned last year! It will pick up the pace, I'm sure, but it was a great transition to remember all the different methods while I'm still adjusting to the changed abbreviations (DNA is ADN here, and as just about every enzyme/protein/molecule has an abbreviated name, there are more changes than I expected) but as the content is obviously the same, it's nothing I can't handle.

While it feels great (and instantly a little more comfortable) to be back in the company of fellow science students, it was a huuuuuge departure from my Psychologie class that I also have at the fac!In Pharmacologie, however, the type A personalities have hit a whole new level. When my professor would introduce a new topic, you could hear little mechanical clicks all over room-- that would be everyone changing the color of their pen, as everyone here has those pens that write in 5 colors at once-- followed by several plastic smacks-- that would be the sound of everyone slapping their rulers to their notebooks to underline their newly color-coded title of the next section. And I thought I was organized! The Amphithéatre itself is also quite a sight. It is filled with rows and rows of wooden desks and fold-down leather-like upholstered seats, and every square inch of the wooden desks is covered in white-out, blue and black ink, and highlighter. It made me laugh; it really just adds character to a vast brown-and-gray lecture hall, and I really appreciate it. While there were a few racial slurs (in English, actually) and explicit drawings, I was amused to look to my left and see "Martin 06 07 06 40 52 appel moi" (call me) written in white-out on the side of a desk. Half a world away, nothing has changed. 

I had lunch with Lauren at the RU, then was planning to go to my Psychologie Clinique class, which was the same class as Maddy. While I knew the hours, I had forgotten the location, so after a (missed) call to Maddy, I went to Amphi C and sat down anyway. I looked at my schedule, only to find I was in Psychologie Cognitive instead of Clinique at the moment Maddy called back to tell me her class was in Amphi B. By that point, I was like, "What class is this? Cognitive? Okay, that's what I'm taking then!" That's a pretty good snapshot of the general chaos and spontaneity that comes with deciding a class schedule here. En plus, this is just the afternoon version of the class I had last week, so I didn't miss any material. While it's horribly boring, I'm hoping it picks up soon. Everyone talks a lot, and my professor is stubborn and talks really quietly on purpose, which doesn't make it any easier for the rest of us. Today, we talked about testing methods and dependent/independent variables. For two hours. It didn't pull my out of my post-lunch food coma, that's for sure... 


After six hours of class today (!) I need to take a break. I think no class combined with going out to lunch and dinner, a little shopping, and swimming in Lauren's pool tomorrow afternoon should do the trick! Saturday holds an IES-sponsored day trip to Mont-Saint-Michel (and the prospects of a free concert happening at the university later that evening), and Sunday will most likely be homework and family time, as my little brothers will be singing at a 3-hour mass at the cathédrale (the big one from the earlier post) for the departure of some high-up holy man (whether it's priest or bishop, I can't remember), and I'm kind of hoping we can go. I'd love to hear them sing!

Roller Coaster

Well, I'm finishing up week 3 of being here, and it's been a crazy one. Although I am actually sick, I'm not homesick, or at least that's what I keep telling myself. So although I somehow end up constantly mentally calculating the time difference back to the West Coast), I honestly think I'm doing okay. 


Today was probably, hands down, one of my worst days here. But I realized, as I was riding the bus home a few hours ago, that I wouldn't want to be any place but in Nantes. As mad and frustrated as I've been with myself the past few days, I really can't imagine leaving anytime soon-- I know I'd hate that even more, because flying back to the US would not only cement the idea that I would have given up, but it would eschew all efforts of actually getting better at French. I guess, in a sense, I'm trying to rationalize my way out of the homesickness state-of-mind, and I've been successful thus far. So, for better or for worse, I'm pulling through and sharing my bad day with you, to laugh at me and tell me what I should have done, because it's reality, and it's tough, but I know it's necessary.


I'll start with a mini-recap of the weekend: Saturday, after my delicious lunch, I walked to meet Lauren and Maddy near Bouffay, where Lauren and I had glace (ice cream) and did some more school-supply shopping. After going home briefly (with the point of telling my family I was planning on going out to dinner with my friends, only to find that no one was home) I left a nice note and walked back to Commerce for dinner in Bouffay with Maddy, Clare, and Lauren. We ended up going to a Kebab place that was alright (though not worth the 6, 50E I paid) and then wandered over to Place Royale while we were waiting for the next night bus as they're only every hour. At Place Royale, however, there was an impromptu concert (and apparently a light show that we had missed) of a group that played a wonderful mix of upbeat jazz with a little hip hop/rap and used a megaphone. Only in France. The lights were glittering on the fountain, it was about 65 degrees, and everyone was just gathered in a semi-circle, sitting on the fountain, on the steps, and standing, listening to it all. It was great. We hit up a gelateria for our second ice cream of the day (why not?!) and as I had felt sick all day, I promptly went to bed for a good 10 hours. Sunday, I woke up, had brioche and tea for breakfast with my family, and walked to the Musée Dobrée (about 30-40 minutes walking) to meet Maddy and Clare, then to a Chinese/Japanese/Thai restaurant where we had some mediocre food for 13 E each. Not worth it. We wanted to head to the LU cookie factory/Lieu Unique, and didn't know where it was, but felt up to a little spontaneity (which is easy with monthly passes for all metro transportation). I remembered it being across a bridge, so we took the tram to the island where we assumed it was. After not passing any signs while on the tram, we hit the end of the tram line, got off and actually looked at a map, only to find that it was two tram stops away (on a different line) from where we started. Naturally. We hopped the next tram back (luckily they are only 4 minutes apart) and headed towards Commerce (where all trams and most buses converge). After reading the schedule, we found that two buses could take us there, so we waited. And waited. And no buses had come. So we waited a little more. Then we realized we were reading the Saturday schedule, not the (even more infrequent) Sunday schedule! Deciding not to wait even more, we walked a half-block to the tram, and decided to just take the tram two stops away (though it would have been only a 15-minute walk or so). Luckily, the tram came promptly, so we hopped on, and about two blocks in, it was having MAJOR braking issues-- we were all bouncing back and forth; so much so, that a girl behind me actually fell straight onto the floor (and my leg)... and then there were technical difficulties. So guess what we did? We WAITED, of course. It was probably only 5 minutes of being stopped or something, but it felt like forever. Finally, we all got off (and it was a packed tram, too) and headed to the Lieu Unique. While we had wanted to climb the LU tower, it is the only thing in all of the Journées de la Patrimoine weekend that you have to pay for (even though it's only a euro), and the line was pretty long. So we decided not to wait (can you blame us?) and poked around the place. They host lots of art expositions and concerts and things for 20-somethings all throughout the year, so we're planning on heading to a couple if we can. Anyway, so we ended up heading back to the tram, so the other two could take their respective trams, and I could walk home. After some crêpes and galettes with my family and a little homework, I crashed again.


So on to today. I should mention that I don't know if I have a fever, but feel miserable in the mornings especially, and the 8 miles of walking over the past two days probably didn't help. But then again, that's la vie française: sickness is normal, you don't go to a doctor unless it's serious, germs are good, and you'll undoubtedly get over it. I had class at the fac at 9:30 this morning, which I checked and verified several times before leaving, and woke up at 8 to make sure I had plenty of time. I left my house at 8:45/8:50 and walked to the tram stop which I had never done before, but it was very enjoyable.
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Let me pause to mention the fact that no open-toed shoes are worn here unless it is over 80 degrees, and that I've worn nothing but Reef flip-flops at school the past two years. So I wore my black closed-toed flats (and, naturally, threw gold sandals in my bag to prepare for the inevitable.) Normally, I wouldn't have done this, but unspoken fashion rules are just something you can't break while in France-- or at least, not if you're trying to fit in, like me. I was consciously looking at everyone's feet today, and I saw ONE pair of open-toed shoes all day, and they were heeled, semi-closed-toe sandals belonging to a fellow American student. Just for perspective.
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So I walked to the tram, took it two stops away with no problems, found my building with no problems (as Maddy and Lauren helped me find it last Friday), and was determined to find Amphi C (a different Amphi C than my other class, as this is the science campus). I walked down the length of a hallway, past lots of waiting students, and no Amphi C. I got up the nerve to ask someone in the stairwell where it was, and her response was a shrug with "Oh, I have no idea where that is." Greaaaat. So I made the walk of shame back down the same hall to the welcome desk, and a very nice lady told me that it was "down a [different] stairwell, around the corner, down the hall, and then directly on your right." I told her thanks, and she said, "oh, I mean on your left!" Promising, right? So I found it with 15 minutes to spare, and did the awkward wait-around-and-pretend-to-look-at-posters thing. I was standing there, tired, coughing, and sweating because I'm pretty certain I had a fever at that point, and just emotionlessly waiting, and this girl comes up to me and asks me what time it is, and I grab my cell phone and it was 9:20 and I could not for the life of me think about translation of the number 20 in the 2 seconds I had. I could think of 30, but I knew not to say that instead because that was what time class started, so I told her it was 9:00 and showed her my phone. She apologetically smiled, said thanks, and walked away. I just wanted to shout, "I'm sick, tired, and I'm not even French! I can't do this!" So there you go. THAT'S what has become of my A's in French. I could write a 5-page analysis of the Count of Monte Cristo in June, and I couldn't even say the number 20 today. Chouette. 


I finally filed into the classroom a few minutes before it started (as I noticed a few people had sort of been coming in and going out), and found that almost ALL seats were occupied. It was kind of like that before my Psych class, so I chalked it up to French weirdness (because if you're on the science track here, you can have like 4 hour blocks of various classes in a room with all the same people but different professors/ subjects... I think). Class started... or continued, which is what it seemed like, but the professor was on Chapter 1, which is normal. He was going over plant models (forever, thank god I already learned this all. Though it was interesting, it didn't seem pharmacological to me) and then the girl who came in late and sat next to me asked me something (in my state of panic I don't remember what, but it was about something being on the first page from earlier) and I said, "Oh I don't know, I wasn't here this morning" (with correct verb conjugations to boot!)  And she laughed (whether at my French or at my obvious misplacement in the class, I'm not sure), then kept taking notes. We moved on to the light spectrum and photosynthesis-- again, stuff I've already covered, but could have been general intro stuff (which is how Psych was last week). When we were let out at 10h35, 15 minutes before my class was supposed to end, I realized this was NOT the biopharmacology class I signed up for! Yeah, it was Amphithéatre C, bâtiment 1 (administratif), but who knows where my real class is/was/should have been. Not me, that's for sure. So I got up to leave, only to realize I had some blisters that had been developing over the course of the previous horrible hour, so I slowly walked to the tram, then from Commerce to IES (maybe a mile total) and up three flights of stairs, only to find myself with bleeding feet and no band-aid in sight. Yeah, it was a lovely day.


Fortunately, I have an actual home to come home to. If I were by myself, I don't think I could make it! While I can't just chat away with my family, I couldn't imagine having to make my own meals after such a draining day. I'm learning lots just being around them, and understood the entire dinner conversation save for one vocabulary word that referred to some part of a sports car. My little sister had her first flute lesson today, so I got to come up to my room and listen to one enfant on his cello in the dining room, one on her flute in the kitchen, and one little four-year-old playing with a tambourine (after showing me her interpretive dance) in her bedroom. Even after hellish days, I love coming home to this cacophony and finally, finally feeling at ease.


As for tomorrow, I plan to sleep in as much as possible, head to IES and ask about what I'm supposed to do about this ridiculous Biopharma class, and get a little homework done in between. This weekend we're headed to Mont-Saint-Michel (which I'm really excited for!) and next Thursday I've got a free ticket to the opera at théatre Graslin where Clare and I have balcony seats in the front. I can't wait to get dressed up for that! Friday morning, after my friends finish with classes, we're planning to head to Paris for the weekend to see our own respective friends/family and sightsee-- though I'm the only one of us four who hasn't yet been there. I cannot wait!


Needless to say, I feel like I've regressed a ton here, and it's kind of disheartening, unfortunately. I'm continuing to get along though, and it hasn't even been a full three weeks, so I'm trying to keep my spirits up. Even if today itself wasn't good, I'm still loving being here in general, so it's definitely worth it. It can't be perfect all the time. While I hate to end on a less-positive note, I want to say that my lack of French has been bothering me so much that I'm taking an English hiatus for a little while (I don't know how long, probably a couple of days). That means no more blogging, emailing, reading, or facebooking in English for me. It's total immersion time!


A bientôt!

Favorites

I have had the best food lately, so I have to share:


First of all, we had some sort of celery and carrot soup that was half-puréed and piping hot, and we just ate it with a little sel au poivre on top and small tartine-like hors d'oeuvres, which were, from what I can guess, wholegrain bread with Roquefort and butter on top (to cut the strength of Roquefort and to make it more of a spread) and cut into small squares. And yes, I have a newfound appreciation for Roquefort. (And I feel honored to eat it; week one, my host parents said, "Once we get to know you a little better, we'll give you stronger cheeses." I've definitely made it out of the invitée stage, finally!) We also had some of the same Roquefort/butter/bread combination with salmon on top. Not sure if they call that lox here, but it was uncooked and delicious all the same.


For dessert, though (and we have dessert after both lunch and dinner every day), we had bananas. They were SO GOOD. All you do is cut them lengthwise so you have two half-cresents on your plate, then you squeeze the juice of a lemon on top, sprinkle with sugar (I think the closest equivalent is Sugar in the Raw) and spoon it out of the banana skins to eat it. YUM!


While I still miss home cooking, it has been pretty cool to have basically eaten at a restaurant for the past two and a half weeks; we haven't had repeats or leftovers for a single meal, except for the fact we have had pasta twice. I think I'll forgive them...


Another thing that I am constantly jealous of and confused by is the fashion here. Pretty much every guy is good-looking, and all girls and women are well-dressed, though it is absolutely impossible to put a label on any style. The black leggings and short brown ankle boots are in, but so are rolled-up boyfriend jeans and flats, and so are skinny jeans of any wash, and so are heels that I'm still mystified as to how people can wear them and walk as much as they do here. You can wear a white blouse, throw on a shapeless beige knit tunic, a belt, and tights, and for as few clothes as people own here, they all look stunning-- though the guys, unless doing the typical, impressive European look, have an odd combination of east coast prep mixed with converse shoes, which I'm not sure I've grown to love just yet. Black isn't as ubiquitous as I expected, though I may be speaking too soon: apparently, come winter, EVERYTHING is either black, grey, or brown. As for what I've noticed, black and brown are always mixable, and when in doubt, go head-to-toe monochromatic (in anything from black to hot pink-- it's been done). 


Ahh, the French. They are a source of never-ending curiosity.

Friday

Today was a wonderful do-nothing sort of day. After a peaceful breakfast I am really starting to look forward to (I need cereal bowls and a teapot for home so I can keep this up), I headed to IES, my home away from my home away from home (which is really great that I can feel like I have a home or refuge in various places in the world, I think) and did some more of the usual: journaling, reading Madame Figaro, studying my own grammar book (which is tied with hand sanitizer for most convenient thing I brought), and made my own lunch in the kitchen since I bought all those groceries. I realized it's actually less cost-effective to do that than to eat lunch in the RU, so I'll stick to RU lunches as much as possible.

Clare, Lauren, and I headed to the fac to sign up for SUAPS, and I'm now taking Sophrologie and "gym tonic" (I have no idea what either of these are) once a week each on days I don't have class, as it's only 10 E for the semester. They were gracious enough to wander around with me across the two campuses as I found the building for my Pharmacologie class Monday morning, which is in an Amphi as well, but the hallways look straight out of a 1940s hospital; there's also an infirmary between the welcome desk and the amphithéatre. Between that, bidets, toilet rooms, and cabinet sinks, I won't even try to figure out French architecture!

With sore feet on my part (Mom, my Frye's are not yet broken in...) we rested until deciding to head home around 4:30. While Clare and I were talking, we heard these weird noises that sounded like a ton of church bells and ambulance sounds at once, and it was pretty random, as it was like 4:25 (not a normal time for them to be going off). We parted ways, and as I walked in my direction and turned a corner, I saw a TON of confetti being blown around one of the cathedrales that is just kind of plopped in another square. The clouds had parted a little, and it was sunny, and there were probably thousands of palm-sized white tissue hearts blowing around the cathedrale and surrounding buildings in the square, and at the doors was a bride straight out of J.Crew (white strapless dress with horizontal organza stripes and a short veil... it was beautiful.) Sometimes, when I'm thinking about the errands I have to run, or that my feet hurt, or worrying about what to do when I get home, I come across something like that (or an impromptu parade or some other cute and quintessential European moment) it quickly brings me back to my senses that I love every part of life here and am so fortunate to be here.

Well, the petits just got back from school... I think it's time to go jump on the trampoline...

La Vie Etudiante

In an effort to be a little more regular about blog updating, here's a quick recap:

TUESDAY

I didn’t have any class today, so I woke up around 8:30, had some breakfast and a leisurely morning, and left around 10:30 for IES to meet Maddy for lunch in between her classes. It was threatening rain all morning, so we ended up dashing to a boulangerie/patisserie a block away from school for a salmon and avocado sandwich, then ate them in the IES kitchen with some other people. From now on, I’m going to stop by Monoprix for lunch or just go to the RU, as it is so much cheaper than buying lunch every day! Some girls bought or made salads and keep yogurts in the fridge, which is such a good idea. (I feel like I’m always mentioning how expensive everything is, but seeing prices in Euros every day constantly reminds me of how poor the dollar has been lately—which is not good!)

While Maddy was in class, Clare, Lauren, and I walked over to Place Bouffay (across the tramway) for Clare to grab lunch, and then I finished my sandwich with the two of them. It was nice to have no obligations and just walk around and explore a little bit. While they were all in class, I took a good two hours to figure out my scheduling and catch up on correspondence. After class, the four of us headed toward the fac (university) but happened across a used-book sale about the size of a large Farmer’s Market near the tram station and ended up browsing for a good 30 minutes. These novels were all in French (which sounds stupidly obvious, but you try finding French books in the US… not quite as easy!) and were only 1 Euro each, so I bought Les Stances à Sophie by Christiane Rochefort, as I read another of her novels (Les Petits Enfants du Siècle) this past Spring.  It turns out, this book sale is every Tuesday, so I plan on reading lots and stocking up, if I can.

Afterwards, we took the tram up to sign up for SUAPS (intramural sports that include things like scuba, 10 kinds of dance, kayaking, and circus). IES really wants us to sign up, and I’m still on the fence about it, as there’s not a ton that works with my schedule that interests me, though I know it’s the best way to meet people. The SUAPS office happened to be closed anyway, so we took the tram back home to downtown and I have another day to decide what I want to do. We decided to go to a café called NOOPS, mainly just because the name sounded ridiculous, and ended up getting coffees and free biscuits around 5:30pm. Because the buses were a little slow, I got back around 6:45/7pm, just in time for my little sisters to read me poems, give me colored pictures, play with my iPod (their favorite thing to do) and jump on the trampoline (all of the four younger ones and me) before dinner at 8pm. Afterwards, I watched Star Wars I with three of the kids before heading to bed. Just another pretty average day!

WEDNESDAY

I have Histoire d'Art and Commerce & Mondialisation back-to-back from 10:45 until 1:30, so after class, I took a walk to Monoprix in the rain to 1) buy an umbrella and 2) buy my famished self some lunch-- I'm not used to only two tartines for breakfast! After paying the equivalent of $30 for the cheapest umbrella I could find, I only spent 14 E on lunch fixings for the next couple days-- couscous/tabbouleh, bread, salami, cheese, yogurt, and pudding. It sort of hits the food groups! After a cozy lunch away from the rain with some other students, I spent my next four free hours hanging out in the lounge, reading Madame Figaro (a good magazine here), and chatting with friends before I had Ecrivains Français until 6:45pm, then it was home for dinner! I was absolutely exhausted for whatever reason, so after a little studying, I ended up sleeping from 10:30 until 8am. That's the one thing I've noticed about being here: I'm tired all the time. I go into food comas after lunch (which is the exact reason I have zero afternoon classes-- it's nice to just sit in the lounge and write or relax) and am sleepy by 10pm. I know it takes a lot of brainpower to function in a different language, but I think the fact that I walk way more and climb four times as many stairs here has something to do with it as well!

THURSDAY

Today I had my first class à la fac ("fac" is short for faculté, which means university), which was my Psychologie Cognitive class. Let me explain how French classes are organized... they're NOT. I left my house at 9am for the bus-tram combo and got to the fac in the pouring rain by 9:30 or so. I wasn't sure what building my class was in; I only remembered that it was in Amphi C (amphithéatre, aka lecture hall) and that there were amphis in one of the buildings we toured with IES. I headed towards that one (the building of arts and letters) and found the right room, but after hearing other students' horror stories about last-minute room changes, I went to find the boards that list classes and room numbers, which I knew were in another building, and couldn't remember which. After a good 20 minutes of silent panicking and waiting outside amphi C, I looked on a sign posted on the wall (that I had previously looked at, but misread) and found that my class was in the same hall, after all. Whew. I found a seat in this huge (maybe 300-seat... bigger than Daly Science) hall and waited for class to start. First of all, students don't mind talking during class here. They don't do it loudly, so I don't find it disrespectful (because people do that at home too), but it would have been nicer had the professor not been talking at conversational volume!! He would be at the microphone when seated, then get up to write something on the board, and the volume of his voice barely changed. The material itself was beyond boring, as it is a course for L1 students (freshmen) and I didn't learn any new material, but I did manage to take a couple pages of notes, which is necessary because there are neither book lists nor syllabi at the university! After my two hours were up, I met up with Maddy and Lauren, who both happen to take classes at the fac Thursdays as well, for some lunch at the RU (restaurant universitaire) before heading back to IES once again to read/stay warm and dry/ relax before Commerce & Mondialisation. I got home a little earlier than usual, which meant I was greeted by coloriages (colored pictures) from the little girls upon arrival, then played with them in my room until dinner, and watched Shakespeare in Love (in French with French subtitles... I'm not ready to go without them just yet) until now. Though I don't have class tomorrow, I do have a packed day ahead-- lots of errand-running and making sure I'm prepared for the big one: the Biopharmacologie class I decided to take at the fac, which is on Monday. It will be in a different building and most likely a different area of campus (and possibly a different tram stop), so I'm going to head to the university tomorrow to try to avoid as much Monday-morning confusion as possible. We'll see how that goes.

On the whole, I'm loving it here. I feel like I've been here way longer than two weeks; I don't feel a rush to hurry up and get everything in before I leave (like traveling, sightseeing, etc.) because I just kind of feel like I'm here to be here and I don't have a countdown until I leave. As such, I haven't booked a single trip. I want to make it to London and Paris, and somewhere in Italy would be great, but that's only after I feel like I know Nantes well enough, and I'm just barely getting to that point; I don't want to leave my new home to go be a tourist elsewhere quite yet. The only thing bothering me (which has bothered me since day one) is my lack of spoken French. I had to drop my optional grammar class because it conflicted with Pharmacology, but I need the practice badly, and I'm hoping that this weekend (and especially next week) I can finally get over the English-first-French-second hump and start to actually express my opinions!

I'm alive!

A lengthy recap of my first full week

Sorry for the total lack of posts; this past week has been absolutely CRAZY, but I’m enjoying learning so much. It’s been very necessary, and most importantly, has really facilitated my ability to learn to love being here.

Here’s a typical day from this past week: get up at 7:30, shower at 8, downstairs for breakfast by 8:30, leave to walk to the bus at 8:50, arrive at IES at 9:20, class 9:30-12, lunch 12-2, more class in the afternoon until 5 or 6pm, buy whatever random things I realized I need, arrive at home by 7/ 7:30pm, dinner from 7:45-8:30, play with the kids until 9, try to get everything done on the internet for an hour until 10, journal/ do homework/ get ready for bed from 10-12:30. Get 7 hours of sleep and repeat.

Learning experience #1: ENTER AT THE FRONT OF THE BUS. I mistakenly entered the second door of the bus because I was worried the bus driver would not wait for me, and had both a passenger and the driver tell me, in front of all the other bus patrons, that I was in the wrong. Ah well, live and learn.

Learning experience #2: READ THE EMPLOI DU TEMPS (schedule), aka I was late to my Langue Francaise class with Madame de Pous. While we had started class at 9:30 three days in a row, no one mentioned the fact that Thursday’s class started a half-hour earlier, so I assumed the same. Slight comfort: about 40% of our class made this assumption, too.

These two things happened within the same 30 minutes, and if you know me and how much I dislike a) being late and b) being shamed or scolded (especially publicly), I learned to not take it personally. I’m learning to admit that I know absolutely nothing about this place, and of course I’ll make mistakes and be stupid. While I could try to justify either of these mistakes, it’s not worth it. My brain’s been on overload here, and I can’t expect to be a local starting from day 1!

Other things I’ve learned:

- M -Monoprix is the best place to go. For anything. If you’re thirsty, you can either pay 1, 30 E for a soda or Perrier in a can from a street stand, or pay 0, 97 E for a 1.25 liter water and a fresh peach at Monoprix across the street. Guess which I picked.

- Pi -Picnicking is the easiest way to spend an afternoon. Clare, Maddy, Lauren and I each had a half-baguette sandwich (again, that’s forearm length) consisting of olive tapenade, brie, and jambon (ham), with blackberry yogurt as a side, and dark chocolate biscuits (like LU cookies) for dessert, and washed it down with a mini-bottle of Rosé wine for us each. So convenient that they come in four-packs. And we got all this for FIVE EUROS EACH! Again, God bless Monoprix.

-S -Splitting dinner is foolproof. The four of us split smoked salmon and crème fraîche pizza and vegetarian pizza, leaving us with half a pizza per person, plus had side salads, and dinner was also only 5 Euros each (also because our salads were on the house since they forgot). While we were initially warned against Place Bouffay, it really has the quintessential outdoor atmosphere: café lights, bistro tables, chalkboards listing the day’s specialties and menu, people playing the accordion in the street, etc. It was wonderful.

-T The French really are nice people. They’ll tell you if you did something wrong, but only to make you aware, not to embarrass you. They get really excited to talk to you and I don’t know that I’ve yet been made fun of (minus the accent mockings and laughter), which is a reward itself.

BR -BRING HAND SANITIZER EVERYWHERE. Not only do the French not believe in ice cubes, cold milk, or free refills (which don’t bother me too much after I got used to being thirsty all the time), they hardly EVER have soap in the bathrooms. It’s not like the soap just ran out; the soap pump itself does NOT exist. So thank you, Dad, for giving me that spray sanitizer before I left. It is one of the more useful things I’ve brought!

So let me recap:

LAST SATURDAY (still orientation)

Saturday morning, we went to les alignements de Carnac, which is basically a series of menhirs (monoliths? Large rocks) that are lined up in long lines (I want to say it’s about a mile) with a big circle of these tall rocks at one end. It is basically the French version of Stonehenge, though the rocks are only vertical (no table top). Our French tour guide spoke at grande vitesse (very fast), but basically what I got out of this was that the rocks were moved quite frequently, making it difficult to understand why they were there. After an hour of explaining a couple postulations (funeral markings, keeping track of space/time), she closed with saying, “Oh, and it could be that they had gods or goddesses. Maybe they were religious. We don’t know.” And with that, the tour was over, leaving us very much confused.

Les alignements de Carnac

On the way to lunch, we stopped by another chateau (though this was a forteresse) and saw an octagonal, VERY tall donjon (dungeon) that was reminiscent of both Harry Potter and Rapunzel. The fortesse was situated on a beautiful pond, everything around it was lush and green, and the cells even had their own fireplaces. It must have been for VIP prisoners of the Middle Ages, because I know I wouldn’t have minded it…

La Forteresse de Largoët

Maddy, Clare, Me, and Lauren

Is this not picturesque?

All 100 of us from IES hit up a creperie for lunch, where each of us consumed our weight in butter: cheese and ham crepe for the main course, and caramel crepe for dessert. Good thing we’ve been walking so much! From the creperie, we went to the CUTEST place: a port town that just-so-happened to be having a fête d’huitres (oyster festival). While festivals in Bellevue entail more publicity, posters, and planning than actual substance, I feel, it was nice to see the French village way of doing things. There were bagpipers playing, the entertainment was watching a man open an oyster with his teeth, and a parade of what I’m pretty sure was this village’s charter of the larger oyster celebration committee, as there were many old men wearing the equivalent of college graduation regalia, complete with oyster shells affixed to their green velvet berets.

The Village of Saint Goustan from above (we climbed this hill)

(click to see the outfits and banner in all their glory)

Clare, Maddy, Lauren, and I decided to brave it and try a plate of raw oysters. With the help of a very sweet older woman next to us, we successfully downed two each.

Saturday night, after a nice dinner back at the hotel, Lauren and I were exhausted and went to bed at 10:30 pm. The sleep was sooooo needed!

SUNDAY

Sunrise from our hotel room (reflected over the river)

After waking up early and checking out of our rooms, we all filed into the conference room for 3 hours of French placement testing. What, you don’t love spending your Sunday mornings that way? We had lunch at the hotel and then were off to another small village to stretch our legs during the road trip. The four of us were in search of coffee and a bathroom, and found the most adorable B&B/ café that had an interior stone courtyard with a fountain, sculptures, flowers, sun umbrellas, and little bistro tables—perfect for the 75-degree weather. Each of us ordered a café crème and some 5 fruits rouges glace (gelato that was basically pureed blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and 2 other berries) with nothing less than Reddi-Whip on top. And it was delicious.

Me, Clare, and Maddy in the stone courtyard with our glace!

I was welcomed home by my host family, where I jumped on our backyard trampoline with the little girls, had dinner, then went to bed to brace myself for the week ahead…

MONDAY

Lots of orientation today at school: how to fit into the city and meet locals and play sports and buy cell phones and bus passes type of stuff. After class got out at 5:30, I rushed to go pay my 60 Euros for a SIM card and monthly bus pass with everyone else from our program, and was home in time for the now-ritual trampoline jumping with my little sisters before dinner.

TUESDAY

More orientation stuff at school. During our two-hour lunch, Maddy, Clare, Lauren, and I grabbed lunch at La Mie Caline, a cafe where you can get a baguette sandwich, Perrier, and chocolate croissant for 3, 20 E and we ate on the steps of a fountain in a little square, surrounded by lots of other French people our age. It felt so normal!

WEDNESDAY

All of IES went to the University of Nantes to explore, eat lunch at an RU (restaurant universitaire—a nice cafeteria) where you can get a three-course meal for 2, 90 E. Not bad! In the afternoon, our classes started, which was the beginning of a three-day French brush-up session, a sort of pre-placement for our required IES French class.

THURSDAY

After 3 hours of morning classes and lunch by that same fountain, we had a two-hour walking tour of Nantes, (the cathedrale, the château des ducs de Bretagne, and all the historical parts) which was actually really interesting. I got home relatively early, around 6:30, only to see family on the other side of the street, going the opposite direction. The four little kids were biking, and the parents were walking. They were headed to the Musée de Beaux Arts to see an Ernesto Neto exhibit, a picture of which I have hanging in my room here in my homestay, so I walked along. The Musée is also open 2 hours later and free every Thursday evening, which is great. The contemporary art was pretty cool to look at (you lay on beanbags on the floor and look at things suspended from the ceiling that are the equivalent of sugar and sand suspended in pantyhose-like nylon, though much more artful than my description) and then we looked at some more historical paintings and sculptures before dinner at 8:15. Considering how most of my friends’ families watch movies together or go swimming, this is a very different family activity, but it’s nice to do things together with them that are more active and that everyone can take part in.

The cathedrale that I pass on my way to school each morning (that we saw on the tour). I'm pretty sure this is the Saint Pierre, because our tour guide mentioned they dropped the "Paul" from the name. It's kind of weird to see what a difference cleaning it makes (left vs. right).

Statue guarding the tomb of Francois II (duc de Bretagne). One side is a woman, and her hair creates the old man's beard. I forget about the woman, but the man is supposed to represent sageness and wisdom.

The stained-glass windows that are actually from the latter half of the 20th century because Nantes was bombed during WWII and most windows blew out (except that of Sainte Anne, patron Saint of Brittany)

The front of the château des ducs

The interior of the château des ducs (from the courtyard)

One of my all-time favorite pictures. Please note the baguette in his briefcase!

The Passage Pommeraye, a three-story market-like square where you can buy everything from plants and garden supplies to photocopies to fine leather goods to chocolate. Our tour guide also told us that while it had the opportunity to become high-end boutiques, the city consciously decided against it, as it would change the spirit and purpose of what the Passage Pommeraye had previously been like. (The high-end boutiques are one street over.) While I haven't yet seen it, I'm not sure if the Bravern can top the Passage...

FRIDAY

I signed myself up for my courses, and right now, I’ll be taking these at IES:

-French Classicism: Art and Architecture

-Advanced Topics in French Language and Literature

-International Trade and Globalization

And these at the University of Nantes:

-Cognitive Psychology (because the Director/ my advisor is making me take 2 courses à la fac, though this should be interesting)

- And the one I’m most excited for: Biopharmacology!! Yes, I know, I am kind of crazy to be taking this in a different language, but it sounds amazing, and if it’s horrible, I can drop it, but the director (M. de Berranger) said he thinks I can handle it, and he’s also a professor at UN, so I’m taking his word for it. This is TBD, though, because I don’t have the timesheet for any of the Bio classes, so I’m praying it fits with my schedule.

By Friday evening, I was so tired and worn out that I had a 30-minute-long period of temporary insanity and uncontrollable laughter while we were waiting for advising to finish. I just couldn't stop laughing! (Mom, I’m sure you can picture this.) Afterwards, I went out with Lauren, Clare, and Maddy to Place Bouffay for some much-deserved, end-of-the-week kirs before I went home for dinner. I came home to 14 nine-year-olds celebrating Ambroise’s birthday (which I had been expecting) and so after jumping on the trampoline with the little girls, I helped to make all the personal pizzas for the kids, and Soline and I watched some of the news before watching A Very Long Engagement with Audrey Tautou (which was, by the way, amazing). Soline and I had four-cheese pizzas we made for ourselves, and let me just say that CPK cannot live up to the Gruyere, chevre, mozzarella, and crème fraîche pizzas that we had. They were DELICIOUS.

SATURDAY

I woke up at 8:30 and played dress-up with Berenice, of course, until 11am, when I was planning to meet Maddy, Clare, and Lauren. Due to my forgetfulness that the buses don’t run nearly as frequently on the weekend, I now know the path necessary to walk the entire way to school (which only takes about 30 minutes and isn’t bad) and arrived at 11:45. My phone’s Mobicarte (mobile minutes card) seems to be on the fritz, and I need to buy a new one, but I was still able to let the girls know. We hit up Monoprix, then had a two-hour-long picnic and conversation on the lawn under the sunshine at the Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne. Picnic next to a castle while drinking wine and eating baguette and brie with three amazing friends? Yep, just a day in the life. To make it even more perfect, on our way back from the Chateau through Place Bouffay, we heard some music, only to discover a whole marching band full of jovial adults celebrating the district of Bouffay and the city of Nantes. Some were wearing royal-looking regalia, some were in fancy old European cars, some were just goofing off. When they realized the cars couldn’t even get through some of these old streets, they temporarily stopped while they had all the café-goers scoot in their chairs from the terrace seating, and on they went. Then a few minutes later, we saw a donkey further down the alley. Minor holdup: nobody realized that the donkey’s cart carrying two costumed girls wouldn’t fit with the little posts that were up for pedestrians. The girls climbed out, the policeman helped them lift the donkey cart over the posts, and the show went on. Logistics? Advertising? Of course not. Have an impromptu parade celebrating your quartier because you love it, and if something happens, whatever. It gets fixed. It bothers no one. That is truly la vie française.

We picnicked where that person is laying in the far background, almost behind the tower.

Maddy, Clare, and Lauren enjoying our delicious pique-nique in front of the château!

Start of the parade

The band that was playing

This man stopped playing so he could strike a pose for me. So cute.

Old European car that everyone had to clear out of the way for

Look closely, and that man in the cap is the gendarme (police officer) who navigated the donkey cart. Don't worry, here the cops are on top of it all...

Crisis averted, and the parade goes on!

We then did a little shopping at H&M and some other stores, only to realize we were so tired from walking all over town, so we headed back to Maddy’s to see her homestay, as her parents were gone to a wedding for the day (and her siblings are all grown up). After sufficient lounging around, we went back into town around 8pm to have dinner at Place Bouffay, where we had those incredible pizzas. We ran into lots of other IES people along the way, but didn’t want to hang out in groups of 10 or more people, so we continued along to meet Lauren’s host brother, who spent two weeks at International School in Bellevue last February and loves the US. Go figure! He sat outside at a bar with us and we chatted for an hour, before he left with his friends and I took the 11:30 bus back home. (Saturday night buses only run once an hour, so it’s important not to miss it.) After such a LONG day, I was so ready to pass out!

SUNDAY

I woke up at 8:30 (Mom, France is the cure for me sleeping in too much, btw) and after breakfast at 10:30 and a quick shower, all 8 people in my family were piled into the minivan for a trip to the beach by 11am, and we took an hour-long drive to l’île de Noirmoutier. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noirmoutier-en-l%27Île) It was absolutely beautiful. When we arrived, there was absolutely no one on the beach except for us. While it was a little chilly and pretty windy, it was warm enough to sunbathe, but not enough to be in the shade or the cold water (for me at least—some people did!) After getting over how pale I am compared to people who spend a month in the south of France every summer and don’t put on sunscreen because they don’t need to (!!) I laid out and napped/half-listened to my four little host siblings play with each other in the sand. After a picnic lunch of grapes, ham and cheese sandwiches, chips, and yogurt, I played with the two boys (ages 9 and 10) with whatever that beach game is called that just has regular ping-pong-like racquets and a kind of light ball and we hit it around for a good 45 minutes or so, playing various games. As this past week has been mainly spent playing dress-up with my high heels and dresses and looking at my makeup with the 4 and 7 year olds, it was nice to hang out with the boys for a while! All of the young kids and I buried each other in sand and flew a kite they brought because the wind was perfect for it. After some ice cream and a walk through the forest and onto the pier to watch some fishermen, we headed into town to poke around—there was a village-wide rummage sale of sorts that was just finishing up, and it was a rather cute and centuries-old downtown. The most interesting part of the trip was the drive home; because it was low tide, we got to drive back across what would be the ocean floor at high tide—they decided to build a road across the bottom that would be open sometimes instead of building another bridge that would be open all the time, so it’s pretty cool to drive across basically a tidepool-y desert. There were a ton of people that just parked off the side of the road (pulling to the side/onto the sidewalk if applicable and putting your flashers on is equivalent to parking your car here, by the way) and lots of people were clamming (I assume) or shellfish fishing of some sort. L’île de Noirmoutier is also known for its miles of salt flats that were all along the roads on the island. I wish I had bought some!

(Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of this!)

MONDAY

The start of real classes; I had Advanced French Topics today, which should be good, and Art History, which was a little boring this morning (especially since our professor didn’t realize the clock was off and went for 25 minutes too long) but should be good since we will be going on 5 or 6 museum field trips, so it’s not all classroom discussion.

I also found out that the pharmacologie class at the university is the same time as Advanced French Topics at IES, which REALLY bums me out. I don’t really want to take any other Biology class because everything else is more or less what I already studied (lower-division general stuff). So I can choose to drop French (as my level is facultatif—optional) and take another class and not get credit for my French minor/major and take something I think sounds amazing that wouldn’t count for my Biology major anyway, but would be a good experience, or stick things out. It's not a question of difficulty, but of finagling the course credits/SCU requirements along with what I'm actually passionate about. I have to say, I found it awfully comforting to have Biology to work on while I'm here, to my surprise! As for my plan of action, I’ll have to sleep on that…