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!