Weekly Recap

The past week has been more of the same: living life as it happens in Nantes. Some people I've talked with in the US have said things like, "Well, you're abroad, so your life MUST be very interesting." And while that is sometimes the case, because I can do things like hop on a train to wine country or Paris or take a weekend trip to London, the weekly life, the day-to-day stuff, is still the usual. I wake up, I get ready, I go to class, I try not to do work, I come home and eat dinner with my family, and I go to bed. It's the little things that make it so profound, but those don't always come across as interesting-- not in a quick reply. It's life in GENERAL-- the simple fact of living in a different country with five million different adjustments and out of that, creating my day-to-day routine-- that, in and of itself, is great. So I like my "boring" life. I still appreciate all the little things, I still love walking to the tram at 7:30 every Thursday morning and smelling the boulangeries baking their morning supply of bread, or taking the bus to IES around 11am Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, and always managing to pass the same (good-looking) man while he's changing the daily specialities on the glass-enclosed blackboard outside his café.


Highlights:
- I actually do like my 1-oz. shots of coffee, and they're only 0, 80E at the RU on campus, as opposed to 3E downtown
- Those espresso shots work WONDERS to prevent that food coma from settling in during my afternoon  Psychology class
- Eating dinner with Lauren's Aunt and Uncle at Le Saludier on Thursday night-- a 2.5- 3 hour meal that was probably the best meal I've had yet.
- Getting pains au chocolat with Maddy after class, and sitting on the fountain at Place Royale to catch up for two hours-- and conversing in French for an hour of it
- Eating Moroccan bread and pastries for breakfast this morning because my host dad got back from Maroc last night (and then him apologizing for the bread because he bought it yesterday so it wasn't fresh... right). We had something called cornes de gazelle (gazelle horns) that were delicious, plus I found out that he brought my host mom a ton of fresh moroccan spices (yum)
--And he was so excited about it, he brought the plastic grocery bag to me when I was in the kitchen and said, "Stick your head in this." Of course, I looked at him like he was crazy, then I realized what he meant, so I stuck my head into it and smelled about a kilo of moroccan spice heaven.
- My friends accepting my love of food which has gotten to be downright ridiculous.


I also published a post below that I wrote on Wednesday but didn't publish until now because I didn't really know what to do with it. It put me into a weird sort of unsettled funk, which I didn't have time for on Thursday (as I was gone from my house from 7:30am Thursday morning until 12:45am Friday morning, with 6 hours of class, a three-hour dinner, and errands in between) but on Friday, as I don't have any classes and therefore nothing to do, it just sort of hit me. This wasn't helped by two of my friends going out of town for the weekend and therefore spending 4 hours studying Pharmacology by myself at IES (because I found out I have a midterm in that class in two weeks) so it was just weird. With the cloudy weather and rainstorm (and exhaustion from my busy day the day before), it just made me want to crawl into bed and take a nap-- which isn't possible in a house full of seven people, four of whom are under the age of 10. So I toughed it out for a crazy/loud family dinner, then watched Project Runway and caught up on Grey's and spent the night in. While I would have loved to go out with my friends who were still in town, I think I really needed that.


After some more studying in the morning and playing with my four-year-old host sister in the afternoon, I met up with Clare at the château des ducs in the 70-degree sunshine. We went to go see "The Informant" last night, after which we got pizza in Bouffay and met up with Lauren (who had just gotten back from a little jaunt to the Loire Valley) for some glace. Perfect evening!


As for this coming week, I've got a midterm in my business class on Thursday (which is the last hour of my 6-hour marathon of classes on Thursdays, so let's hope I'm not burned out) and will be polishing up my plans to head to London and Oxford to see Anna during my fall break for five days. Next weekend, the group of the four of us are all staying in Nantes, so we're hoping to get a reservation to tour the Cointreau distillery in nearby Angers for the day if possible. This afternoon, we're heading to my little brothers' choir concert at the Conservatoire, and I've got a book to read for one of my classes before we go.


A bientôt!