home sweet home...

Well, the first chapter of my Nantais story is finished and I'm back on American soil. Quite jetlagged, mind you, but back. I went to bed at nine thirty last night, but then woke up at 6 am today...ah well.

I'm so pleased, by the way, to have gotten over 1400 hits on this blog. I'm well aware that a lot of them are repeats (hah myself included, when I update/check for comments!) but still...it's pretty exciting to see that big a number =D I'll continue updating when I get back to French soil on the 16th of Janvier, but for now I'm going to enjoy being back in the States with my REAL family and all my American friends =)

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année à tout le monde!

SOOOOO close to the end...

I have officially taken all 3 exams and handed in two papers. I have one more paper to hand in tommorrow morning to M Zonza and then after that...I'm FREE! but technically, I've finished the paper, so in a way I'm already free =D this past week and a half has been utterly exhausting. and I realized that in the past 3 weeks I have written 23 pages en français. Four different topics, mind you, but still. that's the equivalent of the junior IS I'll have to write next semester. no wonder I'm so burnt out...

so. time for some funny anectdotes of my life (please forgive my spelling errors, I can no longer write/speak/think properly in english!):


I seem to have caught the Cinderella Syndrome...I have a pair of shoes that used to have straps on them (notice the used to...) and while they are still wearable, they're sometimes difficult to keep on my feet. Case and point? I was sitting on the big steps at the fac waiting for class...well, when I got up to go, I started walking down the stairs - and walked right out of my shoe, leaving it two steps above me! hence...the cinderella syndrome (especially since I was in a dress when it happened!!)

Over the weekend there was a Christmas parade..."pour les enfants" (for the children) but goodness knows everyone went!! once the parade was over, there was a pretty fabulous mad rush of people trying to find their ways to whereever they were going...and lots of strollers. Lots and LOTS of strollers. In my attempt to avoid getting trampled by said strollers, I stepped quickly to the left - not realizing there was this random...thing sticking out of the ground. It's like a road block thing that retracts into the ground...at any rate, I defintely fell flat on my face, got the wind knocked out of me, and because of the inability to breathe, I couldn't respond when all the concerned french people were asking me "ça va?" (it goes? you okay?) oh, and I'm sporting a pretty fantastic bruise on my hip bone, too =D

and the adorableness of the weekend...Sunday was Christmas Pagent Sunday at my church!! All the little gamins (kids) led worship...they'd act out the bible stories (the one where God tells abram and sarai that their ancestors will number greater than the stars) and they all had stars around their necks...and the music. oh wow...the music. We sang Christmas carols - including the French versions of "Oh come all ye faithful," "silent night," "when the saints go marching in" and a jewish song (that one was fun!!) as well as a couple of hymns that were verbal gymnastics for us foreigners...and all of this music was accompagnied by an accordian and a tuba and a saxaphonish type thing...traditional french accompagniement!! it was so cool...all of us IES students were freaking out it was so cute and so fun...we kept squealing and cooing and laughing. at one point the lady in front of us turned and sort of chuckled...Derek said "pardonnez-nous" to which she replied "non...non c'est parfait!" it made me really happy. ("excuse us...no, no it's perfect).

okay. time to go to IES to print off my Fables paper so that I can be officially practically done!!
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(T-3 DAYS!!)

ooooooof...

okay. life = SO CHAOTIC right now. I have a grammar final tomorrow, my french writers final monday, france and the atlantic world final tuesday, and I have to hand in my Liaisons Dangereuses paper tuesday and Fables de la Fontaine paper on wednesday. THEN I can breathe. and then come home next friday!!!

recap of my Parisian weekend:
exhausting
hilarious! we even got a french man to burst out laughing =O
emotionally overwhelming
WET...though we did come up with a term to describe the rainy days in France: Reject Nanny Rain. you know, in Mary Poppins, when Mary shows up and all of the other nannies' umbrellas flip inside out and they blow away? yep, Alyce and I became the reject nannies.
just plain amazing.
as for what we did/saw?
Friday: Moulin Rouge, café des 2 moulins (IE THE CAFE IN WHICH AMELIE WAS FILMED!!), Le Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, Champs Elysées, the Ferris Wheel
Saturday: Eiffel Tower, Starbucks (yes, that counts. when you're as much of a coffee addict as Alyce, it's almost as exciting as any of the famous monuments!), lunch with Alex, Notre Dame de Paris, MUSEE D'ORSAY!!, Ce Soir, Je Dors Chez Toi (a really cute french chick flick), haagen daaz ice cream =D
Sunday: Church, Arc de Triomphe, Opéra Garnier (because I'm a good little Phantom Phan!), Galeries Lafayette, attempted to go to Père Lachaise (the famous people graveyard - featured in the FANTASTIC film Paris, Je T'aime)
and then since we were utterly exhausted and in so much pain from walking all over Paris, we crashed at the gare and waited for our train.

was it the perfect last trip of the semester? you better believe it.

and while I haven't had a chance to upload Paris pics, I did update the "nonfacebookpeoples" album, the "Ma Vie en France" album, and a new one: Ma Vie en France: la deuxième partie

...hopefully once finals are done I can write one more REAL post before I get on the plane to come home...in 8 days!!
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oh it's a jolly holiday with (er...without) Mary!

Last weekend was so much fun...it was a very Mary Poppins kind of a weekend! It started with the resident chalk artist of Nantes doing a mural of Jesus (Alyce: why is Jesus smoking a joint?! Me: erm...Alyce that's a candle!! ...oh). Then, we bought ourselves candy apples at the Marché de Noël. Of course, that wasn't enough - we rode the carousel with said candy apples! We were laughing and eating our candy apples and being loud americans on a carousel meant, of course, for children. The french people started gathering around and laughing at us and snapping pictures with their camera phones, but it was no skin off our noses! You KNOW they'll never forget those crazy american girls...and the best part was when Nicole and Lauren stumbled upon the scene...and Nicole started running AROUND the carousel trying to get pictures of us! it was pretty much hilarious and it made me so happy =D and the final part of our very Mary day was when we went to the Jardin des Plantes. It's absolutely gorgeous...I'm going to spend a lot of time there next semester, I think. We were walking around and saw this man feeding pigeons, so we wander over. All of a sudden, he pours the feed into his hand - and the pigeons fly up and perched on his hand eating out of his palm! we were pretty much amazed...and then he held out his hand to me. He poured the feed into my hand...and next thing I know, a snow white pigeon flies up and clings to my fingers as it pecks at the food in my hand. I was very Beauty and the Beast, as well as 'feed the birds, tuppence a bag...' (except that we didn't have to pay a tuppence!) it was such a fun, random afternoon...the sort of weekend you miss if you travel every single weekend like so many of my classmates do...

and speaking of travel, I'm headed to Paris tomorrow! I can't wait...Paris is beautiful enough as is, but I can only imagine it all decked out for Christmas! It'll hopefully be a nice, relaxing weekend - malgré que (despite that) I finished the awful beast of a paper, I still have three more to write within the next week and a half - all of them for the classes at the fac that I haven't had since the first week of november, of course! but one is done - well, in need of editing, but done - and another has been started...and the third will be EASY. The topic is "women in Les Liaisons Dangereuses" - c'mon, I'm a Women's Studies major...I can write a paper like that in my sleep!

also - the facebook photo album of pics that my friends took has been updated...I'll get my own pics up after the Parisian weekend.

and a weather update: raining, as always. but that's because it's currently 13 degrees...Celsius. which makes it about 56 F =D but I hope there'll be snow when I come home...in 15 days!

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TGIF!!

Finally, Friday arrives. This has been such an exhausting week...that 8 page monster very nearly beat me. I've gotten very little sleep this week, mainly because my mind has been racing non-stop for the paper such that even when I did (finally) collapse into bed, it would take me another hour or two to actually fall asleep. This wouldn't have been such a problem, if it weren't for the fact that I was up working on the paper until 12.30 in the morning...on a good day! but it's done and handed in...certainly not my greatest work, but it's DONE.

it was amazing how relieving it was to hand it in. I left the classroom (after M Ligneureux (I can't spell or say his name to save my life) had joked about our "petites textes" - little papers. HAH) and all of a sudden, it literally felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. it's such a clichéd expression, but it was true -for everyone in the class, too! I had a chance to do things I haven't done for weeks - like clean my room, or...I don't know...sleep...

the blessing of the day on thursday, though, was grâce à (thanks to) facebook. I was sitting in the computer lab (4am before the final paper is due...cursing the world that I didn't start sooner and seeing the rest of my class there too! well not really but I couldn't resist the avenue q reference!) before class, putting the finishing touches on my paper. I had gotten environs (approximately) 4.5-5 hours of sleep...I hadn't showered since tuesday (gross, n'est pas? camp whitman this is not...not showering is even worse in France, where all the women are perfectly coiffed every morning. unless they have dreadlocks...but I digress), I didn't even bother with my contacts, let alone make-up - I was wearing sweats and a hoodie, for goodness sake! I was staring at the computer, exhausted and disgusted with myself that I was about to hand in such an awful paper when I decide to check facebook. waiting in my inbox was the following message:

"“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I love you and I hope the end of your semester is not too stressful. You will survive, as will I."

Thank you, Girl Power Camp. 5 months later, Akeelah and Kristen are still giving me hope and strength to make it through until the next day. and yes, I just about started crying when I read it =D

speaking of Girl Power Camp...I had to laugh during Conversation Club this past week. We were talking about our jobs and I mentioned Camp Whitman...the girls I was talking to asked what kinds of things I did at camp. I mentioned the usual sailing camps, kayak camps, music camps...and then mentioned Girl Power camp. they both laughed and said "what, did you spend the week listening to a lot of Spice Girls?" ...even in France I get that reaction...

This weekend should be good...while I found out today that I still have 3 more papers to write (this time for the classes at the fac that I haven't had for three weeks and wont have until December 11th at the earliest), I'm not letting it get to me. Two of them are practically women's studies papers anyway! I'm going to go to the Marché de Noël tomorrow and enjoy myself and eat roasted chestnuts and drink hot wine and maybe even ride the carousel and then go out dancing at -where else - Havana Café in the evening.

and I plan on enjoying every minute of it, papers be hanged!

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24 days?

Not possible. simply not possible. my first semester is almost done...I'll be back on American soil in 24 days...

life has been relatively...insane, as always, here. I have an 8 page monster of a research paper due on thursday that's making this week a living cauchemar (nightmare). however...last week/weekend were fabulous.

Thanksgiving à la françias wasn't anything like Thanksgiving back home, but it was an enjoyable evening all the same! It gave us girls a chance to dress up, 'cause when the sign says "tenue élégant," you know we're all going to take it to heart. Besides, we all brought our "little black dresses" and needed an excuse to wear them! The repas (meal) wasn't "Thanksgiving" at all, but it was yummy - and the french chef's attempt at pumpkin pie was rather entertaining, to say the least! It was a little strange to share my thanskgiving meal with my history professor, though... but again, it was a very enjoyable evening.

Friday was the fun part...I went over to Brianna's house to make a "real" thanksgiving feast - as real as you can get with french ingredients, at any rate! We spent the afternoon cooking and laughing and just being fools...it was FANTASTIC. a little anachronistic to have a group of 20something women cooking together during the 21st century, but that made it all the better. and Brianna payed me a VERY high compliment - I'm not white anymore. we've become such good friends that color just doesn't even exist anymore. I'm so glad she's staying the whole year too...we're gonna go to Greece and Egypt together for spring break. at least...that's the plan right now =D

this past weekend I went to Rennes with Alyce...it was good to take a weekend to just chill and goof off...and eat bonbecs (=bonbon=candy) while watching SuperNanny (the french version! there are french brats too!!) and go exploring the city. the metro in Rennes is SO crazy high tech...it was impressive. I much prefer my above ground tram system, though...I get to see more of Nantes that way. heh not a lot more, but at least I see the streets on the way to the fac!

...speaking of the fac, the grèves continue. thus I could sit here and update my poor neglected blog. I'm almost starting to doubt that I'll ever have a class at the fac again this semester...

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Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle...

(When the low and heavy sky weighs down like a coffin...)

Welcome to the world of Baudelaire. It's the first line of one of his more famous poems "Spleen." I had to do an analysis of it last year for intro to francophone texts. It was not until today, however, that I truly understood what he was talking about.

Baudelaire must have spent his winters in Nantes.

The winters here are incredibly...déprimant (depressing). I woke up today to see sunshine and blue skies. by lunchtime, the weather was absolutely DISGUSTING. Grey skies, heavy clouds and miserable cold rain. It won't snow here, but it in the Bretagne region in sure does rain. A lot. the kind of rain where I want nothing more than to stay in bed with a good book and a mug of tea and read all day. Instead, I have to pretend to be productive when the weather puts me in an incredibly UNproductive kind of mood. I told my French Writers prof that the weather was disgusting and that it was making me grincheuse (grumpy) and he said "of course -you're suffering from the Spleen". I realized he's exactly right: now I can say I truly understand Baudelaire. of course, I'm not sure if that's a good thing...

in other news...the grèves continue. There's supposedly going to be lots of manifestations tomorrow...I'm gonna go take my camera and lots of extra batteries! Of course, since I won't have classes tomorrow at the fac (the president closed ALL the buildings at the fac until wednesday), I can get lots of work done. Fortunately; part of my work consists of reading a novel, so the morning is going to be spent in bed reading like I wanted to do today =D

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Americans = Prudes?

Well, en rapport à ( in facing ) my latest French experience, I can only conclude that Americans are body-shy prudes.

Let's backtrack, shall we? for my carte de sejour (a legal document I have to have to live here for a year) I had to have a rendez-vous chez le medcin (a doctor's appointment). I go to the doctors yesterday morning and the nurse does the usual heightweighteyecheckareyouhealthy? runthrough. I'm then sent to another room to wait for a bit...then I get to have pulmonary x-rays! oh boy! so I walk into the x-ray room and the x-ray technician tells me to go put my stuff in the little adjoining room and strip from the waist up and then come back out for the x-ray. I walk into the little room, expecting to find that nice paper shirt for modesty purposes...nope. nothing. the room was empty. I guess the french just aren't nearly as awkward about nudity when it comes to medical visits...I was just confused. I'm so used to the American manner of covering yourself when at the doctors as much as is possible by the nature of the visit. and then of course the technician (thank GOD it was a woman...) was just standing there talking to me when I came back out as I'm awkwardly trying to figure out whether I should just stand there as is...or attempt the glaringly obvious arms-crossed-over-my-chest-for-modesty pose. It was hilarious, in a slightly uncomfortable way! Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...

encore des photos!

I uploaded a few more pictures...the albums entitled "Ma Vie en France" and "for the benefit of non-facebook peoples" have new photos =D

only in France...part 2,357,573,486

I've had some pretty bizarre things happen to me in the course of my schooling. There was the time in highschool that the whole school went into lockdown because of a turkey hunter...the time I saw my (male) math teacher wearing a dress...and then the time in college when the police were called just because we were playing in the snow...but I think my experience here in France might just top all of that.

I went to the fac today for my 8amclassfromhell a.k.a. La Princesse de Clèves after having nearly given myself a nervous breakdown yesterday trying to finish the paper for said class. I got to the fac, bought myself my 35centime tuesday morning cup of coffee (yes, I know - I don't like coffee, but it's the only thing that gets me through that class) and headed downstairs. I turn the corner and see...what looks like a REALLY bad senior prank. Every desk and chair has been removed from the classroom and piled up in the hallway, literally barracading the doors into the classrooms.

Why, you ask? Because France is a culture of grèves - strikes. Yes, the students are on strike. It sounds like a highschool freshman's dream come true...but in fact it's rather annoying. I stood around for a while, drinking my coffee and laughing at the sight in front of me. I was, of course, extremely irked that I had nearly killed myself to write that damn paper and I got up entirely too early for (apparently) no reason. That's right...class was cancelled! how often do you get to say class was cancelled because the students went on strike? The strike, by the way, is because the government is considering "privitizing" the university system...I put that in quotes only because I know that's not quite the right term for it, but it's the closest I could come. translation gets in the way. but at any rate...once again, I find myself shaking my head and saying...only in France!

in other news...Alex's visit this past weekend was fun! Granted, it made me realize that I don't know the tourist side of Nantes...I live here, after all, and it's not a "hotspot" on the tourist map. But we had a fun weekend...aside from the weird moment when the tram est tombé en panneau (had a breakdown) while we were halfway across the Loire...we decided that we shouldn't be allowed to be in Europe together - nothing goes right when we are! Oh and dinner on Saturday was absolutely hilarious...we went to a restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves with my Nantais girls...we were obnoxiously loud and completely American, laughing our heads off and enjoying life to the hilt. The snotty french boys at the next table over actually had the gall to shush us...and they were our age! so we ignored them and continued laughing and chatting as we had been - it was amazing, I haven't laughed like that in so long!

yesterday was a pretty rough day - a stage 2 day to the extreme where I just wanted to be at Wooster. Granted, it was all stupid facebook's fault - I was looking at Val's pictures of the Let's Dance! tango performance and I REALLY wanted to be there to participate. I still miss my dance group...the salsa and tango classes are fun here, but it's just not same. I just don't want to go back my senior year and find out that I don't fit in with Let's Dance! anymore...add to that my schoolwork stress and the stupid conference I had to go to on Vladimir Putin and it was a very very very bad day. but Alex made it better...she sent me the french translation for the word "angst" (we have a running joke about being angsty) and it was "angoisse existentialiste" - existential anguish! so while I was suffering yesterday from quite a bit of existential angst, I'm happy to report that it has since lessened.

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The Barcelona Saga

Thursday was the travel day. I left for Paris in the morning and then we got the bus to the airport in the evening. Once on the plane – only plane I’ve been on where seating was first come, first serve…I was amazed that Alex and I got seats next to each other! We found the plane entirely too amusing…they had the safety stuff posted on the seat in front of you…we somehow managed to keep ourselves amused for a good 20 minutes laughing at the pictures and making up our own explanations for what the pictures meant. I plead the fact that it was 11 at night…and the best part was a LOST moment. Alex and I were discussing what would happen if the plane split apart like in LOST…she said “Well, as long as we’re in the very front or the very back, we’ll be okay.” I look in front of me. I look behind me. I look at her and say “We’re smack dab in the middle.” “…crap!” It was really funny at the moment, anyway…

We got to the Girona Airport and had to get a shuttle to Barcelona…getting ON the damn bus was an experience in and of itself! Ever watched rugby? Ever seen a scrum? You know, where each team slams into each other to get the ball? Yeah, that’s what getting onto the bus felt like, though apparently the bus itself was the rugby ball. It was INSANE. There was one woman who was being pushed back and down so hard on my bag (which was slung across my chest) that it was putting insane amounts of stress onto a pressure point in my shoulder/neck…I couldn’t breathe at one point. Good times…but then I (literally) elbowed the guy next to me so that Alex and I could get onto the bus. She and I were both amazed that we had that kind of aggression in us! It was worth it, though, if for nothing but the view on the way to Barcelona. Not the view of the countryside, mind you. It was too dark to see any of that…but the stars were AMAZING. Whenever I leave my aparte before sunrise (which is thankfully less frequent thanks to daylight savings time) I look up to see Orion above my head. Not only did I see ALL of Orion from the bus window (head, body, belt, sword, even his bow!) but I also found Canus major/minor, the Gemini twins, and even the Pleiades! It might not mean anything to you all, but it was a fabulous way to start my sejour (stay) in Barcelone!

We finally made it to Barcelona…got in cab, since it was 2 in the morning, and gave the taxi driver the address of the Graffiti Hostel. He was a nice taxi driver…he not only waited to make sure we got inside safely, but he also got out of the cab to help us out when we couldn’t get into the hostel. We make our way upstairs to the reception desk…this half-asleep Spanish guy greets us and mumbles something (in so thick an accent that I wasn’t even sure it was English he was speaking) about being overbooked. He looks at us and informs us that, “we do have one bed left…[and this is said in the most pitiful half-asleep little-boy voice I’ve ever heard] but it’s my bed!” He disappears for about 10 minutes (Alex and I tell ourselves it’s to change the sheets…) and then takes us to his room. He apologizes profusely for the mess – it looks like the worst dorm room EVER! There’s stuff everywhere, but then again it’s technically where he lives. We look up at the top bunk (we’ll be sleeping on the bottom bunk) and realize there’s a random half-naked Spanish guy watching TV! We start giggling like middle school girls at the absolute awkwardness and sketchiness of the room, but we were beyond the point of caring, we were so exhausted. We collapsed into bed without even bothering to change into pjs (also there was the random male roommate…) and pass out. The funniest part was when we hear the door slam at 7 and another guy comes in and falls into the bed next to us and starts snoring in a way I didn’t think was humanly possible. Quite literally falls into bed, too–his legs were splayed out hanging off it! We decided he must have had to have been drunk to sleep like that! We ran into him later in the day and realized that he’s another employee at the hostel. He told us that Juan (the guy whose bed in which we slept) would “figure out where we were sleeping” when he got on duty later that night. He hardly sounded convincing, so we left to go explore Barcelona.

(Of course, being the mature young women that we are, we decided to make our already-sketchy story even sketchier – When in Barcelona, we slept in a random guy’s bed with a half-naked man on top of us! Sounds much worse than it really was, but we burst out laughing every time we said it!

Our first stop was Sagrada Familia, but the line was ridiculously long, so we went to Park Guell instead. It’s the famous park the artist/architect Gaudi designed…it was in one of the most fabulous French films, L’Auberge Espagnole! It was incredible…I’ve never seen anything like it! All of his work is modeled after the natural world, so everything looks like it’s growing out of the ground or something like that…and there was mosaic EVERYWHERE. I’ve decided I very much like mosaic designs! We headed next to Place d’Espanya to try to find some lunch. Unfortunately, all of the menus outside the restaurants were in Spanish. Duh, of course, we WERE in Spain after all – but I never realized how intimidating it is to be in a foreign country where I DON’T speak the language! We chickened out of trying to eat at a restaurant and finally found a boulangerie (bakery). We literally pointed at the sandwich we wanted and smiled. Iwas was PATHETIC. It makes me appreciate my French skills…and makes France seem SO easy in compairison! After our humiliating meal as Tourists (yes, with a Capital T) we walked to this castle/palace/bigfancybuilding and just laid in the grass next to a fountain for a while. It was so nice to just laze about and enjoy the Mediterranean sun and the laid-back lifestyle. I was only there two days, but I could tell day one that they take life at a slower, easier pace than France or the US. We then took the metro back to Sagrada Familia and got gelato (of course!) and then went into the cathedral. It was absolutely amazing…construction was started in 1882 and it’s STILL unfinished…designed again by Gaudi. It really is indescribable…a masterpiece not only of art but also of mathematics – there were all these signs describing the math behind the construction – I didn’t really understand it…but it was pretty to look at!! Afterwards we went to dinner with my Nantes girls (it seems like half of IES Nantes went to Barcelona!) and went to a bar to hang out for a while…the conversation turned morbid talking about death and funerals, but whatever! We headed back to the hostel shortly thereafter…Alex and I were absolutely exhausted. When we got to the hostel, we ran into none other than Erin – fellow Woosterite! We didn’t know that she was coming to Barcelona for her break, let alone that she and her friends were staying in the same hostel as us! …small world…

Grace à (thanks to) the overbooking, we once again got no beds – instead we had slept slumber-party style in the TV room on a fold out couch. Well…the cushions folded out into a sort of pseudo bed…even MY shins were dangling off the edge, it was that small! One of Erin’s friends slept on a beanbag, and the other on another too-small cushionbedthing. It wasn’t the most comfortable things by any stretch of the imagination, but by this point I was starting to get a headcold…I was so exhausted I slept like a rock anyway. Needless to say, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the Graffiti Hostel, but the overbooking wasn’t their fault. But at any rate, it was a safe place to sleep and it wasn’t terribly expensive – and it makes a great story!

Saturday, we started our day off by heading to the Gothic Quarter…the original Barcelona, if you will. The roads were more like alleys, they were so narrow, and the buildings were so old…it was beautiful. Alex and I found our future home - the Viceroy Palace. When you walk in, you find yourself in this huge, beautiful atrium. There are no windows, so it’s so airy and the walls are yellow, which makes it even brighter. It was so lovely…there were plants climbing around the ceilings which gave it such a fresh feeling. I’m ready to move in! Inside, there was an exhibit from the Archives of the Crown of Aragon, (sorry, Gerald, I couldn’t find your name. I blame the fact that they were all in Spanish and Catalonian!) Being the bibliophile that I am, I loved looking at these centuries-old books…they were SO pretty. There were all these intricate covers of leather, some of wood, others covered in jewels or precious stones…it really was amazing. After wandering around the Gothic Quarter for a bit longer, we went to find la plage –the beach! After all, we were on the Mediterranean –we couldn’t NOT go to the beach! We walked in the surf for a bit…and got SOAKED by one particularly sneaky wave. I tend to forget that je suis un peu plus petite que mes amies (I’m a little smaller than my friends) so the waves that get them wet just above their knees gets me up to my butt! It was COLD, but it was fun to play in the Mediterranean. We went to the mall for a while and then just sat on the boardwalk/dock for a bit, relaxing and enjoying the sun.

After a while, we headed to Las Ramblas, which is essentially the tourist road of Barcelona – tons of pavilion tents with knickknacks for sale and these REALLY neat statue people…you know, the ones that stand still as stone and actually look like statues! Well, some of the people were better than others, but there were some really creative ones. There was a demon/zombie that was entirely TOO good – he looked dead, except that his eyes would follow you as you walked by him…SI creepy. We then went to my FAVORITE part of Barcelona –the Magic Fountain of Montjuic. It’s a relatively unimpressive fountain by day (well, it’s dry, so that’s part of it) but at night…it really is magical. They play music and have lights on the fountain and it’s just…beautiful. I kind of felt like I was in the middle of the (first) Disney Fantasia…it was incredible. The mist from the fountain gave it an incredibly ephemeral look…add to that colored lights and it was even more amazing. I highly enjoyed it! Afterwards we went to dinner with Erin and her friends and got pizza and sangria – such a refined palate, I know – and chatted en francais. We figured in the middle of Las Ramblas it’d be better to speak en francais so as to not be *too* obviously American. The sangria, by the way, was quite good - Alex and I split one, since the "cups" they came in were huge - they were more like bowls!

We went back to the hostel and ended up in the TV room again. They only charged us a grand total of 22 euros for the three nights– we should have paid 66! Needless to say, I’m okay with the deal we got! Since Alex and I had to leave at 2.30ish in the morning to get our 3.45 shuttle back to Girona (6.50 in the morning flight = very bad idea) so we just sat around watching tv and dozing on and off for a couple hours. We ended up sleeping (well, I can’t speak for Alex, but I did!) on the bus…and then again on the plane…and then again on the bus back to Paris…and then I slept some more on the train back to Nantes…and yet I was STILL exhausted by the end of Sunday.

All in all, it was a pretty fantastic trip! I could have done without the sketchy sleeping arrangements, the getting sick thing, and the early-morning departures, but I’m so happy we went! And considering we did the whole thing (travel wise, not food/souvenir wise) for less than 200 euros, it was SO worth it.

Back in Nantes this past week…I’ve been SO tired. Trying to recover from the weekend in Spain, trying to recover from being sick, and trying to do work all at once – and all in French – is NOT so easy. But Alex is coming to Nantes tomorrow!! And I’m gonna take her to the Havana Café Saturday night, so that’ll be a good stress-reliever for me =D

À +!

(your reward for reading the whole post...A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words and miscellaneous people photos!)

caught in a whirlwind?

Yes, I'm back from Barcelona.
Yes, I'm exhausted.
Yes, I'm working on writing up a huge entry/uploading pictures.

yes, life is chaotic as always and I don't know when anything will get done =D

Pictures!!

Une Week-End Parisienne the weekend I went to visit Alex in Paris

Ma Vie en France I added some pictures from the Elephant Outing

That's about all there is at the moment...after this weekend there'll be more to tell - I'm going to Barcelona for fall break!! One of the (many) things I love about Europe...Prof Zonza told us not to try to get ahold of him this week since he'll "be in Italy" and now I'm off to Barcelona for the weekend...it's so weird!

a +!

some people drink their problems away

Me, I dance them away and wake up very sore the next morning =D
I'm gonna miss the Havana Café when I leave Nantes!

welcome to the inside of my head (good luck...!)

Okay...I officially enjoy saturdays that AREN'T packed full of things to do. It gives me time to breathe and do things like sleep and homework and updating my blog and enjoying Nantes. What a concept, n'est pas?

Okay. Speaking of homework, I feel like I should prolly let you all know what my courses are like! Some of them are fantastic, some of them are mediocre, and one of them is admittedly horrendous.

I've got my three litt courses at the fac - Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Les Fables de la Fontaine, and La Princesse de Clèves. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is by far my favorite course of the semester - mostly because of the prof! M Zonza is one of (if not THE!) best professor I've ever had! He's one of those profs that you can tell is incredibly intelligent, but he's so approachable and personable and FUNNY. He was reading out loud in class one day and I'm pretty sure he's been an actor in a previous life. When reading a passage by Cécile, and incredibly infantile and idiotic 15 year old girl, M Zonza actually used a high-pitched, little girl voice! He had the whole class in stitches, it was fantastic!! He's also the prof for Les Fables de la Fontaine, so he makes that class bearable too...the text is harder to get through, though. Les Liaisons is 18th century, les Fables 17th; it's amazing the difference one century can make! La Princesse de Clèves, however...that one's 17th century as well, but it's at 8 in the morning and Mme Redot isn't NEARLY as engaging as M Zonza. La Princesse is the horrendous one...I dread tuesday mornings. but I'm pretty sure it'll count for a women's studies credit, and I need 2 of those while I'm here.

My 3 courses at IES are all pretty good...grammar is grammar, there's nothing terribly exciting to tell for that course - I just hope it'll help! French Writers and Foreign Nations is fun...though the litt courses at the fac make it seems très...facile =D (very easy). The prof is a cute old man who asks every ten minutes "avez-vous des questions, s'il vous plaît?" (do you have any questions, please?). It kind of reminds me of the regularity of my highschool chorus teacher's "Some annoucements!" at the end of every chorus period! The last class is France and the Atlantic World (16th-18th centuries) which is good because I've never taken a French history class. The one thing in that class that drives me nuts is when my classmates laugh every time our prof tries to say an english name/phrase. Granted, he has a VERY thick accent and I won't lie, it is entertaining - but I feel bad for him...our FRENCH accents sounded that bad at one point...I'd've given up forever if a native french speaker laughed at me every time I tried.

Other than school, life is...life is pretty good. I had a rough spot of homesickness yesterday since Cabaret opened at Wooster and I wasn't there to see my girls perform...plus I was exhausted from a really long week. It was just one of those realizations that I'm not going to be home for 8 more weeks and won't be at Wooster for another 10 months. But my girls and I are going out dancing tonight and I've had a nice relaxed day, so that's helping. but I also realized some of the things I miss about the states (and this is not counting the people, otherwise you'd be here for hours reading the world's longest post):
-dryers. only for some things, like hoodies or towels. they're just not nearly as comfy when they're line dried
-milk. the milk here is demi-écremée...half cream. so basically, it's half and half. basically, I haven't had milk since I was in the states =D
-classes being done by 4pm at the latest. having class from 5.30-6.30 is...not so much fun
-(and here's my incredibly nerdy one) the academic environment at Wooster. Most all of my classes here are lecture classes...I miss discussion classes. I miss Wooster's writing-intensive, critical-analysis atmosphere. I went to a conférence (public lecture) on "société d'hyperconsommation et l'individualisme" (society of hyper-consumerism and individualism) on tuesday and it was so the kind of lecture Wooster would have held...and then for my FWFN midterm I actually had FUN writing the essay. Granted, you should never let a women's studies major write about "la condition féminine"...she'll start writing about feminist discourse. I kid you not, I really did. I hope prof Millany's ready for that paper...it was DEFINITELY a women's studies paper!
-(my other nerdy one) women's studies courses in particular. they just don't exist here, and I never realized how much I really do enjoy those courses at home and how much they energize me...

and I'm done being a nerd now =D

I think I'm going to go read some Dangerous Liaisons...it's such a good book! (...and such a scandalous book!)

à+!

We'll always have Paris

Let's be honest, I still haven't recovered from last weekend in Paris! But it was an incredible weekend all the same =D

at a glance:
Friday: dinner, hanging out with Alex and Meghan, watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle, hanging out in the apartement
Saturday: Montmartre, Place de la Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries, Louvre, attempted Musée D'Orsay, Friends, crazy night at the apartements
Sleep-deprived Sunday: church, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower (sorta), more Friends, come back to Nantes

Okay. Friday night was absolutely FANTASTIC. I got to see two of my favorite Wooster girls and do the whole hyperventalating-I'm-really-in-Paris gawking tourist thing. The best part was when Alex and I were waiting for Meghan by one of the metro stops on the Champs
Elysées; I decided I should probably actually go to the street and look up and down it...it's kind of an iconic street! I went to the street and looked to the left and thought to myself "oh how neat, there's a really big ferris wheel there. that's cool" I looked to the right and nearly jumped out of my skin/fell over and thought "HOLY SHIT THATS THE ARC DE TROIMPHE!!!" I started dancing around and laughing like an idiot...I couldn't help it, it was amazing...and HUGE. I guess I never realized how big it was in real life =D Meeks found us and when she and her friend Kevin found out that it was my first time in Paris, she decided she wanted to see my reaction to the Eiffel Tower =D It was...pretty much amazing, I'm not gonna lie. Because it was nighttime, it was all lit up...and then every hour on the hour it sparkles. Literally SPARKLES with hundreds of flashing lights...all I could think of was how mum found a journal I kept for class in 5th grade that talked about how the attraction I would most like to see is the Eiffel Tower...my dream finally came true and I won't lie, I almost cried/squealed when I saw it =D

Afterwards we went and hung out with Alex's IES friends...and bounced balloons back and forth like little kids for about an hour =D ...we're entirely too easily entertained!

Saturday was a day of random "what should we do now?" We started in Montmartre and sat by the Sacre-Coeur eating lunch...it's a gorgeous building. I remember in highschool I used to sit in Mme Zadin's class and stare at a poster of Sacre-Coeur after finishing quizzes and classwork...it's so much better in person =D We went to Place du Tertre (?) which is pretty much the artist's square...people have their artwork up for sale and work on new pieces right there. It's what I picture whenever I think of artistic bohemian Montmartre...and it was even more meaningful for me because of my Junior IS last semester on Suzanne Valadon =) We attempted to go to Musée d’Orsay, but it was closing early because of the transportation strikes, so we went to Place de la Concorde/Jardin des Tuileries/walked around the (outside of) the Louvre instead. I enjoyed it very much...the art and architeture (I know I say that a lot, but I just can't get over it!) was so...amazing. We decided we were tired from our late night and full day, so we went back to Alex's house to watch Friends...'cause that's how we hang out at Wooster, why not do the same in France? after a while we went back to the apartments to hang out with even more of her friends...and that was the most bizarre night EVER. I'd say the 7 bottles of wine they consumed helped out just a bit...though Alex was sure to assure me (and I believe her) that her friends are NOT usually that...intoxicated =D the only bad thing was that it resulted in getting to bed at 4.30...and then having to get up about 4.5 hours later for church =P

Needless to say, we were both extremely tired on Sunday. After church (at which I saw ANOTHER wooster person - I had forgotten Anna was in Paris too!) we went to L'Arc de Triomphe, which is even BIGGER when you're standing under it! we got then went to the Eiffel Tower and got in line to go up to the top...but realized we didn't quite have enough time, so we're going to do that on thursday before catching our flight to Barcelona for fall break (yes, I'm going to Barcelona for the weekend. I love europe!) we watched another episode of Friends before I got my train back to Nantes (which was stopped for a while, resulting in my not getting home until quarter of midnight. yikes, I was tired).

all in all, it was a pretty fantastic weekend =D

hopefully there will be another post today/tommorrow about my life in Nantes...travel entries are fun, but I want to get some of what's in my head (scary thought, I know) and what's going on in my *real* life into this blog. that stuff usually goes into my journal...I'm pretty sure I've already written about 160 pages since coming to France. I've finished one journal and started another...and it hasn't even been two months!

lunchtime and then tango - à+!

As promised: the weekend I realized I could never pass for a true French woman

(aka my chateau weekend. Kind of feels like forever ago by now, but that's beside the point.)

The first chateau was Serrant...a rather "small" chateau, even though there was a HUGE kitchen and dozens of rooms. And being the nerdy bookwork that I am, I nearly fell over when the tour guide brought us into the library. There were literally THOUSANDS of books in that room...12,000 in fact. There were the original copies of Les Fables de La Fontaine, of the encyclopedias that Napolean wrote after his travels...bookcases that were literally 16 shelves high, floor to ceiling. There were even the ladders to get to the top shelves. I had a completely Disney Belle moment when I saw that library...definitely ready to move into that castle!

After Serrant we went to Azay-le-Rideau. The neat thing about Azay-le-Rideau was that it was built on this little pond/lake thing...so it was almost completely surrounded by water! The intricacies of the architecture of all these castles completely boggles my mind! People just don't take the time to construct buildings like that any more...after I wandered around the castle (and saw a painting of a man that looked JUST like the villian in Ever After!) a couple of us walked around the grounds...and I found a tree to climb! Not as good as my Thinking Tree in Princeton (long story...) but it was fun all the same!

Villandry was the last chateau on Saturday, though we didn't go in - just wandered around the gardens. They were pretty impressive gardens, though! Perfectly manicured and maintained to the point of Art...and there were grapes growing in the vineyards. I gotta say, I love french grapes. They're so good...especially when pulled straight off the vine!

We stayed in Tours that night...following literally in les pas de maman (mum's footsteps) thirty years later...she studied/lived in Tours when she was in college! Watched the (depressing) rugby match that ended France's participation in the World Cup. I had so wanted France to make it to the finals...Nantes would have been INSANE for that game! ah well.

Sunday started with Amboise, the castle at which DaVinci spent the last 3 years of his life...I got a picture of his tomb! exciting, I know. My favorite part of Amboise was the Red Room. Red is my current favorite-color-of-the-moment and I walked into a room to see nothing but red. Red walls, chairs, bed, carpet...it was amazing! speaking of the beds...they're short. They're big, in the sense of being wide, but they're SHORT. i don't think even I'd be comfortable in them.

The title of this blog comes from our trip to my favorite castle, Chenonceau. Before we explored the castle, my girls and I had a pique-nique (so much more fun to write en français!) and had a ton of fun chatting and laughing like idiots. And it was during this pique-nique, grâce à (thanks to) the dirty looks of the french families around us, that I realized I could never actually convince the world that I was a french woman. I could perfect the language, the body and the look all I wanted, but my cover would be blown as soon as someone made me laugh. The french tend to laugh very discreetly and quietly behind their hands. I tend to throw my head back and laugh until my sides hurt and I'm nearly crying. Thus I'll either have to come back to the states...or live as a misfit for the rest of my life, as mum put it =)

Chenonceau itself was absolutely gorgeous...built first by Diane de Poitiers, the favored mistress of Henry II. but then...once Henry II died, his wife, Catherine de Medicis, kicked the mistress out of the castle and finished building it HER way. The result? a very amusing looking castle with two very distinct styles! but the castle is built literally into the Loire river like a bridge...it's so pretty...

and now I need to actually go do some work. I'll write about my fabulous weekend in Paris...sometime later!

à bientôt!

Time? What is this time you speak of...?

So I was hoping to get a good-sized entry up about the chateaux trip...looks like that might have to wait a little while. I'm so unbelievably swamped right now I just haven't had time. With a grammar midterm tomorrow, 4 books I'm working on reading, and 3-4 papers looming over my head (due early in november), life is chaotic. oh and that whole I'm going to Paris TOMORROW to see alex and meghan!! thus...pictures will have to tell my story until I have time to write it. The following are facebook albums, but everyone can see them.

Shopping for my future home?

The Magnificence of Michel et Malo

a+...hopefully my life will settle down soon!

La Revanche d'Al Gore?

I opened my copy of Metro, my morning newspaper that I grab as I'm getting off the tram and seen the headline (I apologize in advance for awkward phrasing born of spot-translation) "His Nobel Prize is a repudiation for George Bush: The Revenge of Al Gore." Said article quoted the Washington Post saying that "the inaction on climate change is one of the principal failures [of Bush]. Sadly, there was no european perspective in the article - it was more reporting on the events and attitudes of America.

Personally...I'm thrilled that Gore won the Nobel. I know a lot of people don't buy the whole "global warming" thing, or chalk up the current ecology to part of the natural cycle of the earth. Personally, global warming/climate change/whatever you want to call it isn't the real issue. The real issue is how the actions of people are impacting the environment. I would love to see this start something big. It's impossible for any one person to change the fate of the environment. Sure, Gore did a pretty good job at raising awareness -and controversy. It'd be easy to say that it's because he has money/power/influence that he can change things...but think about it for a minute - he can only plant the ideas. People need to then man up, as Kristen would say, and take responsibility and action.

I've noticed some interesting differences here in France in terms of being environment-friendly. there's the public transportation, for one, though I recognize it's because I'm living in a big city. The constantly changing rolling billboards are another...but there are smaller differences, too. We don't have a dryer in my family -everything is line-dried. But more than that, there's a huge difference in how energy/electricity is used. In the States, we hate darkness. Lights are turned on and left on, even in empty rooms. Tvs are left running to create "background noise," or radios are constantly playing. I feel like here electricity is used when it's needed. Lights are turned on as late in the day as possible, and they're only on if they're being USED. I'm trying to be more conscious about this - maybe I can't save the world, but if I'm more careful about energy use and maybe I can convince one person (who convinces one person who convinces one person who convinces one person...) to be concious...THAT is when change is possible. just...think about it.

Oh and there's something else here that makes my green heart happy. Monoprix, which is sort of like a superTarget, is where a lot of us IES students to go get our groceries. I was so confused the first time I got groceries there...in the states, they bag everything for you as they scan it. Here...they don't bag it for you. In fact, they don't bag it at all! People bring their own (fabric, not plastic) bags to carry home their groceries. I have since found the few bags Monoprix does provide (a great boon for those of us foreigners who didn't bring grocery-toting bags!) -large, heavy-duty plastic bags that are intended to be REUSED. I love it. I absolutely LOVE it.

Today is Blog Action Day. (http://blogactionday.org) Thousands of people all over the world are choosing to use their blogs as a way to create change. I know perfectly well that there are people in the states, in france, in england, in scotland (even in italy!) who are reading this blog. People who know me are well aware that environmentalism is important to me. We are called to be stewards of the earth, to protect it and "live simply, so that others may simply live." When I realized that today was Blog Action Day and that the topic was the environment...how could I not add my voice to the other 15,000+ voices? we live in a time of mass-communication...I'm just glad it's finally being put to good use =D

the weekend, by the way, was amazing. I'm working on going through the 8 pages I wrote in my journal from saturday-sunday and organizing it into a huge post - but I don't think that'll be ready till tuesday or wednesday.

à + - and think green thoughts!

Les étudiants français sont folles (crazy)!

Time for another interesting-observations-about-france entry. Take the most serious, perfectionnistic, crazy-intense student you know in the States. Multiply that by ten.

Said student won't even hold a candle to the average french student!

It's always amusing for me to sit in a class at the fac...I'm sitting there scrambling to follow anything, get anything on the paper to remember later what the professor said. I'm thinking only of writing frantically key words and names and dates (ps, the dates are hard. I hate hearing numbers in french, I get so caught up in trying to translate the numbers that I miss the importance of the date!). It's entertaining to see my notes after said courses- the grammar is horrible, but that's beside the point. They're scattered and in no particular logical sequence - just whatever concepts and words I managed to understand.

Now lets look at the average french students. Said students will probably have in front of them a pencil case full of pens and pencils. Me, I'm used to having my one blue pen and using it for everything I write. These french students have minimum two different colored pens, but they usually average about 4 colors. Not only do they use all these different colored pens to properly categorize and organize their notes, but they also use White-Out. To take NOTES! I have actually seen these students whip out their White-Out pen, fix something on their papers and carry on without missing a beat! The White-Out isn't even the worst of it, though. They all have RULERS! because of course, heaven forbid that the line you draw under the title of your notes be even the slightest bit crooked!

...they're absolutely insane =D

this weekend is the Chateaux de la Loire trip...I can't wait to see Chenonceau in person! and then the weekend after that I get to go to Paris to see my Alex and my Meghan!!! Granted, I'll get there assuming that the grève de SNCF (SNCF (train) strike) announced for next thursday in Nantes doesn't interfere...Mme de Pous, my grammar professor, promised to keep us updated.

à + !

Allez bleu!

What a weekend...

friday was salsa dancing at Havana Café, which was insanely fun. I was dripping in sweat after about an hour...the piste de danse (dance floor) was so crowed you almost couldn't MOVE, let alone dance! I danced with a couple different people...it was actually kind of funny because no sooner would I break away from one guy and rejoin my girlfriends than another guy would grab my hand and pull me back into the crowd! I had so much fun dancing...my muscles were actually SORE the next day, but it was so worth it. We also managed to find a 70s-80s discothèque after the Havana Café, which was fun too...but I infinitely preferred the salsa dancing.

Saturday was some shopping in the afternoon and the evening...the evening was an experience, to say the least. I met up with the girls I went salsa dancing with to watch the rugby game in the centre ville (downtown area). We wandered from Bouffay to Commerce, trying to figure out which of the grand ecrans (big -and I mean BIG- screen tvs) we wanted to watch the game. We finally settled on the Commerce one and sat in the middle of this HUGE crowd gathered in front of the screen. I wouldn't be surprised if there was environs (approximately) a thousand people there...no joke. It was insane. France wasn't supposed to win the match against New Zealand...NZ is supposedly REALLY good. but...ALLEZ BLEU et VIVEZ LA FRANCE! We totally won! The entire city went NUTS, people were honking their car horns till at LEAST 1h00...it was so exciting. granted, I'll be the first to admit that I hardly understand (okay, don't at all understand) rugby, but it was still exciting to be a part of such a huge event.

oh and à propos de (referring to) Babar...I misunderstood when that little IES excursion is...it's this coming friday, not last friday. whoops!

à plus tard!

"feu d'artifice de pierre, dentelle de granit, chef-d'oeuvre d'architecture colossale et délicate."

yes, I realize that is an excessively long title, but there's a reason. It's a passage from Guy de Maupassant's La Légende du Mont Saint Michel, and it really fits quite perfectly. "fireworks of stone, lace of granite, a huge and delicate masterpiece of architecture." Our trip there really was amazing...Mont Saint Michel is absolutely phenomenal. The construction spanned 3 centuries and you can tell...it's COLLOSAL and breathtaking. I can't imagine the amount of time and effort that must have gone into the contruction of this abbey; the detail carved into the stone is unreal. Not to mention the sheer size - it's huge! And of course, because I'm a broadway baby through and through, I had such an urge to burst out into Phantom of the Opera as I was walking down these old stone staircases...but I refrained from doing so, don't worry! After Mont Saint Michel we went to St. Malo, which was a fortified medieval city, complete with the surrounding wall and ramparts and such. We walked around the city on the wall...and then went wading in the ocean. During the last week of september. It was pretty much fantastic! The water was si froid (so cold) but it was so crystal clear and refreshing that we didn't care. And the sand...the sand actually glittered, it was so gorgeous. The bus ride back to Nantes was spent in one of those contentedly dreamy dazes of "I just had the perfect day in Europe..."

This past week, as plenty evident by the lack of updates, has been so chaotic! well, not so much chaotic as exhausting. All of my classes have started proprement (properly/really) at the fac, so I have my hands full warding off panic attacks nearly every day! well, not any more, but when the classes started I was convinced I was going to have to do an explication du texte en haut voix -an oral explanation of the text - in front of classes full of French people! The thought of standing up in front of a bunch of native french speakers and trying to analyze 17th and 18th century French literature - complete with reading the passage aloud - was enough to terrify me into giving up! happily that's some sort of requirement for the french students for their examens or something...I didn't really understand it, but all I know is that I'm for some reason exempt from it. Which makes me very happy. and much less panicky.

Right now, though...it's time for my annual start-of-the-school-year maladie (sickness). yep, it's my turn to have the head cold that's been racing through IES for the past couple of weeks. Speaking in french 24/7 should be fun with a stuffy nose!

but I don't really care because I'm going to ride Babar tomorrow afternoon and then go salsa dancing in the evening!
à+!

...there are no words

Seriously. there are just no words to describe the spectacle I witnessed last night. I went to see the Casse Noisette (the nutcracker) with a group from IES. Now, when you hear "Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker" what do you think? Amazing ballet, tutus, live orchestra? That's what I think of, at any rate. I suppose that was what I was expecting...and it turns out that was a very big mistake.

Rather than classical ballet, beautiful costuming and the typical toy soliders and mice and sugarplum fairies, we got...well, I'm not entirely sure WHAT we got. We got a blind paranoid schitzophrenic, soliers with gas masks, and a Drosselmeyer that looked more like Zoolander than anything else! It was this strange production that seemed more like modern/interpretive dance than ballet with some tumbling and acrobatics mixed in for good measure. There were some great moments to it, though...Clara and two of the soldiers did an incredible pas de trois in which her feet were never on the ground for more than three seconds for about 4 minutes. Drosselmeyer covered the stage in glitter at one point...he threw some up in the air and then tons of it started falling from the rafters...with the spotlights shining on it, it was absolutely gorgeous. oh! also, when I looked at my ticket, it said "Loge 12." I knew that le fantome de l'opéra always sat in "Loge 5" and loge was a vocab word when we read the Fantome in 12th grade (that was forever ago...) so I knew that loge = box. I open the door to my loge and it LITERALLY a little box with 2 chairs in it, so I can now say I've sat in a balcony box at an opera! it was great fun, even if it was a little (okay a LOT) wierd. a group of us girls went to the café Le Molière for chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) afterwards.

Tomorrow is the Mont Saint Michel outing...I'm so excited! and I bought train tickets for a weekend in Paris with Alex and Meghan...plus a group of us might go to Dublin after fall break! huzzah! Tonight, though, is a lounge-in-pjs and listen to music and read in english and play scrabble online kind of night. I've had such a crazy week...I'm not used to not ending my school day and getting home until 6.45 in the evening...at the earliest. there are days I still have CLASS from 5.30-6.30! it's quite the change from Wooster's all-classes-end-by-4 way of doing things. but I got to start the argentian tango class today, which was great fun. I really do enjoy tango...I just wish there were more than 5 guys in a class of 30ish...ah well. I'm just glad I already know what I'm doing...it makes the language barrier less of an inhibition.

à +
(that's the french equivalent of ttyl...sort of stands for "à plus tard," or "until later")

awkard middle school dance à la français?

Well. What an...interesting evening. there had been a poster on our mirror at IES (yes, that's how announcements are made at IES - a piece of paper taped to the mirror) that announced a reception at l'institut polytechnique (yep, polytechnic institute) for us IES students. it said it was at 6...I was expecting to hop on the tram, chat for a bit, and be back to IES in an hour or so.

ohhhh was I mistaken. First off, it took almost an hour to GET there. I'm completely lost by the time we finally arrive at the university (not the same university (fac) I take classes at) and are ushered into this room where there are maybe 20 guys and (literally) 2 girls standing around. so us poor confused IES students stand in an awkard cluster wondering if anyone's actually going to say anything...and finally the profs welcome us, saying that it's a good chance to meet people, especially since (and I quote) "l'institut polytechnique est presque seulement les hommes, et vous chez IES sont pour la pluspart les femmes." for those of you who don't speak french, the director of my program actually told us that it was a good chance to meet people since "the polytechnic school is also only men, and you all at IES are for the most part all women."

...I'm sorry, but did my prof just try to set us all up on blind dates or something?!? So imagine this...all the IES students awkardly keeping to one side of the room, remarking how much it hearkens back to the days of middle school dances with the boys on one side of the room, girls on the other, and everyone afraid of venturing into the middle. We eventually started mingling, but this was my problem: I'm a double major in french and women's studies - the latter of which doesn't even EXIST in france and tends to make french men uncomfortable -or at least confused -when I say it. What on EARTH do I have to say to engineers and IT people and computer programmers?!? Even if everyone in the room spoke the same language fluenty, I just DON'T have anything to say to them!

so yes; I had a wonderfully AWKWARD night. (and I didnt even get home until 9.15)

the redeeming point to the day was that I attended my salsa class and it made me very happy =D

oh and I had a brilliant idea for my French Junior IS - we'll see if it actually lasts until next semester when I have to write it.

and now, even though it's only 9.30...I'm heading to bed. I have an 8am class at the fac tomorrow.

bonne nuit à tout et tous!

Slight rant against the French education system

Okay, not so much a rant as a notice of frustration. I’m used to the American education system where you register for classes quite literally months ahead of time. You know exactly when and where your classes will be, and they always start when they’re supposed to. Here…not so much. As I discovered this past week, the likelihood of them starting when they supposedly do is pretty much nil. I finally figured out that the lit courses wouldn’t be starting this past week, so I gave up on them. My Argentinean Tango class, however…that I was expecting to start. My friends’ sports at SUAPS had definitely started this past week, so I was looking forward to meeting some French people and getting the chance to dance for a bit. But…you guessed it. Tango doesn’t start until October, apparently. Now, I’m okay with spontaneity – to an extent. When it comes to academia, however…I miss the structure of the states! plus I just really wanted to dance...

Anywho, the week finished up relatively well, I suppose…I had a total meltdown/panic attack on Thursday, but it’s all better now. I had one of those great aha! moments that made me realize I was being an idiot and trying to make myself be someone I’m not. Yes, it sucks to be an introvert in a situation like this. But…a tiger don’t change [her] stripes, to paraphrase Sawyer (yes I just had a LOST geek moment. Deal with it!)

Today I went to visit L’Ile de Nantes’ very own Babar…and for those of you who aren’t lucky enough to know who Babar is, Babar is a cartoon elephant with whom most French children grow up. L’Ile de Nantes has something called Les Machines de l’Ile…one of which is an enormous Elephant. A mechanical elephant that you can ride! It’s absolutely enormous and an engineer miracle…it moves exactly like real elephants do…to the point that it has a hose in its trunk and sprayed water at the kids watching it walk! Its hard to properly explain it…but it was really fun to watch.

Now for a random observation of France (well, at least of Nantes):

In the states, I feel like there’s an expectation that you have a different outfit for each day –or at the very least, a different shirt. It seems like there’s a pressure to have a large quantity of clothing. Here, however, they’ll literally wear the same outfit 3, 4, even 5 days in a row. Mme Rouchet, I’m sure, has only a few ensembles –but I’ll bet you anything they’re all very nice, slightly pricier, high quality ensembles. It doesn’t phase anyone here to see the same outfit all week, but it seems like in the states that implies having either slept in your clothes or pulled an all-nighter. Like with food, there seems to be a quality over quantity mentality to how they approach clothing. And then there’s the actual clothing itself. Some of the outfits I’ve seen are incredible chic, elegant and timeless –tailored suits, well-made dresses, beautifully cut skirts and slacks. Others, though…I just have to stop and wonder about the people. Their outfits are definitely things you could only get away with in France. There was one woman who had a blouse that had these huge flat-disc-sequin-things on it…the kind of things I remember using to decorate posters and scrunchies when I was maybe six... but there were fringes of these sequins on the cuffs, hem and collar of this blouse…it was si bizarre!

Après la pluie, beau temps

the title's a french proverb that translates to "after the rain, good weather." Yesterday was pretty much a nightmare - the liasions dangereuses class isnt going to start until next week, so I wasted my time going back to the Fac in the afternoon, too. It turns out I had been in the wrong building completely...the only bright side to yesterday was that I got a chance to sign up for both the salsa class and the argentian tango class at the Fac. hopefully those'll give me a chance to get centred again (I miss dance so much and it's amazing how dependent I became 'cause it was such a good destressor) and make some French friends - goodness knows I love my dance group back in the states! anywho, yesterday was a bust academically; monday I had a grammar course in the morning but French Writers in Forgein Nations was cancelled. The lit course schedualed at the fac today also wont start until next week, but I did have France in the Atlantic World and my grammar course at IES, so today was less of an academic bust than hier. and I bought a copy of Les Liaisons Dangereuses today and started reading it - it's amazing how much the movie Cruel Intentions was based off of Les Liaisons...

anywho, once all my classes actually start, I'll be taking the following (probably):
at the fac: Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Les Fables de La Fontaine
Princesse de Clèves
(all of which are litterature courses)
at IES: France and the Atlantic World from the 16th-18th Centuries (history course)
Topics in Advanced Language and Grammar
French Writers in Foreign Nations

plus the salsa and tango classes, though those are more like extracurriculars

so yeah. basic update...
à plus tard...

the morning that just shouldn't have happened

This morning I had an 8am class at the FAC, so I got up at quarter of six when the stars were still out and my friends in the states probably hadn't even gone to bed yet. So I get up, shower, grab some breakfast and get myself out the door...listening to superchick on my ipod in hopes of staying awake and keeping up my energy. I get on the TAN, go to the FAC...get off a stop too soon (whoops...) and walk the rest of the way in the barely-post-dawn cold until I see the building where my class is. Victory! Well...not quite. I still have to find the classroom. No worries, though, I've still got twenty minutes till class (good thing I left the aparte an hour early!) So I start looking for the classroom...I found the psychology wing, the philosophy wing, the geograpy wing, the classics studies wing, the history wing...anything, of course, but french literature. It's 8 o'clock by this point....if I can find the classroom asap I won't be *too* late. no such luck. it's now quarter after and I have to accept defeat -I've been wandering around the building for half an hour and I've seen every hallway twice. I have NO idea where this classroom is, so I have to resign myself to the fact that I'm just going to have to miss the first day of class. Hopefully I'll be able to find the classroom next week...and hopefully I'll be able to find the classroom for the OTHER lit course I have in 3 hours. So then I try to get a TAN back to IES...and the door closes and the TAN leaves right as I'm about to get on. Once again...I am left frustrated and about to cry, feeling nothing but completely incompetent and useless. It's mainly just that I'm in a foreign country and EVERYTHING is significantly more complicated. Even the simplest of things - finding a place to eat, figuring out where a damn classroom is, even expressing how you're feeling becomes infinitely more difficult. For someone who considers herself pretty articulate and well-spoken, the lack of language is the hardest thing. Sure, my french is pretty good...but it's also pretty basic. I use the same vocabulary over and over and I find myself unable to say what's on my mind, how I'm feeling or anything like that.

ugh. it'll get better. I know it will. It's just that right now...it sure doesn't feel like it.

one week down

Well. I wasn’t kidding when I said I might be able to update this weekly! It should be easier to update more frequently in the future, though, because this past week was complètement FOLLE! (completely INSANE!) The days would start at 9.30 in the morning and we wouldn’t get back until 7 or 7.30 – sometimes as late as 8 o’clock. Most of it was just typical start-of-college orientation; safety, meal planning, guides to the “campus” (heh rather the large confusing city of Nantes!), that sort of thing. There were also three “classes” – conversation with Mme Rouchet, langue Francaise with Mme de Pous, and grammar with Julie. Mme Rouchet is pretty much the most adorable French woman I’ve ever met! She’s the epitome of une femme francaise…sophisticated, chic and so composed. She’s got that air of a French woman I would LOVE to possess, but it’s something that you acquire only through being French and living in France for your life.

Anywho, the week was a roller coaster, to say the least. There were some absolutely exhausting days where I wound up with a headache by 11am from having to think and concentrate so much and crashed into bed at 10.45. At the same time, though, there were days where I was so exhilarated to be here, speaking French and living in France that nothing else mattered. Mme Chancerelle had invited a couple of her friends over one evening for an apéro (aperitif) and it was so much fun…though those women (and the teenage daughter) talked si si si vite (so so so fast) that it was so hard for me to keep up…but I held my own relatively well. It was nice to just sit and be social and have fun!

Its just so interesting how different some things are here. Meals, for example…I still haven’t gotten used to eating dinner between 8 and 8.30…if you know my family, you know we eat between 5.30 and 6. Now I’ll have class from 5.30-6.30! Plus the meals are smaller…the French tend to go for quality rather than quantity, something SO different from the supersized MacDo meals in the states (heh they call McDonalds MacDo here). The other thing I’ve noticed is that at least in Nantes they know how to do more with less. Less space – my aparte is so much smaller than our house at home, but the huge windows and furniture arrangements seem to open up the space a lot better. Not to mention the fact that said huge windows reduce the need for turning lights on significantly. And the really neat thing is their “billboards.” Rather than being these huge monstrosities that require huge amounts of paper and lumbar and can only advertise one thing at a time, they have essentially big tv screens that rotate digital advertisements! Definitely less of a waste of energy and resources here. Granted, nowhere’s perfect, obviously, but…it’s nice to see progress all the same.

All in all, things are going pretty well here. I finally had a breakdown moment last night because I was so overwhelmed and tired and we had free time…now I see why we keep kids so busy at Whitman: give them time to do nothing and the homesickness and loneliness will swamp them. But I’m better now =D and I’m very much looking forward to starting classes tomorrow! Despite the homesickness/feeling lonely, it's amazing how right it feels here. I'm so happy I chose Nantes over Paris...of course I want to go visit Paris (et, bien sur, ma cherie Alex!), but I'm glad I'm here. Nantes feels right =)

oh là là...

Coucou tout le monde! What a full weekend! Thursday was realitively uneventful, just driving to Vannes, playing those horrible ice breakers that always have to happen, and getting to the hotel. We had dinner at the hotel and then just explored Vannes for a bit...and then my roomie and I talked till almost 2 in the morning...I guess we hadn't quite adjusted to the new time zone yet. Friday...Friday was pretty much the PERFECT day. We went to an old castle called Suscinio and had a guided tour (of which I was pleased with myself for understanding) and then went to L'Ile aux Moins, a gorgeous island. We had a picnic and biked around for about 3 hours (yes, mum, I actually biked. Gasp!) The bikes even had the fun baskets on the front...si si si française!! At one point we found a boat launch spot where we could take off our shoes and go wading...thus I have officially been in both sides of the Atlantic Ocean!!! The best part was when a random car drove up to the boat launch and we all freaked out that we'd get in trouble so we started to grab our shoes and bikes...and then realized it was just a tourist vans and that we made ourselves look SI coupable (so guilty!). But then we biked around some more and ad,ired all of the amazing cottages...it really did look like so,ething out of a storybook. and I had so,e of the ,ost (ps, the , key is where the m key usually is, but I'm getting sick of fixing it; replace the necessary ,'s with m's) a,azing ice crea, ever on L'Ile aux Moins!

Yesterday was pretty good...toured a country manor rather than a castle in the ,orning and then had lunch at a crèperie, puis we toured one of the megalithes of the Bretagne region. It was a cavern built and carved around 2500 bc, I think. heh and it was small enough that even I had to duck! We wandered around the town for a while ,ore after that (of course I totally forget the na,e) and headed back to the hotel. My roomie and I decided to turn in early, since this morning we had to take our french placement test. It didn't go too terribly, I was just happier than anything to have it done. And i found a café très français and sat on the trottoir (sidewalk) drinking a small cup of espresso: thus begins, I think, my coffee addiction! We spent about an hour after lunch at Rochefort en Terre, ho,e, I believe, to either the oldest or one of the oldest towns in France. It was so ,uch like so,ething out of a fairy tale it's not even funny!! I was so sad that my camera batteries had died by then =/

All in all, it was a pretty good way to start ,y sejour in France. I got to know a lot of ,y classmates and we could reposé (rest) and s'amuse (have fun).
à tout à l'heure!

Vivez La France!

I don't have much time to write, mainly because we're going to be leaving for Vannes soon. Also, more importantly, the keyboards are so WIERD here! Nothing's where I'm used to, so I feel like I'm learning to type all over again!

But the flight was good...though really long they showed Spiderman 3 and Just Friends (didn't watch Just Friends). I sat next to a girl headed to Paris for her grad school studies. I hardly slept at all on the flight...dozed for a while on the train...and then slept for over 12 hours last night =) but I enjoyed getting to know Mme Chancerelle and her daughter Pauline. They live in the epitome of a cute little French apartement...whoops gotta go!
à bientôt!

Unreal reality

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I get on a plane and fly overseas to Paris and then take a train to Nantes. I'll meet my host family (while half asleep, completely jet-lagged, mind you) and...begin a whole new life. People keep asking me "Are you ready?!" and the truth is, I have no idea. I've dreamed of going to France like mum since I was 10. Half of my life, this has been my dream -and now I'm less than 48 hours away from getting it! It feels so incredibly...unreal. I can't wrap my mind around any of it, it just feels so...impossibly unreal. Physically, am I ready? Am I packed? ...well, not quite. I still need to throw in all the random things that have been piled by my suitcase waiting to be packed. Emotionally, mentally...am I ready? I honestly don't know. It's hard to imagine anything of what my life will be in a matter of hours. I've been studying French formally since seventh grade, informally since fourth. I can (and did!) carry on a conversation on the phone, in French, with Mme Chancerelle. I've read some poetry, plays, novels, essays in French and written papers and essays of my own. I've read the expats-who-moved-to-France stories. but all the same, it's going to be so much bigger than that. It'll be a challenge to the extremes I've never faced before...and I'm looking forward to it! Am I excited? of course! Am I nervous? ...try terrified. Am I ready? well...as ready as I'll ever be, I suppose. I've got the gumption to do this...I wouldn't have made it this far without it.

the next time I post on the blog, it'll be a post from La France! I'm not sure when that'll be, given the off-site orientation in Vannes, but I'll try to post my first impressions asap.
à bientôt !

the REAL countdown is here...

I fly out of Toronto a week from tomorrow. In 8 short days I'll be leaving for Europe! The packing process is a nightmare, of course, but I'm hoping to be able to get everything I need packed. Of course, I have no idea what I'll actually need for living at the "Road of the frosty/icy door." I hope the street name isn't a bad omen...

I also found out that the IES students are having a 3 day off-site orientation in a city called Vannes. Personally, I'd never even heard of Vannes before! It's in the Brittany region, close to the Atlantic. So basically, within 24 hours of being in France I'll be in 3 different cities - flying into Paris, staying a night in Nantes, then going to Vannes. so excited!
à bientôt !

Bienvenue, l'aventure!

T-30 days!
Yep, in less than a month I'm going to be taking off for Europe! The program in Nantes starts a month from today, so I'll be leaving a month from yesterday. I'm so excited...in a terrified kind of way. I've never left the North American continent before, but this is something of which I've always dreamed!

The purpose of this blog is to keep all of you posted (no pun intended...) on my life in Nantes. Ideally, I'd like to plan to update at least weekly, but we'll see how things turn out in reality. I'll plan to write about what I'm up to and what I do, but...well, knowing me there will be tangents and digressions about anything and everything, bien sûr! (and I'll try to keep the franglais to a minimum, I know that drives some of my non-francophone friends and family bonkers. no promises once I get thrown into 24/7 French though!)
à bientôt !