"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+!