Lot of Family!!!

Two weeks ago, Patrick, James, and Aunt Sassie came to visit me in France. We had the best time!!! They flew in Saturday morning and I met them in Paris around lunchtime. They were all in the lobby when I got to the hotel and it was so amazing to see them!!! We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a restaurant near the hotel and then went to the Rhodin Museum. It was such a gorgeous day and we had so much fun seeing all the beautiful sculptures. I think it was the boys first real “artsy” experience and they had quite the interpretations of some of the sculptures. We left the Rhodin and decided to go up in the Eiffel Tower. I had NO idea how afraid Patrick was of heights!!! James and I couldn’t even make fun of him he was so nervous up there. We ended up getting a few jokes in, but it really wasn’t that fun because he was so scared! We left the Eiffel Tower and grabbed dinner and then went to bed because they were all still pretty jet-lagged.

Sunday we woke up and went to the Musee d’Orsay which was incredible! Afterwards we grabbed lunch and then walked to the Notre Dame. It was Palm Sunday and they were selling palms outside the church. It was so neat! We decided to climb the bell tower and as we got to the top the bells started ringing! It was so pretty, a little loud, but really pretty. They told us that they only ring them on special occasions, like Palm Sunday. We left Notre Dame and went to St. Chappell. It is probably the prettiest church I have ever seen so it was so much fun being able to see Patrick and James’ reactions to it as they saw it for the first time. Literally their mouths dropped. Sunday night we went to a really French restaurant and the boys really stepped out of their comfort zone with their food choices. We all had some escargot—it was really good because the snails were cooked in a pesto sauce! Patrick had duck that was delicious and James had sweetbreads—the intestines of a lamb. James really enjoyed the sweetbreads—it was a little creamy/rich for my taste. But I am so happy for them for trying new things!!!

Monday they left to go up to Normandy and I left to go back to Nantes for the week. I met them again in Paris the next Friday afternoon. We took a river cruise down the Seine and then had a picnic supper at the Eiffel Tower. It was so much fun!

Saturday morning I woke up SUPER early because MY MOM was flying in at about 7 am. I was SOOOO excited to see her—three and a half months is a long time, especially when you only have skype! I left the hotel at 530 and got the bus to the airport. The bus was supposed to take an hour, so I thought I had plenty of time. Well of course, there was an accident on the highway. I was literally about to jump out of my skin on that bus! I know everyone thought I was crazy! I finally made it to the airport and figured out her gate. It was such an amazing feeling to finally see her and be able to give her a hug! It was almost surreal because I hadn’t seen her in so long! Both of us were of course a little emotional and after we finally stopped hugging we realized this older couple had stopped to watch us. It was so awkward so we grabbed her stuff quickly and left. We hopped in a taxi and headed towards our hotel. It was so great catching up and just being with her! I asked her about her flight and was SHOCKED because she said she took an entire ambien but didn’t sleep at all (that wasn’t good.) When we finally got to the hotel, my mom was HILARIOUS! It was like she was drunk/high because of the ambien. It was truly the funniest thing to watch her try to unpack and shower. Eventually she fell asleep for a little nap and was able to sleep off the pill.

We walked over and met Patrick, James, and Aunt Sassie near the Louvre for lunch. It was so much fun to all be together. We decided to walk down the Champs d’Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe, but it was closed due to strikes. So we walked by the Eiffel Tower and then headed to a restaurant near our hotel for dinner.

Aunt Sassie had found the American Episcopal Cathedral in Paris and we were all able to go to the Easter Sunday Service. It was so amazing and a special Easter that we will never forget. Saturday as we were walking towards the Eiffel Tower we had stopped by the Cathedral. We walked in on the organist practicing for the Easter Sunday services—it of course meant the world to all of us to sit there and listen to the beautiful organ music since Gigi had played the organ at St. Jude’s. Easter Sunday we were all so happy when the opening hymn was “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.” After church we grabbed lunch nearby and then headed to the Orangerie, where Monet’s paintings of the lily gardens are. They were absolutely beautifully, and SO big! After l’Orangerie, we had a surprise for my mom. When we were at St. Chappell earlier in the week we saw an advertisement for an 8 piece orchestra concert of Pachebel’s music. We bought tickets and all went to the concert Sunday night. It was beautiful, especially since it was inside St. Chappell. Patrick, James, and I were all even surprised at how much more of the music we recognized!!

Aunt Sassie, James, and Patrick left early Monday morning and I was of course sad to see them leave. It was so amazing having so much of my family come over and visit me while I was here! I wasn’t sad for too long though because I knew my mom and I had a fun week planned in Paris!!

We decided to go to the Louvre Monday morning. We had borrowed a Rick Steves guide book from Aunt Dotty and he did a two hour of the museum. It was perfect because we saw all the important paintings and when he talked about them he told the story of the painting instead of talking about the color, lighting, shadows, etc. We really had so much fun! We stopped and ate a quick apple and then headed to a wine bar near the Louvre where my dad had scheduled us a two hour wine tasting. We had the BEST time at the wine tasting. It was of course fun to try all the wines, but we also learned about the different wines of France and how you could tell them apart. Luckily we both liked the same kinds of wine so we were set to have a fun week in Paris trying all the new wines we had tried that day! After the wine tasting we went and changed and then met Claire, her dad, and her sister Lacey for dinner. It was so much fun to see them and for me and Claire to be able to tell them all about our semester!

Tuesday morning we slept in and went to the Musee d’Orsay later in the morning. We did the Rick Steves tour again and loved it!! We ate lunch afterwards at this really cute sandwich place; it was delicious! After lunch we walked to the Rhodin museum and spent about two hours there. We grabbed a quick glass of wine on our way back to the hotel, went and changed, and then grabbed dinner near our hotel. We went to a really neat restaurant and got the BEST steak ever! This was the third time I had eaten red meat since I came to France and it was sooo good!!!!

            Wednesday we decided to just go shopping because our hotel was near all these great stores! We actually stumbled upon and open air market on our way to some shops and found a lot of neat little things there. While we were at Zara, a really cute store, we found this top that my mom LOVED! It was so cute but there was only one left. When she tried it on she needed the size smaller. Well, as we were walking out of the dressing room, we saw a woman carrying the same top! So we literally spent the next hour stalking this woman around the store as she looked at other clothes, and compared the shirt we wanted to other shirts in the store. We made awkward eye contact with her numerous and one time my mom went to turn around and literally ran right into her—clearly we aren’t very good at being discrete. Finally she put the shirt down, but we were crushed when it was the same size my mom had tried on, not the smaller size. But that didn’t stop us. We decided to go to another Zara in Paris and thankfully we found the shirt there! Sure do hope my mom loves that top this summer!!

After such an eventful day we decided to grab a bottle of wine to take with us to the hotel room to enjoy before dinner. Well up until this point we hadn’t had very good luck with buying wine from the grocery store—there are just so many choices. In fact, we were so bad at picking good wine that until this point we had only picked twist off bottles (we didn’t mean to buy the twist off ones, it just took us a few days to remember to make sure the bottles had a cork and not a twist off.) Finally though we had found what looked like a good bottle with a cork in it! We thought were good to go…until we tried to open it. Literally neither one of us could pull the stupid cork out of the bottle. After trying for a good 30 minutes we were both crying we were laughing so hard—of course we actually get a good bottle of wine and now we couldn’t open it. We decided to go ask the man at the corner store if he could help us, but by the time we got there we literally could not speak we were laughing so hard. He thankfully understood what we needed and with one little tug he pulled the cork out. It turned out to be the best bottle of wine we had the whole trip!

Thursaday we went to Versailles which was INCREDIBLE! It truly is breath-taking because is it so big and so ornate. We were lucky too because it wasn’t too crowded. After taking the train back to Paris, it was kind of drizzling so we decided to go to Opera Garnier. This is one thing I have always wanted to do but never had the time. It is the Opera building that Phantom of the Opera is based off of—it even sits on top of an underground lake. The Opera building turned out to be the highlight of our trip. It was amazing. The inside was prettier and I think even more ornate than Versailles. The foyer had huge ceilings with these beautiful gold details and of course beautiful paintings everywhere. The actual auditorium was breathtaking with all the deep red, velvet fabric and of course the big chandelier. The building even smelled rich and almost mysterious. The lighting was a little dark so we both felt like around every corner the phantom would be there. If you go to Paris, PLEASE go visit the Opera Garnier—it was definitely the highlight of our trip. After Opera Garnier, we decided to go up to Sacre Coeur because it was close, and it turned out to be the complete opposite of the Opera building. The inside of the church was beautiful, but there were so many tourist and just sketchy looking people inside and around the church that we just couldn’t enjoy it at all! We stayed for maybe 15 minutes and then quickly left. I’m glad we saw the church, but I wouldn’t go back there again.

Friday, was the wedding day. In our hotel room we had one English channel, CNN, and all week they had been covering the Royal wedding. We were already excited about the wedding, but since it was really the only thing we had watched all week, we were really, really excited and had watched literally every news story on it. We decided to wake up early and go for a long walk because we knew we’d go crazy if we just sat in the hotel room all morning and all afternoon while the wedding was on. We stopped at an outdoor market and got some fruit, a delicious roasted chicken, and some mimosa makings. Then we settled down in our room and watched the entire coverage of the Royal Wedding. I am obsessed with Kate Middleton and think she was just absolutely beautiful that day!! My mom and I had the best time watching it.

After watching literally every minute of the wedding and the coverage we decided to walk over to Notre Dame. It was such a pretty afternoon and as we went inside Notre Dame the sun was shining right through the gorgeous rose windows. It was so pretty!! After Notre Dame we walked over to the Arc de Triomphe. This is my favorite view of Paris and it was my mom’s first time climbing up something. It was so pretty being able to look down the Champs d’Elysee at the Louvre and then over at the Eiffel Tower. That night for dinner we went back to Rue Cler and had the best salad. It was spinach with pesto, parmesan cheese, and some kind of bean (my mom knows the name but I can’t remember ha.) And this restaurant had the biggest glasses of wine I had seen in 4 months. All the wine glasses over here are super small so it was a very welcomed change. As we were walking back to our hotel we turned around and saw the Eiffel Tower twinkling, it was gorgeous.

Saturday we decided to walk over to the Eiffel Tower and go up to the top. Neither one of us had ever been to the very top and were both determined to do it. After waiting in the line for 4 hours we were finally on the elevator to the top. The elevator kind of jerked as we started up and we both definitely left our stomachs on the ground as we went up and up. But the view from the tip top was completely worth it!! It was breathtaking. And it was really cool because there are signs that say like “United States 3,000 miles” (or however many it was) and you know you’re facing the U.S. They have this for a ton of countries so it was really neat being able to think about seeing the whole world from the top of the Eiffel Tower. After coming down we decided to walk over to St. Sulpice. It is a church in Paris with one of the biggest organs in the world. And since Gigi used to play the organ, we both really wanted to see it. Well the church itself was incredible but the organ was massive! The pipes were HUGE. As we walked into the church we realized a wedding was about to start—in Europe the churches are open all the time so people can walk in and out of someone’s wedding if it’s in one of these huge churches. There were tourists everywhere walking around but my mom and I decided to just sit down and watch the wedding. About that time the organ started and it was absolutely beautiful. The bride looked pretty too, but the organ stole the show. We stayed and watched a little of the wedding, but it was in French and the minister wasn’t wearing a microphone so we could barely hear anyway. That night we met my friend Will for dinner. Will is studying abroad in Madrid and was in Paris for the weekend. It was so great to see him and catch up! Definitely made me miss Wofford and all my friends!!!

We had intentions of waking up early Sunday and going out to Giverney, but both decided to stay in bed a little too long. We ended up getting to the train station about 11 and got a train for 12. I took my mom to the little boulangerie in the train station to get a sandwich to eat on the train. These were completely normal sandwiches that I had been eating all semester. I told my mom that her choices were ham, ham and cheese, or chicken. She said ham and cheese and that she wanted mustard with it. When I told her that they didn’t have mustard but not to worry they put butter on the sandwiches, I wish more than anything I could have taken a picture of her face. As I said the word “butter” I truly thought she was going to vomit. She got that face where she is trying not to be disgusted but she was clearly completely grossed out. I told her options were butter and ham sandwiches or McDonalds. For the first time in my life I ate McDonalds with my mom.

Our trip to Giverney was totally worth it! His gardens are just breathtaking and we had so much fun walking around and looking at all the beautiful flowers. The gardens had changed so much since I had visited them with Aunt Dotty and Rebecca earlier in the semester. It was neat to see all the new flowers. That night we grabbed crepes near our hotel and then went to bed early because my mom had early flight out.

            It was so sad to say goodbye, but thankfully I only had two weeks left. I know these next two weeks are going to fly by, especially with exams and everything. But it was still sad saying goodbye to my mom. Thankfully for the train ride back to Nantes I could think about all the fun we had had this past week!

London, Paris, and Normandy

       Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged...everything has just been super busy over here but...

        

So I spent possibly one of the best weekends ever in London with my friends!!! Well I guess it didn’t start off so great! I was waiting in the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when I got a text from Ellis that the hostel we had booked was absolutely disgusting. Usually I would have been worried to receive a text like this, but I got really worried when Ellis told me that Martha, our one friend who could rough it through a gross hostel, was crying because the hostel was so nasty. To say the least, before I got on the plane to go to London, Ellis and Martha were in the process of getting our money back from the hostel and booking us a hotel.

            I was so lucky because my flight to London was on Air France instead of Easy Jet or Ryan Air. So not only did I actually have an assigned seat, but they even served me a snack and a drink on the plane!!!! I felt like royalty. When I got to the airport I hopped on “the Tube” towards our hotel stop. The direction of tube was towards ‘Cock Fosters’…say that in an English accent and maybe you’ll understand why I was laughing the whole way there. Once again Ellis, Martha, and Charlotte were there to greet me at my tube my stop. I truly wish I could describe how amazing it was each time to see my friends in each of these amazing cities all over Europe, but it is just too hard to describe! But to say the least I was so happy I literally could not stop smiling!!! I didn’t get in until later Friday, so that night we just ate dinner near our hotel. We happened to find this amazing burger place! It was the most American meal I have had in two and a half months. Not only was it an amazing burger and fries, but we were able to eat it with all the ketchup we wanted. Ketchup is very hard to come by in Europe, so we were thrilled. I know I slept better than night because my body was so happy to have beef.

            The next morning we woke up really early because we decided the best way to do London was to hop on one of the open top buses and buy the day long tour. We started off by taking the two and a half hour long tour all the way around the city. It was an absolutely beautiful day and we had the best time seeing all the monuments. When we finished the entire tour we stopped to get lunch. We ate at the most delicious restaurant ever!!!! I always thought fish and chips was so cliché and pretty much just fried fish and French fries, which it is...but the place that we ate at was amazing!!!! The fish and chips were truly incredible! We could have stayed there for hours eating our meals!

            After lunch we decided to go to the Tower of London to see the crown jewels. It was absolutely breath taking—they were SO big! Afterwards, with the tour we bought, we got a free boat ride down the Thames River. It was so pretty because the sun was setting as we took the ride. We got off the boat at Big Ben and Parliament, walked to Westminister Abbey, and then to Buckingham Palace. I wish I could describe all of these amazing places, but I just can’t. All I can say is that I definitely want to visit London again one day SOON!

            We grabbed a quick dinner that night and then walked over to Abbey Road. We literally took a million pictures as we tried to recreate the moment with the Beatles. After that we walked over to Big Ben to see it at night. It was spectacular.

            It was really sad leaving London Sunday morning—not only to be leaving our friends, but to be leaving a place where they spoke ENGLISH. To say the least we were all missing America, but we were excited too because we are meeting up the next weekend in Paris for Claire’s 21^st birthday!!!!

            Claire and I met Ellis, Martha, their roommate Marrissa, and Virginia Friday afternoon in Paris. When Claire and I got there, the 4 other girls were visiting Versaille because they had flown in Thursday. So Claire and I ran to grab some groceries and then decided to grab a glass of wine at a café while we waited. Well this one glass of wine turned out to be the most entertaining we’ve had yet! It started when this woman walked by in this humongous hat! It was literally probably two feet tall and about a foot wide. It kind of looked like hair but then it had all these swatches of fabric in it. We tried to get a picture but were too slow. Then this little girl came zooming past us on her scooter. This is actually pretty normal for France, but then a few feet behind the little girl was her mom, also on a scooter. We literally died laughing. Then we saw a guy on a motorcycle get hit by a car. The guy flew off his motorcycle, only to hop right up, give the guy in the car a mean look, pick his motorcycle up and drive off. Claire and I had our phones out to call 911, but no one around us even seemed phased by what had just happened; it was crazy!

            We finally met up with the other girls and went to our apartment. We found this great little apartment near the Eiffel Tower for the weekend. It was so much more fun than having three small hotel rooms. That night for dinner we went back to the fondue restaurant where you can drink wine out of the baby bottles. It was just as much fun as the first time! We woke up early Saturday and were definitely dragging a little. But we made it the Notre Dame, inside the Louvre, down the Champs d’Elysee, to the Arc de Triomphe, and to the Eiffel Tower. It was a really busy day but we had so much fun! That night for dinner we went to a cute little restaurant near our apartment and had the BEST French Onion Soup.

            It was really, really sad leaving them Sunday because it was the last trip we all had planned together. And it was REALLY strange thinking that the next time we were all together we would be in America… 

            Our IES program planned a trip for us to go see Normandy one weekend. We left early Saturday morning and went to Caen. One of the professors at IES is a history professor at the University of Nantes so he came with us to explain everything. When we first got to Caen we went to look at the church the William the Conqueror built, St. Etienne. It was so beautiful and really neat because part of the church is now an abbey and also the town hall. After the church we went to World War II museum in Caen. It was AMAZING and truly touching. We also watched this really neat movie at the museum that showed D-Day from both the Allies and the Germans point of view. One side of the screen showed the Allies storming the beaches and the other showed the Germans. It was really cool. After the museum we went and checked into the hotel. It was SUCH a nice hotel compared to the other ones we had stayed in with IES. And that night for dinner they had the best buffet meal with chicken breasts and salad! It was a taste of heaven for all of us.

            That night was my friend Jesse’s 21^st birthday so we of course went out to celebrate that! Caen has a river kind of going through the middle of the town and all the bars line the river. It was a really fun atmosphere with a lot to do. But we of course ended up at an Irish Pub—for some reason we always end up at Irish pubs, but they’ve also always been fun!

            Sunday we went to Arromanches, the beach that the British stormed on D-Day. It was really cool! The blocks that the British dropped right off the beach to stop the waves were still there as well as some old boats and stuff. It was so amazing to see!! The cliffs were so steep! It’s hard to imagine how those soldiers climbed them all much less while the Germans were firing at them! After Arromanches, we went to Bayeux. It was one of the cutest French towns I have seen yet. It was so small and so quaint! I’m sure it gets busy during the tourist season, but it was really cute when we were there! We went to see the tapestry that Mathilde, William the Conqueror’s wife, made to depict the Normand invasion of England in 1066. It was like 70 meters long and so beautiful, especially considering how much time and effort she must have put into making it!

            Aunt Dotty and Rebecca were in France and I was going to meet up with them in Bayeux and take the train back with them to Nantes. When I realized what a small town Bayeux was I was certain I would run into them. While my friends and I were walking around trying to find something for lunch we passed a hotel, I ran in to see if maybe it was the one they were staying in and sure enough it was! It was SO AMAZING to see both of them! I really can’t describe what a comfort it was to see them and know they were in France!  And so surreal—I usually see them in Saluda, NC or Walterboro, SC and here we were in France together! I left my IES group and took the train back to Nantes with them. It was suppose to be a 2-3 hour train ride that turned into a 6 hour ride. For some reason our train went all over the Normandy region making a million stops in small towns. Then at one point the train was going so slow the three of us could have walked faster than it was going! It was kind of annoying, but also gave us time to catch up!! It was so great being with them!

            When we got to Nantes I took them to their hotel to check in and then we went to a creperie for dinner. I’m going to have to figure out a way to make crepes/gallettes in America because they are so good! The next day I met them at their hotel and we toured Nantes and even did a little shopping! It was so much fun showing them where I’ve been living for the past 3 months! And of course shopping is always fun. That afternoon they took the train back to Paris.

            The next weekend I met up with them in Paris. We had such a fun weekend together in Paris! I loved just seeing them, much less being with them in Paris!! Friday afternoon we took a boat tour down the Seine River. It was so gorgeous and we timed it perfectly because the sun was setting as we took the tour. I loved seeing all the beautiful bridges and being able to see all the gorgeous monuments from the river. After the boat tour we went to Rue Cler. It is a really cute road that they knew about with all of these restaurants on it. It’s really cool because cars aren’t allowed down the road. We ate at the BEST Italian restaurant. As an appetizer we all split a green bean and mushroom salad. It had this delicious dressing on it—it was a little spicy I guess, kind of had a taste of Dijon mustard it or something. I’m not sure what it was but it was SO good. Aunt Dotty had risotto with tuna, Rebecca had a pizza, and I had pesto gnocchi. I definitely want to go back to this restaurant and would recommend it to everyone! After dinner we grabbed a bottle of wine and went to sit at the Eiffel Tower to watch it sparkle. It is so beautiful at night and truly takes your breath away when it sparkles at night.

            Saturday we woke up and went to an outdoor market that is only open on Saturdays. It was so much fun! There were millions of things there from clothes, meats, fruits and veggies, jewelry, everything. After that we went to the Maurais. It’s a neighborhood in Paris with a lot of shops and less touristy. It was really fun walking around and everything. We stopped and ate lunch at a park. It was a beautiful day and there were a million people in the park, so we all had fun people watching! After lunch we walked over the Pompidou. It’s an art museum but all the pipes and everything are on the outside of the building. It was really neat. That night Aunt Dotty and Rebecca had made reservations at Le Soufflé. None of us had ever had soufflés before so we were a little nervous. Well, the soufflés truly blew us out of the water—they were DELICIOUS! Aunt Dotty started off with an asparagus one, and I think it was my favorite one of the night. I had a tomato basil one, and Rebecca had a spinach and goat cheese one. Then Rebecca and I each got salmon and avocado and Aunt Dotty got chicken and mushrooms. For dessert we each got something different and passed them around. Aunt Dotty got the chocolate soufflé, Rebecca got sorbet, and I got crème brulee. This restaurant was so good and so much fun because it was so French.

            Sunday they had booked a day long tour to Giverny and Versailles. Giverny is where Monet’s house is and his gardens. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was absolutely breath taking! Probably one of my most favorite things I’ve done yet. His gardens are absolutely beautiful! We went at the perfect time because everything had just bloomed! And it was so much fun going with Aunt Dotty because she knows so much about flowers and was able to tell us the names of everything that we were looking at. After Giverny we ate lunch at a delicious restaurant and then went to Versailles. The chateau is gorgeous and we loved touring it, but the gardens definitely stole the show. The fountains were on for the first time that Sunday and we were able to walk around and see them all on. The gardens are beautiful but seeing them with all the fountains on and the classical music playing is something I will truly never forget. It was amazing.

            After such a big day, we decided to grab dinner at a restaurant near the hotel. Aunt Dotty and Rebecca had eaten there the first night they were in Paris and had said how good it was, and sure enough we had another delicious meal together! Aunt Dotty and Rebecca had to leave early Monday morning and saying goodbye was a lot harder than I expected it to be. We had such an amazing time together and I am so lucky that they were able to come visit me in France! It means the world to me that they came and I loved every minute we spent together!

            These next two weeks we sadly have a ton of schoolwork. But the weather has been gorgeous in Nantes the past week so yesterday some friends and I took the afternoon off from schoolwork and went to a park to soak up the sun. After a long afternoon in the park with some wine and speculous (it’s a French spread that tastes like graham crackers…it’s SO good) we all had our first sunburns of the year. But it was worth it for such a fun afternoon and our bodies have been covered in jackets and jeans for the past three months so it felt good to just sit in the sun!

            Next weekend Aunt Sassie, Patrick, and James are coming to France!!! I’m so excited and can hardly wait to see them!!! Then the week after that my mom is coming and we are spending my spring break in Paris together. I am so excited to see her and know we are going to have such an amazing time! Then two weeks after that I will be on a plane home! I can’t believe how fast this semester is flying by! It’s even weirder signing up for my senior apartment and senior year classes for next year!! Ahhh!  

Winter Break!

            Last week was our winter break and I spent the week in Italy with my friends! It was absolutely amazing!!!!

            Traveling is always kind of a hassle over here because to get anywhere we have to take the 2 hour train from Nantes to Paris and then take a bus from the train station to the airport just to be able to fly to wherever we’re going. While I was waiting in the airport in Paris, I found out from Ellis and Martha that I was flying into the Rome airport that was about 45 minutes outside the city, not the one close to city. Thank heavens for blackberries though because I was able to find out about the bus that takes you into the city. I boarded the plane and knew it was going to be the longest plane ride of my life--I cannot explain how excited I was to not only be going to Italy but to spend the week with friends. I hadn’t seen Martha and Ellis since the beginning of January and was truly ecstatic to see them! The Rome airport that I landed in was one long runway and a two room building (it made Columbia airport look HUGE…) and then I took the train into the city. I wish I could explain how excited I was—my hands were literally shaking! I was one of the first ones off the bus and as I got off Martha and Ellis turned the corner. We literally started freaking out!! There were all these homeless people around us sleeping and after we did our best to calm down and wipe away our tears of joy (yeah we actually cried we were so happy,) we realized we had woken them all up and they were sitting up and staring at us. To say the least, we didn’t care. Being the great friends they are, they welcomed me to Rome with two tall-boy Heineken beers—it was amazing! There we were in Rome, just drinking beer. I don’t think we stopped smiling once that night!

            We went back to their apartment to cook dinner. Luckily they have a futon in their apartment and I was able to stay on it for the weekend. It was so great because we were all right there together. That night we cooked the BEST meal—garlic chicken, pesto pasta, spinach, and of course some wine. I didn’t get in until later and we were so happy to just be together that we completely lost track of time and just stayed in that night.

            We started our day off Saturday with possibly the best pizza I have ever had in my entire life. It was from a restaurant called Dar Poeta and had marinara sauce, garlic, basil, oregano, and olive old. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! After that we walked down the Tiber River past the Castle St. Angelo to the Vatican. It is so hard to describe all of these incredible monuments, but to say the least it took my breath away. We decided not to go in because we knew we would be back the next weekend with all of our friends. After the Vatican we walked to the Spanish steps and the Trevi Fountain. We bought some gelato and just sat at the Trevi Fountain for a while and throw every coin we had in our wallets into the fountain (gotta wish for love...) It was so incredible and so great being there with such good friends. When we went to leave we noticed a woman selling artwork. As we were looking through it Ellis and Martha realized it was drawings of their neighborhood, Trastevere. We all ended up buying one because they were absolutely beautiful. The woman was so great and signed and stamped each of our paintings. We can’t wait to hang them in our apartments next year at Wofford!!

            After the Trevi Fountain we walked over to the Piazzo Novona. It was so beautiful and we loved looking at all the artists. Thankfully we all liked the paintings we had just bought better! We headed back to their apartment to freshen up for dinner. After having some wine and hors d’ouevurs of bread dipped in olive oil (yum) we went and ate dinner at this incredible pasta restaurant. My pasta had garlic, hot peppers, and olive oil on it. After dinner we grabbed some wine and took it to drink at the Trevi Fountain. It was gorgeous at night and we had the best time sitting there together!

            Sunday we went and grabbed some pizza from a restaurant near their house. We headed back to their house to try to figure out directions to the Fountain of Truth. But it was raining and we were having so much fun just being together that time kind of slipped away from us and before we knew it, it was late afternoon. We decided to cook again at their apartment and then went out and grabbed some gelato.

            Martha and Ellis had class Monday morning, so I just slept in and then enjoyed showering and getting ready peacefully and without a host family around. It was SO relaxing! After their classes, we met back at Dar Poeta for that delicious Marinara pizza before going to meet Claire at the train station. We took the bus to the train station and little did we know it was going to be the ride of our lives…

            I had packed for the entire in ONE book bag, I’m not even joking. Ten days, one book bag. To say the least it was stuffed to the brim and stuck out so far off my back. When we got on the bus it was so crowded that a woman’s face was literally smashed against the window…like cheek against the window and smashed—she couldn’t move. So we of course thought it was absolutely hilarious. Then the bus started and it was literally like a roller coaster. We were falling all over the place because we couldn’t hold onto anything because the bus was so full we were just in the middle of a crowd of people. At one point, when the bus turned, my book bag took out a Nun (oops) while my face landed directly on the stomach of some random man. Some man kept trying to feel Ellis’ butt, and Martha was pressed up against the nun for part of the time, and the other part of the time to the woman smashed against the window. To say the least, we were literally dying of laughter when we finally got off that bus.

            We met Claire in the train station so she and I could go to Florence for a few days to visit Virginia who is studying there for the semester. We bought a ticket and realized we had 10 minutes to get to the very last platform of the train station. After literally sprinting there, we sat down in what we thought were our seats, and realized it was the wrong train. We jumped off the train and started running back to the other side of the station by jumping the tracks. We think that may have been illegal but we had to catch that train. Welp, we missed the train. So after buying another ticket we were finally on our way to Florence. Traveling is a lot harder than it seems.

            Our first night in Florence we went to a delicious pasta restaurant called ZaZa’s. I had the BEST pesto pasta. Virginia has a huge group of friends in Florence who all came to dinner too. It was so much fun meeting them and they were so nice. After dinner we went to a couple of bars. We were about to call it a night when we decided to go for this “secret bakery” in Florence. Apparently this bakery bakes between 2-5am for a bunch of the bakeries in town. After walking around for a while we thought we had found it—it was on a side street and was just a big metal door. We stood outside for a while and took turns knocking. We had kinda given up hope when all of a sudden this man poked his head out the door. He asked us how many treats we wanted and then shut the door. The next thing we knew, he was opening the door again sliding us all out the most delicious chocolate croissants. They were so warm, and sugary, and just incredible. We felt like the luckiest people in the world. It was like the Wizard had come out in the Wizard of Oz—amazing!

            Tuesday morning Virginia had class, but she told Claire and me about a restaurant called “The Diner” that had all this American breakfast food and played old American music. It was so amazing to have an American meal!! Claire and I both got omelets and the diet cokes we ordered even had two cubes of ice in the glasses! After lunch, Claire and I went to see the Duamo, the huge church in the middle of town. It was absolutely breathtaking! The Italian churches are so neat because they were built using marble of different colors. So it looks like it is painted, but when you get close you realize that it isn’t painted, it’s different kinds of marble. After the Duamo, we grabbed a quick class of wine to wait on Virginia to finish her classes for the day.

            After we met up with Virginia, the three of us went to the Accademia Museum to see the David. I can’t even put into words how neat the David was. First of all, it is massive! But the detailing of the carving makes it look so real. We could have stared at it for hours. When we left the museum we went to the Ponte Vecchio. This is the bridge full of jewelry stores. The jewelry was all so pretty and we spent so much time just fantasizing about all the beautiful jewelry we were looking at. That night we went to an Italian restaurant that specialized in meats. I wasn’t super hungry so I ended up having this amazing tomato soup. I know it sounds normal, but it was truly so good! Claire and Virginia both got these gigantic steaks. After dinner we went to a famous gelato shop where we had possibly some of the best gelato in the world!

            The next day we woke up, grabbed a quick croissant, and did a little shopping around some of the cute boutiques in Florence. After walking around for a little bit we decided to go walk up the Piazzo Michaelangelo, a park at the top of a hill where you can overlook the entire city. The hike was a little steep, but the view from the top was definitely worth it. You could see the whole city of Florence, the mountains surrounding it, and some of the country side around the city. It was breathtaking. We ate lunch afterwards at Gusto Pizza, a delicious family-owned pizza restaurant. They had marina pizza there too—it was so good!! After lunch we went to the Farragamo Shoe Museum. I know it sounds so girly and dumb, but we all really loved it! It was so neat to see the history behind the Ferragamo family and to see the history of all their shoes. They had so many shoes that had been made especially for some many neat celebrities. After spending a few hours in there we were all tempted to buy a pair, but to say the least they were a little out of our price range. Afterwards, we walked over the leather market. It’s a street with a bunch of leather vendors, but it was so nice walking through because the vendors were not pushy at all for you to buy something! Even when you stopped to look at something at their place they didn’t push you to buy it. Claire bought a leather across the body pocketbook, and I bought a leather clutch. We went to dinner that night with some of Virginia’s friends to a pasta restaurant where we ordered this incredible bruschetta appetizer and then split 3 different kinds of pasta. They were all so good!

            Thursday, before we took the train back to Rome, we ate lunch at the Oil Shoppe, a hole in the wall restaurant where I had possibly the best sandwich of my entire life. It was on ciabatta bread, and had turkey, lettuce, sundried tomato, pesto, and olive oil. It was delicious.

            We took the train back to Rome to meet Martha and Ellis, and then Sara and Charlotte also came for the weekend. We were so lucky because there was a really cheap hotel right under Ellis and Martha’s apartment, so we all stayed there for the weekend. Once again, we were all so happy to just be together that we just stayed in and cooked at their apartment Thursday night. Friday, Ellis and Martha had class, so we explored Rome by ourselves. We went to Piazzo Novona and the Pantheon before eating lunch at a pizza place. Charlotte flew in Friday afternoon so we went and met her before meeting Ellis and Martha after class. That night we went to a great pasta place. Our friends Ruthie and Marion who are also studying in Rome met us there for dinner. It was so great to see them!

            Saturday we went back to Dar Poeta for the good marina pizza! We went to Colosseum after lunch. It was so amazing. While we were there we probably laughed harder than we have in a long time. It started when we asked one person to take our picture, and they didn’t even have the colosseum in the background. Then we asked this French woman and she ended up taking a video of us. Then while were laughing at them these Asians came up and asked Martha if they could take her picture (because of her super blond hair.) Then we thought we saw our Asian friends again and Ellis asked them to take our picture, but it wasn’t the same Asians. I can’t really describe how funny it was but we were all crying we were laughing so hard. I’m sure everyone in the Colosseum knew there was a group of American girls in it that day. After the Colosseum we went to the Trevi Fountain and the Vatican. The inside of the Vatican was truly the most incredible thing I think I have seen—it was gorgeous. We were also lucky because there was a service at 4:30 so we got to see the priests walking out. That night we cooked dinner again at Martha and Ellis’ apartment. Then we went to the chocolate bar to take these amazing chocolate shots. They make a shot glass out of chocolate, and then put whatever kind of liquor you want inside, and whip cream on the top. You take it by putting the entire thing in your mouth. It was SO good. After that we grabbed some bottles of wine and went to sit by the Trevi Fountain.

            Leaving Rome on Sunday was really hard. It was truly such an amazing week and so incredible to spend it with such good friends!

Master Chef

            Well I found out this week that my host dad is trying out for Master Chef France. I walked down for lunch last Sunday and they were taking pictures of the meal we were about to eat. My host sister was home for the weekend and she explained to me that he was going to try to be on the show. Apparently 3 million French people try out for it and he won’t find out if he made it until this summer. The meal he was submitting was a fish with three different sauces. It was really good, but it wasn’t incredible or anything. He did explain though that all of the ingredients came from Nantes, which I think made it more special. I thought they were kind of doing it as a joke because Charlotte, the host sister, kept kind of laughing at her dad and shooting me looks that I thought were like “can you believe this.” But then I went down for lunch again today and they started talking about it again. The son, Cyriaque asked his dad if he would just not work if he made it on the show. My host dad said that he wouldn’t work and Cyriaque started complaining that he didn’t want to be poor. Then my host dad responded that he would be famous though if he won Master Chef!! Haha So I guess he is truly trying out for it and everything. I’ll definitely tell everyone if he makes it hahaha

            One of my friends, Virginia Cebe, is studying in Florence this semester and she came to visit us in Nantes this weekend. She and Claire have been best friends forever, so we were both so glad to see Virginia and show her around Nantes. We spent Friday afternoon drinking wine in our favorite park and then Friday night we went to one of our favorite creperies for dinner. It was delicious! Then that night we went out with some of our friends from IES and one of our French friends. It was a lot of fun!! Saturday we showed Virginia around Nantes and did a little shopping. We were planning on going to this other really good restaurant but it was sadly too crowded, so we went and ate at an Italian Restaurant.

            I actually have an exam this week—it’s going to be weird trying to get into the swing of studying and everything. But next week is our winter break and I’m going to Rome and Florence! I am so excited I can hardly stand it!!!! It will be my first time visiting Italy!! 

St Malo and Mt. St. Michel

This past week at Conversation Club we were talking about American TV shows. The French only watch American shows and hate their French ones. They LOVE Greys Anatomy and How I Met Your Mother. One girl in the Conversation Club met Patrick Dempsy once! It was so crazy and we told her that practically every girl in America would be jealous of her. Her parents live in Lyon and there is a big car race there. Patrick Dempsy was there for the race and she said she saw him and ran up to him and started telling him how much she loved him and the show. She said he was really nice and talked to her for a minute, then gave her the pen he had in his pocket (kind of random, and she asked us if this was a normal gift to give in American haha) and then HE KISSED HER ON THE CHEEK! She said she walked away and then fainted hahaha

            Wednesday night France played Brazil in soccer so we went to a bar to watch the game with some of our friends. It was so much fun being watching the French people watch the game. And then France won 1-0!! It was a huge upset!    

            This weekend we visited St. Malo, a town on the northern coast of France, and Mont St. Michel. St. Malo was a really neat town. It has a wall that surrounds it to block the city from the wind coming off the ocean. You can walk around the top of the wall and look out over the English Channel or over the town. We of course had to go out on the beach and touch the English Channel. It looks a lot like the Atlantic but the water is a little greener. The beach didn’t have as many shells as the South Carolina beaches do but it was still really pretty. We heard it was going to rain that day, but the weather was absolutely gorgeous!! It was pretty warm and the sun was out. But we had our rainboots so we decided to walk into the water since it was the English Channel. It was so much fun! Afterwards we ate lunch at this really cute crêperie. Everything was pink and white, and we were able to sit outside in the sunshine.

            After lunch we went to Mont St. Michel. It was absolutely incredible! It is an abbey that was built in 700 on the top of this island in the English Channel. It has an absolutely breath taking view and then the abbey itself is so amazing! It is so hard to imagine that it was built in 700 when they didn’t have any of the technology or anything that we have today. The abbey was also used as a prison during the French Revolution so it was interesting to see how they converted parts of it into prison cells. We even saw one of the 30 people who live in the abbey. While we were in the main church part of the abbey, a nun walked out one random side door. One of our friends was joking about ringing the bell because the string was just sitting right there and she came over and told him not to or everyone would be confused because they only ring the bell at sunset. She was actually really nice and joked with us about it. The tide was low so we were even able to walk down onto the beach and look up at the abbey. It was absolutely incredible!!

Weekend in Paris!

            This past weekend I went to Paris with a big group of girls from Wofford and one of our friends from Nantes. It was truly one of the best weekends of my life. It’s going to be hard to put into words how amazing it was to be in PARIS with such great friends.

            On the train from Nantes to Paris I was very excited to say the least, but I had no idea how happy I would be when I finally saw friends from home. Charlotte and Amy, two of my friends from Wofford who are studying in Barcelona this semester, got to Paris Thursday and were waiting for me, Claire, Meredith, and our new friend Emma at the metro stop by our hotel. I cannot explain how excited we were when we saw them! It was such a crazy feeling and after lots of screams and hugs we decided to go be very French and eat a crêpe. We checked into the hotel and waited on Sara and Lizzy, my Wofford friends who are in Madrid, to get to the hotel. Claire and I went outside to meet them because the hotel was kind of hard to find. When we finally saw Sara and Lizzy crossing the street we literally started screaming! We were just as happy to see them as we were to see Charlotte and Amy and couldn’t stop smiling.

            Friday night we tried to go to a fondue restaurant we had heard about but it was too crowded. Our big group of 8 ended up splitting up because there was no way all 8 of us were going to fit in one restaurant on a Friday night. Sara, Charlotte, Claire, Emma and I ended up finding this AMAZING Italian restaurant. Claire and I split possibly the best pasta we have ever eaten. After dinner we walked around and found this bar. We ended up making friends with this couple from England, Miki and Ed. They were HILARIOUS! As we were sitting in the bar talking with them, a man playing the bagpipes walked in with a group of other Scottish men in kilts. They started playing songs for us and even played songs that we requested! It was so much fun!

            Saturday we woke up and all had different plans. Charlotte, Claire, Sara, Emma, and I all wanted to go sightseeing. We went to the Notre Dame first. It was of course incredible and as soon as we got there the bells started ringing. It was amazing! We grabbed a quick bite to eat and then went to the Arc de Triomphe. This is my favorite place in Paris because from the top of it you look down the Champs Elysee at the Louvre, and you can also see Sacre Coeur and the Eiffel Tower. It is such an incredible view of Paris and it was so neat being able to see all of this with some of my best friends! After the Arc de Triomphe we walked over to the Eiffel Tower. It was absolutely incredible and we had the best time watching all the other tourists taking pictures and stuff. One girl was literally having a photo shoot—it was hilarious! After the Eiffel Tower we went to a little bar/restaurant and got French beers and French fries—they were delicious!!

            We went back and got dressed and then went back to Refuge du Fondue. We split our group into two smaller groups and we were finally all able to get in. It was the coolest restaurant ever! For 17 euros each we got a little appetizer plate, a meat fondue, a cheese fondue, and got to drink wine out of baby bottles all night! It was so much fun!! The restaurant had two long tables and the waiter would literally pull you inside and you had to walk over the tables to sit down. The food was really good, the atmosphere was so much fun, and we had the best time drinking French wine out of baby bottles—I mean when else can you do that??

            After dinner Meredith, Emma, Lizzy, and Amy wanted to go find a club because Meredith had just turned 21. Sara, Charlotte, Claire and I decided to go to the Eiffel Tower. We stopped at a grocery store on the way and picked up a bottle of champagne—we were being so French—and went and sat on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower. I can’t put into words what an incredible experience it was to sit at the Eiffel Tower with three of my best friends. It was amazing and truly something I will never forget. The Eiffel Tower is lit up at night and looks gorgeous. Then every hour it sparkles—I don’t know how else to describe it but that it sparkles haha It was so neat being there and seeing that with Sara, Charlotte, and Claire. We all realized how lucky we were to be able to have this experience and spend a night “hanging out” at the Eiffel Tower!!

            I cried Sunday when we had to say goodbye to them. To say the least the train ride back to Nantes was very long. But after such an incredible weekend, we were all excited for all the weekends yet to come this semester. We’re already planning our next trip to see each other!

Pigeon for supper??

            Wednesday my host mom’s parents and aunt and uncle came to visit because there was this huge classical musical festival in Nantes this weekend. They were very nice and the uncle was actually a chef. So I was pretty excited to see what kind of food he would make. Wednesday night was a little bit of a disappointment because it was just salmon—but for the first time since I’ve been in France they served lemons to put lemon juice on the fish. It was amazing to be able to add a little more flavor to the salmon. They also had this really good potato dish with basil and onions in it. It was so good! So after a good meal Wednesday I was looking forward to another good one Thursday. Well, when they called us all to the dinner table I realized that the kids were eating before the adults. So I sat down at the table with my host brother who is 12 and the other French medical student they are hosting. I saw something that looked like mini chickens but wasn’t sure what it was. Then my host mom started bringing our dinner to the table. I was pretty sure she said it was rabbit and pigeon, but they speak so fast that I was sure she couldn’t have said pigeon and that I had heard her wrong. After she served us I looked up at the other student and she looked more afraid than I did. The 12 year old is usually pretty tired at dinner and just eats and leaves the table. So I knew if I could just wait a few minutes I could ask the other student what we were eating. Sure enough, when the boy left the table the other student looked up at me and we both just burst out laughing. I asked her and she told me that I had heard right and that it was rabbit and pigeon. Neither of us could eat the pigeon but politely ate some of the rabbit. The rabbit was interesting because it had an orange-citrusy dressing on it. I don’t really think of citrus dressings going on meat, but maybe that’s normal. I asked the French student if it was normal to eat pigeon in France and she assured me that it wasn’t and she had never eaten it before. Thankfully we were not eating with the whole family because we were both able to bypass the pigeon and then filled up on dessert. It was definitely an interesting meal!

            It has been so great getting to know the French student that my host family is hosting too. She seems really nice. She doesn’t speak any English and I don’t always understand her French, but it’s still been fun getting to know her. We kind of “bonded” the other night over how shocked we are about the bad attitude the little boy seems to always have. He’s kind of just a pill, but the parents let him get away with it. She even explained to me a few times that he’s made like really rude comments to her and the host parents have never said anything to him. So it made me feel better that she thought his attitude and how the parents treat him was weird too. But then again, he is 12 years old, probably going through those awkward years and having to share his house with 2 strange girls haha

            I’m going to Paris this weekend with some friends from school and CANNOT wait to see them! I know it’s going to be an amazing weekend!

A Rally in Nantes??

We had our second weekend in Nantes and it all keeps getting better! After finishing our first week of classes, we were SO excited for the weekend. Friday afternoon we went on a tour of the historic part of the city with IES. They hired tour guides—who knew Nantes had tour guides—to show us around. It was pretty neat seeing the older parts of the city and learning the history. I had no idea Nantes was even around in the Middle Ages, much less that there are still parts of the wall that used to surround the city. It was one of the coldest days that we’ve had yet, so after about an hour and a half of doing the tour we had to stop and go find a warm café to get some hot chocolate. That night I met up with some friends of mine from IES. We went to dinner and then were walking around the bar area trying to find one to walk in when it started SNOWING! Our friend from Michigan started freaking out she was so excited. Claire and I, being from South Carolina, just wanted to find a bar quickly. We ended up finding the neatest bar. It was called l’Art Scene. It was very artsy, but still pretty cool. And there was a band and everything!

            Saturday we went into town and ate lunch at what we call “the Panera of France.” It’s a restaurant that’s not too expensive and has a ton of sandwiches, salads, and desserts. We walked by Leo’s, our favorite gelato place, and Leo was working so we had to walk in. We of course had to buy some gelato—buy some time with Leo. I think we sat for like 2 hours. But Leo’s is on La Place Royal, kind of like the center of the town with this gorgeous fountain. They have tables outside with heaters so it’s fun to sit there and see everything going on. There was even a march/demonstration/rally this Saturday! We were so surprised to see one in Nantes, France. We thought maybe one would be in Paris, but not Nantes. But sure enough there was. All of a sudden a huge group of people came into La Place Royal. There was a band and all the band members were wearing bright pink. The group carried this boat with a huge flag on it and were chanting “Liberé la Gaza, liberé la Palestine,” which means free Gaze, free Palestine. It wasn’t violent or anything, but the police showed up to monitor it. They screamed a lot of things in French into the megaphone. Not only was it in French, but it was also really muffled so we couldn’t understand any of it. It was really neat to see though, especially because one of our classes is “France and the US in the Middle East since 1945” and we were just talking about those areas in class Thursday. Saturday night Claire and I decided to try to save some money and just buy some of our favorite foods at the grocery store and eat dinner in her room. It was actually so much fun and we had one of the best meals ever! We bought bread and olive oil with pesto, salt and vinegar chips, Claire had some cheese, and then some wine. I was also able to meet Claire’s host family. They are so cute! There were four kids though so her homestay is a lot louder than mine! After eating our dinner and getting dressed at Claire’s homestay, we went back down to the bar district and ended up at L’Art Scene again. It was so much fun and we met some fun French people.

            I’m going to Paris next weekend to meet up with some of my friends from Wofford who are in Barcelona and Madrid this semester. I am so excited to see them and Paris!!! I’ll try to post some pictures soon too!

            Classes started this week and they are SO different from American classes, especially classes at Wofford. The professors come in and lecture and leave. They assign usually a text book and about three other books to read, but that’s all they say about them. So we have no clue what material will be on the midterm and final. The syllabi are also just a list of topics we’re going to cover in the class. All of this is so different from classes at Wofford where the syllabi list out what we will cover daily in class along with the corresponding chapters in the books. It also gives you the dates of the midterms and finals at the beginning of the semester. I think this semester in France will be a lot less stressful day to day, but the weeks of midterms and finals will be pretty stressful, as always. My favorite class so far is France and the U.S. in the Middle East since 1945. It’s a history class but I love it because it’s such new material to me. I’ve always learned about U.S. or Western European history, so it’s really interesting to learn about the Middle East—especially with everything going on in the world today.

            Every Tuesday our program hosts a “Conversation Club” for IES students and French students to come talk for 45 minutes in French and 45 minutes in English. It was so much fun and we met some really nice French people. My group met this really funny guy and girl and they told us about some places to go on the weekends and stuff. They came with our group to a fancy French crêperie Thursday night and promised to come back to “Conversation Club” next week. The crêperie was absolutely amazing! We had a dinner crepe and a dessert crêpe. We thought the dinner ones were delicious, but then the dessert ones came. I got a chocolate one and it was truly the most amazing thing I have eaten. I don’t even know how to describe but it was spectacular. I also tried my friend’s caramel one—incredible too. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

            So of course France is very different from the United States, especially South Carolina. But here are some of the weirder differences we have noticed and didn’t expect:

They don’t have top sheets. They use a bottom fitted sheet and a comforter and that’s it. When they change the sheets they change the comforter too.

There are no box springs. They have a mattress that sits on a wooden board on the bed frame.

The paper is grid paper—they don’t have any paper with straight lines, it’s ALL grid paper. And it’s longer than the paper in the U.S. It’s 21x29.7cm so it’s about an inch longer.

They eat REALLY fast and use their knife to like fold their food onto the fork. When they get to the dinner table they put their hands on the table instead of in their laps. And they always have bread but just put it on the table beside their glass—like they don’t have bread plates and they don’t put their bread on their plate, they just leave it on the table.  

The women always wear the exact same outfit for two or three days in a row.

Boys do not hold the doors for girls or even let them go in first. And NOBODY smiles when you pass them on the street—even young children.

And then there are of course the differences we expected like no ice (we went to a French fast food restaurant the other day and they literally put ONE cube of ice in our diet cokes,) the French never drink water and when they do the glass is so small it’s like a sip, they don’t worry about personal space like Americans do so they don’t mind at all standing right beside you while waiting on the tram even though there is plenty of other room, and they eat a TON of bread (at every single meal—breakfast, lunch and dinner) but are all still skinny.  

            We’re so excited it’s the weekend and this week flew by with classes. Hopefully we’ll have some fun stories from this weekend J

Orientation is over!

            Our week of orientation is over and we are starting classes tomorrow—ah! Orientation went well, but we are all ready to get on a schedule with classes. After having only spent a week in Nantes, I already know the city better. It is much easier to get around on the buses and trams. We even went down to the south part of town the other day to go to the mall. It was HUGE and had a million stores. We went to go to the Wal-Mart of Nantes, the Carfour. It had everything, including cheap straighteners. We ended up buying a lot more than we needed to, but it was fun to see everything they had. On our way to the Carfour we found the CUTEST little gelato/crepe café. We decided to go and get some of the gelato and all fell in love with the man who was working. His name is Leo and we are going to go back every day that Leo is working—he doesn’t know it yet but he’s going to be our new best friend!

            This was our first weekend out in Nantes and it was a lot of fun! There is one main area with a bunch of bars, pubs, and restaurants so we spent both Friday and Saturday night there. There were literally probably 20 sushi restaurants in this one are, a ton of pizzerias, and of course a lot of crêperies.  Friday afternoon after we finished classes, Claire, Emma, and I decided to toast having completed our first week in Nantes with a little wine in the park by our school. It was so much fun and a great way to start off our weekend. After the park, walked around trying to find some fun places to go Friday night. We found a little bar that’s called “Laisser le bon temps rouler” which means “Let the Good times Roll.” We HAD to walk in there and it ended up being a really cool little bar. We think we might just go there every Friday afternoon. Our first night out we went to a really good Italian restaurant. Then we went to an Irish pub where we met some other American students, and one English student. It was so much fun talking to the English guy, especially about Prince William and Kate’s wedding. He wasn’t as excited about it as we were though. It’s kind of frustrating right now though because the buses and trams stop at midnight on Friday nights. We are going to figure out how to walk back to our homestays this week so we can do it on Friday nights too. Saturday we went back to the same area and ate at a French restaurant. It was delicious! Then we started walking around but ended up back at the Irish Pub. The pub just has a really fun atmosphere. The trams stay open until 2:30 on Saturdays, so Saturday night was a lot of fun!

            Classes start this week and IES (the program I am in) is making all of us sign up for at least 1 class at the University of Nantes, and then we can drop it if we want to. I have signed up for a translation course where half the class will be French students and half will be Americans. The French students will translate our English and we will translate their French. It should definitely be pretty interesting. I am also taking an Art History class, a class on the European Union, a Religion of France, a France and the US in the Middle East, and a French grammar class. I will drop one of these classes though this week, IES just wants us to sign up for more so we can try them and figure out which ones we really want to take.

            It’s still definitely an adjustment getting used to everything over here—for lunch today my host family had cheese. They asked me the first night if there were any foods I didn’t like and I told them that cheese wasn’t exactly my favorite. They were shocked. But I told them that I wanted to try it because I want to like it. Well, I tried it today. The French have dessert after every meal! It’s usually like yogurt or fruit or something. But today it was cheese. I know one of the cheeses was goat cheese and I truly thought I was going to gag when I ate that one. The other cheese wasn’t nearly as bad as the goat cheese was but I of course have no idea what kind it was. I guess I’ll just keep trying them… But other than the cheese, my host family has cooked really good food! Fingers crossed it stays that way!

January 16, 2011

            Our group, of about 70 American college students spent the past 3 days in Tours, France and visiting some of the chateaus in the Loire River Valley. We began with a Medieval chateau, Loches. It was really cool, but since it was from the Middle Ages it wasn’t exactly what we all thought a chateau would be like. It was very simple with three huge rooms and then a fortress that was used to protect the city and was also a prison. The medieval prison was very neat to see though. After that we went to probably my favorite chateau, Chenonceau. It was absolutely gorgeous! It had a mote, and beautiful gardens. One of the gardens was designed to be a maze; it was so cool. The inside was still set up with furniture and everything so that was fun because we could really imagine what life was like. The kitchen was even still set up—with the knives that they used as well as plates, silverware, and even the old bread oven. We also learned that at this chateau, during WWII, half of it was occupied by the Germans and half wasn’t because the river that ran under part of the chateau also divided the two zones. They said that they used to sneak people through the chateau from the occupied to the free zones and that the Germans were ready at any moment to destroy the chateau but never did. The next day we went to Chateau Blois. It was gorgeous on the outside, but the inside was set up like a museum which was kind of a let down and not quite as interesting as Chenonceau. We also went to Chambord which was absolutely incredible!! It is HUGE!!!! It has over 300 rooms. It was overwhelming it was so big but definitely incredible!! And as we were leaving the sun was setting which was absolutely gorgeous. I’ll try to post pictures later.

            Tours was a really neat city. In the old town there was a main square that had all the bars and stuff so it was fun to walk around there at night and see everything and all the French people. I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re Americans because we definitely got some funny looks. But for the most part people were pretty nice.

            We’ve eaten a ton of seafood at the restaurants. I love seafood, but after two meals of it I wasn’t able to eat it anymore, which was hard because the French think you’re being rude if you don’t clear your plate. But all of it has been white fish with a yellow sauce on it that just seems to make it taste fishier. At every meal we have one glass of wine, of course a huge piece of French bread, a salad course, main course, and dessert course. One afternoon in Tours we had an authentic French meal. It started off with what looked like an egg roll, but when we bit into it, it seemed like chicken and vegetables were inside it. The second course was a salad, with cinnamon apples, foie gras, and some kind of meat. The meat looked really rare/like ham. It even tasted like country ham. The third course was a muffin made of potatoes and stuffed with meat on the inside. The meat looked and kind of tasted like Bar-B-Que. The fourth course was cheese and we were given two huge blocks of cheese. I tried both kinds of cheese. One was white and one was yellow. The yellow was a milder cheese according to the other people at the table and I definitely liked that one better. The fifth course was dessert and it was a chocolate muffin, raspberry sorbet, and crème brulee. The fifth course was of course our favorite! We found out later that apparently all of the meat in the meal was duck. It was all different parts of the duck and cooked differently…

            I finally arrived today at my host family’s house in Nantes. It is really nice and the family has been so nice! It is kind of awkward because I don’t always understand all of their French. But they have been so nice and have tried to slow down what they’re saying and help me to understand. They live in like a townhouse style house with 3 floors. I am on the second floor. My room has a single bed, desk, gorgeous armoire, and a sink. I share a bathroom with their 12 year old boy and an 18 year old French med school student who they are also hosting. It’s really not that bad of a situation at all. The only problem so far is that the shower in so tiny that I literally cannot turn around in it. But it has hot water so I can’t complain!

            It is definitely hard getting adjusted to such a different life, but each day things get better and better. The language is hard because they speak so much quicker, but hopefully with time that will become easier. Nantes is a much bigger city than I expected, much more “metropolitan.” This week we have all these intensive French conversation and grammar classes. Hopefully they will help us all with our French so we can talk with our host families better. Miss you all so much!!! I’ll try to post more later!

Jan 13, 2011

I was born during a hurricane, went to college during a huge storm and had to evacuate during move in day because of a tornado warning, and so it is only fitting that the day I leave to go abroad, South Carolina gets more snow than it has gotten in probably the past 5 years and my flight was cancelled. But sometimes things work out for the best, because my friend Claire and I were rescheduled for a flight out the next day that was a direct flight from Charlotte to Paris.

            Saying goodbye to our parents was definitely very difficult and we both tearfully accepted the “complimentary tissues” from the security man as we went through security. We made our way to the gate and before we knew it we were picking up our bags in Paris (thank heavens they didn’t get lost!) Our plan was to then go catch the Air France Bus to a train station that was closer in town, Montparnasse. But what we didn’t plan for was us having to carry our two huge suitcases (I mean we were packing for 4 months) and carry-on bags across the airport to get to the bus terminal. We finally made our way to the buses, caught the correct bus, and had arrived at Montparnasse. Once again, we were faced with a “what next” situation. After lugging our suitcases down a flight of stairs, and unsuccessfully trying to buy a ticket from the machines, we finally found our way to the ticket counter. The whole reason we caught the bus to go to Montparnasse to meet up with our group in Tours, France, instead of leaving from the train station at Charles DeGaulle airport was so we would not have to switch trains. Welp, the only train going to Tours required us to switch trains and only gave us 7 minutes to do it. After waiting in the train station for about an hour, our train’s gate was finally posted. They do not post the train’s gate number until 20 minutes before the train is suppose to leave. We quickly ran, with all of our luggage, to our train gate, and with the help of one man telling us how to swipe our tickets, another man telling us which car we were assigned to, and yet two other men helping us hoist our luggage onto the train, we triumphantly made it to the train. Being as prepared as we always are (haha), we were waiting at the train’s door to get off the train to race to our next train that was leaving 7 minutes later. Once again, with the help of two other nice men, we made it off the train, but had no idea what to do next. We literally threw our luggage down a flight of stairs and ran after it. Only to realize, once we were one flight down, that we needed to go up again. But this time, we took the elevator. When we arrived at the train, the doors were shut. Being the smart girls we are, we banged on the door. Thankfully they opened the doors and we literally squeezed in. We ended up sitting on our suitcases for the 5 minute train ride from St. Peirre to Tours.

            We thought we had finally made it, only to realize that cabs only go to one side of the train station, and we were on the wrong side. We walked around the entire train station and finally made it into a cab and were on our way to the hotel. To say the least, the hotel was not our ideal vacation spot. We decided we deserved a great glass of French wine, and stopped and enjoyed our 1 euro glass of wine. After spending about 3 euro each, we finally met our group at the hotel. The wine gave us a second wind and everyone seemed pretty normal as we met them for the first time. We ate dinner with the group at the hotel—it was fish, we think. It had a sauce on it that just made it taste fishier. But since it was our first meal since the Charlotte airport, we thought it was edible. We were zombies at dinner, barely caring on conversation as our new friends tried, unsuccessfully, to speak to us in French. We called it a night and decided to rest up for the next couple of days.