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!