Lezarder-ing

Tomorrow starts the big spring break trip, so I thought I should write a little something before it all begins.

It's been a fairly action packed week. Friday was both the last day of my teaching internship (sort of) and my orchestra concert. Basically, I just ate lunch with the teacher who organized my internship as a sort of goodbye. It was actually really fun, just talking about teaching in general and the differences between the American and French school system (all in French! It was also great to have the opportunity to talk one on one with somebody besides my host parents in French for a whole hour). She's a super nice lady and was a bit of a friend to me here, but it was so frustrating working with her because she is so poorly organized. Admittedly, she had a lot of family issues this semester, but my internship ended up being much more hassle than it was worth at the end. The beginning, where I actually observed quite a few classes and got to teach a bit, was quite interesting though.

My orchestra concert was also quite a success. Sadly, none of my friends here could come because there was also an IES excursion to watch a soccer game the same night. And my host mummy had to work. But my host pappy came, which was right nice of him. It was in an AMAZING old church with a dome and crazy pretty paintings on the ceiling. Basically the coolest location for an orchestra concert I could imagine. However, sitting in a church for four hours is damn cold. It was a good concert though. We played with a choir for most of, and played La Messe de Couronnement de Mozart, a few Mozart sonatas, a piece by Schubert and a few other random things.

Afterwards I met up with some friends and went to the carnival that's been in Nantes for the last week or so. Just as awful and tacky as carnivals in the US, except that this one had a cotton candy stand with craaazy flavors. My friendsies got coca cola, peach and kiwi, which were all just sort of weird.

Saturday was our last official IES trip. It was just a baby day trip to Clisson, a very picturesque little town near Nantes that looks very Italian and has a lovely castle, and a vignoble to drink some wine. It was not a particularly action-packed trip, mostly a lot of lying around eating lunch, gamboling around the castle ruins (i love crumbly castles!) and trying different types of muscadet. But it was a lovely day and ever so much fun. Saturday night we had a little dinner party at Wendy's house, which involved lots of pasta, ridiculously messy chocolate frosted flake bars, and a 1.92 euro bottle of wine with lobsters on it.

Sunday= park and theatre. FUN.

Monday was also a big day, because it was our spectacle de theatre. I took a theatre production class, and monday was our big play. There are many a thing I could say about theatre, because it's been taking up alot of my life this semester, but I'll just say the play went really well. I shockingly didn't forget any of my lines, although I did have a good number of them written on my arms just in case. It was actually a surprising amount of fun, after the initial nervousness wore off. More about theatre later, possibly.

The rest of the week has been a lot of basking in the sun in the 75 degree weather. I am by far the tannest I have ever been in April (what an accomplishment, eh?). With no grammar classes this week, and spring break imminent, it's been lots of quality friend time.

Mummy and Paris tomorrow! Huzzah!

Avril?!

Oh my. I just realized while walking home on Tuesday that I have just about a month left here in Nantes, which includes all the time that I'll be gone for vacation in two weeks. Scary.

Due to the fact that I never update my blog anymore, I think I will talk about some basics of life here in Nantes that I don't often get around to writing about.

First off, ever since I got back from Italy/Paris in March, I haven't had a tram pass. It certainly doesn't stop me from taking the tram, since it's kind of a necessity at night and when in a hurry. I have been checked by the ticket controllers a total of once in the past three months, so it's ridiculously easy to take it without a pass or ticket. But when not riding the tram illegally, which is most of the time, I bike or walk to IES and the university. Not only has this helped me discover many new nooks of Nantes, but it's become my sole means of exercise. It takes a little over an hour to walk to IES, and about 20 minutes to bike. I love having to commute actually, although it means that I leave my house around 8- 9 and don't come back until right before dinner, since I live so far away. But it's good fun biking around Nantes, although a little scary at times. Two of my friends have been hit by cars, so I finally got around to buying a helmet last week. Helmets are definitely not a la mode here.

FOOOOD. I'm going to miss French food most of all. Well, almost most of all. There are days here when I eat an entire baguette in a day, because 1. they are sooooo good and 2. they get stale after a day. I had no idea before coming here that there are so many different kinds of baguette (baguette de campagne, baguette tradition, flute gana, baguette complet, flute gana, etc). I also eat at least 1 log of chevre a week, a habit which I very much intend to continue in the US. For dinner with my host pappies, we eat a ridiculous amount of seafood. For example, for dinner tonight, we had huuuge shrimp which you have to peel yourself, salad, broccoli and potatoes. My host mummy is convinced that I am still a vegetarian, even though I do eat meat from time to time here. I think she got confused when I told her that I am a vegetarian at home, and it became too late to correct her really. And I certainly don't mind all the salmon and shrimp we eat here. Dinner goes something like this: appetizer-ish thing (fake crab salad, soup, etc), main course (usually seafood and a veggie), salad plus bread and cheese plate (we usually have at least 3 different cheeses, and always chevre since my host mom knows its my favorite) and then dessert. I got myself into trouble a bit by telling my host mom about my love of sugar early on, because now she tries to feed me dessert every night. Usually just a pudding or something to that effect, but it's often so hard to resist.

This week my host mom's daughter Barbara has been at our house, because she's in between jobs. She's 26 and lives in Paris, and it's been lovely having a host sister for a week. Last night she had four friends over for a little dinner party because my host mom was working, and while I was a little nervous about spending all evening socializing with older French people, it was actually quite fun. They drink and smoke like firemen, as the French say, and they must have each smoked half a pack of cigarettes throughout the evening, and we finished probably 5 bottles of wine. But it was one of the few times I've been in a social situation with all French people here, and it's always an excellent experience. Even if I don't say a whole lot, I enjoy listening to the conversation and asking questions when I'm confused about a word or expression or something. And it's always interesting hearing younger people talk about life and hearing my host sister say things about my host mom, because my perspective here is a little limited at times.

I've also been playing Scrabble with my host mom once a week for the last month or so, which pleases me greatly. I even beat her once! Scrabble in French can be just awful if it's a bad game where there's nothing to play, but overall I don't find it much harder than Scrabble in English. It's actually mildly easier, because I always go with the first word I see, since I'm not guaranteed to have very many word options. Also, there are so many more verb conjugation options and random places to add E's and S's!

Bed times! Tomorrow is my orchestra concert, and the last day of my teaching internship. Hoo boy.