FIN

So the semester is really over. Sad times. Luckily, I don't have to say goodbye quite yet, because I'll be back in Nantes with my host family in august for a few days.

This week has been the most ridiculous thing, and awesome. My friends are the thing I'm going to miss the most (luckily I still have time to appreciate France, so I don't have to start missing this lovely country quite yet), so it's been lots and lots of hanging out.

Sunday I watched the Rescuers Down Under with Katie and Stewart, in French. This is a rather significant event because Katie and I decided that I am basically Joanna, the endearingly stupid goanna who eats raw eggs. Katie, Sam and I cooked veggie lasagna and garlic bread for my host family on sunday night, which turned out really great and ended up being a really fun dinner. I think my host parents really liked meeting my friends.

Monday and Tuesday my host mummy was gone, so I had two super secret sleepovers, which involved fun music-playing and ghetto movie watching. Katie and I also went on a really epic hiking adventure on tuesday. Seeing as it was finals week, I did have a bit of homework, including a Spanish paper about Aztec sacrifice (easiest the worst paper I have ever written) and a Spanish oral exam about the environment. Easiest finals week EVER.

The last two days have been lots and lots of goodbyes, which sucks. Alot. But I'm fairly positive I'll be seeing all my good friends here again at some point, since most of them conveniently live in either the midwest or the northwest. Even though I'll be seeing them again, my host parents decided to say goodbye officially last night by giving me presents and being over complementary (I had lots of nice things I wanted to say to them as well, but had a rather hard time getting them out. That's what cards are for.) I'm going to miss them alot. My last night in Nantes was spent in a park (where else?!) snuggling/huddling for warmth with Katie, Stewart and Jessalyn. Parfait.

So. Summer plans.

May 14th-26th wwoofing at a farm near Mouzeil, a baby village 40 km NE of Nantes. Sam will be with me until Tuesday, then he's off to Germany.

May 28th- June 18th wwoofing near Boussens, in the Pyrenees, with Stewart. We're staying with a middle aged couple who have oodles of animals on their farm.

June 18th-July 3rd (ish) wwoofing near Bagnères-de-Bigorre all by my lonesome, which is real high up in the Pyrenees, right at the base of the highest mountain the Pyrenees.

July 4th- August 6th wwoofing in Tarragona, Spain. I'll be at a farm/campsite/eco resort 4 km from the beach. So excited to practice Spanish! And it'll be real exciting to be in a new country!

August 7th-August 10th A few days in Nantes with my host family to say goodbye, see Nantes again and buy touristy junk.

So there's my next three months. Should be grand.

the end's not near...

Well. It's my last sunday in Nantes. It's been an oddly normal weekend, since it's been maybe a month or so since I've had a weekend with no plans or commitments. I'm having quite the hard time believing that in 7 days I will no longer live in Nantes and will no longer be seeing my friends and host pappies on the daily.

So I never got around to writing about my spring break trip with mummy, so I will not go into super lengthy detail. I met mummy in Paris and we saw the Musee d'Orsay, the catacombs, an art exposition at le grand palais and walked around alot. Then we went off to Giverny/Vernon and stayed in a big and bitchin' house in the country with Sarah, Glenn and Morgaine. Monet's gardens at Giverny were soooooo pretty, especially the house, which was all sorts of pastel colored, like an easter egg. I want a yellow dining room one day. Then we came back to dear old Nantes, where we visited the chateau and spent a day at La Baule, St. Nazaire and Guerande with my host parents. The last four days were in Bretagne, spent at a campground near the Point du Raz. Bretagne is soooo pretty and precious. I love me some rocky coast! I also had a plethora of good crepes during the trip. Actually the whole time mummy was here was chock full of delicious food, although I am glad to be back to my normal eating habits this week. I'm so glad mummy came and I got to see more of France! There is way too much to see here. I realized this week that I have SO much left to see of France (basically the whole Eastern/Southern part of the country).

It was a bit surreal coming back to IES on monday morning (especially since mummy was still around!), but just grand to see everyone again. Break was very fun, but ten days is a long time without friends/people my own age around. Since it's the last two weeks here, there's been alot of hanging out with friends and not alot of class time, because university classes are already over, as is my teaching internship and IES theatre class. Things I did this week: watched the Barcelona-Madrid soccer game at La Bodega, a Spanish bar, hung out at the fac/watched people slackline, pique-nique at the chateau, IES end of the year reception (hot and mildly claustrophobic times).

I also went out to dinner with my host parents on Thursday night. They insisted we had to go out to dinner before I left, which I was very much okay with. We went to a Reunionnais restaurant, meaning cuisine from La Reunion, a French island in the Indian ocean. I got curry tuna, and it was delicious and mildly spicy. And then we went to a bar to watch jazz afterwards. I have the coolest host parents ever basically and adore hanging out with them. Friday was also an eventful day, because it was the last day of Madame de Pous's grammar class, as well as our grammar final. I'm going to miss de Pous, because she is an amazingly awesome and sassy lady. Luckily the final was not too difficult, despite the fact that I probably studied for it for a total of an hour. The fabulous Katie Lei organized a photo scavenger hunt for friday afternoon. There were 4 teams of 5-6 people and a list of probably 30 things to find/do and take pictures of. Epically fun (especially when Katie when swimming in a fountain), but my team got 3rd place.

It's been a lovely but not horribly eventful weekend. Friday night was supposed to be a Symposium at Erin's house (meaning wine drinking and discussing philosophical junk), but it turned into a dance party/general shenanigans and resulted in me only getting 4 hours of sleep. Yesterday I went to the mediatheque market for the last time with Sam and Stewart and bought some amazing strawberries, and then we proceeded to spend far too much time in IES for lack of anything better to do. Last night: Indian food, a movie and pool. Stewart decided that we should play music in the Place Royale (he plays guitar and Jessalyn plays cello) but of course it decided to rain. Harumph. I think I have decided to bring my violin wwoofing with me this summer.

So evidently there's not a whole lot of French being spoken/French stuff being experienced my host bit of time here. I think the general consensus among my friends here is that one of the things we will miss most (if not THE thing) is each other, so social things are taking precedent over profiter-ing from our last weeks of being in France. And I'm okay with that since I still have 2 months in France. Tonight Sam and I are going to cook dinner for my host pappies (lasagna and broccoli and garlic bread!). And I forgot to get ricotta, so off to le supermarche!

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.

le temps passe vite!

ohhh my. how sad and neglected my blog has been feeling. i'd like to say it's because i'm so ridiculously busy reading french novels and baking croissants and whatnot, but i think i have become excellent at wasting time recently.

as the semester progresses, my social life has continued to get busier and busier. while i have made some fantastic american friends here, i also can't help but feel that it's distracting a bit from the fact that i am supposed to be in france learning french. because i am having so much fun all the time, i don't really worry about it too much, but it is interesting how being in france is such a non-issue anymore. living in france is just so easy.

so events of the past few weeks:

-biking in le croisic with sam, elise and katie

-unfortunately, this led to a flat tire, which lead to a lengthy repair process (but it's all good now!)

-pirates vs. ninjas frisbee game (my team, pirates, won, naturally. PIRATES RUUULE!)

- an amazing week of sunshine and lounging in parks

-IES trip to Normandy. I spent much of the weekend being incredibly sleepy, but i had a very fun time seeing all the cows and ww2 sites nonetheless

also, i now have 5 whole normal weeks of my program left, which is not including the time mummy will be here. 1.5 months/4 months total is still a pretty good chunk, but apparently it's all going to pass rather quickly. bother. i hope i get time to blog about all the other details of life here i've been wanting to talk about!

il faut etre toujours ivre

Although I'm pretty sure I've enjoyed just about every weekend so far here in France, this one was really a winner. I spent lots of quality time with both my host family and my IES friends, all people I am going to miss dreadfully when I leave. Seeing as this weekend marks the official halfway point of my study abroad program, the end is already in sight unfortunately.

My weekend started early this week! After grammar class and working at the library, my host mummy picked me up at IES and we drove to my host pappy's house in the country, in a little town called St. Pazanne. He turned the stable in his grandfather's farm into a house, and his sister lives next door in the original house. The farm used to be quite large, but houses have been built up around it so now it's in the town. It was a lovely sunny day so we feasted on shrimp and baby lobsters and grilled scallops and goat cheese made in St. Pazanne. Although it was good chevre, it was the first one I've had that tasted EXACTLY LIKE GOATS. Maybe a little too goaty for me?

We then drove to the coast, which was quite close by, and walked on a trail on the coast to the town of Pornic. The trail is an old customs officials route and apparently there's a law in France that there has to be a trail along the coast everywhere. It was a lovely walk, filled with ponies and sea shells and lovely old beach houses. Beach houses are always named in France (I guess they usually are in the US too?) but they all have silly names like La Tempete (the storm) or Ma Petite Refuge and things like that. Upon arriving in Pornic we had some quality ice cream which Pornic is known for apparently.

It just so happened that it was the Festival de la chanson de cafe (festival of cafe music) that night. So we went to five or so different bar/cafes and heard five different singer/songwriters. Some were quite good, and there were two that were godawful. I also had one of the most delicious crepes ever for dinner (potato and chevre, with soooo much chevre in it!). It was really a good time hanging out with my host parents and speaking/reading/hearing nothing but French for 24 hours. They're right fun people, my host pappies.

Saturday, I walked to my friend Katie's house to watch a movie, and afterwards went downtown, where I ate an apricot croissant at a cafe and read Roald Dahl short stories in French. I was supposed to go to a vegetarian restaurant (the only one in Nantes!) with my friends Sam and Stewart for dinner, but it ended up being closed on saturday nights so we got pizza instead. The rest of the night was very college-y, meaning it involved some 3 euro bottles of wine, bar hopping and talking to lots of semi-creepy French guys (but never for too long!). Overall a very quality night, but it made for a sleepy sunday and made me realize why sundays at college are usually such a struggle.

I did, however, go to a regional products market sort of thing today. There were samples of wine and cheese and sausage (i tried duck and kangaroo sausage, sold by a man wearing a silk paisley scarf. what a winner.) and things of that nature. I love markets here, because everything is so pretty and delicious. Plans are in the works to visit an escargot (snail) farm possibly this weekend, or at some point in the next few weeks!

l'Italie: le gelato et les drageurs

I've now been back from my adventures in Milan and Paris for a few days, but honestly I got a little sick of talking about my trip right when I got back (so many people asking about my break when I got back!).

Alors, I don't really want to go into a whole lot of detail about what I did. So here are some highlights/thoughts about what I did/saw/ate:

-The first night of my trip, I got into the train station in Paris, then had an hour and a half walk to catch a bus in a different part of Paris. Although it was midnight, it was a friday and there

were people everywhere. Paris is absolutely beautiful at night, because all the monuments and buildings are lit up, and compared to a smal

l city like Nantes, there are amazing things to see just about everywhere. I think that walk was one of my favorite parts of my trip.

-In Milan, I stayed with Rachel in her apartment. She lives with 3 other IES students and Italian RA, and it

was super fun staying with her and cooking dinner in her apartment. Very different from my experience here in Nantes.

-Things I saw in Milan: the Duomo (cathedral), which is the 3rd biggest in the world. I went up on the roof, and it's really an impressive building. Puts the cathedral here to shame. Also, the Last Supper (you go in with a group of 2

0 people for 15 minutes, because it's in a small room in a church). I also just did alot of walking around on my own and looking at all the stores and parks and fashion week stuff that was going on.

-FOOOD. I did so much eating in Milan. I ate gelato every day (I had coconut, banana, strawberry lemon, white chocolate, milk chocolate and chocolate orange. White chocolate was the BEST). I also ate a massive calzone, little fried calzone-like things filled with cheese and stuff, and aperitivo. Aperitivo is amazing. You go to a bar/restaurant place and for 8 euros or so you get a fancy cocktail and a buffet

of as much snack-y stuff you want. Excellent deal. Other highlights included lots of coffee and brunch at California Bakery, an American r

estaurant with excellent bagels.

-My favorite part of my time in Italy was the day I spent at Lake Como. Lake Como is in the pre-Alps, and the deepest lake in the world. In the summer it's super touristy, but in the winter it is DEAD. I saw two other families touristing around, but that was it. I took the t

rain to Varenna, which was sort of unsettling deserted, but also beautiful. I walked around for awhile, then took the ferry across the lake to Bellagio, one of the main touristy towns. It's on a peninsula that ju

ts into the lake, and I decided to get a better view of the lake and tromp up to the hills outside of town. My walk included some walking on the highways sketchily (not a real highway, and pretty deserted, so not too bad), walking through picturesque little villages and attempting to avoid angry stray dogs. There are lots of little paths and churches on the peninsula, and I got a pretty good view of the lake and Bellagio when the sun was out (which was about the only 30 minutes of the whole day it was out). It's probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and I had a fantastic time just walking around by my lonesome.

-After five days of Milan, I was a little burned out on big cities. Thus, I feel like I didn't properly enjoy Paris. I was incredibly sick of tourists, people trying to steal from tourists/asking for money from tourists/selling stuff to tourists, and creepers (especially creepers in Paris, who are obnoxiously persistent). I am so incredibly glad to be living in Nantes, where people just leave you alone to go about your business. I don't know if I could ever live in really big city.

-My favorite part of Paris was Pere Lachaise, an enormous cemetery filled with the graves of many a famous French person (although the only one I actually found, since I didn'

t buy a map, was Honore de Balzac.)

-I was in Paris with my friend Katie, who is studying abroad in Nantes with me. Her parents have friends in Paris, who we stayed with for two nights, which was also one of my favorite parts of Paris. Asides from being super nice and feeding us copiously, it was also really interesting to see how people in a different part of France live. We spent alot of time just talking with them, and I love how French people will tell you their opinions on politics and whatever else so freely. Conversations here are so much deeper and thought-provoking than most of the conversations I have in the US.

It was a great trip, and I think being away from France made me appreciate it

so much more (especially the fact that I speak French so well! Italian was a struggle. I just wanted to speak Spanish all the time).

Now I'm officially halfway through study abroad. Hard to believe. But the weather is getting nice here in Nantes and the next two months here should be fantastic!