The Noel Adventure Begins!

I am now in Parce sur Sarthe at the countryhome and I feel like I have just started another whole adventure. As of now, my host family is here with an older host sister and her family (husband, 8 year old, 7 year old, and 5 year old), but the house has plenty of room to take in more guests. By the end of the week, it will be completely full with family. Since I am not at home, I want to share all that is happening here so we can pretend like we are together.

To start, I would like to say that I could not have been placed with a better family. Since the first day in France, they have brought me into their family like another son, have been patient teachers of the french language and culture, and have included me in every aspect of their daily lives. And their warm family feeling has carried right over into the Christmas season. My older host sister and her family were very welcoming and inclusive too. Today I was woken up by three little kids asking, "Are you still sleeping?" and they were happy to talk with me as they watched me get dressed and ready for the day. The stranger-border is completely gone between the kids and I already, so I have become their tree, the monster, the protector, and their secret-keeper (although sometimes I can not understand what they say as they whisper to me during a game of cache-cache, hide-and-seek). I have already learned two new card games that I can add to the collection to play back home. With the whole family, we play cards and Settlers of Catan (en Francais now) in front of the always-lit fire which warms the living room. I was able to read for a while today, joined in on the conversation about christmas gifts, and assured the kids that Santa was in the States too. In general, it is hard to find a moment of silence without one of the kids jumping on me or inviting me to play a game, but it is a pleasant change. As more and more families arrive to the house, there is always something fun going on.

We had a taste-all-the-liquor-in-the-house night tonight, and I learned a little about familial french drinking. We started with Muscat as the before dinner aperatif, and it is by far my choice aperatif in France. After dinner, over cake, we tried homemade fermented cherry liquor (which the older host sister made in 1990 I believe), pear, peach, and something else strong but sweet. We then voyaged into the basement and chose a dusty bottle that my host dad described as "explosive" as in you explode when you drink it. The scent alone tested the strength of my nostrils, and our baby sips warmed our stomachs right away. My host dad threw some into the fire and it "exploded" from the fuel. They assured me that I will have to smuggle some home when I leave.

We decorated the house with metallic Christmas colors, set up le sapin (the Christmas tree), and the family sang songs and prayed by la creche (the nativity scene). I have a sheep (un mouton) along with the other kids, and we move it closer to baby Jesus each night until Christmas day. If I had to be anywhere other than home in Texas for Christmas, it would be here. I am now living completely en francais, but it feels great to be able to say I can actually do that, and I am excited for more french family to arrive! There are 6 days until Noel and 17 days total until I am in Texas!

A bientot mes amis!

All my friends are leaving Nantes within the next two days and I am already missing them! We finished our finals earlier this week, so the past few days have been dedicated to enjoying our time together, making dinners for our host families, and shopping in the Christmas markets. I have been taking beaucoup de photos of all the Christmas decorations throughout Nantes and also just of all the normal scenes that I walk by everyday. It all seems so familiar to me now, but this week is the last time I will walk past them for probably quite a while. We have been noting all of our "lasts" this week and the emotions are so different than those of our "firsts." Our last time in the IES building, our last bus ride, our last tram. My life in Nantes will soon be just memories.

This time of the semester is completely characterized as bittersweet. I would absolutely love to be in my home in Texas right now (I have played out my arrival day in my head so many times) because of course I miss my family and my friends and all the comforts of home, but I also completely love living in Nantes. Knowing that I will not be back here for a while is so unreal. In less than a month, I will be in the States where I feel completely comfortable, but I will no longer be in Nantes. It is hard for me to fully comprehend that. Three months ago I was just figuring out this foreign city, and now I cannot imagine being anywhere else.

We went to a petit restaurant this afternoon as a final lunch with our big group of close friends. It is called Black or White, and it is a little burrito bar owned and run by Americans. We walked in, took our seats on our stools, and then we heard English. If you have never lived in a country that speaks a different language, it is hard to fully understand how weird that was. We were in a little gem of a restaurant in the middle of Nantes where everyone inside was speaking English. For months the only english we have heard spoken is from each other, so this was such a surprise. I could not help but just sit and listen to the people around us. Until today I had doubted all aspects of a returning culture shock, but this made me a believer. I do not know how I will react when everyone around me in a public place is speaking English like me. In France, I can speak in English and assume that the conversation is staying only between me and my friends. I do not know how you can have a private conversation when everyone else can understand what you are saying! It is just unreal to think of how things will be so different when I get home in less than a month. I just do not know how I am going to go back to living in the States after I have lived in France (It is not a downgrade by any means, but it will be stepping away from a life of adventure for a life of normal).

My friends are all leaving before me so I am not experiencing the realness of actually going home yet, but I am surrounded by people who are. I know friends who are already back in the States and my best friends here are all leaving Friday and Saturday. These are people that I have been around literally every single day for the past four months. We somehow found each other early on in our first week in Nantes and have completely fallen in love since then. We have become so much like each other with our habits and sayings and accents. And it is a weird connection because we have been through so many amazing adventures together and have had to overcome the same french hardships which makes us even better friends. I feel like our connection is so strong and our personalities so overlapping. I can not imagine going back to school without seeing my Nantes friends every day. We have been talking about how everyone is going to want to know about our experience in France once we arrive back home and about how much we are going to want to talk about it (it is all we have known for the past four months). For most people, an "I had an amazing time, met lots of great people,  loved my host family, and learned more french" will suffice and going into more detail will not interest them too much. But it is impossible to sum up living in France for a semester for someone who just asks "How was your trip?" I feel like you have to understand the progression from the beginning to the end of the semester, my fears and accomplishments and trips and gained knowledge, to even understand a piece of how this experience has made me feel. I know my family wants to hear all the stories and details and emotions of everything that is happening, and that's why they read this little bloggy. But in general, there is no one who fully understands how I have changed except my friends here. We have already pointed out this fact, so there will surely be skype dates where we can talk about everything French without worrying about seeming pretentious (and when no one else cares anymore about what we did or what we saw). They are a good support group for returning back home!

To celebrate our soon departure, tonight my friends and I made a Mexican dinner (chicken quesidillas, rice, beans, queso, guacamole, hot sauce) for my host family and they loved it. My host mom especially loved the velveta queso which was completely gone by the end of the meal. They had never eaten quesidillas before so we had to teach them how to eat them properly (you do not roll them, you can add guac and tomatoes on top if you want, and where to put the beans and rice on the plate). They loved the entire meal and the spices tested their spiceless, french pallates a bit. Again, it was a great bonding time for my family and friends who all got to finally meet each other and see our real interactions and conversation together. It was a great final dinner with my friends together.

With my bags all packed to leave for the other house on Saturday, I am feeling all sorts of emotions. I am really sad that my friends are leaving. I am happy that my host family is so great. I am sad that I will not be home for Christmas. I am excited to experience Noel in France. I am already really missing Nantes and my daily french routines. I am happy that I feel comfortable enough to truely call Nantes home. I am sad that I will not be in Nantes next semester. I am ready for three whole more weeks of living in FRANCE. I would love to be on a plane to Texas to see my family right now. I wish I could live in France longer and keep soaking in the french language. It is bittersweet indeed.

In the end, I feel so completely blessed right now. C'est bonne, la vie.

Winter in Barcelona

My trip to Barcelona both started and ended pretty roughly, but the actual trip was completely amazing and worth the few hardships I faced. After struggling with whether or not to actually go on our trip to Barcelona (flights were being cancelled from Paris because of the snow, so we could have possibly been either stuck in Paris before even getting to Barcelona or we could have been stuck in Barcelona without being able to fly back to Paris), Laura, Abigail, Amy and I hopped on the train to Paris early friday morning. Our train was a little delayed, but we made it through the Paris metro system to the airport. However, I had to pay a 25 euro ticket while on the metro because I had not purchaced the correct ticket. I was pretty upset that I had been fined for not knowing which zone of Paris I was traveling through, but I handed over the money anyway and looked forward to the adventures to come.

 
 

To start, Barcelona was such a great vacation spot after experiencing weeks of winter in Nantes. The weather was so temperate for the begining of December and the skies were blue and sunny. Our hostel was once again very enjoyable and had easy access to the metro. We had an amazing view of the city from the 12th floor, free breakfast (bread rolls and nutella/jam), and our 8-person room only costs 11 euros per night. For our first night, we explored the busy downtown shopping areas. Some things we saw: Christmas lights decorating all the streets, at least five H&Ms within a ten minute walk from each other, Christmas markets on every corner (They mostly sold landscapes and figurines to make nativity scenes, but the most popular trinket in Barcelona was a "pooper" which is a figure with his pants down to go in the nativity. I am not sure how the trend started..), musicians and dancers entertaining the crowds, and hundreds of tourists doing their christmas shopping. We kept having moments of "We are in SPAIN right now!" and "It is almost CHRISTMAS time!" that really made us enjoy even the small things.

 

My favorite part about Barcelona was all the Gaudi buildings and park areas. The Temple de la Sagrada Familia was unreal and so unlike any other cathedral around. It looked like it was melting on one side, one side was topped with giant stone fruit baskets, and one side was sleek stone with biblical characters surrounding the main entrance. We somehow snuck inside for a few minutes (before we were kicked out for not having payed) and the inside towered high but with a completely modern aspect. Gaudi had so much freedom to create whatever his mind could imagine, and la Sagrada Familia looked like so much fun to have dreamed up. We spent most of our first full day in Park Guell which sits above all of Barcelona and was the most beautiful part of the city. It reminded me so much of being in Texas because the landscape was rugged and shrubby and there were even cacti! From the highest point in the park, we saw the entire city below us, all the buildings packed so tightly together. It was completely beautiful and I found myself wanting to take multiple pictures of basically the same scene just to try to capture it entirely. All the trees were still green and leafy (unlike the bare winter trees in Nantes now) and the sun warmed my back in a way I have not felt for a while in France. It was peaceful walking in the park all morning, and there were musicians scattered around the weaving paths. As soon as the music from the women playing the hammered dulcimer stopped, the steel stringed guitar began, and then a hang drum, then a folksy group of guitars. The Casa Museu Gaudi below the park was completely decorated with colorful tiles which must have taken so much time to individually place every single one. After being in Barcelona, I have fallen in love with everything Gaudi.

 

We ate burritos and paella and rice pudding, and I was a happy boy tasting all the spices that I have missed for the past few months (On a side note, people can smoke freely inside of restaurants and bars, so I probably inhaled a few cigarettes worth of smoke during my few days there). We also walked to the beach, and standing in the sand and touching the mediterranean water was so exciting since it is December! I tried to soak in as much of the warmth as possible so that I can remember back to that day when I am especially cold in Nantes. Another side note: My friends and I have come to enjoy replicating ads or sculptures in each new city we visit. We also take plenty of opportunites to practice being models with our own Vogue photo shoots. Barcelona was no exception for either of those opportunites.

My friends left for Nantes on Sunday afternoon (but I stayed because my ticket home on Monday costed over 100 euro less) and I felt my first real homesickness ever. I just had this realization that I was all alone in another country and my friends and family were no where close. I tried to nap it off at first, but I will admit that I looked into flights that would take me back to Texas earlier than my current ticket (they are rediculously expensive now, so do not worry about me trying to cut short my time in France again). After my afternoon siesta, I walked downtown and got lost in all the stores and markets and music and people (surrounded by all the Christmas spirit!) for a few hours until my feet started dragging. Monday morning I took a train to the airport and was so ready to just be back in Nantes. I arrived at my terminal over two hours early, and I ended up staying there for a total of six hours because my flight kept getting delayed. The air traffic controllers in Spain had been on strike over the weekend and apparently things still had not cleared up by Monday. My plane, which left Barcelona four hours late, also arrived in Paris four hours late, so I missed my train (and the last train of the night) home to Nantes. The next eight hours were extremely long and lonely as I tried to find a place to doze off in the Paris airport (all the benches are homeless person-proof and so it is impossible to lay across them comfortably). I had to buy a ticket to go to another train station at 6am the next morning and then another new train ticket to go to Nantes. I could not have been happier to be in Nantes (which truely feels more and more like home) on Tuesday morning as I walking home completely exhausted.

I had to wait a few days to write this blog because I ended the trip with feelings that might have overshadowed all the fun I had during the weekend. I was in Barcelona with my three best friends from IES, we saw beautiful, funky architecture all around town, and felt the mediterrean sun in December! I am completely content after spending a winter weekend in Barcelona with my friends. Being stuck in Paris overnight is just another thing to check off my to-do list.

Gobble gobble, gobble!

Things I'm thankful for:
1. Two parents and a sister who completely accept me as I am, quirks and all.
2. The opportunity to spend a semester in FRANCE.
3. A french family and french siblings who are so much fun to interact with.
4. My new friends who are completely in sync with me.
5. Family who loves me enough to send a microwavable Thanksgiving meal all the way to Nantes!

I just spent my first Thanksgiving in France, and even though I missed out on stuffing my face with all of my family, I am surprisingly content with the celebration here. I did not remember how important Thanksgiving really was until tonight when I missed it. While I enjoyed my evening here, I also realized that it was just a fun evening and not actually Thanksgiving. The real Thanksgiving is more than just food and family; it is the feeling of being home, the feeling of eating two plates stacked high with turkey and then eating another serving of every side to make sure I am completely full, the feeling of sitting on the couch with my family watching the football game.

 

There was a celebration tonight where all the IES students and their host families ate a special dinner and enjoyed conversations together. The meal consisted of a very salty salmon salad, turkey, baby potato spheres, chestnuts, and about 20 individual cranberries. As a meal, it was very tasty and the portions were more generous than French meals in general, but it still was not thanksgiving. For dessert we ate a cube of chocolate layered cake and a slice of pumpkin pie which tasted good enough but had an almost neon orange color. I really missed mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans, stuffing, and frozen fruit salad. I also miss the feeling of being a few slices of pie too full and having thanksgiving food for every meal for days after the big feast. However, even if I had been served a heaping plate of stuffing and turkey, I do not think it would have completely felt like Thanksgiving. Minus the lack of real thanksgiving food, I was really happy to be spending Thanksgiving with all my new friends and my host dad (This gathering with both students and host families was a very good idea. Our host parents now know that we actually have personalities and a sense of humor! It is hard to show your real personality with such a limited vocabulary and even harder to understand subtle humor in another language, so tonight they saw our interactions with each other where a personality actually exists). It is nice to be in France and feel completely comfortable with everyone, that we all have this common desire to reproduce Thanksgiving in our new home.

The best part of the night was the talent show. The entertainment started off with a traditional hula dance (bare foot and in the middle of the restaurant) by three girls from Hawaii. It was rediculously perfect for our thanksgiving in France. After a few solo musical performances, a group of six students with two guitars and a mandolin started playing Wagon Wheel and I almost melted. I could hardly help myself from turning the performance into a sing-along. It felt so much like home and I could only imagine playing it and singing with my sister in our little music knook upsairs. It was the perfect song to evoke those familiar home-and-family feelings that I needed. They also played a popular french song which literally did become a sing-along with everyone in the restaurant.

So it was not a traditional Thanksgiving in Nantes, but I at least got to wear my fancy suit! The best news is that France completely celebrates Christmas, and Nantes is already almost completely decorated with lights in all the streets. Also, it is going to snow next week! I am going to make snow angels in FRANCE!

Rome Sweet Rome

Last weekend I packed my backpack to the brim and headed out to discover Rome. I left Nantes on a train with 4 friends from IES, and we arrived in Paris on the windiest, most grey and gloomy day imaginable. We imidiately hid behind our umbrellas which we held in front of us, rather than above our heads, because there was such a strong wind. My umbrella now has some broken  limbs and will not stay open on its own, and trashcans around the streets of Paris were filled with abandoned umbrellas. We spent one night in Paris before we left for Rome and, despite the weather, we were able to see some great sites. We walked by le Tour Eiffel which stood tall against the thick grey sky and we avoided dozens of people selling touristy trinkets. We got out of the bad weather and went to le Musee de l'Orangerie (You can get in to any museums and monuments in France for free if you present your French visa) which housed pieces by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. There was also a giant exhibit displaying Monet's Waterlily Pond collection which was amazing. Each piece was over 20 feet long and the mix of colors was so intriging that you could not help but gaze at each one wondering how individual brush strokes could create something so massive. I am finding that I can appreciate art more after being in an Art History class here (We have to keep reminding each other that we are standing in front of an actual piece, not just a photo of a famous picture or just the Eiffel Tower in Vegas, but the real live thing!) We also stopped by Notre Dame de Paris and Sainte-Chappelle which was almost completely surrounded by stained glass windows that stretched high into the arched ceiling. Of course we had crepes for lunch and a mid-day banana/nutella crepe snack. I also went out with my friend Laura to meet one of her french friends for a thai dinner (This is only important because it is still exciting for me to make it through an entire meal speaking mostly French with actual French people). The next morning, we conquered the public transportation of Paris and took a plane to Rome.

 

There are so many rediculously old sites and paintings in Rome that I do not even know where to begin. The Colosseum was exciting and horrible at the same time. We took a guided tour (which I highly recommend for the Colosseum and Roman Forum) and learned so many details and stories about its incredible history. The Colosseum was used for battles between gladiators and animals and slaves and women, but in reality it was  just an arena for massacres. The stage had 28 trap doors where hundreds of animals would be lifted up (after days without food) and quickly slaughtered by the armed men above. There is only one door out, used by the dead, who were scortched by a hot iron and stabbed to make sure they were completely dead before they were dragged out. Over 700,000 men were killed in the Colosseum and often times the scent of death was so overpowering inside that the temporary roof had to be removed to allow some circulation. It was crazy to stand where thousands of people watched bloody massacres each night, enjoying the idea of a grand performance while the men in the arena were actually being slashed with swords and eaten by lions. It was also crazy to think about how after all the gladiator battles, the Colosseum still experienced hundreds of years of other events.

One of the most interesting parts about Rome is that it is a "Recycled City," in the words of our tour guide. It makes sense when you think about how old most of the buildings are, and it explains why most of the famous sites look especially ancient. Most of the buildings were once covered with thick slabs of marble that decorated the walls and columns giving them a sleek, Roman look.  But as new buildings were erected and new rulers came into power, the marble was taken from older buildings (like the Colosseum) because it was cheaper. I learned how the marble was attached to columns, almost just hanging over the stone base, and most of the buildings now only show the stripped skeleton of what used to be smooth marble. You can see which buildings were protected by the church or the emperor because they are still decorated with swirling marble and all the walls are still intact. I can only imagine how awesome ancient Rome looked before it was recycled into less ancient but still old Rome.

 

Our tour took us up to Palatine Hill where Romulus built Rome after he killed his brother Remus. It is spotted with high umbrella trees which were imported to provide shade for the emporer during his long parades. There is a mini battle field built by Constantine I that was used as the first "personal big screen" where he watched performances and gladiator battles in his back yard. Palatine Hill offers a view over all of the Roman Forum, which is actually only the 30% that has been excavated from ancient times. Present day Rome is built over layers of ancient Roman years, so there are hundreds of years of building and statues still buried under what we consider ruins. There is a church in the Forum that was built inside the ruins of ancient pillars and other buildings that were previously half-buried but now stand fully visible. It is a giant excavation site. Today only one Pagen building remains in Rome, and it is now topped with a cross.

 

Other sites I visited were:
1.The Pantheon (at one point it had the largest solid ceiling in the world, and the floors are beautiful and marble). 2. The Spanish Steps (which are neat, but just steps where hundreds of people sit and talk. They were also paid for by the French and "the spanish steps" is just a nickname). 3. Plaza Navona (filled with fountains and painters and cafes, and a good place for a gellato break). 4. The Trevi Fountain (We threw coins in and made a wish like thousands of other tourists do each day. Italy makes a fortune from the tossed coins, and they are picked up and donated to charity groups fairly often). 5. Churches (We were told to go into any church we could find in Rome because they are all covered in beautiful paintings. Most churches were painted from floor to ceiling without one blank wall in sight. The domes were deep and my neck began to hurt from gazing up so much wondering how they could be so perfect. We went to one church that did not have domes, but was painted so brilliantly to look like it did that it was almost better than a real dome. We listened to a choir in one church and their voices echoed and suspended like we were listening to angels at the gates of heaven).

 

While we were in Rome, we stepped out of the country for a few hours into Vatican City. We went to the Vatican museum and entered into room after room teeming with stone statues and ceilings covered with dozens of paintings. The Vatican, as well as most of Rome, is a complete sensory overload. There are so many hundreds of paintings and statues and monuments and tapestries and domes that it is impossible to appreciate every single one. We would walk down long corridors where the ceiling was painted with hundreds of different individual pictures but I was only able to soak them in as a whole, as one massive canvas hosting dozens of artists who all blend together. I think it is interesting which paintings and statues are seen as famous. Michelangelo's David statue is really well known, but I saw hundreds of statues of sculpted young men that were no less impressive yet less appreciated. Similarly, there are hundreds of paintings that are underrated and overlooked when they rest close to a famous piece. The Sistine Chapel is completely not overrated, however. All the images tell a story and if you look up and spin, it's like a biblical picture book. Taking pictures is interdit (not allowed), but of course I sneakily snapped a shot as evidence that I stood under Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. We stayed in the Sistine Chapel long enough to "awe" at each separate painting, and then we passed through it three more times just for fun. We also passed through Raphael's rooms which, like most of Rome and the Vatican, was unreal, and I again had to remind myself that he actually stood in the same room and painted everything on the walls.

 

We made some good friends from the Netherlands in our hostel (I have said it before, but it is so cool how you can find people you completely mesh with all over the world) which had a really hip and young vibe. For my trips so far, the hostels have only made each city even more enjoyable. Of course we ate pizza and pasta and gellato for every meal during our stay in Rome. I would not say that it was especially better than italian food anywhere else, but of course the Italian accents make the atmosphere more genuine. I had always assumed that the stereotypical Italian accent was completely exaggerated, but it is pretty much right on target. We stayed in Rome just long enough so that we had a few busy days packed with sight-seeing but also a few relaxed days to take our time and just wander. It was a great treat to have a mediterranean weekend!

Ciao!

Post-Honeymoon

The first week of November just passed which means I have been in France for over two months now. I cannot decide if it has felt like a long time or not, but it has been two months that have offered me more adventures and insight and lessons and people than I ever imagined. Needless to say, I absolutely love living in Nantes and I am excited for the two more months to come.

Before I left for France, I was in the stage before the wedding where I was really excited, anticipating all the fun I was going to have and dreaming up how perfect everything would be. Then I arrived in France, the wedding day, which overloaded me with new people and challenges, and each day I discovered something new that I loved about the city and its people. Most of September and October acted as the honeymoon phase and was amazing. It felt like one long, incredible vacation with new friends and new sights to explore down every street. I spent each day focusing on absorbing as much French life as I could because everything was dripping with novelty. November marked the end of my French honeymoon and the beginning of real life. I have actually started studying for tests and researching for papers (My motivation to stay inside and do work is struggling greatly with all the opportunities to go out or just snuggle in my warm bed).  My work for school is starting to pile up, and since we only receive a few grades (notes) for each class, I actually need to put effort into my assignments. Within the last few weeks, I have successfully taken my midterms and I am pretty proud of myself because they were all in french (I am used to taking grammar tests written in french, but expressing pages worth of my ideas in french on a topic like sociology or art history is new to me!).

I went to take my Geography midterm at l'Universite last Friday but the doors to many buildings on campus were baracaded by thick walls of trashcans and chairs and wooden crates. Once I actually made it to my class through another entrance, only half the class was there and the test was rescheduled for another day. The professor was angry because our classroom was still accessable so the absent students had no reason to miss class, but he still changed the test date and let us leave class early. The entire university campus is decorated with new graffiti which proudly announces ideas like "It's not necessary to change the retraite, it's necessary to change our system of capitalism!" Apparently there was a vote last week where 250 radical students out of the 6000 total decided that the university would be on strike all week. It is completely different than what you would ever see at a university in the States. All students attend the university for free, but as a result, many seem to respect it much less and have less motivation to attend classes (in the States, each class you miss is like throwing away a handful of cash that you already paid to the university). The encircled A symbol of anarchy, which is tagged and stickered across campus, is completely accurate for the ways things function at l'Universite. Just like les Francais in general, the students appear to do what they want as if there was no higher authority. It is becoming an ever-increasing theme for la vie en France.

The downside to my growing plate of homework is that I have less time to profiter de (take advantage of) different events throughout the week. I have been working out less, going to SUAPS (the university sports program) less often, and feel less obligated to attend different social events because I could potentially be studying. However, when it comes down to it, I am still continuing to put my french "experience" ahead of my studies (After I leave Nantes, I know I will remember my studies much less than all the other exciting opportunites that I profiter from). I will gladly take a break from studying to play a game with my host family, and I can sacrifice study and sleep time to go out with my brother and his friends for a genuine French night.

I went out this weekend to a place called La Maison (the house) which had different rooms you could sit in while having drinks (the bathroom, the living room, the bedroom). While we were there, we heard english (which is always a pleasant surprise) and discovered that a large group of ERASMUS students (an exchange program for European students) were sitting close by. We talked to people from Scotland and England and Ireland (the Irish accent is still very charming and still my favorite) who were all very friendly. Later in the night we ran across some of my host brother's friends who joined us as we walked around a lively quartier in le centre-ville area called Bouffay. And finally on our way home, we ran across some french girls who were excited to talk with us about different perceptions of France versus the States. Overall, it was a night filled with fun interactions with new people. I think these little interactions are exciting even if they are with people who I might never see again. After being in France for two months, I have learned that the world is pretty small, but there are so many people out there to connect with who are really compatible with me. That makes me even more motivated to continue exploring and seeing new faces!

So yes, the honeymoon is over, but the adventures keep flying my way. My love for France is as stong as ever, and we have many more exciting bonding times planned for the next two months.

L'halloween

Tonight is halloween and instead of walking around door to door with my bag of candy, I am eating eyeball-shaped chocolates alone in my room. Halloween is not very popular in France because, according to my host family, it is usually a celebration against the Catholic holiday of Tous Saints (all saints). The cemetery was flooded with flowers today, but not many people were out in their ghost and witch costumes. My friends and I were excited to buy candy and carve pumpkins today but all the stores were closed and our halloween dreams were crushed. Instead, I wore my new skull underwear and the tattoo sleeve that my sister sent me (which was surprisingly realistic), and I listened to spooky songs and clips of women screaming for their lives. While at my friend's house this evening, one group of boys rang the doorbell and asked us "bonbons?" but we had no candy to offer them. They told us that they were having no luck in their candy search (even the Americans did not have candy on this American holiday), but they were not wearing costumes, so that made me feel less guilty for not giving them treats.

 

Nantes is finally wearing its Fall colors. All the trees around town are shedding their green leaves for oranges and golds and reds. Even the wet, fallen leaves decorate the sidewalks with spots of color. I am very content watching France switch over to its new color palette.

Parce sur Sarthe

This past weekend started les vacances (vacation) for most students in France so I went with my family to their house in the countryside. Paul drove us (in France, you cannot get your license until 18, and most people drive manual cars. The car we took was very old and we had to wait for it to raise itself up before driving. We also managed to find gas, but each car was only allowed 30 euro worth) about an hour and a half outside of Nantes, toward Paris, to Parce sur Sarthe. The house was amazing with 8 or more bedrooms, long hallways, multiple living rooms, and warm fireplaces which were always filled with glistening red logs. The outside walls of the house are being refinished, but even hundreds of years after first being built, it is still standing strong. The family even has a book there that is older than the United States. It is weird to think that Europe was so developped before the States were even dreamed of.

I spent the weekend relaxing and enjoying family time. Paul and I played wii throughout each day, bonding as we smashed bricks and jumped over flame balls to save the princess (I practiced my french video game action vocabulary), we played guitar together, and took a tour around the petit ville to see all the old houses and stores and narrow streets. A bunch of the cousins were also there, so we played on the trampoline (I was le cheval and I gave beaucoup de wild rides on my back) and joked around like normal cousins do. The smaller cousins were upset that I had to leave in the middle of the week, so I believe we will have more fun when we are all together again for Christmas. One night for dinner, we ate an interactive meal. A bowl of sliced potatoes rested on a hot plate, and underneath was a heated plate that melted your personal skillet of cheese which you could pour over your potatoes and ham. We also ate broccoli which my family considers to be very American.

Things I did for the first time:
1. Went mushroom hunting with my host family and some friends from around town. We tugged on our shin-high rubber boots and trekked into the woods in search of mushrooms. We were looking for mushrooms with brown heads and a spongy underside (not the poisonous red spotted mushrooms!) and I was able to find a decent amount considering they were the exact same color as the fallen leaves covering the ground. We ate the mushrooms for dinner that night. I liked hunting and gathering for my dinner. We should do that more often in the States. 2. Went to a Catholic service. Not only was it very structured and more ritualistic (I feel I should have had a lesson before to know what to do and say at certain parts of the service) but it was also in french (bien sur) so I did not have many verbal clues as what to do. The family took communion (in Catholicism the bread represents the actual body of Jesus rather than just a symbol of His body), I was spritzed with holy water, and the boy at the alter made faces at someone in the crowd inbetween readings. 3. Took a train home alone without a ticket. My family is staying at the other house until the end of the week but I still had classes this week, so I had to find a train to take me back to Nantes. We arrived at the train station as my train was pulling up, but the ticket machine did not work and the front desk woman was busy, so my host dad put me on the train and said I would be fine. I took my seat and was anticipating having to explain my situation to the ticket checker, but he never came. I came home on Tuesday which was apparently a national day of strike so buses and trains were not running their normal schedules and therefore tickets were not really being checked. I lucked out with a fast, free ride home.

In strike news:
Some of the piles of trash have been picked up that were crowding le centre-ville, but there are still sidewalks filled with trashcans (as most of Nantes would say, c'est degueulasse!). There are even some trashcans that were burned and now sit half full and melted in the sidewalk. La manifestation is still alive and blocking the tram tracks as they gather in le centre-ville. I thought they would have taken a break during this vacation, but apparently they are in it to win it.

Strike Diary

Lundi (monday): When I left home this morning, my parents warned me to take my identification with me because there were police all around dealing with the especially active manifestation. The neighborhood was a little chaotic and the nearby school was locked down today because la manifestation (this time it was a large group of 2000 students from high schools further north in Nantes) flipped over two cars and burned another car near le lycee livet (my host brother's highschool around the corner). They took to the streets, tore down metal public trashcans in their path, and invaded the Monoprix (similar to Target). Other workers (including truck drivers who recently joined le greve) lit fires near the tram tracks, physically blocked the tracks with construction barriers, and decorated the tracks and some buildings with "en greve" (on strike). Most greves in France usually start with transportation, then education, then resource availability. The teachers at Paul's highschool will be en greve tomorrow again, and more than 1000 supermarket fill-up stations in France have already run out of fuel because of the go-slow protests by truck drivers. Apparently it is especially strong in western France (quel chance pour moi!) where they are physically blocking fuel stations.

Mardi (Tuesday): The trams were scarce today because of the continued blockages across the tracks. The Nantais marched through town by the thousands like always with flags, drums, and united chants. I had to walk from the University (all classes were cancelled, and the gates to the highschools were baracaded with dozens of trash cans and shopping carts) to IES in le centre-ville which took a good hour. This is the first week where le greve is starting to get on my nerves. I really enjoyed the quick tram rides and now walking everywhere seems to be taking up much of my day. In the centre-ville, we walked toward an intersection filled with smoke, screaming whistles and chanting, and miles worth of grevers marching ensemble in the streets. It was difficult to pass through the thick crowd, but we squeezed our way across to continue on to our destination. In Paris, la manifestation is getting more wild as the streets are constantly filled with mobs blocking all activity and general mobilization. In Lyon, la manifestation is leaning more toward a riot because there is increased violence (objects being thrown at blockaded buildings) and even masked looting. Airports in France have been cancelling half of their flights some days, and people are stuck either in or out of their city because there is no gasoline to keep traveling. Thursday there is supposed to be a vote of whether to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62 or not (and although much of the country will be upset, the amendment is predicted to pass by Sarkozy). I do not understand how Sarkozy can function when his entire country is en greve. C'est folle, la France.

Mercredi (Wednesday): La manifestation took a break today, but le greve is still going strong. From looking and smelling around town, I think that the trash pickup is currently en greve also. There are boxes piled high, dumpsters stacked and filled to the brim, and trashcans teeming with a week's worth of rubbish. Every week the stores in le centre-ville leave huge stacks of cardboard boxes in the sidewalks to be picked up (a SDF's haven), but as of now they are just taking up large sections of every sidewalk and making the town look a little rugged. Apparently the French Army cleaned up the trash in Marseilles, so hopefully they march on over soon.

Jeudi (Thursday): Although the streets were relatively empty today (only one big crowd was manifesting in front of the Prefecture), the trams are still blocked and only running between limited stops. By now, le greve is just another aspect of la vie en France that I have become accustomed to. I begin my day knowing that I will have to walk a few extra stops after the short tram ride to and from town and that my final destination is probably blocked so I will have to walk there too (fortunately, it was a beautiful day so I took advantage of the weather to run a six mile path along the Erdre river through the woods and past un chateau). As always, the walking is not so bad (there is beaucoup to enjoy since I am in FRANCE) so I am not really complaining, but I do love a nice reliable tram ride.

For those who have a tendancy to worry, you do not need to for me. Nantes is very safe and calm compared to other parts of France (I do not even feel a tiny bit anxious about my safety here right now), and the news coverage in the States seems to only be showing the worst of la manifestation. I will let you know when worrying is necessary.

I do not know what will happen after the vote is taken and a decision is made. There are already two dates set for la manifestation in the future. Perhaps the french will settle down, or perhaps that is just wishful thinking.

Irlande

When you think of Ireland, it usually goes something a little like this: beer, sheep, pubs, green, drinking songs, leprechons, clovers, and beer. This weekend, Ireland lived up to it's reputation and exceeded my expectations tenfold. Thanks to the rediculously inexpensive flights with RyanAir, I was able to spend the past weekend in Ireland, visiting Dublin and the countryside along the east coast. As soon as I stepped off the plane onto the Irish tarmack, I could feel my Irish blood tingling with excitement to be home. The air was fresh and cool as five of my friends and I carried our backpacks to the double decker bus which took us to our hostel. It was very easy to locate and close to a busy, thriving area of town. This was my first hostel experience and I completely loved every aspect of it. The owners were cheerful and interested and offered good advice for our Irish adventures. We stayed in a mixed 12-person room with bunkbeds and its own bathroom. Everyone in our room was around our age and had the same adventuresome spirit as us. The bunks were scabbies- and bugbed-free and kept us more than warm enough through the night. They also served us a full Irish breakfast (eggs, ham, baked beans, sausage, hashbrowns, toast, jam, tea) to fill us up before our long day.

 

 

 

On our first day, we walked all aroung the town center shopping (I bought a warm scarf for 3 euros) and watching all the Irish folk. There were multiple street performers and artists who were all amusing to watch as we walked the streets. There were several performers frozen like statues, and they were so convincing that we began to question if Dublin actually had any real statues around. We saw the Dublin Spire (a giant flagpole-looking structure which is 120 meters tall), the church of St. Augistine and John (with a beautiful facade), Christchurch Cathedral (a medieval cathedral with 19 bells that ring full circle- the largest of its kind in the world), and Trinity College (beautiful campus housing the book of Kells). We took a tour of the Guinness Storehouse which is seven floors of the history, ingredients, brewing, and advertising of the famous beer. I drank my first pint of Guinness beer at the Gravity Bar on the top floor which gave a view of the entire city (It is not my favorite, but who else can say they drank Irish beer in the storehouse where it was brewed?). We spent the evening in an area called Temper Bar, a pub crawler's haven with live music inside and all around outside on the streets. The nightlife was very lively and the singing coming from each bar felt very Irish.

 

 

We woke up early the next morning to embark on an early bus tour of the countryside. We took a day tour through five small towns south of Dublin, each with its own view of the countryside. Glendalough (meaning "valley of two lakes") was absolutely beautiful and we took a long walk through the forested valley where every shade of Irish green gleamed in the sunlight. It is famous for its 6th centure monastic site filled with thick stone crosses. In Killkenny we saw the castle and St. Canice Cathedral, and we ate Irish food (I had Sheppard's Pie, and it was so good I almost did an Irish jig at the table) in the dungeon of a restaurant. The bus for our tour was packed with visitors from all over the world and there were probably six or seven different languages being spoken between all of us. The tour guide was very comical and he did lots of singing (I know a long Irish sing-along now) which made the trip even more authentic. We met a new friend from Australia on the tour, so I now have a connection down under!

For all the pictures that I took, I wish I could attach a sound clip to each one. I am now in love with Irish accents, and the accents were honestly what made the trip extra enjoyable. Everyone in Dublin was very friendly, they smiled all the time (unlike the straight faces in France), and their accents were so charming. It was a shock to be able to speak English with everyone around me (It was hard to get used to, and I continued to say "pardon" and "merci" without thinking) but some Irish accents were so strong, it might very well have been another language. Surprisingly, redheads were still a minority among the people we saw, but most people still looked very Irish in a magical kind of way.

We cancelled our second night in the hostel and set up our camp at the airport where all the other tired travelers came to pass out on a couch before their flights. I completely enjoyed traveling with just a backpack and knowing that everything I needed was with me. I think the bonding process between two people happens much faster and stronger when you experience some new adventure with them, and there is a common mindset that gives the relationship vigour and durability. After talking with all the other travelers, I know I will be back one day to work my way around Europe, traveling simply and inexpensively to discover more awesome adventures and friends. There is so much more out there to experience!