Franglais in Vannes

C'est bizarre how quickly you can become comfortable speaking another language. Before France, I never really had a real conversation in french that was not preplanned or rehearsed. Now I speak with my host family every day, talk to venders and fellow tourists on the street, and can order drinks or ask for directions without worrying about how I sound. With the other IESers, we speak mostly french with to other. Although native french speakers might not always understand what we say at first, we all seem to understand the other students easily. When we take a break from speaking french, we speak Franglais. It is not a conscious language, but it happens when half of the sentence is in french while some words are in English. It is fun to speak Franglais because a question asked in Franglais can be answered in French, English, or Franglais itself.

Thursday, we left for a three day "sejour" and headed for the coast. We rode in a tour bus (le car) from Nantes to Vannes (Bretagne). I was able to fit in an hour and a half of french conversation with some students on the bus. At the beginning of the trip, everyone spoke french with each other. Everyone was friendly but no one was connected with solely one group of friends. By the end of the three days, best friends have been made, secrets have been shared, group photos have been taken, and everyone is finding heir niche in the group. We stayed at Hotel Mercure which is by the port and ten minutes from the centre-ville. Each night after dinner, we went out around the town. In France there are mostly bars open at night, so we went to a bowling/karaoke bar and a sports bar to watch the French soccer match.

Friday we toured Ile aux Moines with a pique-nique on our bicyclettes. All the streets in the port towns, and in France in general, are very narrow and not always paved. The island is pretty small but we saw everything from sandy beaches to forests to croplands (blackberries grow wild all over the countryside and they taste good right off the bush!).

Saturday we visited the remains of la Forteresse de Largoet. It sat on a boggy lawn surrounded by dense forests and a pond. The fortress is empty except for pidgeons (which reminds me of something I learned from hanging out with my host brother's friends: kids "coo" when talking about someone who is a "pidgeon" or someone who for instance might bring extra drinks to a party and give them all away. I have not completely gasped what a pidgeon is yet, but I'm thinking it might be similar to a teacher's pet or someone trying to buy friends perhaps?) and the inside is probably eight floors worth of damp stone. You can see from the ground to the roof because the wood which once separated each floor is gone. We also stopped in Plougoumelen where I ate my first crepes in France! They were simple- egg, ham, and fromage, and for dessert, un crepe du caramal- and both large and fresh.

In Carnac, we took a tour around des Alignements de Kermario. Caranac was built around  three giant fields where hundreds of large rocks (pires) were placed in lines. Like Stonehenge, only on a much bigger scale and in lines instead of a circle, les pires in Carnac were actually more impressive to me than Stonehenge (I have never seen it in person, but I believe it gets more hype than Carnac because it is easier to see the entirety and almost offers more explanation than Carnac). There is probably a mile of rocks perfectly lined up from small to tall boulders. Fourty percent of the pires have fallen and been set back up, but the town does not have enough money to keep the area as preserved as other similar sites so the residents are very careful with the area. I would have liked to visit the site in a helicopter because the view from above really shows the precision of each rock. Our last trip of the day was to Saint Goustan. It was another tres jolie, very touristy port town with beaucoup de cafes and postcard stalls. The french spend  lots of time talking and drinking outside of cafes. A favorite drink here is Orangina (carbonated jus d'orange) and Coca (cola). The only thing I miss about the States so far is the free refills. When you spend over an hour sitting at a cafe, especially after walking all day, it is nice to enjoy more than five sips of a drink, but in France no one comes to the table to top off your soda every few minutes. Even a pitcher (un carafe) of water costs a few euro. At home, the cups are tres petites also, so I guess people in France know of a secret way to stay hydrated.

We took un examen this morning which was difficult because if you lose consentration for a few seconds, you miss part of the question and after that it is all downhill (With English, you can not be paying attention to the speaker but still understand what was said, but it does not work the same for French yet). Before we returned to Nantes, we visited Rochefort en Terre. A sign at the front of the town said it was one of the most beautiful towns in France, and it was true. There are bright flowers everywhere- under the windows, along the streets, scattered around le centre-ville- and everyone had a dog or two with them (the dogs speak french too). What I like about these small towns in France is that they were built into the terrain. Rather than demolishing the landscape to erect a tall city, the houses mold into the rocks and hills and the town's foliage wraps around the buildings.

The last story of le sejour happened this morning at the hotel. Another IES guy and I shared a hotel room with two beds side-by-side and one in the corner. I slept in one of the two touching beds and my roommate slept in the corner bed. This morning I awoke to the sounds of someone cursing loudly in French beside me. This was my thought process: Why did my roommate move into the bed right next to me? Why is he cursing while he sleeps? Why does he have such a good accent? Then the phone rang for our wake-up call and my roommate, who was apparently inbetween me and the phone now, did not pick it up. So I reached over the sleeping lump in the covers for the phone, and to my surprise I saw the face of a young french guy. I was still half asleep though so I layed back in bed, then realized that I did not know the guy laying next to me. When I looked at him for a second while I layed in bed still, his face was a foot and a half from mine, and he opened his eyes and layed with a nonchalent face. I slowly got out of bed trying to make sense of the situation thinking, Am I still in France? Am I in the right room? Why is there a random French guy laying in my bed? What happened last night? I put on my clothes, tapped his foot awake, and asked him who he was and what he was doing in my room (During this whole time, my real roommate was for some reason not in the room). He mumbled and assured me that it was alright before he went back to sleep. It is hard to explain the confused feeling I had during our interaction. I brought my friend from another room over to make sure this was actually happening and we finally convinced the guy that he was not in the right room and that he needed to leave. He walked away very confused but also as if there was no reason why he should not have been able to continue sleeping by me. So that was the first guy I slept with in France.