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.