it's a quiet village

after a week of the country life here in excideuil, i feel like i’m starting to get the hang of it. during the week, i was forever going back and forth between my flat and the school, each time in the hope that the teachers would have a schedule for me. (no luck.. maybe tomorrow?) it's so great to live this close to my work... whenever i have a free hour, i can go home for a little snack or a catnap. love it. i also did some administrative-y stuff, like opening a bank account and filling out/mailing infinite forms. i spent most of my free time either in my apartment, watching french tv and trying to figure out how the heck the timetables are organized, or down in the café, chatting with vicki and the other patrons. there was a lot of free time…

the biggest day of my week was wednesday, when i went back into périgueux for the departmental assistant orientation day. the entire morning, we were inundated with information regarding our moves to france – how to get our visas validated, how to sign up for the social security system, how the complementary insurance system worked, how to get our rent subsidy… it was enough to make me want to give up, by the end of it. there are just so many administrative hoops… and i’m only going to be here for 8 months. ugh. but the afternoon was great – we were split up into groups, based on the languages and grades we’d be teaching, and then a teacher walked us through how to plan our lessons and gave us a bunch of tips and activity ideas. all in all, it was a great orientation… just very overwhelming. that actually kind of describes what moving abroad is like… great and overwhelming. i’ve been gone for over a month – time is flying!!

anyway, if the slow tempo and relative calm of the work week is any hint to you, weekends here in excideuil are verrrry peaceful. in that, unless you have a car, you can’t leave. happily for me, my upstairs neighbor / new friend mathilde does have a car, so the two of us got to escape the village for a few hours on saturday and head into a town nearby called trelissac for a little retail therapy. there’s not much happening in trelissac, but there was a nice little shopping center. i got a few things that i’d been passively needing (a pair of light tennis shoes, a clock, a yoga ball) and we browsed a few home goods stores (i’m just as obsessed with them here as i am at home). it was really nice to be able to leave excideuil (in a car!) for a few hours, just for a change of scenery. and then today, the weather was absolutely beautiful, so mathilde and i went on a walk around the village and took some pictures. we also watched a rugby match down at the little athletic center… where i learned that some things, like obnoxiously passionate fans of amateur sports teams, are universal experiences. the rest of my evening was spent skyping with my family and planning my upcoming trip to spain!

basically, the point of this post was to let the blogosphere know that i have a new facebook album, filled with photos of my apartment and the village in general. check it out!

the french riviera; it’s like florida, but way less tacky.

(continued from the post “getting down in barcelona”...)

tuesday, 3 may 2011

...we landed in lyon, a city in the eastern region of france. after the previous days’ housing worries, i was glad to have found a place for us to sleep! we took the tram from the airport to the city centre, and then the metro out to meet our host. her name is hélène, and she is an angel from heaven, i swear. she came to meet us at the stop and then walked us back to her flat. she live in a little neighborhood at the top of a hill, overlooking the main city.. and her apartment is incredible. we walked in and were immediately greeted with a deep red, textured-wall entry way. hélène said we’d be sleeping in her room, since it was at the back and furthest from the morning’s construction noises. her bedroom was this lovely eggplant colour with orange trim and awesome african-print fabrics on the bed and chairs. her sitting room was bright yellow, with funky and unique couches in purple, and a patio table complete with umbrella in the breakfast nook! the apartment went on for several rooms in the same style.. rachel and i were astonished. usually, the french are so demure and muted in their colour choices. but not hélène! she matched her apartment perfectly – bright reddish-maroon hair, ecclectic blue and green outfit, red lipstick and blue eyeshadow.. and a wonderful spirit! she immediately offered us food – fruit, cheese, bread, yogurt – and then let us get settled.

around 4pm, we left to go explore the city, as it was really our only chance! we walked down this huge set of stairs into the town, and then literally just walked up and down streets, along the river, through plazas.. trying to soak up as much of the city as we could. we stopped for a drink, and then grabbed some groceries before heading back up the hill around 8pm. since lyon itself isn’t actually very big, i feel like we did a good job seeing a large percentage of the city in such a small amount of time! once we got back to the apartment, we were exhausted.. hélène wasn’t home (she’d given us keys), but i cooked us a little dinner of pasta and then we just laid in bed reading until bedtime!

wednesday, 4 may 2011

i thought that i couldn’t sleep for more than 9 hours, but after many nights of sleeping on small pallets or couches, a real bed was enough to keep me out for more than 10 hours! it was luxury at its finest – but considering we’d gone to bed around 11, we still woke up earlyish at 10am. we packed our stuff up and then hélène surprised us with an awesome savory tarte for lunch! two kinds of cheese and garlic.. it was DELISH. she had to leave around 12:45, so said our goodbyes and left then too. we hung out in a park for about an hour before heading to the train station...

our next stop was a city called nice (pronounced neese, like geese), situated right on the mediterranean coast, almost all the way to italy. we had several hours on the train, though, since we had to go out of our way and change trains in marseille. we finally arrived in nice around 8:30, where one of our hosts came to meet us at the train station. we stayed with an awesome french couple, valentin and yasmine, in their incredible attic apartment. it was the fourth floor of this beautiful old villa building, on the north side of the city. they have a sweet cat and an adorably decorated place. rachel and i enjoyed every minute of our stay! we talked for a long time after arriving, especially about the 3-week tour they are doing of the southwest USA, starting in a few days! they are starting in albuquerque and visiting several national parks, vegas, and eventually making their way to san francisco.. couchsurfing all the way! i hope they have an absolutely marvelous time – i know they will! valentin even helped me plan out our touring for the following day – he had some awesome suggestions! yasmine made an awesome quiche and salad for dinner.. yum. after dinner, i took a much needed shower before skype-calling my parents and heading to bed.

thursday, 5 may 2011

thursday was a long day!!!! so much walking. but totally worth it! we woke up around 9am to the sound of oranges being juiced... and walked out to the living room to find breakfast pastries and goblets (yes, small crystal goblets) of freshly squeezed orange juice. more praise for couchsurfing, can i get an amen? awesome. we ate and then walked down to the train station to catch our 17-minute-long train to the swankiest little principality on the planet – monaco. what a freaking FANCY place! we spent the morning wandering around monte carlo, marveling at the amazing amounts of money on display. i literally lost count of the number of bentleys i saw.. but i am absolutely sure than i saw probably 25 million dollars worth of car.. so many bentleys, rolls royces, ferraris.... my word. and then there were all yachts in the harbor... plus the stores – gucci, prada, hermes.. all in a row. SO MUCH WEALTH. even the banks were called ‘wealth management’ places.. geez. we went up to ‘old’ monte carlo and watched the (rather unimpressive) changing of the guard, grabbed some sandwiches for lunch, and taking in the amazing views before hopping a bus back to the train station.

we took the train 8 minutes back towards nice, getting off in a town called ‘eze’. this stop was purely on valentin’s recommendation, and it was SO worth it. we had to take another bus up into the mountains, but once we got there, we were rewarded with a teeny little stone village, perched high up on top of the hill, overlooking the medeterranean and the beaches below.. each little street was so cute, with art shops and other merchants. we got ice cream and wandered around for an hour before heading back down to the beach. on the bus ride down the hill, rachel realized that every single passenger on the bus was an anglophone – we were on a bus with probably 40 middle-aged to elderly american tourists. haha. we got back to the train station and walked down to the beach and dip our toes in the water for a bit before our train arrived. once it did, we had a short ride back to nice!

once we were back, we still had lots of time to kill before yasmine was off work. we ended up walking allllll over the city, carrying the groceries we had bought while still thinking we could drop them off at the apartment.. whoops. this was our best time to see nice, though, so i’m happy we did so much walking. we even got to sit on the beach for a while before yasmine called us and said she was home. we got back and chilled for a bit before breaking out the supplies we’d purchased – because we promised to make yasmine her favourite treat.. blueberry muffins! i even persuaded everyone to let me do half the batch as raspberry muffins. they turned out well, if just a little crispy due to some temperature confusion and a super hot oven. they were definitely edible (more than edible!) and we all enjoyed them immensely! it was nice to do some baking, too.. i’ve missed it!

after the muffins, we all went out for drinks and snacks in old nice, at a really cool bar. it reminded me of being inside jules verne’s sketch book, somehow.. really interesting décor. we walked there and back though, completing a VERY long day of walking! once we got back, i looked for a few hosts in cannes, our next stop, before heading to bed.

friday, 6 may 2011

in retrospect, i would not have done this day the way it happened. but i cannot tell the future, so when it started i was still pleased with my plan! we woke up to muffins and orange juice around 9am again. we ate, packed up, said our goodbyes, and left around 10am to catch our 10:30 train to cannes, of film festival fame. the ride was short, but unfortunately, the luggage holding area in the station was closed. so we had to lug our bags around with us as we strolled the beach walk for a while. we got to see the set up preparations for the film festival, which began a few days after we were there. the city was nice, but the beach itself was gorgeous. i’d just like to insert a comment here that can be applied to every time i saw the ocean during this trip – the colour of the medeterranean is incomprehensible. it is blue.. but it is turquoise, and green, and purple, and indigo, and navy. it is the brightest body of water i have ever seen.. i could have stared at it for hours. anyway, we got sandwiches for lunch and headed back to the train station.

our next stop was st. tropez, the famed beach destination for stars of every generation. it’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in europe. too bad it’s next to IMPOSSIBLE to get there!! ugh. we took the train from cannes to st. raphael, the nearest city with a train station. from there, we had to take a bus. if i had known how long the bus ride was, i would have just suggested we stay in st. raphael and go to that beach. but, we commited to st. tropez and got on the bus. an hour and a half with a crazy bus driver later, we finally arrived in st. tropez.. only to realize that, in order to be back in st. raphael in time to make our train to our next host, we had to be back on the bus in an hour and a half. and we were on the exact opposite side of the city from where we needed to be.. and we still had our suitcases. struggle. after walking for a while (in the wrong direction, as it happened), we finally decided to give up on the “famous” beaches, and just find ANY beach to lay on for the 45 minutes we had left. so we took a nap on the beach and then woke up just in time to make it back to the bus. the ride back was twice as bad as the ride there, because there was so much more traffic and complaining from the driver (of course it was the same guy). he yelled at people for talking too loudly.. and by that, i mean talking. at all. we FINALLY made it back to st. raphael, got some food for snacks, and got on our train to marseille.

our next host was actually a friend of ours, not a couchsurfer. her name is laure and she is awesome! she had done a semester abroad at belmont, where both rachel and i met her. i only knew her in passing from the language lab where we both worked, but she and rachel became good friends during her stay. rachel even spent a week at her house in january before coming to angers. laure picked us up from the train station and drove us back to her house, about 25 minutes away. we got there and i got to meet her parents, who are both so sweet! we talked for a while, had snacks, and then rachel and i gratefully got into bed.

saturday, 7 may 2011

we slept in quite a while (for girls with things to do!) and woke up for breakfast around 10am. we had time to shower and get ready before laure drove us into aix-en-provence, another town nearby, to explore. it is a beautiful city! we toured the fine arts museum, which had several cezannes, as aix was his hometown. we found an awesome english bookstore/tea room, exactly like the one i would open if i were to open a bookstore. since it was saturday, the town was bustling with activity – terraces full of café-going people-watchers, shoppers with arms full of their latest hauls, tourists snapping photos of statues and church spires. we stopped for drinks at laure’s favourite bar before heading home. on our way, we grabbed some groceries to make burgers for dinner. the burgers were great, but the fries were soggy. i don’t know how i made my first batch of fries earlier this semester, but i haven’t been able to make them crispy ever since! i don’t understand it. anyway, we had some ice cream for dessert before settling in for a ‘friends’ marathon before bed! such a fantastic show. after a few hours, we called it a night.

sunday, 8 may 2011

american mother’s day! i have the best mom ever!

we got up for breakfast pretty late, and made our way out to the little pool in laure’s backyard for some sun time in the afternoon. beautiful. around 5pm, we headed into marseille to do some shopping and walk around, hoping to ultimately find a place to watch the marseille/lyon football match later in the evening. we found this awesome bagel shop (lol!) and ate there for dinner.. i hadn’t had a bagel in over 4 months, so it was pretty phenomenal. the pub across the street was playing the game, so we went over and posted up at a corner table for a few hours! the game was great – started out slow but had several goals near the end! unfortunately, marseille ended up losing the match, but for a while the energy was pretty electric! it’s always so fun to watch a match with locals. after it was over, we walked back the car and headed home. we had another ‘friends’ mini-marathon before bedtime. :)

monday, 9 may 2011

our last day of the trip! we had purchased tickets to do a boat cruise of the ‘calanques’ along the coast near marseille. we took the train into town, to avoid having to find a place to park, and got lunch before heading to the port. we got on our little cruise boat and headed out to sea! after the 3 hour tour, i still wasn't sure what a ‘calanque’ is.. i've since learned that it translates to mean ‘rocky inlet’. but the whole thing was so pretty! we bobbed up and down the coast, snapping photos of the dramatic cliff faces and peaceful inlets.. again, incomprehensibly blue water, with broad, white cliffs as a background now! near to the end of the tour (we saw 12 calanques in all), the three of us got a teensy bit seasick, so we all laid our heads down for a while on the ride back. but we perked up enough to see the ride back into the port, through the massive entry corridor, framed by hilltop fortresses. just outside of the harbor sits the castle where edmund dantes was imprisoned in ‘the count of monte cristo’! three cheers for literary history. after our boat tour, we walked back to the train station and headed back to st. victoret, laure’s little town.

once we got back, we napped for a while before getting up for dinner. laure’s parents had friends over, a nice french couple who had no troubles speaking with us! we joked around for a while until dinner was served – a delicious sort of shepard’s pie type thing.. it was this huge casserole dish with duck and vegetables topped with mashed potatoes and baked.. YUM. we had salad, radishes, and bread as well. SUCH a great dinner! i have missed home-cooked mom food so much! after dinner we sat and talked and ate cherries from the garden for a long time before we three girls retired to our bedrooms downstairs. since it was our last night there, laure agreed to sacrifice sleep for more ‘friends’ bonding. :) we went to bed around midnight, though, so it wasn’t too bad!

tuesday, 10 may 2011

laure had to leave for work early, so we woke up to say goodbye. she was such a great host, and i am so grateful and happy we got to stay with her! she left around 8am, and rachel and i went back to sleep for a few hours. around 11am, i got up to take a shower. we both went out to lay by the pool for a while, and then came in to get our bags packed up. laure’s mom took us to the train station for our 3:30 train, gave us bags with food and drinks and cookies, and sent us on our way back home to angers.

the train ride was direct, but 5 hours long.. we were both so happy to be off that train by the end of it! we got back to our dorm around 9pm, and spent the rest of the night visiting with friends who we hadn’t seen in 2 weeks! i even went out that night, just so i could spend some time with them.. every minute counts!

_____________________________________________________________________ 

the days in between my return and next departure have been filled with friend time. i’m trying to have as much as possible! i DID have a great free dinner on wednesday night, courtesy of the university of angers. free crepes are the best!! and i also got to read to SUPER AWESOME books – the first two books in the ‘hunger games’ series by suzanne collins. i highly recommend them and i can’t wait to get my hands on the third one!

i’m heading off to ireland in the morning! well, my flight isn’t until the afternoon, but i’m out of the dorm around 11! i’ll be there for 10 days, and i’m so excited! stay tuned for that post somewhere around the 28^th.. :)

--jill


ps - as always, check out my facebook album for photos of the trip!

a week in the life..

in retrospect, i feel like last week was a pretty good illustration of life here in franceland. well, partly. minimal classes, lots of hang-out time. here’s a summary...

monday, 4 april 2011

art history – the last class before the exam.. professor didn’t quite finish the lecture, so he said he’d just lecture before the exam next week. great.. now i have to make sure i catch every little detail, because it’s all fair game for the exam during the same class period – no time to go back home and research/verify, etc. stressful. we covered a lot of stuff, too. yikes.

nap. computer time. lunch.

langue française class – i’d already given my final presentation, so now all that’s left is to sit and listen to other people’s exposés.. an hour and a half later, my brain was dripping out of my ears and i’d revised my summer plans 14 times.

grocery shopping at superU with my peoples.

conversation workshop – brutally boring. it’s not really much of a conversation class if we get in trouble for talking...

dinner with friends, as usual.

tuesday, 5 april 2011

no classes on tuesday.. wonderful day of relaxation. slept in, worked on some homework, chilled outside, studied for my culture exam. i’m going to miss my little weekend-in-the-middle-of-the-week next semester when i go back to the real world..

wednesday, 6 april 2011

translation in the morning.. it’s always painful when the professor calls on 10 exchange students in a row, and they’re all absent. thankfully i had my work done, so when he finally got to my name, i had something to contribute.

techniques of french expression – again, i’ve already given my final presentation, so i just had to listen to other ones. more interesting than langue française class, but still pretty brutal.

culture – final exam! which took me approximately 14 minutes. once we finished, my friend andrea invited me to join her and a friend for an evening out – they were planning on going to a restaurant in town that specializes in soufflés. a few weeks before, our culture professor had given us a list of 12 restaurants in angers, all of which i vowed to try. since the soufflérie was on the list, i happily accepted the invitation. ..best decision EVER. soufflé has to be on my list of most delicious creations on the planet. i had a goat cheese and broccoli soufflé that i can only imagine was sent from heaven, and then the three of us shared a chocolate soufflé for dessert. i must learn how to make soufflé. i must.

thursday, 7 april 2011

happy first birthday to my favourite little baby boy, baker wiley cooper! his mom, charlotte, was my french teacher (and subsequent role model) in high school (and life), so i have a special place in my heart for that kid. i even got my tattoo the day he was born! so happy first birthday to my tattoo as well.

i just have two classes on thursdays – a two hour block of translation from 10-12. since it’s french to english translation, it’s pretty easy for me. i love to hear the different english options that the students and professors suggest for various french phrases. sometimes, they’re better than my translation, because oftentimes you get so caught up in the translation aspect of the work that you forget how you actually speak. for example, at one point i said ‘furrowed her eyebrows’ instead of just ‘frowned’. or, better yet, i said ‘make her spirit rest at its sides’ (what?) instead of ‘keep her mind from wandering’. see, direct translation just gets messes everything up. anyway, those classes always entertain me.

after classes are over at noon, my weekend starts. i went back to my room to get a few things done before biking into town to run some errands. i went to the bank, a few little bookstores, the cutest knick-knack store ever, and then bought a baguette and layed out by the fountain to read in the sunshine. it was a glorious afternoon.

as i was walking around angers, i was very nearly overcome with a seriously strong urge to write. except i didn’t have a journal.. so here is what my heart was saying on thursday afternoon;

                dear friends and family back home.. i have been lying to you. i don’t just live in france. i live in paradise.. where the sun doesn’t fully set until 9pm at night. where women in their sixties wear mini-skirts and stand in front of store windows, checking out red strappy heels because they have the figure to pull them off. where every decent café has outdoor seating if the weather is even mildly pleasant, and plazas become huge, open seating areas on sunny days. where every flowerbed overflows with a tasteful array of colours and species – pink tulips mixed with purple and white pansies, deep orange poppies blending with bright yellow buttercups. where baguettes are 75 cents, and always fresh. where people are always chic, but never overstated – they just care about how they look, and it shows. where travel is cheap enough to go somewhere every weekend and still not break the bank. where classes end in mid-april, and grades are based on tests taken and presentations given throughout the semester – no finals. where people take pride in their language, because it’s beautiful. where dogs are allowed inside stores and restaurants, because they’re always well-behaved. where lunch breaks are an hour and a half long. where bakeries are more like art galleries, with little masterpieces on display, each unique and delicious. my friends – this is france, and it is wonderful.

friday, 8 april 2011

three day weekend, every week. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again.. it’s a hard life. slept in again (this is becoming a bad habit – but for me, sleeping in is like 10am..), answered some emails, had a spa afternoon, listened to some old music and succumbed to nostalgia for the afternoon. there had been plans to go to a barbeque at the lake for dinner, but people ended up not leaving until way too late, and i was feeling a little under the weather, so i stayed back and made curry to clear my sinuses. and then my friends came back, saying no one was there. we hung around and talked for a while, convincing the desk attendant man to leave the kitchen open late for us. he’s an angel, i swear – such a nice man. i stayed up entirely too late skyping my sweet boyfriend, but it was well-worth it. :)

saturday, 9 april 2011

epic lie-in.. woke up at 11 and got ready to go meet my friends downtown for a picnic! i packed my little lunch (peanut butter and honey sandwich, carrot / red pepper sticks, apple) and took the bus into town. we ate in a little pavilion in the middle of a big park – there were SO many people there! it was a beautiful day, so everyone was out doing their own picnic-y thing. we got some ice cream and then hopped on a bus to the edge of town for our guided tour at the cointreau museum! cointreau is a very famous orange liqueur, invented and still produced here in angers! for less than 9 euro each, the six of us got to watch a film that told about the history of cointreau (and showed REALLY cool film footage of angers from the late 1800’s/early 1900’s!), tour the factory, learn about the advertising campaigns, AND do a taste-test! the ‘degustation’ was totally the best part, even though i don’t really like the taste of cointreau. we walked into the “bar”, which was super snazzy and chic. we had our own little couch and chairs, set around a table already set with glasses and ice. we got to try THREE different cocktails (well worth the 9 euro at this point) – straight cointreau on ice, a bubbly mixed drink, and the classic ‘cointreaupolitan’. plus, we got a little plate of snacks. we seriously felt SO fancy and glamorous! once the tour was over, we headed back to town and i grabbed a pain au chocolat from my favourite bakery before catching the bus back to campus.

dinner was great – a guy who was here last semester came back for a visit, and since he was always cooking for people last term, he made fajitas for everyone saturday night. i had mine without the chicken (two more weeks of vegetarianism... two. more. weeks.) and they were still delicious! after fajitas, we all went out to a bonfire for a while, where emma and i had a wonderful girly chat before being interrupted and hit on by two seedy french dudes. “ze best way to learn fuhrench is to ‘ave uh fuhrench boyfran.” oh really? thanks. “vith ze fire, eet ez hot, but vith you two here, whoo! i am burning.” yeah, he went there. i was amused for a while, but ended up getting tired and leaving around 1:30am. i came back and went to bed – sooo tired.

sunday, 10 april 2011

happy birthday DAD!!! super sad i wasn’t home to celebrate (and eat cake.. sigh) – i hope it was a lovely day. i spent all day studying for my art history exam – typing up notes, reading handouts, researching vocabulary, inserting pictures. by the end of the night, i was feeling pretty confident. since the last test was so bad, i was determined to show my professor what’s what. this time around, i knew what kind of test to expect, so i felt much more prepared. i made a really good salad (lettuce, goat cheese, apples, avocado on the side) and had a wonderful time having girl talk with my favourite floormates – emma, jessie, danielle, and paola. we even got to try a brazilian dessert called brigadiero that paula made – little balls of chocolate covered in sprinkles – yes. i went to bed after a skype sesh with drew, feeling a little apprehensive but ready to go.

monday, 11 april 2011

and that brings us to today. i woke up a little early to read over my notes again, and headed to class. true to his word, the professor lectured for about 30 minutes before calling out the exam.. which wasn’t like the last one!! the jerk! he didn’t do a SINGLE vocabulary word, which i had so painstakingly studied. sigh. thankfully, i knew the answers to all the questions he asked, for the most part. i may have missed a detail here and there, but i got the majority for sure. and, he DID include things from today’s lecture on the exam – but i’d caught everything, so that ended up being pretty easy. all in all, i feel good about it.. i just hope he doesn’t diss my french level again. BUT- i never have to go back to that class or see him again, so i’m putting it out of my mind. what’s done is done, right? joy. :) i came back to a letter from my sister in the mailbox and a song from drew in my email. gotta love that.

this week is my last week of ‘cufco’ classes – the courses i take that are specifically for exchange students. today, i have my last ‘langue française’ class and my last conversation workshop. i seriously hope my professor doesn’t keep us for the full three hours in langue! there is no way she can.. surely. yeesh. and we’re all supposed to bring food to conversation class, so hopefully that just means a hang-out party! the rest of the night will probably be made up of chilling in the kitchen and maybe watching a movie. this is pretty much my last week of classes, so the semester is definitely winding down! yay!! :)



london calling!

heyyyy everyone.

first off, sorry for the ridiculous delay. i had a complete blast in london, with little time to stop and blog! but, i'm back home to franceland now. so.. buckle up. here's part 1 of my week in london town. :)

the few days before departure were normal. i did laundry, pre-packed, did homework, hung out with people.. the usual. a bunch of us went to a student party on campus thursday night -- the best part was when the dj put on 'cotton eyed joe', which made jessie and me FREAK out. hilarious. we stayed out too late though. friday, the night before we left, i had shane check out my backpack to make sure it would clear the luggage restrictions on ryanair. clear for takeoff!

saturday, 26 february.

i woke up and did some final preparations before meeting rachel at the bus stop. we headed to the train station around 10am, and arrived at 10:30 for our 11:30 train. she got a snack, and we waited for our train to nantes. once we got on the train, it was a quick jaunt southward, and we arrived at the station before we even realized it. we got off the train to a beautiful, sunny day. it made for a pleasant start to the trip! the shuttle to the airport was just outside, so we only had to wait for a few minutes. the ride was quick, and soon we were at the nantes airport. it wasn't anything special, but still pretty big! we found our gate and checked in. no problems! we got lunch at the cafe past the check in counter, because we had a bunch of time to kill before our 3:30 flight. at 2:30, we headed to security. i got through without a problem, but rachel got patted down AND her bag was searched! weird. we got through eventually, and headed to customs. i got my passport stamped (yay!) and talked to the guy in french for a bit. we only had to sit at the gate for a few minutes before they started boarding procedures. the weird thing was that everyone lined up and had boarding passes/passports checked just to go sit on the skybridge and wait for the plane to arrive. whatevs. it finally got there, and we walked out to the little jet. as we boarded, there was classical music playing! neat. i was expecting a total crap airline, because everyone has always told me "you get what you pay for" with ryanair (the tickets are pretty cheap). but it was actually quite nice! and the flight was crazy short. by the time the flight attendants finished going up and down the aisle selling their various wares (food, drinks, smokeless cigarettes ((what??)), phone cards, magazines...), we were beginning our descent to east midlands airport in nottingham. yeesh! the east midlands airport was nice.. the customs man stamped my passport and gave us lots of good transportation advice in his think accent. rachel couldn't understand him.. haha. we made our way to the taxi stand and got a cab to the train station. the cabbie was very nice! i love cabs. anyway, we got to the train station just a fewwww minutes too late to catch the early train, so we waited for about 45 minutes and hopped on the train to LONDONNN. rachel napped while i pored over our big map for the 1.5 hour trip. we arrived around 7pm local time at st. pancras station, in central london. wow. i had directions to our hosts' flat, so we got on the tube and made our way to bethnal green in east london. it's always nice to be able to navigate a completely new place. we arrived at the flat and met our incredibly wonderful and lovely hosts.

let me explain what i'm talking about for a second. last december, i joined the couchsurfing community. i spent hours looking through profiles of people all over the world, getting more and more excited to start my travels. this past month, i sent out several couch requests to potential hosts in london. a week before we left, i finally got a 'yes'! we are staying with 3 people - one guy and two girls. tristan, the guy, is the couchsurfer who confirmed our stay. alex is also a surfer (who i had actually requested before tristan!), and then there's susie. they are some of the nicest human beings on the planet. tristan immediately calmed my nerves about staying with next-to-strangers when he sent the following at the end of a CS message: 

"Ok, don't worry about anything short of finding my flat. We can take care of every thing else once you're here. We do open our house fully to surfers - you're a part of the family while you're staying... don't forget that. Treating my fellow man with respect, kindness and dignity is very important to me. We evolved as social creatures and over the past 100,000 years have learnt to thrive in communities... While we've kinda lost our way in recent Millennia, I still believe in human nature."

yeah, couchsurfing is awesome. the place is amazing, too! the flat is huge, with 3 bedrooms downstairs, and a big living room upstairs. rachel and i shared the living room with two other surfers from poland for the first two nights - adam and ola. they were awesome. once they left, we had the whole room to ourselves! i've been sleeping on a double mattress with two big duvets, and rachel has this big, wide couch with duvets as well. we received a set of keys upon our arrival, and we've shared several great meals with our new friends. there is a computer in the room, and they even have a CS sim card for cell phones! i've never felt so at home while traveling.. it's the best. :)

anyway - we arrived at the flat around 8pm with no problem. they immediately welcomed us inside and sat us down with some tea and chicken sandwiches. as the hours passed, more friends came to join the party. by 10, there was a group of about 9 or 10 people.. and such an array of nationalities, personalities, etc! we had american, polish, british, swiss, canadian, new zealander, welsh.. it was amazing. again, i love couchsurfing! we had a blast and didn't get to bed until 3 or 4 in the morning. 

sunday, 27 february.

 

thanks to a late night, we slept in a bit. tristan made us tea for breakfast, and we headed out to start our day around noon. i have a friend who is studying in york this semester, in northern england. he was down in london for the weekend, so we met up on sunday to hang out! it was great to see him and hear about his study-abroad experience. we met up around 1pm at picadilly circus, which is like an older, smaller times square. lots of traffic and theatres and big flashing billboards. there was this awesome street performer doing soccer ball juggling tricks near the fountain.. so entertaining. cameron showed up just as it stared raining, so we hurried down the street to leicester square to find a place for lunch. we decided on a beautiful pub called the brewmaster. rachel and i split a burger, which was DELICIOUS. after lunch, we headed to an indoors attraction, as it was still raining a bit. we took a small detour to find diagon alley (yep!) and then made our way to the national portrait gallery. it's a big museum filled with portraits of loads of famous people from british history. we walked around and saw portraits of the bronte sisters, loads of british politicians and cardinals, and some more recent celebs (princess di). there was even a warhol print of the queen! awesome. photography wasn't allowed, but i snuck a few good shots. ;) once we'd toured all of the galleries, we headed back outside for a bit of a walking tour. the rain had gone, leaving a tentative sun peeking out from the clouds. it was really quite pleasant. we walked from the national gallery through trafalger square, down whitehall ave (the main drag, where the calvary museum and the prime minister's house are), and down to the houses of parliament / westminster abbey. it was such a british moment! we took pictures in the red phonebooths, with big ben in the background -- win! our plan had been to go to the free organ concert at westminster abbey at 5:45. otherwise, the admission fees are crazy! due to a small clock-reading confusion (my phone was still on france time), we found ourselves with an extra hour. so we walked across the westminster and hungerford bridges, took lots more pictures, and stopped for tea/cake in a little brasserie. yum. :) we made it back to westminster with plenty of time, and walked straight in. the abbey was founded in 960 AD, over 1,000 years ago. snap. the inside of the abbey is AMAZING.. and indescribable. i snuck some more illegal pictures. :) i'm so glad we got to go. the organ concert was epic, too. the first number was a high, trilly number.. but the second one loud and filled the whole nave with the deep, resounding tones of the organ. a great experience, to say the least. we left the abbey and took some fun night-time pictures of big ben before hopping on the tube back home. we said bye to cameron at his stop, and continued back to ours. our hosts had ordered pizza, so we ate that. i had the brilliant idea to get ice cream, so we walked down the street to the store to get some. yum. we spent the rest of the night talking, and i did some more research on tourist-y things. after a long day, we fell into bed.

monday, 28 february.

our main goal on monday was go to see a ‘west end’ show – london’s equivalent of nyc’s broadway. after considering a few options, we settled on ‘chicago’.  we went into the center of town around 11 to find a half-price ticket booth. the first few places told us that tickets for monday night were between 30 and 40 pounds. pretty steep, considering the pound is almost two dollars. we kept looking, and finally found a place that had tickets for 19.50. definitely do-able! we purchased three – two for us, and one for alex (one of our hosts). then we walked down to covent garden market and looked at an incredible amount of flea market fare. it was pretty awesome. we took a (red, double decker) bus to oxford circus and found a pub for lunch. i had hearty vegetable soup, and it was AMAZING. it rained for a while after lunch, so we spent the afternoon running from store to store on oxford street.. h&m, zara, primark, etc. it was fun! primark is HUGE and very stressful, though. it’s like if walmart and forever21 had a giant baby. cheap clothes, TONS of people, long lines, crowded.. we ended up trying on skirts over our clothes in the shoe department, as the line for the fitting rooms was like 70 people long. it was good though, i got a skirt and some cute oxfords for like 18 pounds. yay! after primark, we took a bus back to covent garden area, because we were supposed to meet alex outside her tube stop around 5:30. rachel and i ended up sitting in a café and drinking tea for like an hour and a half. we had a great conversation about loads of different subjects, from family history to my wardrobe. it was lovely. :) around 5:15, we walked up to the holburn stop to meet alex. she showed up, and we hopped on the tube back to the flat to get ready for the show.

 we were only home for a short while – enough time to change clothes and clean up – before we had to leave again. we left the flat at 7:20.. and the show started at 8. it takes a while to get into london on the tube (it’s a busy place!), so we were a little pressed. once we got off the tube, we scurried down the street to the theatre, rushing in at about 7:58. the man at the door saw me holding all three of our tickets, and asked “are you three together? stop by the box office and they’ll give you an upgrade.” ..what? awesome. i handed the lady behind the counter our tickets and sure enough, she scratched out the “upper tier, row J” and wrote “o/s, row g”. we walked past the ticket taker, and he directed us down the aisle. when we got to our seats, i couldn’t believe it. we went from the back row of the upper tier to the 7^th row from the stage! talk about lucky!! i ended up chatting with the woman beside me (a fashion-industry buyer who had just arrived from singapore earlier in the evening), and she said they paid 80 pounds for their seats. soooo.. WIN. and on top of all that, the show was amazing!! we had a wonderful time. it was funny to hear british people doing american accents.. from the 20’s chicago accent to a southern girl. they were pretty good – there were just a few times where i heard a phrase and thought to myself, “where do they think they’re from again?” all in all, it was an incredible experience. we took a few pictures outside the theatre and then headed home. after such an exhausting day, we were in bed pretty quickly.

ok, this entry is long enough. stay tuned for parts 2 and 3! :)

xxx

jill

life lessons from angers.

“you’re going to have such an amazing experience!” “studying abroad was one of the best decisions i ever made, you’ll be so happy!” “i always regretted not being able to study abroad in college..”

i can’t describe how many times i heard statements like these in the months leading up to my departure. it seemed like everyone i told about my plans thought that i was going to have the time of my life. and they were right, in a sense.. i’m definitely having a once-in-a-lifetime experience. i would like to add, however, that this semester is in no way easy.

my classes may be less intense work-wise, but they’re all in french – an obvious fact, but you don’t realize how much brain power it takes to think in a foreign language until you do it all the time. i’m here to become fluent in french, and that process does not happen overnight. i’m slowly but surely becoming more confident in my speech, but there is so much i have left to accomplish. and then there’s the fact that, while it’s great to know the names of all the different kinds of trees in the world, i’m definitely not up to par in my daily-life vocabulary. on the opposite end of the spectrum, i’ve actually started to not be able to think of words in english. today, it took me half an hour to think of the word ‘exhibit’. so my languages are definitely swirling around up in my brain, mixing and melding together to form a perpetual franglish.

another difficulty i’ve been experiencing relates to distance from home. for this, i blame a) the close proximity of my university and hometown (25 minutes), b) my desire to know my surroundings (belmont, nashville, etc), and c) my seemingly unbearable separation from my friends and boyfriend. i miss being able to run down to franklin for an evening or for church on sundays. and i really have gotten to know angers pretty well, but nothing compares to the feeling of “home” i get when i’m in nashville or franklin. and i have to admit, if i weren’t in a relationship.. the first two problems wouldn’t be nearly bad enough to make me as homesick as i’ve been. but i find myself experiencing a constant ache in the pit of my chest, like such an important part of me is missing that i have a physical reminder of it.. various forms of internet communication have served to numb this pain to a certain extent, but i’ve probably replayed the image of our august reunion in my mind about a thousand times. that being said, i’ve made some excellent friends here. incredible, really. i’ll be heartbroken when we say goodbye in may and go back to our respective corners of the world. they’ve been a source of comfort, companionship, and camaraderie practically since day one. without them, i’d have probably boarded a plane back home already. well.. maybe not. but close. i’m beyond grateful for them.

the final difficulty is a personal battle – i’ve always joked about how i wanted to just come back “french.” totally adopt the culture and lifestyle, just transform myself into a new person. after all, study abroad is about self-discovery and transformation. but when it comes down to learning who you are, you realize that there is no way to change who you are at that moment. you can decide where to go, but nothing will alter where you’ve been. i still have lots of problems with the united states and the “american” attitude that some people have. the stereotypes of typical americans, i’m sorry to report, are mostly based on fact. i’ve met a few exchange students here who don’t speak french – they don’t even have a desire to learn french. apart from having no idea why they’re here at all, i’m a little depressed by the fact that they are as much a representation of america as i am. but i can’t change it, and they have to be them. i just hope that french people can meet as many open-minded, accepting, respectful americans as they do loud, inconsiderate, judgmental ones. but even with all my issues in regards to my country, it’s still home. and i love home, so i love the united states. it took moving 4,000 miles away to realize that living in the same country as glenn beck is worth it, because that’s where my loved ones are. it’s a more-than-worthy exchange. (that’s how much i love you guys).

ANYWAY- enough ranting. here’s a brief summary of the last few days! :)

monday, 14 february.

valentine’s day. for obvious reasons, it was a little rough. i made it through art history in the morning, but by noon, i was feeling pretty awful. there was no way i could have made it through a 3 hour grammar class.. so i cuddled with a hot water bottle and napped/played on the computer for the afternoon. that evening, after my hour and a half conversation class, we had a valentine’s day mexican fiesta, which was amazing. i made a MUCH larger batch of guacamole (we ate all of it anyway) and we cooked up some spicy chicken for quesadillas. for dessert, i splurged on some vanilla ice cream to go with the peanut butter / nutella grilled bananas that natalie loves to make. it was a great night.

tuesday, 15 february.

no classes on tuesday meant i got to have a bit of a lie-in. it was raining all morning, so i stayed in my pajamas and did homework until the weather cleared up. around 4pm, natalie, emma, and i went into town for a little shopping/errands excursion. we stopped by the bank and the post office before hitting up a few stores. it was the last day of the semi-annual sales, so everything was really cheap. i made some pretty excellent purchases, and then got my dinner goods at monoprix. we headed back around half 6, and i cooked/ate my pasta. after dinner, we had a little study party to compare our notes for the translation test on wednesday. it was fun to hear everyone’s versions of the texts! i tried to skype after everyone left, but the internet was being atrocious. it was very frustrating, and i wasn’t pleased.

wednesday, 16 february.

you know it’s going to be a rough day when you wake up with the previous night’s black mood cloud still hanging over your head. i woke up around half 8 and went to meet natalie and claire to do a bit of cramming for the exam at 10. i calmed down from my rampage enough to get through the exam, and then promptly went back to bed. i just needed to restart my day. so i woke up a couple hour later, feeling expontentially better. i went to my speech class, where i even spoke out loud in class, with no grave errors. culture class was fun too, and we were given an assignment to go to a local bar and do a little evaluation. sweet! i stopped by superU to indulge my craving for the day; a cheeseburger. i hadn’t eaten once since the night before i left for france, and i was seriously craving one. so i bought a little patty of ground beef, some buns, and an avocado (i already had the cheese) and went to town. i still had some potatoes from my lidl trip, so i even made wedge fries!! i’m not kidding when i say it was one of the best meals i’ve ever made. the burger was perfectly done, and the cheese/avocado combo was delicious. the fries were perfectly golden and crispy, and i had some crisp, raw green beans as a side.. amazing. i took pictures, check facebook. haha. i was feeling a little needy, so jessie indulged me by coming and talking for a while. she eventually went to bed, but then emma came and talked for another while! it was great to just get things off my chest. i chatted to drew for a bit and then went to bed around 1am.

thursday, 17 february.

today was a pretty stinkin’ great day. i only have class until noon on thursdays, which is lovely. plus, i found out my grade on the translation test from wednesday.. i freakin’ annihilated that thing. so hooray! i had made plans earlier this week to meet up with a girl i met on couchsurfing for lunch. she’s also a student here! rachel and i met up with her and three of her friends, and we had a great meal at the caf together. we even stood outside for a while afterwards and chatted! it was lovely. the weather today was gorgeous, nice and sunny and warm. tonight, there is a “student party” downtown.. it’s a black and white soirée – so i’ll finally have a reason to wear my black dress! yay!! my group from culture class is meeting up before the soirée to do our little bar evaluation, and then we’re moving onto a different location for the party. it should prove to be a fun and social night!

cheers!

jill

picnics and elephants.

i’m fairly certain the majority of humankind agrees with me when i say that weekends are one of God’s greatest gifts to His people. weekends in france are definitely no exception. actually, they’re a little better, because the french took it upon themselves to boost the weekend relaxation quotient by ensuring that NO ONE can do anything on sundays, and then many businesses are closed on monday as well. it’s a hard life.

anyway, this weekend (just like the last one) was faaab-u-lous. friday was the most beautiful day of all time. ok, not really, but the weather was STUNNING (60F/16C – blue skies) and i was a little high on sunshine. since i don’t have class on fridays, i decided to make it an outdoors day. natalie and i stopped by superU to get some lunchy things, and then we packed picnics and biked into town. i still can’t get over how beautiful angers is – in the 20 minute, 4 km ride into town, i pass by some of the prettiest, most historic buildings i can imagine. and the rest of the town is all that great, classic french architecture, scattered with the random stone wall or timber-framed building. i love it. we biked a little further into town than usual, so natalie could run a couple errands before our picnic. i popped into monoprix to complete my picnic with a baguette and a tarte. we headed down a little park right near the river, at the base of the cathedral steps. there is this huge fountain and a little garden too. plus, there’s a cliff that some of the oldest buildings in town were build on top of. it was a picturesque setting, to say the least. we spread our little picnic out and soaked up the sun for a solid hour – it was awesome. i had my baguette with cheese, yogurt, an apple, raisins and some apple juice. for dessert, we split the tarte. can you say perrrfecttt? yum.

after the picnic, we headed back up the hill next to the chateau. we parked our bikes and walked down a little side street to the “galerie david d’angers”. rachel met us there, and the three of us toured (for free!) one of the coolest little statue galleries i’ve ever seen. it’s in a renovated church, with a glass ceiling! since it was so sunny, there was a bit of a greenhouse effect (it was sweltering in there) but the effect of all that light on the statues was breathtaking. it was so bright and vibrant, the work seemed to come to life a little. there are really only two main rooms, so all these statues are just gathered in the main hall. some are lifesize, some are wayyy larger than life, and there are lots of little ones too. david sculpted quite a few major figures in angevin and french history. it was cool to see the people whose names i’ve been seeing on bus stops, roads signs, even dorm residences. while we were there, a class of probably 1^st or 2^nd graders was visiting as well. SO CUTE. they had to draw a statue, pick one to imitate, and do some class exercises. i wanted to steal one to bring home, they were so stinkin’ precious. but i feel that way about all french children. rachel, natalie, and i did a few statue impressions of our own, and then headed out. natalie went back to school to nap, and rachel and i spent an hour or two walking around town, shopping a little bit (the semi-annual sales are ending this week :( ), and soaking up the sunshine. we stopped by the train station to buy our tickets for saturday’s daytrip (details later!) and then biked back home. there is a hill about three-fourths of the way back to the dorm that is BRUTAL. i still haven’t made it up all the way – i have to walk it. i’ve made it a personal goal to bike up that hill before i leave angers this summer. anywho, after we got back, i rested for a bit and then skyped with my family. around 7:45, shane and i ran down to superU to get things for dinner. we made the usual, and chilled out in the kitchen with jessie and emma. around 11, the four of us walked over to the other belle-beille residence, where the spanish students had organized a party of sorts. i suppose it was fun, but that is just so not my scene. i didn’t really enjoy it too much, and headed back to my dorm around midnight. being around that many people and being so out of my fun zone put me in a bit of a funk, so i was not in a very good mood when i went to bed. but, sleep is always good for the brain! i did a little research for saturday and then hit the hay.

i woke up pretty early on saturday, because rachel and i had planned a daytrip to nantes! and for only 16 euro return - yay! nantes is about 90km south of angers, towards the atlantic ocean. it is the capital of the pays-de-la-loire region. it’s much bigger than angers, but just as pretty! our train was at 10:36, so we met at 9:45 at the bus stop. we made it to the train station in plenty of time, got our tickets stamped, and hopped on the train. the ride was only about 30 minutes, through the beautiful loire valley countryside. at one point, we passed a little manor house that looked like it should have been in a jane austen novel – it was gorgeous! i only got a glimpse of it as we passed by, but i remember marveling at the thought of who lives there. probably an old couple, who tend their animals and gardens and live 45 km from the nearest anything. we arrived in nantes around 11am, got a map from the welcome desk, and headed towards the closest “office de tourisme”. through my research, i’d found that the city of nantes offers “day passes” that can get the cardbearer free entrance into museums, complementary treats at various restaurants, and unlimited access to the public transit system. for students, the 24 hour pass is only 9 euro!! it’s an absolute steal, and pays for itself in a few tram rides plus one museum entry. we bought our passes at the office located on the same plaza as the cathedral. once we had our nantes guide/passes, the game plan was to go grab some lunch, head to the “ile de nantes”, and then work our way back. we ate at this great restaurant called “le molière” – rachel had a croque monsieur and i had a ham/butter baguette. the sun was shining right onto our table, so we stayed warm and enjoyed the atmosphere of a bustling french cafe on saturday afternoon.

after lunch, we walked down to the island for what proved to be an amazing experience. in 2007, the city of nantes started on a project they call “les machines de l’ile” – the machines of the island. the designs are inspired by the drawings of jules verne (native of nantes) and da vinci. the first phase of the project was the construct a 40 foot tall, 50 ton robot elephant. i’m not exaggerating, this thing is enormous. and it’s completely hand-crafted, with beautiful artisanship. luckily for us, saturday was the opening day for 2011, so we got to ride the elephant on its maiden voyage for the year! we got to the hangar where the elephant lives around 1pm. since the box office didn’t open until 2, we sat in the little cafe/gift shop to chill out for a bit. at 1:45, we got in line to ensure our places on the elephant. sure enough, by 2pm, the line was pretty long! we bought our ticket (the only thing i purchased all day besides the pass!) and went upstairs to watch the video about the machines project. it was fascinating! the amount of talent that goes into these animals is incredible. the next phase of the project is a giant tree called “the heron tree”. they’ve only built on branch so far – the prototype branch. it is attached to the hangar, right above the cafe. it’s probably about 60 feet high at the highest point, and has three off-shoot branches. seriously impressive. the artisans are also working on a marine-themed (thanks, jules) carousel. amazing. at 2:45, we boarded the elephant, making our way to the top deck. it was so cool! the whole ride lasted 45 minutes, but we only went like 200 yards. it’s not a very quick robot elephant. but it was neat to see the head move around, the ears flap, the trunk raise up and spray water, etc. there is an engine that propels the elephant, but the legs still move like the elephant is walking. the experience was worth the 5 euros – now i can say i’ve ridden a robot elephant! yes!

after the elephant, we decided to pass on the gallery of other animals, because the line was much too long. we walked back into town and caught the tram to the chateau. it’s a beautiful building, with outer fortressing and pretty and ornate interior buildings. our passes got us free entry to the chateau museum, so we decided to check it out. it was SO NICE. seriously, nantes has to have some money, because this was the nicest, most technological museum i think i’ve ever seen. plus, it was enormous – like 35 rooms! we followed the flow of the tour and came out about an hour later. sidenote – france has some very attractive public servants. all of the employees were quite easy on the eyes. this is not an uncommon trend. anyway, after we finished touring through the chateau, we took a lap on the top of the outer wall and then took some pictures by the moat. there is a street in nantes called “rue crébillon” that is famous for its window displays – they’ve even invented a verb (crébillonner – to window shop on the rue crébillon). the shops are verrry luxerious and fancy, so that was a pretty street. :) we ended our tour with a little treat at “la cigale” – one of the most famous restaurants in nantes. it opened in 1895, and still maintains its old-time charm. the interior of la cigale is AMAZINGLY ornate and fancy, with lots of gold trimming, mosaics, and mirrors. our pass got us a complementary hot chocolate and two little slices of cake. WIN. the hot chocolate was VERY rich – almost like pure melted chocolate. and the cakes were chocolate too – i hate to say it, but i experienced a bit of a chocolate overload that day. we meandered back down to the tram way and headed back to the train station to go home. there is so much to do in nantes that we hardly scratched the surface, but i had a great time visiting a new place!

after hurrying to catch the last bus back to campus, we made it home around 9:15. i was EXHAUSTED but hungry for real food (not chocolate). shane hadn’t eaten yet either, so we made pasta. somehow, i’m not sick of it yet! it was delicious. we sat in the kitchen and talked to djamel and danielle, who had gotten a pizza. around 11pm, i came back to my room and got ready for bed. it was a very long but fun-filled day.

today (sunday) has been pretty lazy, after my active busy friday/saturday. i woke up early to skype for a while, since TWOG got to record their electric ep/album in Oceanway last night and i wanted to hear about it. drew and i talked from about 9am-10am (france time – he was up late!) and then i went back to sleep until noonish. yeah yeah, shameful i know. but i needed the rest. i got up and took a lonnnnng shower, which felt amazing. and i dedicated the rest of my day to getting chores/homework/blogging finished! so i’m in the middle of that. my first test is coming up on wednesday – it’s a translation test, which shouldn’t be too difficult. i’m just going to revise my homework and go from there! i'm going to try to watch my church service at 6pm - i really hope the internet is good enough!! :P

and last but not least, tomorrow is valentine’s day. i’d be lying if i said it didn’t absolutely SUCK to be away from my valentine this year, but physical separation can’t diminish how i feel. so, happy valentine’s day, froffie. i love you, and i’ll see you in 170 days. :P <3

and to all my other loved ones, happy valentine’s day to you too!

love from france,

jill

PS- i've linked a few pictures of things i'm talking about in this post, but my facebook album 'february in france' is much more thorough if you want to see what i've been talking about! :)

a baguette a day... probably won't keep the pounds away.

so, i’m gonna be honest. this was technically my first full week of school. i had all of my classes this week! novel concept, i know. but it was pretty good! i have my week spaced out to where i have classes on mondays, wednesdays, and thursdays. sweeeeet.

wednesday is an average class day for me. i had a translation course from 10-11 am and then a biiig break until the afternoon. during this break, i took a coma nap. it was lovely. :) then i had my “techniques d’expression française” (pretty much a speech class) from 3-4:30pm and my “culture française” course from 4:30-6pm. all of the classes are really great! the translation course on wednesdays is a “version” class – translation FROM english INTO french. it’s a lot harder that way, for me at least. but i still enjoy it a lot, and the professor is pretty good. i’ve grown to REALLY like my speech class. the prof is SO cool, and really tries to integrate the foreign students into the groups. the theme for this semester is “words and images” so we’re doing projects on art and film! nice! the culture class is one of the CeLFE courses offered for foreign exchange students, so it’s all foreigners in that one. but we have a good mixture, only a few americans! and the teacher is soooo cute! she’s probably about 23, very petite and musical, and spunky. we had a team culture quiz on wednesday (which my team won – what up) that helped illustrate the areas of culture that we would like to work on the most. we’ll find out next week what the topics for the courses will be. :)

after class on wednesday, i went back to my dorm for a little while before heading into town for dinner. this SUPER sweet german girl named maggi left for home on thursday, so we had a little going-away dinner party at a mexican restaurant downtown.

yes, i said a mexican restaurant. in france. blasphemy!

i have to be real with you guys, it wasn’t too good. i know, no surprises there. but it was decent! enough for me to finish my quesadilla. i was disappointed in the lack of queso dip, however. truly, the whole dinner just made my soul yearn for some blue coast or pancho’s. but that can wait until july. the gathering ended up being 20 or so people, so we all had a good time talking and eating and laughing. around 10:30, i left with my friends natalie and jane to head back to school, while everyone else headed to a bar on the main drag. we ended up discovering that the wait for the bus was about 40 minutes, so we stopped by casa de cuba for some chocolats viennois. i’d been promising natalie that we would go soon, and she’d been holding out to have her first chocolat viennois there. the waiter told us at first that they couldn’t make them – natalie was devastated. but then he came back and said just for us, he could do it. YAY! so she got to have her first 1:2 cocoa / whipped cream ratio beverage. always delicious. we paid for our drinks and headed to the bus stop, where we caught a bus back to campus. i had intended to go to bed early, but then i got on skype.. oops. but i had a wonderfully fantastic conversation, so it was worth it. :) bedtime rolled around at 3am.

my weekend starts on thursdays at 12 noon (which would be a dream come true for a lot of my friends). i only have two translation classes on thursdays – a level one “thème” course (french INTO english) and a level two one. obviously, the level one is a bit easier. it’s more centered on translation phrases to get specific grammar and vocabulary nuances. i enjoy being an anglophone in that class, because it gives me a little bit of a boost. and the prof always defers to us! hahaha. the level two class is hilarious. the professor is this woman from who-knows-where. she must be french, but when she speaks english, she has this weird southwestern american accent..? i have no clue. but that course is a little more literary – we translate passages from various works of literature. she does have some interesting interpretations of translation though.. and she encourages the students to translate literally, which i don’t like too much. but the course is still quite beneficial. on thursday, the few exchange students got to class.. only to be greeted by an empty room. i’ve heard that this happens often – somehow, the french students always know when class is cancelled. we went down to the board where cancellations are usually posted, but didn’t see any notices. then a girl came down the corridor and asked if we were looking for a translation course. we said yes. turns out, the class had been moved into an amphitheatre lecture hall for that week. oh. good thing we hadn’t split when we found the room empty!

once class ended, shane and i went to superU to get some things for the next few days’ worth of dinners, and i picked up a sandwich for lunch. i came back to lounge around for a while, eating my yummy lunch and listening to music. around 1:30, i went into town to mail some letters, go to the bank, and shop around a bit. my friend liz came with me, and we had a lovely afternoon.. the weather was beautiful! i love walking around downtown angers – it’s so gorgeous. i came back around 5 and since i’d stayed up late, i ended up napping again. i love naps, what can i say? i woke up about an hour later and cleaned my room for a bit. at 7, jessie and i cooked dinner together and we all sat in the kitchen talking for a while. then emma, jessie, and i had a fun girlie movie night. except we watched wuthering heights, so it wasn’t quite a chick flick. :P the movie is only an hour and forty minutes, but we were in there for about 4 hours, pausing the movie to explain things to jessie or get more chocolate. i’d never seen the film, but the book is one of my absolute favourites. i recommend both! the adaptation was done very well. my only complaint was that they used the same actors (juliette binoche and ralph finnes [voldemort!!]) to play cathy and heathcliff as children, and then as adults. and THEN, juliette played cathy’s daughter catherine!! it was kind of confusing, but it worked. we said goodnight around 2am.

today (friday) was another late-ish morning. i woke up around 11 and played around on the computer for a while. once i’d showered and gotten ready for the day, rachel and i went into town to go do some real shopping. the semi-annual sales are ending this week, so we needed to act fast! we walked around for a long time and went into bunches of stores. i got a dress, a blouse, a scarf, a purse, a headband, AND a baguette for only 26 euro total. gotta love those sales.

speaking of baguettes.. what they say is true. the bread here is incredible. i seriously eat an entire baguette by myself sometimes.. you just can’t put them down! and with a little “vache qui rit” (laughing cow!) cheese, oh my word. heavenly. i actually eat bread as dessert here. but i am going to start monitering how many baguettes i let myself get a month, because my carb intake is getting unreal. hahah. gotta be careful...

dinner tonight was bowtie pasta with a rosé tomato sauce, carrots and potatos, and a spinach salad. and that baguette. yum. several of us made plans to go to the markets tomorrow, so i’m going to bed early. it promises to be a beautiful day, and i need to walk about 15 miles to work off all these carbs!! :)

-jill

ma madeliene à moi

yesterday, i learned the origin of a cultural allusion i’d heard been hearing for a while. have you ever heard someone say that something is their “madeleine”? maybe not, if you’re not into french culture and whatnot. but here’s the jist; whenever writer marcel proust ate the french pastry called a ‘madeleine’ as an adult, he was momentarily transported back to his youth, to a time of childlike trust and naive innocence, when all that mattered was the deliciousness of the treat. whenever something is ‘your madeleine,’ it does the same thing. it could be a certain type of food, a smell, an article of clothing, a song.. whatever brings you back to that time in your life. over the last few days, i’ve had a couple pseudo-madeleine moments. not so much ones that take me back all the way to childhood.. just moments that, if i close my eyes, i could be at home. or at school. let me explain..

friday night (as i said in the last france-related post) was a going away party for a friend of mine here at the university. stephen had studied here the previous semester, but is going to spain for this one! he decided to stick around angers for january because spring semester for him doesn’t start unti later this month. the little soirée was at his apartment over on the opposite side of town from my campus. as we were getting ready, it started snowing!! giant, fluffy, wonderful snowflakes. it only lasted for about 30 minutes, but the sight of the snow swirling around in the air was beautiful. i quoted elf – “have you seen these snowflakes, they’re GINORMOUS!” no reaction. a bunch of my friends hadn’t seen elf!! i was baffled. we planned an elf date for the following evening. anyway, several of my good friends here at school were friends with stephen last year, so i knew the majority of the attendees. we had a grand time chatting with stephen’s french flatmates and goofing off. at one point, a few of us (keith, john, shane, andrea, and myself) got into a peanut-catching competition. my record was ten successive peanuts tossed and caught in my mouth. the game evolved into partner peanut tossing, and then target tossing. keith finally launched a peanut directly down my throat, which was startling but very hilarious. we called a cab to go home, because the buses had LONG since stopped running. jessie summoned a 7 passenger van to come pick us up, and i got stuck riding shotgun with the driver. which was actually great, because we had a lovely conversation about how there are still so many societal problems in the southern united states. yeah buddy, in french. haha! the six goofballs in the back sang ‘bohemian rhapsody’ all the way back. once we returned, i stayed up talking until the wee hours of the early morning (just like the previous night, all of the sudden it was 7am). there is nothing quite like a heart to heart in the middle of the night – i absolutely cherish conversations like that one.

saturday morning, i woke up around 1pm and got a lot more done. i cleaned and did more homework and did stuff on my computer until dinnertime. it was a typical dinner – pasta with a rosé tomato sauce and a veggie side. as we had decided the previous night, it was time for ELF. we put on shane’s fake fireplace that he downloaded and ate cookies for a while, and then turned on the movie. it was like christmas all over again! that was definitely a madeliene moment for me.. elf is such a classic, and we watch it every christmas at my house! i loved sharing that joy with my new friendsies. :) after the movie, i got to bed pretty early so that i could get my sleep schedule straight.

sunday was pretty grand. i slept in to get my sleep count back up, and then got ready for the day. around 3pm, a group of us decided to go on a little outing to the city centre for a walk in the park. it was awesome, but it would have probably been more enjoyable if it hadn’t been absolutely freezing. and it’s a humid cold, so it feels even worse! yuch. we walked around the jardin des plantes, which has an awesome little bird sanctuary! there were some gorgeous exoticly-coloured birds there, it was such a pleasant surprise! we walked a bit further into town and found this sweet playground near the bus depot on the main drag in town. shane, john, keith, patty and i played on it for a while – there were some seriously cool playground things there. they were so fun!! except they seemed pretty dangerous for a small child! i kept thinking how, if i were at home, these kinds of things would NEVER be at a playground. too much liability. it’s a shame that children are denied such fun just for the sake of someone avoiding a lawsuit. oh well. we continued our afternoon walk around town, stopping for hot drinks in a bar before heading back to campus. we all cooked together again and sat around talking for a while. it was lovely, as usual!

monday morning was an early one, since i have an art history class at 9am. i had hoped to take the 10:30 section, but last week, the professor was mad because the 9am section had 4 people and the 10:30 section had about 25. so he pretty much insisted that some people switch. i figured i could drag myself out of bed for a 9am once a week, so i obliged. hopefully that put me on his good side! he is such a sweet little man though. yesterday he wore a magenta-ish collared shirt with a black v-neck sweatervest and a black bowtie. and over it, he wore his long black coat with a matching magenta scarf!! and he has this awesome silver hair (and moustache) with these round glasses.. he’s fantastic. we talked about raphael again for a while and then moved into mannerism. after that class, i came back to the dorm for a bit before heading into town to run some errands with shane. except that was a total fail, because nearly everything was closed! silly five day french work week, with shops closing for sunday and monday. oh well, i still got a delicious baguette at monoprix, half of which i had eaten by the time we got back. i had a little snack (aka the rest of the baguette) and then headed to my 3 hour french grammar course. it’s part of the program for foreign exchange students, so there were no french students in my class. but there were several italians, germans, japanese, and british! in addition to a polish girl and a romanian girl. so it was a good mix. and oh my gosh, the professor is phenomenal. i seriously pray that i look like her when i am her age. which could be anywhere from 40 to 60, i honestly could not tell. she has this beauuuuutiful silvery hair, and her skin is perfect. she’s tall and thin and stylish and SO FREAKING FRENCH. gosh, she’s awesome. her voice is so kind and soothing and she was just so sweet and funny.. man. that class is going to be great. the three hours passed really quickly, which was an added bonus!

i had a break after that class until 6pm, so i decided to venture to the magical land of lidl with jessie and keith. lidl is a cheap grocery shop, related to aldi. it is only 3 bus stops away from us, but it still doesn’t beat the convenience of superU. it was indeed super cheap though! i got loads of stuff to stock up my pantry for just 7 euro. win. and i saw some great products, including a cereal brand that had choices including “nut flakers” and “honey balls” – i’m mature, i promise. we headed back and i made my way to the final course of the day – a conversation workshop. it was awesome – out of the 20 people there, only 3 were american. the others were irish, canadien, spanish, italian, polish, and romanian. it was EXTRA awesome because like half my friends are in that class, so i was already super comfortable about speaking. the “teachers” were two upperclassmen (native french speakers) who are studying to teach french as a foreign language. we sat around this big table and talked about random stuff for an hour and a half – including introductions, comics, music, etc. it was pretty fun.

same story after class for dinner – we gathered in the kitchen and got to cooking. natalie made this delish bolognaise sauce with tomato sauce, onions, spinach, and tuna while i provided the pasta and made some potatoes as a side. yummy, as usual!! :) the second madeliene moment came after dinner, when we were SUPPOSED to watch a movie (but everyone bailed). instead, i sat in shane’s room with my eyes closed and listened to him play guitar. it was almost like being back at belmont.. which was bittersweet. but still, listening to fantastic guitar playing is always fun! and then a little bit later, i got to have a skype date with my boooo back stateside. i always love that. :)

anyway, today is my weekend-in-the-middle-of-the-week day, because i have no classes on tuesdays. (win.) so i just wrote all morning, and doing a couple things on my massive to-do list. i also watched the footage from TWOG's show last sunday about a zillion times. around 4pm, i went back into town to retry those errands from the other day. shane ended up finding the book he needs, but its 20 euro!! excessive. we stopped by the library to look for it, but no luck. i did finally get my library card though! :) we stopped by monoprix, where we bumped into andrea. the three of us got our shopping done (which included shane dropping a bag of frozen peas, which split and sent peas flying everywhere) and headed back to school. on the bus, i ate about a quarter of my DELICIOUS baguette. seriously, heavenly. it was even still warm.... oh lord. it was wonderful. we're about to cook up some curry for dinner and then watch despicable me. life is good!

à bientôt!

-jill