Non-anniversaires and Putting on Airs

Sunrise: 8:10
Vocab: paresseux/euse - lazy

First of all, the Paris photo album is ready. Secondly, I realize now, after rereading my recent entry on Paris, how lackluster my tone appears. I did love Paris, don't get me wrong. I couldn't stop gawking, but I also felt at home. It's so like New York in so many ways that I felt like I understood how the city worked. That said, I came back to Nantes knowing I'd made the right choice. Even though I can't say I do my homework in Jardin de Luxembourg, I can say I've lived a more authentically French life these past few months. I don't want to be in a city that feels like home; I'd rather be in a city that comes to feel that way.

Case in point: Last Saturday night, on the eve of my depart for a weekend at the chateaux of the Loire Valley, I attended a surprise birthday party for one of our neighbors, Annick-Francoise. Marie had been planning it with Annick's daughter, Anne, and the turnout was pretty extraordinary. Recently widowed, Annick-Francoise absolutely detests birthdays, so we respected her distaste with a NON-anniversaire surprise, in the hopes, I think, of celebrating her life. She's a very odd lady Annick-Francoise; she collects dolls. And busts. Her house is full of eclectic art. Oh, and she's a writer. So, I guess that makes her eccentric, and not odd.

The guests at the party were, therefore, an eclectic/eccentric mix as well: family, neighbors, literary friends. The first woman I met was actually a Russian expatriate named Eleina who speaks French with a lovely Russian accent. I also spent some time chatting with Annick's other daughter, Helena, and her husband. They were duly impressed with my accent (yes!) and apparent ability to express myself. Little did they know, everything I said to them I have probably said about a million times at this point (I come from New York. I'm majoring in comparative literature. No, I've never been to France before. Yes, I like Nantes a lot.). Anyway, they were good company while it lasted, but we kept shuffling around for cake and gifts and things. I didn't mind, though; the overall crowd merited some people watching, and who better to do it than an outsider such as myself. (Again, syntax.) I just wanted all of them to be avant garde writers aged beyond their prime and still languishing in their own virtuosity...so that's what they became. The bespectacled lady with the long braid, the man brave enough to carry off mutton chops while wearing too many different patterns, the tiny lady with jet black hair and an impressive set of jowls.

A close runner-up to this experience for quirkiness (and warming of the cockles of my heart) -- which deserves a brief mention here -- would have to be Le Plus Grand Apéro en France. Since we had Wednesday off for Armistice day, basically all the college students in Nantes (this is an exaggeration) decided to converge on Place Royale with copious amounts of alcohol to try and break the French record for number of people enjoying aperatifs together in the same place. We stumbled (not literally) upon this classy soirée/drunken mob after conversation club during our quest for kebabs. Thank you, Nantes.

In between the Grand Apéro and the Non-anniversaire, as you have discerned, I visited some chateaux. So, without any further ado...

And now: A tour of some very expensive real estate

In other words, a brief account of my weekend touring the chateaux of the Loire. I promise my laziness has nothing to do with the lack of photos in this entry. I took over 200 photos and I just couldn't narrow them down, so I'm in the process of creating yet another photobucket album to accommodate my shutter-happy tendencies (check back after next Wednesday).

Since I will caption the photos, I won't go into too much detail about the specific history (or names) of the chateaux we saw. (This is mainly because all the information from the trip is on my desk and I am on my bed. Again. Laziness.) Instead, I'll take a brief moment to assert and defend the following: Autumn in France is beautiful. As lovely as the chateaux were/are, my favorite part of the weekend was spent taking the air: walking through enchanted gardens, following trails paved with soggy yellow leaves, finding hidden mazes, falling backwards into a crunchy pile of fallen leaves, the brightest red you can imagine.

I spent a lot of time looking up, admiring branches, and playing with the color settings on my camera. My favorite chateau was probably Chenanceau, again, not really for the chateau, but for the grounds. The gardens were straight out of Alice in Wonderland and the woods felt weirdly untouched next to such highly manicured shrubbery (although the topiary left something to be desired...oh God). From a bridge, we watched a dog on the other shore plunge into the water in quest of a thrown stick. Oh, and we sang more or less every song from The Sound of Music. On our tromp through the woods we found: a labyrinth, a Greek-temple-inspired stone structure, ephemerals, and griffins. No, really. Griffins.



Oh, and the day ended with a rainbow. Magic.

My Life Before Paris...

Sunrise: 7:44! (We rolled the clocks back this weekend)
Vocab: tuer les cochons - to kill the pigs

...is coming to a close. Tomorrow evening I head off for a long weekend in Paris with a few friends and as my second full month in Nantes comes to a close, it's about time for another retrospective. I've devoted a lot of this blog to reflections on the cultural differences I've found in France (and also on all the beautiful places I've seen, bien sûr), but I think all along I've failed to mention my various sources of comfort -- and there are plenty of those.

I've been keeping a little notebook on my person pretty much at all times just in case I need to jot down something I've noticed or add (ajouter) a word to my ever-growing vocabulary list. The other day, I was flipping through it and I found this little paragraph from early on (September 19): "Officially three months left until the end of the program. Sometimes, it seems culture shock has nothing to do with the differences and everything to do with the jarring similarities. When a little French baby touches my shoe, everything seems a bit brighter. There's something magic in French children." And I still mean it. It's almost impossible to explain this to French people because it relates so closely to my position as an outsider, but I cannot get enough of French children. Their high pitched lisping French never ceases to mesmerize and astound me. Yes, I know it's their native language, but I always find it astonishing when a little blond girl who hasn't even broken a meter in height opens her mouth to jabber away, while I still blunder my way through simple declarative sentences. It's comforting though; if they can do it, I can do it, right? And anyway, I've managed to read all of Diderot's Contes, what five-year-old can say that?!

And, hey, being an American in Nantes can sometimes have its perks. I will always resent cashiers who address me in English even when it's clear that I know how to speak French, but when the kebab guy gives me attitude, all I have to do is look across the street. What do I see? McDo. The Golden Arches are a beacon of light, the apex of the American conquest of Gallic lands. Hyperbole aside, there's nothing like a good hamburger (or as we say, 'amburger) every now and again to lift the spirits of a weary soul, and there's one place I can always go where I won't mind being addressed in English. No, it's not McDo. It's Burger House, this tiny burger joint on one of the side streets behind the big cathedral here.

I feel perfectly comfortable calling it a "burger joint" because the owner is an American expatriate who doesn't speak a lick of French. He fell in love with this Frenchwoman and I guess the rest is history. She works the counter to take care of all of his French guests while he mans the grill. The friendly yellow walls sport framed photos of beaches and American cars. The music is a constant stream of classic rock and the menu defiantly proclaims dishes like "Le VRAI Cheeseburger" (the REAL cheeseburger). Picking up on our accents right away, the owner addressed my friends and me while flipping burgers, "Where are you all from?" "All over!" we replied. New York, Ohio, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine. He was impressed and we all felt at home.

Angèle had come with us and I think she was the only one who felt a little out of her element. She doesn't eat burgers that often, and I'm not sure she'd ever had an honest to goodness American burger like the ones at Burger House, and it was funny to see her approach it with curiosity while we dug in with zest. I'm glad I've had her at my side through all this. I was thrilled to bring her to Burger House because, in some ways, I felt like I was bringing her home, like I could welcome her the way she had welcomed me.

She's a peculiar girl, Angèle, and I mean that in every sense. Granted, I'm by no means equipped to generalize about French girls, but it seems to me that Angèle is kind of a special case. First of all, she's a ham. Nothing seems to embarrass her and she will go out of her way to make her friends laugh. She likes to read trippy American poetry from the 1970s by authors that I've never heard of. She seeks out (and has a penchant for finding) the quirkiest corners of Nantes: Trentemoult, "La Maison" (a bar set up like an art deco house), Moustache Poétique (a comedic slam poetry show performed by a trio of mustachioed Parisians).

In fact, Moustache Poétique deserves its own paragraph. Apparently the theatre, TNT, hosts this group annually and they always offer a reduced admission fee to girls who are brave enough to draw on mustaches. Naturally, Angèle was prepared with stage makeup. She met me at the tram and brought me back to her little apartment (where she lives with her brother). After giving me the grand tour and mixing me a drink of diluted mint syrup, she sat me down, whipped out her brushes and said, "Ne souris pas" (don't smile). Of course I cracked up, but after a few minutes, she had managed to paint on the perfect mustache. Then we traded places and I looked her in the eye and intoned, "Ne souris pas." She cracked up, but quickly composed herself, as time was of the essence. As it turned out, we were the only girls who had been brave enough to paint on mustaches. We sat dead center, so when the group came out they saw us and cracked up, too.

After the show, we thanked the group, bought buttons from them, and convinced them to take a photo with us. When we left, instead of rushing home to "shave" (raser) we headed over to Bouffay to meet some of my friends at a bar. We got plenty of stares, but also plenty of compliments -- "Elle va bien, ta moustache!" Prancing down the street, a pair of mustachioed girls, Angèle and I took Friday-night Nantes by storm; I sensed a change in my relationship with the city. "I own this town," I thought.

Soon, Angèle and I will take Normandy by storm. She's invited me out to her family home to tuer les cochons (see above) later in November. It's exactly what it sounds like. We're going to make blood sausage. I'm worried I might be traumatized, but I also know that I've been invited out to "la vraie campagne" (the real countryside), as Angèle says. She will show me yet another piece of French life I never would have found on my own...and that most American tourists probably never get to see! I can assure you an essay of the greatest magnitude will probably develop from this experience.

Following Angèle's example, I've started to discover some of Nantes' quirks on my own. It's a small world in this city and coincidences abound. The night after Moustache Poétique, I started the day by going to an film exhibition called "Popism" at Lieu Unique (the converted LU cookie factory) and rounded out my night at the same place, meeting Angèle at the bar after a concert. While goofing off and generally embarrassing ourselves on the dance floor, we ran into two of the three mustachioed poets and spent a few minutes trying out some outrageous dance moves with them.

And that's just one example. Day to day, I see a lot of the same people. I like that. I'm beginning to understand the rhythm of this town and to march in time. There's this boy who always rides my bus. He can't be more than 16, but he is the absolute portrait of French teen angst. Long black hair, long black coat, horizontal striped shirts. I just want to buy him a big wheel of cheese and a pack of Gauloises to see if maybe he'll smile. I realize the preceding sentence maybe sounds a little creepy, but I promise it isn't. His extreme Frenchness intrigues me; that is all.

Yesterday, my university classes were canceled, so had a slow morning and then took myself out to the Musée Dobrée, which resides in a converted (small) palace. Afterward, I spent some time reading Madame Bovary in the park adjoined to the museum. This is my city now, I think, and I guess it's about time I saw another.

To conclude, two photos from our night with the Grandiloquent Moustache Poésie Club:



Angèle's friend Romain, Angèle, and me with said grandiloquent club.



Me and Angèle, the mustachioed filles

The Month in Review: A Dinner Party

Sunrise: 8:15am
Vocabulary:
canapé - sofa
la classe - classy

It's Monday night and I'm sitting at my computer, when Marie tells me that we've been invited to dinner and that we're going to Ikea. Puzzled as I was, I tossed on my scarf and coat and followed her out. In the lobby, we met her niece and nephew, who had arrived by bike, and headed down to the garage to pile into the car. As we drove to Ikea, two significant and practically simultaneous revelations struck: (1) we would not be eating at Ikea and (2) I needed neither my coat nor my scarf.

It has been just over a month since my arrival in Nantes and the greatly diminished language barrier remains a barrier nevertheless -- although I might attribute the above more to syntax than to my limited knowledge of French. As I tell everyone, it seems, I have my "good French days" and my "bad French days." I've sensed a gradual increase in the number of good days, but sometimes the right words just don't come out. While I've been struggling against my meager vocabulary, though, I've found that I can fake it pretty well -- all it takes is a room full of French people. The more saturated I am in French French, the easier it is for me to speak with an authentic-sounding accent, and I've just about perfected the three words I use most often: "merci," "pardon," and "bonjour." But, I exaggerate (or underexaggerate), I've received a fair number of compliments on my accent from many of the French students I've recently encountered -- although according to Marie and her nephew Arnault, the best compliment of all would be, "You have no accent!" I'm trying.

While the language has, of course, been my main focus and obstacle over the past month, there are other, smaller things, that I'm also still trying to get a handle on. The weather, for example. I wish I could say, definitively, whether or not it is autumn here. Each day commences with decidedly autumnal temperatures, which linger well into the late morning and early afternoon, but ultimately climb to 70 or 75 (in Fahrenheit, of course). Thus, a coat is a highly practical article of clothing when I leave for class, but has become outmoded by the time I'm done with lunch. (I guess that's French fashion for you!) It's humid here, too. The air right now is a sponge and I am not looking forward to the day it gets wrung out. Every time we have a gray or rainy day, Marie jovially remarks that "c'est un vrai temps nantais!" While my body and psyche are both still adjusting to Nantes' peculiar meteorology, I must admit that a crisp, cloudy day in Nantes makes me about as happy as a brisk, sunny day in the states (that is, very happy). Perhaps there's hope for me after all.

We arrived at Ikea around 8:30pm. Everything here closes early. Most buses quit running at around 8:00pm (even on weekends). But Ikea, Ikea stays open until 9pm. We had arrived on a mission: to pick up a sofa for Marie's niece, Alice. While she went off in quest of the desired piece of furniture, Marie, Arnault, and I took a more leisurely turn around the store, pausing to pick up some lightbulbs. On the way out, Marie stopped by the small food section of the store to pick up several boxes of the cookies to which we had lately become addicted. She came back with six boxes of cookies (two of each kind) and a chocolate bar for each of the kids. If I were to come up with a term for this phenomenon it would be "little treats," and it remains unclear whether "little treats" are customary, or just a peculiarity of this French family. In any case, my life seems to be just full of little treats, just little moments of indulgence. While Americans seem to have this decadent, luxurious image of French life, I've found that the secret to the lifestyle here lies in finding the right moment for a little treat.

After a brief drive back into the city, I helped Alice carry her new sofa up three flights of stairs -- or, I should say, a box of pieces that would soon become a sofa. She's a student at the local architecture school and, as is customary here, she lives on her own in a small apartment because there is no such thing as "on-campus housing." On the way out, I helped her carry a gargantuan pile of trash and cardboard boxes out to the dumpsters. The next stop on our driving tour was Marie's house, again, to pick up the bikes and head over to Arnault's house for dinner. We brought some bread and a small dish of eggplant and ham to contribute to the rest of the meal: couscous and steamed vegetables. I was surprised Marie didn't make her usual joke about "eating like they do in Spain," since we started our meal well after 8:00pm.

After the main meal, we moved on to cheese and wine. Alice rinsed out my glass for me, without a second thought, and brought in a hunk of Camembert, which we ate directly out of the wrapper. While it is most elegant to eat cheese plain, with fork and knife, we ate our Camembert on small pieces of bread while sipping a red wine from Bordeaux. Arnault keeps a wine map on a wall by the dinner table (which is in a room that triples as dining room, living room, and bedroom) and showed me the exact region of our wine. He pointed out that if I took a bite of cheese and then sipped the wine, the taste would change completely. And it did! Before my enological revelations, though, they asked me to smell the cheese. "Most French people enjoy the scent of this cheese," said Alice as she held it up to my nose, "except for me." They all seemed floored when I told them I liked the smell, and then cut off a sizable piece for my bread. "But she likes Roquefort," Marie said almost proudly. "She's not like most Americans."

I find it both comforting and off-putting (if that's possible) that the French treat family members' homes practically as their own, both in the liberties they take and the responsibilities they assume. Whenever Marie has relatives over for dinner, she makes sure I get the best place at the table, she offers me every course first, and only asks her family members for help in the kitchen. I think I'm something of a novelty, though, more than just a guest. People constantly ask me if we "have" certain things in the states. The first time we ate eggplant, Marie hadn't expected me to know what it was. Whenever I mention how much I love the bread here, people ask, "But don't you have bread in America?" People also ask me questions about the economy, politics, education, the environment. Even if I'm not an expert, a simple yes or no can often elicit at least one ooh or semi-interested ah.

We closed the evening with tiny cups of decaf coffee and spéculoos cookies (which also come in spreadable form!). After two cookies (which taste like Teddy Grahams, but look much classier), I drank the rest of my coffee black -- again, to oohs and ahs. I had never drunk black coffee before, but I think it may become a habit. As much as I continue to find myself lost in the cultural differences here, I already feel myself changing, adopting new ways of going about my life -- adapting maybe, but also changing for good.

Last Saturday, my friend Emily and I met up with my maraine Angèle and her friend Anaïs for a voyage to Trentemoult, a small island just a ten minute ferry ride from Nantes (and pulled straight from my imagination). I invite you to spend the day in our shoes this way. (For reasons that remain unclear, this album is password protected. Get in by typing: iheartchucks.)

NB: After rereading this, I have surmised that as my French improves, my grasp of English becomes increasingly tenuous. There are just so many misplaced modifiers. Please forgive me.

Full to Bursting

Sunrise: 8:07am
Vocab: je m'en fiche - I don't care

So much has happened to me in the past week that I may have trouble cramming all of it in here. In true lit major fashion, though, I believe I can narrate this quite well in a stream of consciousness where time has collapsed entirely. I'm pleased to announce the return of photos!

Marie actually took this first photo; it's of me and Jules Verne, if you can't tell. As per usual, we spent this past Sunday seeing the sights around Nantes. This time we took advantage of the Balade des Ateliers. Atelier is the French word for "studio" and a balade is a little walk. So, to put that together, the Balade des Ateliers is kind of like a local artist scavenger hunt. (Okay, maybe it's not quite as rip-roarin' exciting as a scavenger hunt, but for some reason, a lot of what I do in France seems kind of like a scavenger hunt...but that's not a motif I plan to develop at this moment.) There's kind of a course of different sites around the city where local (and less local) artists have set up shop to display (and hopefully sell) some of their most recent work. We didn't have time for all of it, but we got through a couple stations, and at the last one we went to, I saw some of the best watercolors I think I have ever seen. I was actually considering buying one, in spite of the >300 Euro price tag, but in the end, it didn't seem prudent. I've also chosen to highlight this photo because it depicts a friendly interaction between me and a Nantais kid. No, really, it's not a stretch (tiré par les cheveux).

Last night, there was a party à la fac, a kind of mixer for international students and local students. Pretty much everyone there had also registered for a filleul(e)/marraine ou parrain. Here's the basic idea: the international students wore yellow wristbands and the local students wore blue, and once tagged, we were all supposed to mingle and ultimately link up in a blue-yellow pair. Whoever you ended up paring up with is your buddy for your stay in Nantes. My marraine (I'm the filleule) is named Angèle: she bought me a beer with strawberry syrup in it (kind of weird, I'd consider drinking it again, though) and introduced me to some of her friends. CONTACT! AT LAST! I don't know too much about her yet, but she's studying English (and she plays the ukulele!), so we really are a perfect match, I think. She also seems to genuinely want to pursue a friendship and we're going out for drinks tomorrow night.

Since I started this entry in medias res and have now fully exhausted the most recent events in my life, I will backtrack a bit in time to last weekend. On Thursday, a group from IES played some billiards and went to a crêperie for dinner. In the spirit of "full to bursting," I should mention that between all the gallettes and sweet crêpes I've been eating, I'm definitely getting a little squishy around the edges. I'm hoping salsa class starts to get aerobic, and today I actually considered doing some clandestine pilates in my room from time to time. Meanwhile, so many French ladies are just as skinny as can be. I. do. not. understand. In any case, when this waiter asked me what I wanted for dessert, how could I say, "nothing?" (As you can see, he's a very insistent-looking man.) Oh, and did I mention how good I am at pool?


















As you can see, I'm toying with the photo layout a bit, also, I wanted to save space for the photos that are really worth keeping big. In other words, the photos from Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo. The French Romantic author Chateaubriand, incidentally, is from the walled city/town of Saint Malo. (Yesterday, I read René for my Literary History class. I will be reading approximately 500 novels for that class.) I won't say too much because I think these photos pretty much speak for themselves. Briefly: Mont Saint Michel is an isthmus (a word I just recently learned) off the coast of the border between Brittany and Normandy. Surrounded by clay and perilous quicksand (!?) at low tide, Mont Saint Michel is, at first, a series of narrow, sloping cobble-stone streets full of these seemingly ubiquitous touristy storefronts stuck inside ancient hovels. Eventually, the path gives way to the abbey. I present these photos in chronological order so you can get a sense of the ethos of the place, so you can come along on my journey, and so I won't have to work too hard to describe everything I saw and felt.


It was love at first sight(ing).


Mortal peril!




A view on the way up. (So many views!)


Entry! At last!


A view from the top that actually made me want to take photos in sepia.

And now, we enter the abbey...













I feel bad for Saint Malo, since the Mont is a pretty tough act to follow. Here are two Saint Malo photos anyway:


Walkin' the ramparts.





And by two, I clearly meant three.

The W: A Rambling Study of Photoless Blogging

Sunrise Today:
7:57am

French Vocabulary Lesson:
claquettes - flip flops
acariâtre - cantaknerous

You'll notice a few things about this blog post. First: the brief account of practical knowledge prefacing the body of this literary chef d'œuvre. I have my reasons. To explain the second item first (because I'm all about digressions and convolutedness), I've been keeping a running list of the new words I'm learning. I haven't recorded all of them, but I have made a point of noting words that I find particularly useful and/or amusing. (Case in point: above.) The former item, the sunrise time, relates to a brief anecdote from the week:

My courses at the University of Nantes started this week, and my very first class (The Literary History of the 19th Century) commenced at 8:00am on Tuesday morning. Factoring in the 15 minute walk to the tram, the amount of time I would spend waiting for and riding the tram, the walk to the building, and the inevitable time I would spend being lost, I decided to leave myself a generous hour to get from home to class. In other words, I planned to leave at 7:00am. Much to my chagrin, the sky was absolutely pitch black when my alarm sounded at 6:00am. Figuring the sun would start to rise as I slouched through the necessary morning ablutions, I hauled myself out of bed and into the bathroom. Half an hour passed and I was dressed. Fifteen minutes later I had eaten breakfast (I've been doing that here). That adds up to forty five minutes, and even in the time it took me to calculate that sum, the sky remained decidedly, stubbornly dark.

I checked the weather: no rain. I checked my email: nothing doing. I read the newspaper online: that was depressing. Finally, I googled "global sunrise times" and discovered that the sun did not plan to grace Nantes with its presence until nearly 8:00am. So, at 7:10, I plunged into the night of morning. While the walk to the tram doesn't take me down any sketchy alleyways or narrow streets, it's long, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little afraid. Although I generally feel quite safe here, there are times when I am rudely reminded that I am a woman traveling in a foreign country. Sometimes, the young men here think it's okay to slink up to me while I'm staring at the ground waiting for the tram in the evening and shove their faces into my line of vision, forcing me into the eye-contact I've been told to avoid. It's no real threat, but it's a display of power -- no, machismo -- that I find quite off-putting. But, I digress.

Fortunately, though the sky could have been a 2:00am sky, the streets were what anyone might expect of pre-rush-hour morning streets. Businesspeople, uniformed school children, bedraggled university students. Soon, I was reveling in the crisp air of an autumn morning in Nantes. Crammed into my tram car with all the other morning commuters, I watched the sunrise. The sky turned purple, then pink, and was still working on blue by the time I found the amphitheater for my class. Moral of the story: the sun rises very late here. I find this both disturbing and amusing. I would like to document the gradual decrease of daylight hours here in Nantes, and I'd like to take you along for the ride -- hence the sunrise report.

In the spirit of digressions and disorderliness (and postmodernism), before I continue with my linear narrative, I'll briefly point out (and explain) another thing you might notice (or have noticed) about this entry (aside from my excessive use of parentheses...but that's not too out of the ordinary, anyway, is it?). There are no photos. I have no new photos to show you right now. Last Saturday night, I had a serious case of "The Plunge," as depicted in a graphical representation of "The W" earlier in this blog. Therefore, I did not go out with my friends or make plans with them for Sunday (no Planetarium, in the end). As much as I love it here, and as happy as I am with my friends and with Marie, sometimes a girl's just gotta cry.

Things took a turn for the better on Sunday, which I spent with Marie. I hope that these Sundays we spend together continue. This past Sunday, we went to two exhibitions in Nantes: a photo exhibit at Lieu Unique -- or LU, that's right the original Lefevre-Utile, LU cookie factory that's been converted into a bar/art space. Nantes: home to the industrial chic avant garde. Among the displays, there was an incredibly disturbing display on domestic slavery and violence, but I also found the artistic activism of the whole piece to be incredibly refreshing. Each panel comprised a simple photo of the façade of a building on one side, and one woman's story of abuse on the other. It made me feel how easily a façade of normalcy can conceal abuse and how sometimes closed doors are all it takes to deter prying eyes. It was a bit much for me in my fragile, W-ridden emotional state, but I'm glad I saw it. LU also apparently hosts artists, and we stopped by the "studio" where the current artist-in-residence had been working on these enormous wall-sized sketches of a young boy. Really stunning.

After that, we went to Scopitone, a very new age exhibit in one of the hangars over on Ile de Nantes (not far from the Elephant). Most of the displays at Scopitone incorporated multimedia and had some interactive component. I won't even attempt to describe any of what I saw there, but you can check out the website if you're curious. (If you can't tell, I just figured out how to add hyperlinks to blog posts.)

Marie's nephew Arnault and his friend Sarah actually came with us, and that just added to the fun, since they're much closer to my age -- mid-20s. It was also totally refreshing to spend the day speaking French with real French people. I haven't done enough of that yet since I'm kind of scared of the university students, but I can tell I'm getting better. There's still a lot of practical vocabulary that I'm lacking, but I'm learning, and the people I speak to are patient enough to teach me -- and hey, Conversation Club started this week! It's about half IES students and half local French students; we break off into smaller groups, each with a discussion-leader (animateur) and spend half the time speaking in French and half in English. We met some really nice French people this week, and every time someone actually understands what I'm saying, I feel more confident in my speaking ability, which just makes me giddy to practice some more. For once, a productive cycle.

Now, we return to my classes -- but there's a logical segue! I still haven't gotten up the courage to strike up a conversation with any university students. On the bright side, I understood about 80% of what my professors said this week, and I'd say that's a pretty respectable portion for the first week of class. Two of my classes (Literary History and African History) are lecture (or CM) classes in huge amphitheaters. In the spirit of cultural relativism, I've tried not to let my small liberal arts school sensibilities get in the way. The professors are very smart and with each passing year I stand more in awe of educators who engage a room with their verbal essay-writing. I miss having professors who care about my opinions, but for the time being I'm just as happy to keep them to myself in a packed amphitheater. In fact, my smaller class (a TD) is by far the most intimidating. The professor allows the students to speak up and expects each of us to deliver an oral presentation at some point this semester... I don't want to talk about it. At any rate, we're reading 18th Century erotic literature and philosophy, and the salacious reading material is engaging and easy enough to understand, so I'm content. Incidentally, textbooks are so much cheaper in France!

I stand both in awe and horror at how much I have managed to write of the mundane facts of my existence (albeit, a French existence). I will conclude by informing you that I had my first Salsa class today (my ju-jitsu alternative) and I'm making progress, both dance-floor-deftness-wise and French-friend-making-wise.

Tomorrow, I will again wake up before sunrise for an IES excursion to Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo, just north of here. Photographic evidence of history and hijinks to come.

To my devoted readers who have gotten this far, I thank you and wish you the bonne-est of bonne nuits!

Memory of an Elephant

What I show you now, you'll grock, is the ultimate explanation for France's relationship with absurdism:

This is the Elephant of Nantes. He lives on the Île de Nantes, just a three minute walk across a bridge. Marie took me for a visit last Sunday. "He's our version of the Eiffel Tower," she said. "Of course, I'm joking... but not really." There are a ton of other machines just like the Elephant, but the Elephant is by far the most impressive and the most well known. He parades around the island a couple times a day with a backload of lucky kids and their families. Personally, I found it more enjoyable to watch from afar. From my observations, the best part of sitting on the elephant (aside from the free ride) is not getting sprayed by its trunk. His ears move. His eyes blink. And his trunk sprays water every so often. It's the authentic elephant experience.

More Elephant:

and

The island itself is pretty fascinating. It used to be the maritime trade center of the city, as I understand it, but it has since become more of a tourism epicenter. Although fake palm trees line the streets and a novelty carousel clanks away, I wouldn't say the city really did much tearing down and building up to turn the island into a cultural novelty. Using all the old storage hangars as blank canvases, the city of Nantes took industrial grunge chic to a new level, filling them with mechanical wonders, museums, exhibitions, and, of course, bars. Hangar à Bananes is a pretty chic strip of bars and clubs in the big old hangar that used to store (surprise!) bananas. Last night, actually, we went to a reggae concert in one of the clubs called Altarcafé. Although I've been living in fear of predatory European man, things were totally civilized last night. I think we stuck out a bit because we were getting more into dancing to the music than most of the other people around us, but, oh well, I think I tend to stick out when I start dancing anyway. (Think Elaine from Seinfeld.)

In addition to the hangars, the island also sports several large stationary cranes (grues), some of which continue to operate and others which remain vestigial testaments to the city's shipping history. (And, let's face it, when you're meeting up with friends to go to Hangar à Bananes, "the big yellow crane" is a pretty good landmark.) Another, more sobering testament to the city's past lines the edge of the island on the path leading to Hangar à Bananes: a series of rings that light up blue, green, and red in the evenings as a symbolic representation of shackles, forever reminding the city of the shameful part it played in the triangle trade.

I know you know I took some photos of all of this, so here they are. First, two specimens of industrial grunge chic: chez Monsieur Elephant and a little info booth.

Une grue jaune!

A pretty bad picture of the rings. They're way cooler at night.

All of the facts included in this blog post I learned from Marie. She's absolutely the model of self-cultivation. She's interested in art, architecture, science, history, and she goes out of her way to learn as much as she can of the topics that interest her. She has a zillion little binders and journals full of photos, brochures, even pages she's printed off the internet, as a way to remember everything she's seen and learned. And she really seems to know at least a little something about everything. I think she'll be a very good influence on me.

I've already started picking up all the little brochures and info packets from the places we've visited around Nantes. Today: Jardain des Plantes (it's a very original name but I think you can figure it out) and Musée des Beaux Arts. Sadly, no photos, but again, the brochures more than make up for that. This weekend is part of the Journées de Patrimoine, which comprise lots of free events all over the city relating to the culture and history of Nantes... it also means the museums are open for free. Tomorrow: Planetarium!

Do as the French Do: Monkey See?

I've been back in Nantes for about a week and a half now and considering my general predisposition for getting lost, I'd say I'm doing pretty well for myself. Thus far I've figured out two bus lines, two tram lines, and generally how to get around my home quartier, IES' quartier, and the university (kind of). Having said all this, I should also note that I carry a map of the city and transport schedules in every bag I have with me here. Nevertheless, I never thought I'd be this good at reading maps! A new talent emerges.

IES classes started this week, but I haven't had much to do as of yet since I'm taking most (le plupart) of my classes at the university and they don't start until next week. Here's how the ol' course selection shook down:

At IES: Topics in Advanced French Language & Composition, French Classicism: Art & Architecture

À l'université de Nantes: (I'll translate the course names) Literary History of the 19th Cent, Literature & Philosophy: Diderot & Thérèse philosophe, and Extra-European Civ: African History.

My "adviser" (I hesitate to call him that because he was basically some random professor whom I will never see again) had originally talked me into taking a third course at IES for a total of six courses because he was nervous about les grèves, the student protests French universities are famous for. I wasn't too keen on adding an extra class especially because I was hoping to fit some French gym classes (!) into my schedule. As it turned out though, the poetry class I added (because it was the only class of interest that fit into my schedule) focuses on Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Verlaine, all of whom I have studied relatively extensively at this point. Having discovered the perfect excuse, I dropped that class like hot potato. In spite of my cavalier tone, I have some serious reasons for this decision. I know that French universities (and European universities in general) expect that students will take greater initiative in their studies than American universities expect, which makes it easier to slack off, but also provides room for me to prove to myself that I am capable of working independently and benefiting from it. So, that is my goal for this semester. I will work hard no matter how full or empty my schedule. Plus, now I get to take Aikido and Ju-jitsu! I figured martial arts classes would be as good a way as any to come face to face (or hand to hand?) with French students.

But, enough boring stuff. It's time for some etiquette lessons! (Also some photos.) With each photo, I will attempt to illustrate some of what we learned from our French etiquette crash course with Madame Rouchet (and also tell you a bit about life in Nantes). All of these photos are from a walking tour we took around the some of the older quariers in Nantes and from a weekend of exploration avec mes amis, which included a trip to the Natural History Museum and accidentally happening upon a huge carnival by the cathedral on Saturday night! And now, we learn:

This park by IES is as good a place as any to start. Here, you might encounter someone you know on your way to IES. As you would expect, it is appropriate to utter the traditional French greeting, "bon jour!" but only if it is your first encounter of the day. If you have already greeted this person once today, say nothing. Keep in mind that "bon jour" is always an appropriate greeting, while "bon soir" is only appropriate in the evening and when you quit your family for the night. If you stop to chat for a moment, you can say "bon courage!" when you're done. Perhaps my favorite recent acquisition, "bon courage" expresses perfectly the "cultural pessimism" of this country (Madame Rouchet's words, not mine).

The above interaction with the statue by the Médiathèque (our local library) demonstrates exactly what you should NOT do when you encounter someone on the street, although keep in mind that kisses are an appropriate way to greet your friends. But beware of la grippe!! When you kiss your friends, never touch your lips to their cheeks, but rather lightly touch your cheek to theirs and make a kissing sound into the air. Also, never, under any circumstances, use the verb "baiser" (unless you're into that kind of thing), as it is an invitation for casual sex.

When you're not singing for your supper like this street musician by the château in Nantes, you will sit for supper with your family. As Madame Rouchet told us, French people eat as much for "the spectacle" as they do for the gastronomical pleasure. It is absolutely obligatory that you clean your plate. (It's almost intense as televised turduckin eating contests.) Fortunately, portions are small and the food is delicious. If you particularly enjoy your meal, you should tell the hostess, "Madame, vous êtes un vrai cordon bleu!" I'm sure you caught the drift of that. Oh, and don't forget to eat all your fruit (including apples and peaches!) with fork and knife.

If you get invited to dinner at the château, ask your host when you should arrive, and then plan on arriving half an hour after the specified time.

Never, under any circumstances, greet, talk to, or look at strange men on the street. (Sorry, Scotty.)

Even though you must cover your shoulders upon entry to this cathedral in Nantes, apparently no topic of conversation is off-limits. (Take that worthless study abroad info session!)

The Natural History Museum in Nantes can tell us a little something-something about the evolution of man, but Madame Rouchet told us all we needed to know about the evolution of relationships in France from the vous stage (verb: vouvoyer) to the tu stage (tutoyer). Once you can address someone as "tu," you know you're in.

Le Passage Pommeraye is another one of those amazing collisions of past and present in France. Here, lofty ceilings and cherubic statues set the scene for lots of little storefronts, including one of the best chocolate shops in Nantes. (It's just like, it's just like, it's just like a mini-mall.) Just as the French comfortably reconcile their modern lives with archaic architecture, so are they comfortable with human aging. None of the French women I see on the street appear afraid of growing older. They allow their hair to grey and their skin to speak its years, but they exude another more permanent beauty in their grace and physical honesty. Not to lay it on too thick, but it's something that I've been noticing a lot and something that I've really come to respect about these women. If only more women in the world knew what French women seem to know!

Okay, I give up, that's all the etiquette I know. Here are some other pretty places in Nantes:

Oh, and let's not forget the carnival. I'm not sure, but I have on pretty good authority that this is the appropriate way to react when you stumble upon a carnival with the best ride ever (a.k.a. Le Boomerang):

This entry has gotten somewhat hefty, so I think I'll leave off here for now. I've got a few photos from my Sunday on Île de Nantes with my host mom, but I can save that history lesson for a few days.

Je suis en France (mais pas en français), or Planes, Trains, and Voitures

Bonjour tout le monde!

Don't worry, I won't be writing posts in French (at least not yet). Here is a brief account of my journey to Nantes. We're heading off to Vannes this afternoon and I didn't want to overwhelm you all (read: me) with too much information. Indeed, it's been a pretty overwhelming first day (or so...?). I hope you will appreciate the fluid quality of the passage of time in this brief narrative (I think I was awake for approximately 24 hours).

It all started at about 2pm on Tuesday the 1st of September. At around this time, my family left the house for the airport at my nervous behest. We arrived quite early, but better safe than sorry, right? Once I found my gate, I quickly linked up with the three other IES girls on my flight. I suppose the flight was relatively uneventful. I'm a pretty nervous traveler, but only to the extent that I don't trust my sense of direction (or lack thereof) to navigate me through unfamiliar airports and train stations, so the flight itself was fine. Honestly, it never even occurred to me that we were flying over an ocean until after we landed.

The powerful (and mysterious!) force known as the jet-stream was on our side and we touched down in Charles de Gaulle a full hour earlier than expected. It was around 6:00 am French time and midnight my time. Either way, I was in no state to speak French, so when the Customs officer took my passport and asked if I was planning to study in France, I could only stare blankly. What? Actually, I think I said, "wha?" (They speak French so fast here!) He held up my passport and pointed to my visa, raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes. "Oh, oui," I breathed as he stamped my visa and I barely had time to say, "merci" before he handed it back to me and hurried me along. After that, though, the French came a bit easier. We had a bit of trouble finding the train, so I think each of us had asked someone for directions before we finally found la gare.

Then, we waited. For about three and a half hours, we waited. Our group snowballed, though, while we were waiting. The larger our group became, the easier other IES students could spot us. (Is that grammatical, who knows? I only speak French now.) I wish I could regale you with beautiful descriptions of the pastoral French campagne, but I'm afraid I dozed off a bit on the train. I didn't sleep, mind you, but I struggled to keep my eyes open. I wanted to look out the window and take photos, but to no avail. Let it be known, though, riding first class -- where the seats and windows are larger -- on the TGV is nice! I think the sheer comfort of my car induced a certain amount of drowsiness. I can report some, though: for a while, it didn't look much different from anything I'd seen in the states, and perhaps that's why I started to get tired. The next time I opened my eyes though, we were driving past farmland and maybe vineyards, too (I'm not exactly sure). The farms themselves did not surprise me, I suppose (although I haven't seen too many farms in my life), but the woods around the farms were...organized. Orderly and nothing like the American wild. The homes were smaller and seemed fashioned in the tradition of the gingerbread house. I'm not kidding.

Once we arrived in Nantes, it was cake. A few representatives from IES met us at the train station and helped all of us find cabs. Back at the center, we waited. We checked our email, we ate some of the cookies they had set out for us, and we awkwardly chatted with each other, reveling in our last few hours of English-speaking. Well, maybe I was the awkward one. I wanted to get to know as many people as possible, so I kept bouncing between conversations and I think it confused some people. It probably didn't help that I was feeling kind of cracked out (if you will), incoherent, tired, and (not going to lie) a little bit homesick.

Finally, though, my host mom showed up. She is this adorable grandmotherly little woman who wears plaid pants and a pink sweater over her shoulders. She picked up me and another girl whose host mom couldn't make it all the way to the center that day. We chatted a bit in the car and at first the French came haltingly, but eventually it became easier. She's been very encouraging about my language ability and helps me out when I'm having trouble finding a word or forming a sentence. I think it helps that she used to be a teacher (she's retired now), but her patience with me has encouraged me to speak more and I think soon I will be very comfortable speaking French.

In a few hours, I'm headed off to Vannes with the rest of the my program for a three-day off-site orientation. (There are almost 90 of us! Apparently it was totally unprecedented.) I'm a little nervous because I don't think we'll be allowed to speak to each other in English at all. I can't tell whether that will make it harder for us to get to know each other or easier for us to bond, but I guess we'll see. More in a few days!

How I Became a Creeper

Google Maps and, more recently, Google Earth. Here are some pix of where I will be spending my days. Consider:

1. IES



2. My Host 'Hood (if you will)



3. Université de Nantes

It's OFFICIAL

Well, kiddies (and by "kiddies" I mean "me"), it's official now. I placed the necessary deposit about twenty minutes ago and now there's no turning back. I suppose it's about time I read the info packet I got in the mail.

Nantes, for reference: