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.