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.

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!