Life is good

Despite of classes and finding out that I should probably read an almost five hundred page book by Thursday, things are going great in France! I bought some peanut butter and jelly (fig! delicious!) so I have a little bit of comfort food to remind me of back home. Nothing big has gone on this week since the carnival and it looks like tomorrow I'll have boxing and then reading time! I will however be hopefully making some macaroni and cheese! Om nom nom so delicious. Pictures from this extravaganza should be coming soon hopefully. Tonight was a great chill day with a little bit of grocery shopping, a picnic, laying in a field, speaking a little French, and just talking about life. Every once in a while, it's good to just relax and take a little time to take it all in. Good night for now!

Carnival

Just like in the States, the French enjoy their carnivals as well! There just happened to be one in town until October 5th-ish but some people heard that the rides were half priced last night, so how could we pass that up?! Five of us decided to make an adventure out of it and explored the carnival and of course the food!

Seeing how all of the rides were half off, how could we turn down a ride on the ferris wheel?!

After getting freezing at the top of the ferris wheel for a while, we figured we deserved some yummy food. The carnival here is basically the same as the states with a few awesome additions. They had kettle corn, cotton candy (called barbe a papa - papa's beard), candied apples (pommes d'amour - love apples: very French non?), fancy peanuts/almonds, candy (lots of taffy), churros, and of course the amazingness that are crepes and beignets. I have been craving a crepe for a long time but I saw these huge beignets and the fact that they had salted butter caramel topping for it and just could not resist. So....delicious...two points for fried dough, rolled in sugar, with a delicious caramel in the middle...lasdomwoeiniowhemlksdmnoi. If I could pick my dreams, I would probably choose that...every day! Next time of course I'm going to have to go back to my old love in the form of a nutella crepe!

*Insert photo from my facebook page because I did not take one with my camera*

Most of the rides were your average carnival rides and the games were basically the same such as balloon pop, throwing games, and claw machines. There were a few cool ones such as their version of Deal or No Deal and one where you chose a cord out of several hanging down, with each one being connected to some sort of stuffed animal so everyone won! The best game however would have been the 'Aquabulle' which would have been a plastic ball you climb in and roll around in water, but alas it was not open :(

Overall, festivals are awesome, I just need more time to try all of the delicious snacks!!!!!! As for now, I must go finish some homework and find lunch before class!

Grammar...It's taking over!

You know you have been in France long enough when while walking down the street you hear someone having a serious conversation and you overhear a certain phrase and you get excited about it. Besides the average slang and random phrases that I have never heard, the other day I was waiting at the tram stop and overheard someone use the subjunctive tense with a phrase I did not know required subjunctive. Even though it is the most annoying tense ever, I am one of those weird people who finds grammar (only in French not English) utterly exciting! I wish I had a hardcore grammar class here, but alas I must put up with only reading, speaking, and analyzing :(

On that note, classes are still going well, even though some of them I would gladly trade for a day of manual labor. Sometimes certain teachers here just do not make the cut in making a class interesting let alone informative haha. I do have a literature presentation due next Thursday and I had planned on presenting Honore de Balzac, but it turns out that that will be the topic for next week so it would be horribly boring for the students to hear a presentation and a lecture on him. In lieu of this, I decided to go with his partner in Realism, Gustave Flaubert (who hopefully will be approved by my teacher today). I was already a third of the way through Balzac's book, but hey no complaints here because it just gives me more experience with the interesting, sometimes too realist viewpoint!

Outside of class I have kept myself busy with running, boxing, random trips to the grocery store, and making dinner with friends! Boxing has been going well and the coach is definitely starting to warm up to me. I now get to help demonstrate techniques with him for the class! In our last class there was apparently a guy that took boxing last year and he put me with him with the reasoning that he wasn't allowed to train with his friends because he hit too hard haha. Bring it onnnnnnnnnn! I am definitely enjoying boxing though and it is definitely training my French comprehension skills on work out vocabulary. Of course, after a good couple of hours of working out, one must eat, so I have made several trips to the store for delicious French foods! the other day a friend and I had a dinner of a baguette, sheeps cheese (perdy good!), dried sausage (it's everywhere), carrots (for the vegetable factor), and mini tartes nantaises (almond tart om nom nom!). The other night, we went over to my Iranian friends apartment which is twice the size of mine, and made a beef stew type thing with a ratatouille sauce over rice. First cooking attempt: Success! The next item on the list is mac and cheese in a skillet!

African Dinner

During the first few days of orientation, I met several students from all over the world. During one of these encounters, I met a guy from Ghana and we seemed to run into each other just about every other day or so just by chance. We were even able to go down to the Jazz Festival together during that first weekend as well. We had many discussions about cultural differences, food, religion, music, etc, and because of that, he invited me over to his apartment to experience a little bit of African cuisine and I would have to say that it was absolutely delicious. It was simple, but complex at the same time. American food tends to be served in large quantities with little spice, whereas this food was full of flavor. We started the meal off with some rice with a tomato based stew with chicken and finished the meal with another stew and potato bread/dumpling. Most of you already know that I am quite the lover of food and I really enjoy trying new types of cuisine and am open to just about anything. The only food that I have a little bit of a problem tolerating are olives, but I am getting over this dislike! All in all I was able to spend two and a half hours of some quality entertainment with my friend and his roommate. During this time we were able to discuss just about every subject from politics to religion, to music and had a great time doing so. I have really enjoyed this study abroad for it's French aspects but also because I have been able to meet people from so many different walks of life and have been able to live a few hours in their shoes and see their perspectives on the world. It's not just Americans out there you guys ;) so get out there, explore, and learn!

I like cheese....

I really really like cheese. Like, it's delicious, but there are too many choices! I just don't even know what to do with myself when I go to the grocery store. So far I have tried Brie, Camambert, goat cheese, a type of blue cheese, two soft cheeses (Tomme Blanche and Vieux Panne...the latter was good but quite stinky though), and I still have another soft cheese from this region to try after I finish the goat cheese. I just can't seem to control myself with these delicious cheeses...good thing I'm boxing and running!

On to more serious topics, I am now known as 'the American' in the boxing class because I am the only non-Frenchie, but the coach is slowly warming up to me! After practice yesterday I went to the grocery store and had a blast just walking up and down the isles. I also officially have a coffee mug now! After that, I played some ping pong where we had a little Olympic Games of sorts with representatives from North America, Asia, and Europe. Thanks to yours truly, the United States of America were triumphant! After this tourny of sorts, my group of friends joined up with the Canadians and decided to explore the downtown area. Somehow someone had managed to get passes into THE night club in town so seeing how I had never been to one and well...it was free, might as well go right? (This is especially important because apparently the cover charge is normal 20-40 euros)

We left the residence and got on the tram, but unfortunately there was some miscommunication and the majority of the Canadian students took the tram too far and were not able to make it so that was kind of a bummer. Once our little group finally made it out to the club there was a huge line wrapping around the building to get in, and each person had this free ticket. You had to make it in by one o'clock however to get in for free so we were beginning to think that this was a lost cause, buttttt we may or may not have made some friends and hopped in line close to the front so we made it in just in time! It was absolutely crazy inside with lights, smoke machines, and some most excellent music. The DJ for the night was apparently this really famous guy who happened to be in town so people were going crazy over him. I would have to admit though, that he was probably the best DJ that I have heard. Even though these kinds of places are not my usual hangouts or my most comfortable situations, I still enjoyed myself and was glad I was able to experience a little bit of the night life in France!

Sadly enough though, we had a huge temperature change here in the past week or so so now it is quite chilly. This made my head freak out so for the past week I have had a sore throat which is almost gone now, but it has replaced itself with a stuffy nose. This is not the sick kind of sick, it is just the I'm-just-going-to-mess-with-your-head-and-make-things-annoying-for-a-while kind of sick...blarg. It makes speaking French well....interesting.

CANDY!

Oh and I have determined that Canadians have cooler candy than Americans. They have 'Smarties' but they are not chalky sugary candies, oh no! They are candy coated chocolates! Babam! They also have 'Kindersurprises' which are an hollow chocolate egg with some kind of fun toy inside. My first egg contained this cool looking yellow dude with a paintbrush as hair and when you wet it with water and rub it on some colored paper you can actually paint with it! I guess I'll just have to make some kind of beautiful mosaic soon!

*Insert Title Here*

Well I am tired, and will be going to bed soon but I thought I would make an entry here real quick! The past few days have been pretty busy, but I am still greatly enjoying my time here in Nantes! I finally purchased a cell phone here so I can communicate with others and in case I got lost I can call for help (I need somebody, help, not just anybody, help, you know I need someone, helppppp *two points for the Beatles!*). As for normal life here, since my last entry I have made a few trips downtown for various reasons, half of which were successful! I still don't have a bankcard and my program is still a failure but I'm happy so that's all that matters.

Thursday night I was able to make a trip to IKEA and had a most fabulous time! I probably ended up scaring a lot of the Frenchies with my constant sitting in the furniture and playing with the various sets they had on display but hey it's all in good fun right! The best part was the 50 cent ice cream cones at the end! So get this, you put in this special coin, insert your cone into this metal contraption, push a button, the cone gets lifted up, and ice cream is deposited into it! Genius! Except, I was not a genius when doing this and definitely forgot to put my cone in the contraption....fail...fortunately, the machine was smarter than me, rejected the order, and let me try again.

That night was also the welcome back party for all students, international and French.alike. The way they had the area set up actually made it look like a circus! It was convincing enough that I overheard some middle schoolers on the tram one day talking about it and one kid said 'Oh yea that's the circus! I read about that the other day, it's going to be here for a few days' trying to be all cool like! But really, it looked like a circus, it was awesome. They had a bunch of tents set up for student organizations, food, merchandise, and they even had social and health security representatives there....I did not quite understand that, but hey why not! I was only able to make it to about an hour of the actual concert (which was completely fine with me) which consisted of four groups, and fortunately the one that we saw was the best one. Go American bands in France! The other interesting thing about the concert was the hundreds of people that were sitting in groups outside of the concert area. I couldn't figure out why until someone informed me that those were the people who were already too drunk to come inside. I laughed about that for a little bit, silly college kids, but then thought that that was a very good move by the school to put restrictions on admission. Even though it probably made a few people a little upset, it made the overall experience better I believe.

Today after class, I went down to buy my phone, creeped on some friends who I saw kayaking down the river, and then went to the school library to check out some books! I have a literature presentation due in two weeks so I figured it would probably be a good time to figure out a topic. So far I picked out three books to choose from. I don't necessarily have to read the whole thing, even though I would like to, but it is mainly a presentation over the author and an analysis of his works/the one I choose. So far I have "Les Mots" by Jean-Paul Sartre, "L'Etrangere" by Albert Camus, and "Le Pere Goriot" by Honore de Balzac. I know there are several other great novels/plays but those are the authors I am most familiar with haha. I'm going to go through them this weekend and pick out my favorite. I have decided though that while I am here I am going to take advantage of the amazing collection of French literature here as well as our occasional nice days to get some good reading time in!

Tomorrow morning, I have boxing practice number 2, but this time it's with people with experience so we'll see how this goes! After that, it's off to try and get Skype to work by using the Kebab restaurants wifi across the street and then who knows!

Boxing!

So you remember how I said the weight training coach was hard to understand? I take that back, at least he was French. The boxing instructor is from somewhere that isn't France because his accent was soooo hard to understand. I'm guessing he's either Italian or Russian, but you never know! You know it's a problem when the actual French students have a problem understanding him. Half of the time we all were looking around at each other to see what we were supposed to be doing!

Starting at the beginning of the class though, there were only five of us who were on time. By the time class ended we had around 25 students....French kids, come on now. One guy even walked in an hour and fifteen minutes after we started...and we only had 15 minutes left. Tisk tisk tisk! Overall though, I really enjoyed the class. It was just a beginning class so a little bit below what I'm used to, but everyone needs to review the basics right? We did a good bit of warm up which the French seem very fond of, and then we jumped into a little partner work, and ended the day off with some awkward yogo/stretching/push-ups/sit-ups. My 'favorite' position of the night was called 'le chat' or the cat. Yea...that one sparked a lot of laughter amongst the less mature students. Despite that small factor, I still hope to make it back as much as I can. The only problem is that the actual boxing classes besides the beginner class is all the way down town and really far out of the way but apparently there is an actual gym with bags and such so it could be worth it. In the meantime, I'll just try and keep up with running!

By the way, I have also said that the French are a very clean people, well I think I take that back when it is concerning fitness equipment. In the States, every gym is very serious about cleaning the equipment after you are done and keeping everything sanitized. Here, I feel like that doesn't happen. At the gym yesterday, I didn't see one person clean off anything and the teacher didn't do any cleaning. People had a few towels here and there, but that doesn't quite suffice. The mats we used at the end of boxing today also had quite the pungent smell...and it wasn't in a good way. Don't worry though, I showered...for a long time...

Any great (slightly awkward) day starts with a morning run!

After my not so consistent past with running since cross country ended, I am hoping to start back up because it truly is something that I miss. This morning I was able to experience a little bit of French culture at 7:30 in the morning during a pretty solid run :)

Throughout this jog, myself and my running buddy encountered several dowgies, a few Frenchies, a female runner who was way out of our league, slugs the size of a pen, birds, rugby players, and a few cars. We ended up following a path to the Hippodrome, a super big area with paths, a horse track, soccer fields, and probably loads of other stuff I have yet to see. We chose to play on the big horse track seeing how it conveniently went in a circle and it was a lot larger that your average quarter mile track. Overall though, I'm definitely glad I got up and definitely plan on doing that more often!

My first class today was quite boring (the past tenses in French can only be exciting for so long), but the second, my culture class, turned out to be a nice breather because all we did was listen to French music for two hours! That is not my reason for posting this in my blog however. The real reason is for what happened before this class.

In general, bathrooms and water fountains are quite the rare finds in schools and well, anywhere in France for that matter! Fortunately, there are some in the school here, but I had been told to be careful because they're...different. Being the confident American that I am I figured oh what the heck, might as well try it out. So I went upstairs and found the bathroom with the label "WC" as well as a picture depicting males..and females....hmmm. I was a little taken aback at first and had no idea what the proper procedure was at this point. Unfortunately, nature was calling so I just dove right in.....right in to find three girls washing their hands....awkward. Thank goodness I was able to find a safe haven pretty quickly in the handicap stall/room that was right by the door. I rushed in without looking anywhere else and after locking the door, had a sigh of relief. When leaving however, I definitely waited until most of the girls voices had left and high-tailed it out of there a fast as I could without looking around to see who was still there.

There are so many words to describe what happened to me, but as of that moment I was just speechless and I still cannot think of the proper adjectives to properly recognize this situation. Oh man, let's just hope I can do without or find somewhere else to go....

The gym in France

Today after my oh so interesting dessert experience at the university cafeteria, a friend and I ventured over to the gym for our allotted work out time. On our way there we found the indoor tennis courts, basketball courts, judo room, and the weight room. We apparently got there just in time because as soon as we walked in, the most stereotypical fitness instructor locked the door behind us and told us to grab a medicine ball and a partner for some warm up exercises! Fortunately, I had my friend with me so that wasn't a big deal, but man his french was hard to understand! We ended up watching everyone else to see what they were doing half the time. He then made an announcement that he would show all of the new people the equipment but of course, this took about five minutes before he actually got around to it, so in the meantime we all just stood around awkwardly. By the time he finished demonstrating (poorly I might add - he ended up just pointing to the diagrams on the machines most of the time), everything was already being used by students. I was quite surprised however by the amount of equipment that was available. There were a LOT of weight machines, half of which were a little old (the instructor had to come by and his version of fixing something was to hit it several times until it worked), many rowing machines, a few bikes, but no treadmills! I guess the French get enough walking in during the day. Our workout when pretty well and I was able to observe French guys at the gym which was quite hilarious. They are even worse than Americans because they take longer to finish a workout, constantly check themselves out, wear tight clothing even if they have nothing to show off, and think they are hot stuff after lifting really light weight. My two favorite moments were when this one guy took his towel and laid it by a machine for about five minutes and just stood by it. Eventually he used the machine for a few reps and then sat there for another five minutes. The other time was with three guys who were working out together and would rotate turns, but mannnn they took foreverrrr! Half of the time they were talking to each other or watching what everyone else was doing. Overall though, the warmup was probably one of the best ones I have ever done, and I'm really excited to go back, hopefully when it's less crowded! Later tonight, I went back to the university cafeteria for dinner, came back to find my bank stuff had cleared, and played some ping pong (always a good way to finish a night). I was even able to learn a little bit more about the Canadian culture and the most delicious candies and foods that Americans are missing out on. I know where I'm taking my next vacation!

French dining has it's high and low points...

Today I joined the ranks of the Canadians and went to a French Culture class with a group from two universities in Canada. I have no classes on Tuesdays so I figured it would be a good way to pass some time! The teacher did a nice three hour overview of French history from the Prehistoric time up until slightly after the French Revolution. Thank you Dr. Schaller for having taught me so much already! After the class, some of the group and I headed off to the university dining hall for a nice 3 euro lunch! For some reason when we arrived the place was completely packed (it could have had something to do with the fact that it was 12:15). There was a huge line to buy tickets and an even longer one just to get into the cafeteria. It's kind of a big game to see what you are going to eat because the menu is displayed at the bottom of the stairs and halfway up. Unfortunately, you have to choose which line to get in before you get to the menu! The people that I was with eventually chose one side and we stood in the line for pizza. I apparently did not learn from my first trip to the Resto-U and was expecting a slice or two of pizza, but instead was given an entire pizza bigger than my plate, along with bread, appetizer, and dessert! Delicious!!! The pizza was a cheese and bacon/pancetta pizza and there could have been more things on it but I can't remember, I just kept eating! That was definitely the high point to this experience. The low point however came during dessert. Knowing the stereotypes and the realities that are French pastries and desserts I was fully expecting amazingness from the desserts, unfortunately 'You can't always get what you wannnnt' (Hopefully the song got stuck in your head too!). I chose this pudding looking thing with whipped cream and blackberry/raspberry jam which turned out to be banana pudding! Being the Southerner that I am, I was super excited for it...until I put my spoon in it....and found out it was runny. Banana pudding is NOT supposed to be runny French people! I still ate it because it was still delicious but trying to round up runny pudding, bananas, whipped cream, and jam became quite the difficult task! The second dessert that turned out to be well....different was a custard/pudding/jell-o thingy. It looked like an average vanilla pudding but was way off. It was either vanilla or almond flavored...we still can't figure it out, but it was too light to be a custard, but too thick for a pudding. Once you took a bite it kind of just dissolved in your mouth and then at the very end you encountered some flavoring. It was one of those awkward foods that you weren't sure if you were supposed to chew it, play with it, or just let it sit in your mouth. Overall though, the Resto-U has not disappointed me and it at least provides us with comic relief occasionally!

Just another day

Well, the fun school times have commenced! I had class from 8:30 until 1 today, but I actually enjoyed the majority of the discussion. I have a phonetics class first so I have to be all perky to speak some French! My teacher is quite hilarious though because she is an older woman who has a very high pitched voice and of course has perfect french haha. We went over some basic linguistics (french style of course!) and then proceeded to practice our french abilities with a few word games. Here is a fun one called 'Mon Village':

Ga
Gama
Gamana
Gamanapoli
Gamanapolitu
Gamanapolituro
Gamanapolituropi
Gamanapolituropitroo
Gamanapolituropitroumo
Gamanapolituropitroumo_sur_Seine

And my other favorite for the day is the French equivalent of 'iney meney miney mo' (yea that's the first time I have ever spelled that haha)

Am stram gram
Pic et pic et colegram
Bour et bour et ratatam
Am stram gram

There's you a little comptine to work on your enchainement consonantique!

Later tonight, I went to the English Bible Study at the same church I went to on Sunday and had a great time! The youth pastor who taught the group did a good job and was very friendly and there were several international people there as well! On thursdays they normally have a College French bible study but I do not believe that has started up yet. I hope to become involved in that as well as soon as I can. Every second friday there is also a normal French Bible study, but it won't happen for another three weeks because of a retreat the church is participating in. Until then, I'm sure I can keep myself busy though :)

Tomorrow, I am not supposed to have classes, but I met some students from Canada and I am hopefully (teacher willing) going to sit in on their French History class! Later on, a friend and I are going to go to our scheduled gym workout session (weird right?), so we'll see how that goes haha

The best part of the night however was that I bought a French Bible for one euro and fifty cents!!!! Two points for the church I am going to! I have always wanted one and was going to ask the pastor about it, but they had them conveniently there!

Baptist Church in France?

In one of my many walks around the city, I happened to stumble across a church entitled "L'Eglise Protestante Baptiste Libre". My French translation made me realize this was a Baptist church...but that didn't seem to play right in my head. France = Catholic/Atheist...not Baptist. So being the skeptic I was I read the posters on their door and checked out their website when I got back to my room and come to find out, it was real! I accidentally overslept last Sunday so I was not able to go (I got up too early and went to take a cat nap, which took a little longer than I had planned), but I was determined to go yesterday. Of course, this would be the day it was raining...hard. I layed there in bed thinking to myself if I was up to brave the rain and fortunately, my response was positive. The church is only one tram stop away so it is not a far walk, but I still arrived quite soaked. All turned out well though and the members were quite friendly, the music was in French (two of which were literally translations from American songs!), and the sermon was very Baptist in subject, but well presented! Afterwards, I met a group of 15 or so students from Pennsylvania that are here for a school trip and they invited me, a girl from Canada, and a guy from Oregon who is interning with the church back to their house for hamburgers! Goooo America! The big group of people I came to find out, were Mechanical Engineering students for the most part, from a university about the size of GC&SU. We had a great time at lunch and stayed for a couple of hours chit chatting. I hope to be able to meet back up with them sometime during my stay here.

Later that night was when I went out on the town and acted all touristy and then the real fun began! Since our discovery of the ping pong room, all of our boredom has disappeared! There's nothing better than playing ping pong with some music and having random international/french students drop by for a visit to see what's going on. That night, there were probably 20 people that showed up to play with us which provided us with students from the US (your's truely and one more), Italy, Canada, Germany, Czech Republic, Romania, Spain, France, and a few others that I cannot remember. Because of the crazy amounts of people, we played around-the-world ping pong so that about 8 or more people could play at once. It became crazy fun and we had musical entertainment from iTunes and an ukulele! Who would have thought that ping pong could bring so many people together :)

Tonight is a Bible study in English so I'm going to go check that out!

Nantes

Over the weekend, I was able to act like a tourist and take lots of pictures of the town. I wasn't able to stay out for too long, thanks to the most ridiculous weather ever, but I still was able to get some of the highlights (more to come of course!). Speaking of the weather, it changes all of the time, varying in temperature, and type. For example yesterday in the early morning it was super cold, then it started to rain, then in the afternoon it became super hot, then it went cloudy and windy, cleared back up, then went back to blahhhhh. At least it keeps you guessing! It's a little hard to plan for a day though because if it's cold/rainy enough for a jacket, I almost never end up walking back with it on. Of course, whenever I don't wear it, it is ridiculously cold when I come back!

Myself and a couple of friends started out on our journey of the town and got off the tram a little bit before the busy downtown area.

This is the only tall building in Nantes, and I believe it's called the Tower of Brittany (le tour de Bretagne), with a picture of our tram making his get-away in the background.

And of course there would be a Hippopotamus Restaurant here! I've always seen them in France and have always wanted to go there! Maybe a fairwell France dinner would work :)

This is one of the Catholic churches here in Nantes, there is also a big cathedral, but we didn't go there today, but it will happen!

Waterspout! Too cool!

Soooo delicious! Some of the items in here were pretty pricey, but I'm going to have to try some. Just walking in there and you are overwhelmed with delicious smells of baked goods and chocolate, and chocolate, oh and did I mention chocolate!?

Mall where the chocolate shop is with some amazing architecture :)

Fresco depicting the entire history of Nantes

And of course, you cannot go anywhere in France without some reference to Charles de Gaulle

Busy Busy Bee!

Andddddddddddd I'm back! Sorry for the delay in my posting of messages, but the past few days have been pretty busy with school and trying to get registration straightened out. It looks like I have everything done except for making an appointment for a physical to apply for my long term visa. I finally heard back from the ISEP program coordinators, even though it was not the same people who said they were in charge of me (that person still has not gotten back in contact with me...), and on Thursday night they scheduled a meeting for Friday morning exactly when I had class... so I was not able to make it. My supposed 'advisor' for ISEP told me to meet her at her office on Thursday with some papers, but when I arrived, she was not there and no one knew when she would be back. AWESOME! So I had to leave the papers there, e-mail some people, and probably go down there next week to finish things up. Other than that, my insurance is pretty much done, and I have a French bank account, I am just waiting for them to send me my debit card. The one good thing about walking around the city center in the early hours of the morning is that I was given two free newspapers and some free coffee packets! Winner!

Classes are going well so far. It looks like I will doing a lot of reading and oral presentations, which should make for some not so fun nights coming up, but it will help out my French a lot. Outside of school however, myself and some other exchange students have found the ping pong and foosball room in our dorm so we hit that up for a good 3 to 4 hours the other night. Right beside this room is a banquet room that students can reserve for events and a bunch of French students were having a joint birthday/going-away party for some people so we had some nice (American unfortunately) music to play to! Because of this however, I was able to talk to a few french people! And if anyone tries to convinces me ping pong is not an international SPORT I would have to disagree because we had, Americans, Canadian, Italians, Iranians, and French people all in the same room! Babam!

Last night, Dale, a student from Toronto, and I decided to go to a French soccer game! It was the city league here in Nantes called FC Nantes but they are still a League 2 team, so they are quite good!

The game last night was supposedly a big rivalry match against Le Mans FC. When we arrived at the stadium, the actual police were there, with guns and everything, which you don't see too often in France! Unlike in the United States, most of the action happens outside of the stadium itself. There were probably close to 30 venders set up outside selling drinks, food, and merchandise before AND after the game! The big ticket item seemed to be kabobs (aka meet sliced off of a rotating hunk of meet and put on a grill, then into a bun). For some reason fries are super popular here. You can even get them to put the fries on top of your sandwich which is called American style... and ironically enough, the even had a sandwich called 'the American' which was a hamburger, chopped into three or four strips and then put into a baguette haha. I refused to eat anything resembling American food here though!

We eventually made our way into the stadium after a little bit of meandering through the crowd and police, where we were patted down just to enter the stadium! After we passed inspection, even though we had bought the second best seats, we still had to walk 3/4 of the way around the stadium, but the seats were not good enough for a second pat down unlike in certain sections. Surprisingly enough though our seats were pretty awesome. We were the third row back in our section and had a great view of the field.

The rest of the night was filled with lots of clapping, people screaming 'Allez!' ('Go' or any other word to make someone run faster or do something good), people screaming obscenities in French, and the obnoxious never ending cheering from the visiting team. Like any good die-hard fan, the Le Mans team had a section of about 30-40 people who showed up brandishing their team colors with banners, drum, and of course, a bullhorn.

There are two things to notice in this picture: 1) the extra security fencing put up and 2) the poster that says "Fire Snake Worshippers" haha. We believe that the fire snake is their mascot, but we found it very interesting that it was written in English. Eventually of course, the Nantes cheering section showed up and started given the visiting section a run for their money, but unfortunately it is kind of hard to drown out a bullhorn...

Overall though, the game went pretty well even though we could have played better (managed to end with a tie 1-1) and one of the Nantes crazy fans set off a Green smoke bomb which incited twenty security guards to descend upon that area hahaha. After that, they beefed up security in that section with guards even sitting on the steps. There was also a little kid that was sitting in front of me that got bored so started climbing around and sat beside me for a while, I found me a little buddy! Three more things about the game that I noticed: 1) Unlike in America, everyone waited until the very last second of the game to leave, 2) They picked up their own trash, and 3) The vendors outside were more popular after the game!

To get to the stadium Dale and I had taken the bus since it is further out into the suburbs, but the bus we needed to get back to the dorm was not running then, so we had to take the bus to the downtown area, and then back up to the dorm. A plus about this was that I was able to see the city life at night, someone throw up on the tram, more people with french fries (oh how ironic), two dowgies, found the cooking school again, and had two drunk German guys try and talk to me in French (that was an experience especially since I couldn't understand half of it haha). After an hour of traveling, we finally made it back where I layed down for a good nights rest :)

First Day of School!

Today was the first official day of classes for my program, the IRFFLE (cool name huh?)! I got up early just to make sure I would make it on time, but it did not help any that I was paranoid about oversleeping! Two points for waking up every hour! Even though I had closed my window for the night, my room was quite chilly this morning so I had to layer up while checking facebook (a part of my daily routine!).

But have no fear, because I soon found an apple and pain au chocolat!

After this delicious breakfast, it was time to pack things up and head off into the big scary world that is France! If anyone is excited give me a thumbs up!

I made it to school with plenty of time to spare and come to find out, the teacher was ten minutes late and there were only 7 students in the class when there were supposed to be 17...hmm. One reason behind this is that half of the papers were were given at orientation said that classes started today and the other half said next week. Also, online, it shows my program starting next week as well so I feel like there was just a huge failure to communicate here. Having said that class went very well. My first one was a writing and textual analysis class which turned out to be pretty interesting. The teacher kept us focused and wasn't too strict. She even told us an analogy about reading in French. She said that it is like jogging (so seeee the French really do do it!), the first time is difficult, the second time is easier, and after that it gets better and better with a little practice! I liked this way of looking at it, but it still doesn't make having to read newspaper articles any more interesting :(

After 2 and a half hours of this class, with the sun shining right in my face the entire time (*see note at the bottom for an explanation), it was finally lunch time where I made a trip to the mini cafeteria with some other students and had a ham, cheese, butter (just do it, it's amazing), lettuce, tomato, and egg sandwich for a whopping 2.50. Gooooo student prices!

Just an hour later, our next stop was our French culture class. There are yet again the same 7 plus one more so we were then only lacking 9 students! The teacher for this class however managed to surprise me because he is a man of probably 30 to 40 years of age, who walked in with jeans, a dark colored button down, a denim jacket, and long hair. He did not introduce himself, but instead started taking the roll and began lecturing. Btw, this man unlike my first teacher, does not like to enunciate or slow down so here was our first big challenge! Our first assignment was to come up with 5 words or phrases that identify French culture. He picked my group to go first and we had the 5 he was looking for. BABAM! Thank you Dr. Schaller and Culture and Civilization from GC&SU! Overall, I really enjoyed his class even though at time it did get a little dry, but he displayed a good bit of emotion and laughed a lot so that helped to perk us up. He did manage a few good jokes though! Oh and for some reason, every teacher or speaker that I have had so far has said the same thing - "Tout est politique en France" (Everything is political in France), and this is surprisingly true!

*The electricity does not work in the buildings most of the time for some reason so that is why there is a wall of windows in each classroom! The only downside of this is that the sunshine can get super bright and hot if you are sitting by said window. Unfortunately today, this unlucky fellow happened to be me :) But, it is ten times better than being cold!

Picture from the stairwell

A big thank you to Rachel for pointing out that I did not put up the picture from my stairwell so here it is!

It turns out my alarm clock started working again so I didn't have to go out to buy more batteries wooooh!

Classes!

Tomorrow will officially start my life in a French University! I have been placed in C1 which is the fifth out of six levels in French so I am quite happy with that placement and it lets me take more specific and advanced courses instead of simply grammar and culture all over again. The teacher with whom I had my interview placed me between B1 and B2, but all of the other students and teachers I had talked to said B2 or C1 for sure so that had me a little worried for a while. Needless to say, this guy is a happy camper! On top of the normal core classes, I have signed up for a Literature class, phonetics class, and one that will prepare me for the DALF exam, which I am still not 100% clear on. I'm pretty sure it is a language proficiency diploma that you can test to receive, but even if I decide not to do that, I was told it is a good course to prepare for any future French studies. Because of all of these classes however, it is going to be a pretty intense four month period of Frenchie goodness! I was also able to sign up for my three sports today! The three that I ended up with were Boxing, ping pong, and weight training. They wouldn't let me take two combat sports so it was either weights or aerobic dance so you can see why I chose that :)

I am now going to go on a search for batteries because I can't exactly wake up for classes if my alarm clock doesn't work! Hopefully I beat the rain too!

Just a little walk in the park

The morning started out a little late because my alarm clock decided to run out of batteries during the night, but after a light breakfast, I decided to head off to the school to find out where the placement results were going to be posted and to spend some time out of the apartment. After traversing the building, I started walking down one of the roads I had never ventured and ended up finding a sign that said 'towards the river', so being the curious tourist I am, I gladly followed (there seems to be a continuing trend here, does anyone else notice that?). I ended up being quite happy with what I found. It turned out to be quite the nice trail that is used for walking, jogging, and biking that follows the Erdre river and some of it's tributeries. And yes, despite what people have told me, there are surprisingly a lot of French that do jog, even if it is hidden on little paths by the river! My only problem is that they have taken the American trend of wearing UnderArmor and other tight fitting clothing to the extreme....and its mostly used as shorts....and I will stop the discussion there. Anywhoooooo, this trail turned out to be beautiful and I think I have found a new favorite spot to relax and get some work done. I shall start you on my journey :)

We have the pool on our left, a nice brick path, plenty of greenery,

and a stream on the right.

DUCKS! They were chillin' by the two fishermen hoping to get something to eat. They are quite friendly though because they came right over to me when I stopped.

We start in a more open area with a little playground and picnic area. Little did I know it would turn into this :)

I eventually found a nice bench to sit down on to burn some time before the placement results were posted and to reflect on all that was around me.

The Erdre river in front of me and this to the left:

Eventually I had to call it quits for the day from my lovely thinking spot, but on my way back to the school, I did happen to see the most classic scene ever. I saw a nun, eating her lunch, in a field of daisies, after having riding there on an older looking red bicycle. My day was complete! The next photo also gave me a good giggle. I did not have time to read the plaque by the building, but it's an older looking building being refurbished, but the mowing lines were way off so I had to document this. I think they could use my help :)

BY THE WAY...French mowers look like mini zambonies...that's really the only way I can describe them. They are like modified farm equipment with funky things attached everywhere. I'll try and get a picture of one later.

Who's a winner?! This guy!

After finding my new best friend, Mr. Pillow, I had to say goodbye to Mr. Towel. He was quite upset and they talked about it, and fortunately Pillow was kind enough to let Towel sleep on the shelf above the bed so he doesn't get too lonely!

After that drama was over, I was able to move onto more pressing issues, such as the one surrounding the soaking of my entire bathroom during shower time! Fortunately, during my successful trip to the Walmart-like store here, I purchases 90 paperclips, 20 of which went into my creative creation which worked beautifully!

No more wet floor! Take that MacGyver! I would also like to share with you all the well...different-ness, that is French disposable silverware. This is a spoon from my pack of 20 spoons that I was able to find. They make nutella, jelly, and cheese eating much more enjoyable and less messy!

Cute non? And to finish with this random entry I will leave you with a picture from the stairwell of my apartment building. This is looking away from the city, so there isn't too much to see. It's still better than my room because I have a lovely view of other apartment buildings, two of which are being built, so I have workers looking in my window (good thing I'm on the fourth floor!).

It's like Walmart but better!

In my search for a pillow, I have finally succeeded! At the very end of the tram line on the right hand side, you see the biggest sign ever for a place called LeClerc. There's a big parking deck and as soon as the tram stops everyone altogether basically sprints into the store. It's kinda fun to see who's gonna win the race to the moving sidewalk; the mom and two kids or the three elderly ladies scuttling along together! By the way, cutest thing ever is seeing two elderly women walking down the street arm in arm with their grocery bags just chit chatting away and having a great time. Anyway, back to the story. Once you are officially inside the building, it is basically a mini mall, with just about anything you need...before you even get to the actual store. The store itself is massive. They have everything from school supplies, to cooking goods, to clothes, and lots and lots of food (which is of course my favorite part!). I managed to of course, find my pillow (they are all square..it kind of threw me off), paper clips to try and fix my shower curtain, a baguette for 30 cents, and big chunks of brie and camembert cheese for less than a dollar each. So all in all I would say that this trip was fantastic! I even saw one of the employees rolling around doing her thing..on roller skates, oh yes!

Social Security + Bank Account = I need a walk

Last night I went back down to the Jazz Festival and it was amazing as to how many people were congregated around the final stage for the night. No one moved, everyone just stood/sat there quietly and enjoyed the music. A few other things that I have noticed about French people is that they just like to have a good time and relax and they make a conscious effort to stop pollution.

At your average American festival, there are of course so many things to do, see, and eat, but one of our main problems as Americans is that we are always on a timetable and festivals tend to be more of a hassle than an enjoyment (especially if small children are involved). Here, things seem more relaxed and it's okay just to sit down and enjoy whats going on around you. The other thing that is quite prevalent all around America is our disregard for the environment. I realize that steps are being taken now to cut down on pollution, but we should probably be moving a little bit faster. In general, French people are very clean and always make sure to pick up after themselves. I was quite surprised as to how tidy the festival was even after thousands of people passed through. One thing that I thought was quite clever was the use of festival 'goblets' which cost an extra euro after you get your drink, but if you return it, you get the euro back! By doing this, the customer gets to enjoy a nice plastic cup instead of having to fool with a can or a bottle and waste is greatly reduced because they simply wash the returned ones that night and use them again. Brilliant!

Today I decided not to attend the optional support French classes because I had already missed half of them due to registration so I would have felt awkward starting in the middle and I still needed to finish up things for social security, insurance, and a bank account. The university had told me to go to the actual social security company to fill out the necessary paperwork, so like a good exchange student I do that and, like everything else, that was wrong and I was supposed to open the bank account first and then make a copy of something and then bring it to them and then go to a medical clinic...yea...I don't even know. They then tell me to go across the street to the actual bank because their bank man was out on lunch so I follow orders to find out that the bank was closed...fabulous. Out of frustration I forget about the insurance and decide to go for a little stroll perhaps in search of IKEA, God, or some cute animal to play with, anything that would be better than what was going on. Soooo I just kept walking and walking...and an hour later I find a huge Super U, a grocery store. So I decide to take a little jaunt inside (because I was still in need of hangers, a pillow, and utensils!). Fortunately, I was able to find utensils and a notebook, which will prove quite handy for classes on Wednesday. They also had one of the biggest selection of cheeses ever and if I still didn't have to go back to the bank, I would have been all over that, and it's all cheap! I finished my adventure there and started my ridiculously long walk back, but I followed a lady and her dog that was quite cute so that provided some entertainment. I finally made it back to the bank and of course, they were still closed, so I went back to the dreaded insurance/social security place and signed up there since their man was back from lunch.

I left my camera in my room sadly since I had to carry around my passport in case the bank needed it but the one other good thing about today was as a reward for signing up with the bank they gave me some gummies! Yay for Haribo being a French company!

I think I still might try and find a pillow tonight, but we shall see!

Oops..J'ai fait la grasse matinee....

Well today was supposed to be productive with an adventure to the Baptist church around the corner, but I didn't make it :(

I even got up early and made sure I had the time for the service right, but I got up too early anddddd went back to sleep only to wake up 10 minutes before the service was to start. But, that's okay because I still have several more Sundays before I leave. So instead, I spent my day lounging around and being lazy all while eating bread and cheese (sooooo goooooood!). The weather was soo nice today so I'm not quite sure why I stayed in, but I opened up my window and had a nice breeze blow in

I might go back down to the Jazz Festival but you never know! And just to show you that I am really here in France and this is not someone else typing to you, here is a picture of me from last night. The smile is a little goofy so just ignore that little detail ;)

 *Disclaimer* For those who are going to insult my not being French and wearing no logos I apologize but am severely lacking in plain t-shirts! This will improve as the weather gets colder haha.

Le festival de jazz

Unfortunately my walk did not take me to a pillow, but I did find a few schools and eventually potentially a church to go to (I know weird right? A baptist church in France?). When I returned to my apartment, I was able to talk with my host from my first night in Nantes and he invited me down to the Jazz festival that has been going on this weekend in the downtown area. The awesome thing about this city is that the Erdre River runs pretty much directly through downtown which makes it the perfect place for a festival! The city even blocked off three tram stops just for the concert!

When you run out of stage space, just use a boat!

Soooooooooo many French people!!! :)

Pretty!

There are random pieces of modern architecture here which I kind of enjoy!

Sitting on the dock of the bayyyyyyy...I'm not quite sure why I get that song stuck in my head whenever I see this picture but hey, why not!

Overall, today was a great day, the weather was fantastic (a little chilly but a nice change from the heat especially from the States!), and I was able to spend the night speaking French and walking around a French festival! Hopefully tomorrow or sometime soon I will finally be able to indulge in my first crepe or croissant!

Quoi d'autre à discuter?!?!

Registration here was well...interesting. When I first arrived in Nantes I was told to go to this one place so I did and got signed up for a few things (the oddest being housing insurance that was free, yea I still don't get that one, but I'm not complaining!). They then they told me to go to this building and find this person...that was all the information I was given. So like a good lost student I found my way up there and talked with that person, who directed me to someone else, who continued the trend two more times and eventually I was mostly registered. Then they decided I needed to go downtown to buy/sign up for something. So I did and came back and what happened next? The same thing! Anywho, after traveling up and down I finally received my student i.d. card which gave me internet so that made me happy enough for now :)

Here's a little lookskie at where I am writing this blog entry from...

Here's my desk and seeeeeeee I told you the French like paperwork!!!

My 'closet' for the next four months. Kind of IKEA-esk n'est-ce pas?

How much can you fit in four feet? Apparently a sink, a toilet, and a shower! I still have not figured out how to keep the entire floor from getting soaked....

My sink-ette as I like to call it. I'm still configuring it for the best utilization of space...

I told you, it's quite tiny. Do you believe me now? ;)

Anddd to finish up this post, this is why I love France. Some cheese and bread. Please note how ridiculously messy this is though...I was eating it a good foot away from where it is in the photo and crumbs still managed to get over there, but oh well it's delicious!