Quelques photos

Computer Lab at IES.
Park across the street from IES. Tres jolie :)
The building where IES is. IES takes up the top two floors of the building, which are meant to be apartments - and super nice ones at that.
Library at the IES Center
Dining Room at my house.
Living Room
Room next to my bedroom. Desk, wardrobe, skylight.
My bed! The bathroom is through a door to the right, and the other room is where the picture was taken from.

Ok, well this is just a glimpse into the places i've been hanging out in the last couple of weeks. It's been rainy here, so i haven't had a really good chance to get around Nantes and take some pictures of the city, but hopefully i'll be able to do that soon! Happy Wednesday!

Excitement!

I'm going to Malta!!! Wooo!! We found flights and trains and it's all going to work out! I'll leave from Nantes February 13th, spend the night in Paris, and then fly to Malta early the next morning. I'll come back to Paris the 21st, and then to Nantes the 22nd. Let me know if you want a postcard!

I also bought a ticket to see a Jason Mraz concert here in Nantes in March! I'm super psyched for that! He's not quite John Mayer, but he'll do :)

I'm in the second week in classes now. I've had to make some changes to my schedule, but i think it's almost figured out. I'll know everything for sure by Friday. Oh and Thursday there's going to be a nation-wide strike (not that this is a shock... France has strikes like everyday). I'm not quite sure what this one is about, but i do know that transportation is going to be shut down and IES isn't. Yay for walking to school.... it should only take an hour...

Happy Tuesday!

Howdy Gang.

Lots of happenings and thoughts over the last few days, so i will try to fill you in on what's been going on. First, I never actually made it to frisbee last week. It turns out the gym that it was supposed to be in, was out in the middle of Nantes no-where-ville, and it took over an hour to get there. Once we were out there, we couldn't actually find the gym, thus being forced back onto the bus, which was on it's last run and couldn't take us back to where we originally got on... so we had to take a mystery tram all over Nantes, back to downtown, to catch another tram to get back home. It turns out only the Wednesday practices are far away, and the Thursday night one is within walking distance from my house.... i won't be going to Wednesday practice ever again. The end.

The 21st birthday went well. Nothing very exciting really. I had my first class at the University on Thursday, and it was scary. I couldn't find where i was supposed to go, and then once i did find it, i was about an hour late, and then the prof spoke so quickly i thought i was going to pass out from concentrating so hard. I don't think i'm going to keep this class....

During the afternoon i went and saw a movie with another girl from the program. We saw Revolutionary Road (Les Noces Rebelles) in English, but with French subtitles. I'm not quite sure what i thought about it, but it was very well done. It was one of those movies that just makes you think and evaluate life. The big question throughout the entire movie was 'What happens if life doesn't turn out the way you imagined it?' And according to Kate Winslet's character, all hell breaks loose and then you just give up because apparently we have some right to hold ourselves above the rest of society and not try to make the best of the situation we are in... I disagree. Life will have disappoints and often go in the opposite direction we want it to, but that's what life is made of. Both good things and bad things, and you can't appreciate the good until you've experienced some of the bad. France is offering some trying and frustrating times for my life, but deep down i know that it's all making me a stronger, more cultured, more confident person. I wish i could just skip ahead 5 months to see how great this experience will be end up being for me...

I went to a party at the University Thursday night with some friends from IES and also some new French friends. There was live music and drinks and LOTS of people. The music was pretty interesting. The first band was made up of 5 middle aged men, all dressed like they came out of 'Saturday Night Fever,' singing American oldies in French. My favorite was when they covered the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann.... except it came out babannnnnn. Haha. The second band was from England, but you wouldn't have known they were singing English. They were sporting a very funk-techno-regae-metal sound (if you can imagine that) and after the first song, we decided we couldn't take anymore of it... My first purchased, alcoholic beverage was a Monaco (beer with Grenadine?). Basically chick beer, but I enjoyed it :) I tried to keep up the turning 21 excitement, but it was hard considering you can drink when you're 18 here...

On Friday I went to Guillome's (host brother) voice recital. He basically rocks. He has a fantastic tenor voice and it was really fun to watch him perform. He's convinced we're going to sing a duet, and i keep telling him no. The recital was basically equivalent to my many piano recitals, with performers of all ages and levels, and I even recognized two of the songs as ones i had performed myself! However, i'm not sure if the solo in 5th grade All-district Choir can measure up to the performance the girl who sang it here gave. I was excited though! Friday night, my host family realized that they forgot my birthday, and basically spent the entire evening apologizing. My host mom improvised though. Before dinner, she turned off all the lights and brought out a 'cake' and everyone sang to me...joyeuse anniversaire, joyeuse anniversaire... The cake was a plate full of clementines and each clementine had a candle stuck in it. It was really funny. I've never had a clementine cake before!

Oh and get this. Nicolas, the fiance of Segolene (one of the daughters of the family), said on Friday that he's seen Fargo and really likes it. As in the movie. He then asked me if Fargo is close to Minneapolis and if all Minnesotans talk with such a strong accent...haha.

Saturday I visited Le Mont-Saint Michel and St. Malo. Below is a picture of Mont Saint Michel. It is a monestery, built on an island so to speak, on the coast of Normandy. When the tide comes in, the monestery is surrounded by water, as you can see, but when the tide is out it is surrounded by sand, much of which is quick sand. It's beeeauuuutiful. It's also quite a hike to the top, but the view is unbelievable.


St. Malo is a small city, also on the coast of Normandy. The center of the town is surrounded by walls, and the beach and ocean are just outside the walls. It's extremely touristy, but also very quaint and welcoming. My favorite part was the ocean of course. I collected some shells from the beach and enjoyed walking around in the sunshine a bit.

As you can probably tell I didn't take these pictures, but my camera arrived on Friday! So i will work to get some pictures up from Nantes and my house and everything soon!





Well that's all for now. I miss you all! It's hard being here, experiencing things without you. I saw a WWII monument yesterday, and at the tope it said "Those we love and those we have lost are always where we are." I like that. I like to think that you guys are here seeing these things with me (even though you physically aren't here). At least i can share with you through this! I'll try not to see too many cool things without you. Right now i'm working on figuring out a trip to Malta! I'll let you know how that turns out!

Talk to you soon!

K :)

Oui! Nous pouvons!! :)

So class has started...

So far this week I have had 4 different classes all at the IES center. Today i was supposed to have another one at the University, but it doesn't start until next week. I also have one at the University tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully i won't get lost, the room numbers/letters are kind of confusing to follow...

Something i've noticed in my classes thus far is that the professors ask a lot of rhetorical questions. It's kind of funny when half of us are ready to answer the question and then you realize afterwards that it wasn't meant to be answered. But then there are also times where the professors will ask a question and then expect you to answer it, so it's been a little difficult trying to read what they actually want us to do. All the professors also gave us a syllabus for each class, along with a list of 'required' readings. I put required in quotations because by required they mean you can read one book from the list of 10, if you get around to it. We're all quite bewildered by this and don't quite understand why they used the word required, because to us that means we all have to go buy those particular books and then read them. Likewise, the professors have been in awe of us for being so on top of things. Apparently French students are quite the opposite, so the professors aren't used to having to often explain details like that. Overall, it's been a week trying to get used to this new system. I'm a little frustrated with how some things are run, but it's not because anything is being done wrong, it's just different, and i suppose that's one reason i'm here-to experience the differences and not the similarities with home.

I would also like to make a small commentary on the shower. Like many of you know, the showers here are quite different. First, the shower head is not attached to the wall, so it is loose, slightly resembling a snake like animal. Second, because of this, showers are much more exhausting then they should be, at least in my opinion. The routine goes 1) get wet and turn off water 2) wash hair 3) turn water back on and rinse, turning water off when finished 4) soap up and condition hair 5) final rinse. Ugh. And the bathroom is always freezing, despite the hot water, so i'm always torn to get in the shower in the first place and then get out of the shower once i'm actually done. France could take some advice from us Americans on its heating system, or lack there of.

Last night all of the American students watched Obama's inauguration together. We were proud to be Americans :) But most everything, except for when Obama was actually being sworn in, was dubbed over in French, so that was frustrating. We tried to just listen to Obama's speech, but because the French voice was so much louder, it became really difficult to listen. But oh well. All of France was talking about Obama yesterday though (not that they don't talk about him every other day...) and every French channel covered the event. Afterwards we all went out to eat at a creperie, which of course was delicious. J'aime beaucoup les crepes! I didn't get back home until about 11:30, so it was a pretty long day for me. Today i'm dragging just a bit...

Tonight is my first frisbee practice/game. I'm not quite sure how it's going to work, but there are 2 other girls who are going to come with me. I'm also pretty much positive that we're going to be the only girls there though. The whole 'girls aren't very interested in sports here thing' is probably going to kick into play. But i won't be discouraged! :)

This weekend we're doing a day trip up to Mont-Saint Michel and St. Malo! Wooo! I'm very excited to see these places again. The first time i saw them was in high school, summer of 2005. Should be fun! But also cold....yikes. Ok more later!

Kelsey

P.S. TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY. JUST FYI :)

Orientation and Paris!

Hello all!

My blogging has been slacking this past week, so i will try to catch you up with what has been going on around here.

Last week was all dedicated to orientation. We went through rules and maps and bus passes and every possible ligistic necessary to live here until may. We also took a tour of the University of Nantes to get our bearings and ate at the cafeteria there to get a taste of University food. It wasn't too bad. It was a full hot meal, complete with bread and cheese and dessert, of course. It's very cheap to eat there though, about 2 Euro, so i will probably be back there at some point. The week was also full of grammar review classes, up to 4 hours a day. That got to be very tiring and boring... but i guess it was good for me. I haven't been able to look back and appreciate it quite yet though. The week was also dedicated to finding our way around Nantes. I succesfully located the Monoprix (the French equivalent of Target), the post office and all my necessary bus stops. During the month of January there are also major sales all over France, most things being 50 to 70 percent off. Thus, i have done a little bit of shopping as well :)

This past weekend I went to Paris with my host family for the engagement lunch/ceremony/party of their daughter, Ségolène. Her fiancé's name is Nicolas and they actually live here in Nantes as well. The lunch was held at the Military School in Paris, right in front of the Eiffel Tower. The dad of my host mom was in the military, and apparently a big shot, so he has access to some pretty great venues. Everyone kept telling me how lucky i was to be able to see the inside of the building we were in. The ceilings were decked zith chandeliers and there were fresh flowers everywhere. There was also a lot of very shiny silverware next to our plates, and i had a little bit of trouble understanding which fork was for which course. The military school was built by Louis the 14th in the 17th century, so everything about the building is very intricate and gorgeous. The family of my host family was enormous, with there being almost 50 people there, and i had a lot of trouble keeping names straight. They also had a little trouble with me, in that after they learned i was Americain and got past the normal 'is this your first time in France?' and 'how long are you here for?' they didn't quite know what to do with me. They also kept forgetting that I understand French, so they kept trying to speak English to me, which proved to be a very difficult task... Afterwards we walked around the Eiffel Tower, and even though it was my third time seeing it, I continue to be impressed by its presence. It really is an awesome sight. Very French, very cool. I'm glad they decided to keep it after the World Fair in 1889. Originally they were just going to tear it down afterwards, but the French people weren't happy with that and fought to save it :) Can you imagine France without the Eiffel Tower?

There was a ceremony at a church in Montparnesse in Paris for their engagement. It was basically so that Ségolène and Nicolas could get a blessing from the priest for their marriage which will take place in August. It was short, maybe only 20 minutes, but it was very cool to witness. Apparently not very many people do this anymore, as it is very traditional, so once again I had the chance to do something very unique in Paris.

Guillome and I spent the night with another daughter of my family, Emmeline, who lives in Paris. It was cool to see the apartment, though i could have done without the smoking inside the house with no open windows... Sunday morning, well afternoon by the time we got up, we had lunch at a café and then walked around the Opera and the rue Royal where you can find some of the most expensive stores and restaurants in all of Paris. I saw the equivalent of our White House, where Président Sarkozy lives, and all the government buildings and embassies that surround it. We also saw the Champs-Elysées, la Place Concorde, le Louvre, and the lovely Seine River.

It was a quick, but eventful weekend. I have to say I almost thought it would be my last weekend after witnessing the ridiculous Parisien driving habits. I almost died multiple times, both in a car and as a pedestrien.... no lie. But here I am, still living. Wooo! I will fill you in on classes and other fun things later! Salut!

Kelsey

One week down.

Nous sommes restés à Tours pour quatre jours. Nous avons vu quelques châteaux de la Loire: Loches, Chenonceau, Blois et Chambord. Chambord est vraiment magnifique. C’est le plus grand château en France, derrière le château de Versailles, bien sûr. Aussi, c’était intéressant d’apprendre que Chambord, construit par François 1, n’est pas un château pratique, donc ce n’était pas très confortable pour les personnes de rester là. Il faisait froid, en particulier pendant l’hiver! C’est à la cause d’escaliers au centre du château que les chambres n’ont pas le chauffage très bien. Cependant, les escaliers doubles sont fantastiques, comme le DNA. Ils ne se rencontrent jamais!

Nous restions dans le même hôtel que je suis restée pendant mon séjour là avec mon lycée dans l’été de 2005. J’étais dans le même étage aussi, mais pas la même chambre. C’était chouette ! Alors, il y a 53 personnes dans le programme d’IES, mais seulement 8 garçons. Tout le monde est très gentil, mais il y a déjà les groupes différents entre les étudiants. Il y aura très intéressant de voir comment le semestre sera.

Well I have almost survived my first week en France! My host family is so gracious and wonderful! They have been more than accommodating so far, giving me my own room and bathroom! I basically have the upstairs of the house. I also have a very large desk and a big armoire and closet for my stuff. It’s great! I should have brought more stuff! Everyone is amazed that I only brought one suitcase... including myself.

This past week we started ‘orientation’ for the program, but it was really a small vacation with a lack of actual orientationing… We drove to the city of Tours, a city almost 3 hours east of Nantes. One thing was clear right away; there was snow on the ground and it was at least 20 degrees colder. Not so fun. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been in Minnesota, with my winter coat, boots and adequate socks. However, seeing that I did not have these things, I was threatened with frost bite often…

Tours is right in the middle of the Loire Valley, which is loaded with châteaux, or castles. Thus, we completed a significant amount of castle sight-seeing during the 4 days we were there. We saw 4 châteaux in particular. The first was in a small town called Loches. It was built in the Middle Ages, thus the style of the castle was very simple with some large rooms, some small rooms…. Haha. But it was also ridiculously cold and by the end I had trouble concentrating on what our tour guide was saying because I couldn’t feel my toes…. We also visited Chenonceau, a château which is more recent and also more celebrated in France. There are two defining features of this château, the first being that part of the castle extends over the Cher river, and the second being the enormous grounds, full of beautiful gardens, or at least so they told us (everything was a little brown when we saw it). The funny thing about this château is that it was built by Henri II, who then decided to give it to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. However, after Henri was killed in 1559, his wife, Catherine de Médicis, ordered Diane to move out and give her Chenonceau…. Which, hey, good for her. The whole mistress/wife situation with most of the châteaux is a little sketchy to me and hard to keep up with, but it seems that back in the day everyone was pretty open about the whole situation. Besides having to acknowledge the fact that her husband had a mistress, Catherine also had to put up with the fact that Diane had a garden at Chenonceau that was at least 5 times larger than hers… Bummer man.

The château at Blois is probably the most bizarre castle I have seen thus far. Its final structure reflects 4 distinct centuries of architecture. The first part was built in the middle ages (13th century) and is only reflected by one very large room at one corner of the castle. The next part was built in the 15th century and reflects the gothic architecture of France at the time. The outside walls are covered in brick and creepy looking gargoyles… The next part was built in the 16th century during the Renaissance. There is a staircase in the middle of this part that spirals up towards the top of the château. The last part was built in the 17th century and looks exactly like it was taken off of Versailles in Paris. However, it was actually completed before Versailles, but both were done by the same architect. So, each of these individual structures were just kind of stuck together, making a large square with a courtyard in the middle of it all. Weird, but cool at the same time I suppose. It’s also in the middle of the city of Blois, so in some ways it just kind of blends in with the city, which is also pretty neat. The last château was Chambord, the second largest castle in France, next to Versailles. It truly is a breathtaking sight. Absolutely fabulous. It was built by François 1, who basically just had it built to show how great he was, and how much money he had, etc. He hired Leonardo da Vinci to design the château, so the castle is filled with great, Italian Renaissance goodness. The best part of this castle though is the double staircase in the center of it. It’s designed like a double-helix or DNA, and thus there are two separate staircases which spiral upwards, that never meet. It’s sweet. However, the intent of the staircase again goes back to the Mistress/Wife thing, in that neither would ever meet if they each took a different staircase…

Another interesting part of the adventure in Tours, was the food. We ate quite well over our 4 days, always having an appetizer, main dish and dessert for both lunch and dinner. Talk about a lot of food. Thank goodness the portions here are smaller than at home. However, the whole group was always given the same thing, and we never knew what we were eating, with the exception of a few obvious green salads. So one night we found out we were eating eel…. After I bit into a bone, or spine, I don’t really know, I was done with that. Man I was grossed out. We asked the waiter what it was and he said the word for eel in French, but didn’t recognize it, so then he said, a snake in the water… yeah we understood then. Ew. Not for me! We’ve also had duck and elk, neither of which I’ve had before, but I suppose were ok. It didn’t help that we ate the elk on a wildlife preserve and the duck right after feeding some at one of the castles earlier in the day though…. We’ve also had an abundance of fish and other seafood wonders… I’ve managed some of the fish, but I couldn’t get past the scallops and mussels. Maybe it’s just the way they’re being presented? I’ll work on being more open minded about what I’m eating. However, tonight at my host family we had quiche and I was absolutely thrilled. They eat ‘normal’ food!

This week starts actual orientation in Nantes. Woo hoo! Tomorrow morning I’ll get a bus pass and head to IES for a day full of information. Oh yeah, and starting tomorrow there is a strict French only policy. Il n’y a pas d’anglais en France! Excellent…

Je suis arrivée!

Je suis arrivée en France! Tout le monde est très gentil et j'aime l'école! C'est dans le centre de la ville. Maintenant, j'attends pour ma famille française!

Ok i arrived safely in France. It was a really long day and i've definitely been up for 24 hours now...super. I will be more optomistic and energetic once i eat and sleep! Tomorrow we're going to tour the chateaus in the area! Wooo! More later, when i'm awake.

:)