Normandie

Hi all-

Well another week is starting. Two weeks from today I will be on spring break with Papa :) However, there is plenty to do until then...

On Friday I went to the Nantes history museum within the chateau in centre-ville. It's probably one of the coolest things I've seen in Nantes so far. It starts with the construction of the chateau in the middle ages and continues until the present day. Originally Nantes was the capital of Brittany, and Brittany (the region north of Nantes) was independent from France. The chateau was built to defend Nantes from the rest of France. However, eventually Anne de Bretagne (the duchess of Brittany) married Charles VIII (King of France) and Brittany, including Nantes, was combined with France in 1491.

Anne de Bretagne

Chateau

Surrounded by water, Nantes also used to be a main site for boat building, but that ceases to exist today. However, Nantes is still the second largest Atlantic port in France, just behind Bordeaux. Due to the frequent boat traffic, Nantes also played a large role in the slave trade in the 18th century. I can't say that was the most pleasant part of the museum visit, but it's good to be aware of what went on and recognize how far the world has come since then.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Nantes also had a type of tramway that went from one side of the river to the other. It was strictly for passengers, and from the looks of it, I think you had to have had a lot of courage to ride this thing.

It looks like a giant swing. The part over the water was connected to the tower with cable wires.

Nantes also has its own line of biscuits, which is something between a thin cookie and a ritz cracker. Nevertheless, delicious. The most famous biscuit is le Petit beurre. They even sell these in the states, but I didn't know that until I was already here.

Saturday morning I headed to Normandy with IES. The weekend was filled with lots of deja vue, as this was my second time visiting the landing beaches, American cemetary and the Peace Memorial in Caen. But no worries, I'm not complaining, it's awesome to be able to see these things more than once and to actually absorb the information and the events that took place here.

It's about a 4 hour drive from Nantes to Caen. We had lunch in Caen, and spent about an hour exploring downtown, the chateau and the cathedral. Caen was severely affected by WWII, so most of what you see today has been rebuilt.

Cathedral

Caen Chateau

Part of the IES crew picnicking on the chateau lawn


Imitating a statue at the chateau. Pretty good, eh?

We spent the afternoon at the Peace Memorial. The memorial covers the time leading up to World War II and finishes with the Cold War. It's a really well-done museum and I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in Normandy. There are lots of anecdotes and artifacts from soldiers that make the war seem very personal and real, not just an event out of a history book, which is something I really appreciate when trying to grasp such a large event in our world's history. I managed to find this dress again, which I remembered was one of my favorite things from my previous visit. It's a wedding dress made out of a parachute during the war. It's nice knowing that happiness could be found in the midst of so much ugliness and fear.

The museum also has a Nobel Peace Prize exhibit hall, where I found the following quote...

Peace isn't a gift that God gives to man, but a gift that men give to themselves.

Something to think about I guess...

There was also a photography exhibit called "Entre guerres et paix" (Between war and peace) by a world renowned photographer named Reza. I really enjoyed this. It was heart-wrenching, but also ironically heart-lifting at the same time. The photos were of people from all over the world, most of whom are in pretty difficult circumstances, be that war, poverty, sickness, etc. However, within some of the pictures, there were children, smiling and laughing, seeming so ignorant of whatever was going on around them. You can't help but smile at this. Kids are so great.

Outside of the memorial are a collection of gardens with a huge park. The American garden had a wall with a plaque from each state. I managed to find Minnesota :)

Sunday we visited the landing beaches and the American cemetary. Unfortunately, the weather decided to be overcast and a little chilly, but it was almost fitting considering what we were seeing. The French actually gave the American cemetary to the United States, so I was on Amercain soil for about 2 hours yesterday! Throughout the time we were there, a chime arrangement of America the Beautiful was continually playing. It was very patriotic.

Something that bothered me throughout the visit was how everything referred to how all of these men died for freedom, and not just for the liberation of France, but for the freedom of the entire world. It's so ironic. It just doesn't seem right to us the word 'dying' and 'freedom' in the same sentence. Should freedom really require so much sacrifice?

Omaha beach is right below the cemetary. It's very beautiful and serene, and therefore hard to imagine the chaos that went on during June 6, 1944. I managed to get my shoes off and walk barefoot along the beach for awhile. It was probably a little too cold for barefeet, but I couldn't resist. The ice cold water was refreshing!

We also visited the Pointe de Hoc, which was originally a German fort, built to resist the allies. Today, the site is filled with the ruins of bunkers and craters which were caused by the allied bombings. It's basically a big playground. I managed to crawl into a few things...

There are also some awesome views from this site, which is situated between the Omaha and Utah beaches.

We had lunch in a small town called Bayeux. It's famous for its tapestries, but we didn't have time to see them... I tried my first French Kebab here though! I'm pretty sure Nantes is home to some serious delicious kebabs though, so I'm not sure my first go at a Kebab was really a true taste of what it could be. It's kind of like a gyro with lettuce and tomato and then french fries. But it's the popular fast food of choice here. For dessert we found some ice cream, unfortunately it was Ben and Jerry's... haha I'm such an American.

Cathedral at Bayeux


Madame de Pous - Prof de Grammaire, chaperone for the weekend
Baguette anyone??

We spent the afternoon at a place called Haras du Pin. Most people refer to it as the Versailles of Horses. And that's basically what it is, a chateau for horses. It's primary purpose is to breed horses. All of the big shot horses come from here - military, racing, etc. They only house the male horses here though. I found out that the record for the most money paid for a pure bred horse from here, was over 4 million euro. Whoa. I can't even imagine that. I also saw my first horse grave here. It was for a horse named Furioso, who died in 1967, but was apparently an epic horse. He could run over 35 mph and was a champ. So they gave him a grave. There was also another horse, named Workaholic, who got his own retirement stall. This place is high class, let me tell you.

Furioso's grave

Well there's a novel of my weekend. Sorry it's so long! I know all of you have tons of free time to read about my life... :) Jason Mraz concert on Wednesday! Woo! Also, coming soon - a thorough explanation of crepes and galettes. So check in again soon! I'll leave you with a quote...

"Travelling offers you a hundred roads to adventure and gives your heart wings"

Love you all!

Kelsey

oh cat...

Salut tout le monde!

Well over the weekend I managed to get in a couple of adventures...

On Friday night I found Nantes suburbia. The host mom of one of my friends here had an art expo out there, so we ventured the tram and buses to go see it. Her art consists of lots of mosaics. Lots of big dishes, mirrors, flower plots...it was all pretty cool. I didn't buy anything though...i'm not sure how well that would have worked trying to go home in May. The night finished off at a creperie in the Bouffey district of Nantes, the oldest part of the city. And like always, the crepes were fabulous.

Saturday afternoon, my family brought me up to Brittany to the city of Vannes. It's about an hour north of Nantes, right along the coast. However, Vannes sits in the heart of a big bay, and within that bay is over 50 little islands. There are tons of hiking and bike trails, and you can take a ferry out to the islands to explore and what not. There are a lot of vacation homes on these islands, the equivalent of a cabin up in Northern Minnesota I would say. We spent the first part of the afternoon walking through Vannes, seeing the Cathedral, gardens, and old architecture. We then proceeded to have lunch at a creperie, where I can't say the crepes were incredibly delicious... I guess I found an exception to the 'crepes are always delicious' rule...

Nantes is just south of here, if you follow that red line jetting off the map to the right

Christophe (Host dad) and Guillaume (brother)

It looks a little slanted to me...


oh cat.

Inside the Vannes Cathedral

The rest of the afternoon we did some hikes around the water. We took a boat out to one of the islands where we met a friend of Christophe's. He's an architect/painter and actually lives on the island year round to paint. He served us the most amazing cup of tea I have had in my entire life and some gateau de bretonne (specialty cake from Brittany), which is basically butter, but was superb with the tea. I'm working on figuring out what kind of tea it was... We then proceeded to do a huge walking tour around the island, which was just so quaint and welcoming. Unfortunately the sun wasn't shining so I didn't get the full effect of the island.

Classic Brittany house with the blue shutters, door...


Oysters! There are lots of oyster farms around the islands that are brought to local markets in the region. I haven't tried them yet...

For the next two hours, we found some more friends of the family, who offered us drinks and some good conversation for a little while. We drank a pico-biere, another Brittany specialty. I'm pretty sure the pico was a flavored syrup? I'm not sure if that was actually a type of alcohol or not, but it was then mixed with beer. It was quite good!

Well this week, my project is researching and writing papers.... hopefully it'll go as planned :) The beautiful weather might get in the way...

Love and miss you all!

Kelsey :)

Flowers...

I thought you all would enjoy these!! I LOVE FLOWERS :)

Kesley??

So I'm eating lunch today...rice, carrot salad, hamburger/steak thing...and Guillaume comes in and says, "Do you put ice cubes in your coffee?" And I tell him I usually don't drink coffee enough to know if I would do that or not, but it seems reasonable if the coffee is too hot. And he looks at me like I'm crazy and says that his host dad from Washington used to put 3 ice cubes in his coffee mug every morning because the coffee was always too hot. I then went on to explain how sometimes when I eat oatmeal and it's too hot, I put an ice cube in it...it got a little too complicated for him to comprehend, but by the end he basically just told me how weird that was. I responded with...well I'm sitting here eating a salad, made up of only carrots....this isn't exactly American cuisine... It's funny to think of how what I see as bizarre here, my family sees as the norm, and vice versa. So many things are the same, such as the conversations about school, work, family, and the routine of breakfast, lunch and dinner, even if they come at odd times (well odd for me...not for them!). But here are the things I find genuinely different...

-everyone has a manual car...if my life depended on it, I would never be able to drive here thanks to my automatic upbringing
-laundry: the washer is tiny and there isn't a dryer so it takes 2 days for the clothes to dry...
-everyone comes home for a nice long lunch everyday
-Fresh bread all the time! I don't mind this one so much :)
-studying habits - the French kind of think you're crazy if you study 2 days in a row... -strikes pretty much happen everyday. I haven't had my University class for almost 2 months now... and there's another national strike scheduled to take place the 19th... -everything is closed on Sunday
-the popularity of classical music
-the interest in current events, and thus the lack of interest in the entertainment industry
-peanut butter just doesn't make the cut here, and my family thinks I'm completely crazy to love it, especially with jelly...
-the lack of t-shirts and sweatshirts - America is the King of these
-the dependence on public transportation or your own pair of legs to get from place to place
-5 television channels...c'est tout.
-outlets
-most grocery stores don't offer bags for groceries - people bring their own!
-you have to go to the pharmacy for cold medicine, aka the French equivalent of Dayquil, Sudafed, you name it
-there are no sports teams at the University or the local schools...do intramurals really count?
-drinking age = 18ish
-the French are infamous for smoking, and alas! tis true. Especially among young people, like teenagers. It's absolutely crazy. And unfortunate. But they do look chic...

-milk is packaged in cardboard containers and bought in mass. It is kept in the cupboard until used, and only at that point is it refrigerated... it's also very thick, definitely past 2%
-orange juice is more of a dessert drink than the beverage of choice at breakfast
-fruit is also a dessert and usually doesn't go along with a meal or eaten as an afternoon snack
-France definitely overdoses when it comes to PDA...
-dog poop...sorry it had to be brought up again! It's everywhere. We need to get France on the pooper scooper plan
-the popularity of peacoats for 2 year olds, i mean they'll grow out of it in like a month...seriously
-crutches do not come up under the armpits, but instead come up to the hips, with braces up the forearm
-the French are on time, and it's not only annoying if you're late, but if you're too early -traffic rules? well I'm not sure they exist
-the formality of 'vous' when speaking with strangers, professors, or someone older than you
-the lack of daylight savings time, at least at this point - it might happen at the end of the month, or April?
-no ice cubes, except in the occasional alcoholic beverage or during the summer time

Alright, well I think this is a pretty good list. I'll have to ask Guillaume later what other things he finds completely bizarre in the United States. Then we'll compare and contrast!

This week has been pretty busy with studying, midterms, and papers. But the worst of the week is now over, and tomorrow I'll be ready to dig into my big papers due at the end of April. Woo. This coming Saturday night I'll be going to my first soccer game in Nantes! FC (Football club) Nantes. I'm not sure who they're playing or if they are any good, but the stadium looks pretty sweet, so it should be fun! I'll be sure to update you on the results.

Also, just as a random ending note, my religion professor thinks my name is Kesley. He takes a roll call every class and it just always comes out the same way. I tried to correct him at first, but eventually just gave up...haha. It comes out Kes-leh. Oh well. Kelsey is kind of a hard name for the French to pronounce.

And here's a taste of the spring flowers we're getting here. I haven't had a chance to get to the big gardens and take pictures, but I'm going to try to do that tomorrow!

Alright, well I hope this week has gone well for you all! It's almost the weekend! Woo hoo! Marie comes back Sunday and Christophe is in Paris until Saturday, so it will be relatively quiet around here tonight and tomorrow. Unless the singing starts of course...

Love and miss you all!

Kelsey :)

Les CHANGEments

I'm not sure what sparked the following thought process, but I've recently been thinking about how I will be different upon returning to the United States.

There are the obvious, exterior changes: longer hair, a larger stomach (thanks to the delicious French cuisine), and the blisters always present on my heels from the constant walking...

Then there are the interior changes, those that will help me to figure out the kind of person I am and the kind of person I want to be. A sense of independence is one change that I am frequently reminded of. I felt I was a pretty independent person before coming here, but until I was emmersed in a foreign language and forced to make a life in a completely unfamiliar place, I really didn't understand the meaning of the word. Traveling both to and from Malta, and also within Malta itself was a great test of this independence. Being able to get myself from one place to another (by means of trains, buses, airplanes and the occasional taxi) and learning to truly depend on myself to do what I needed to do was quite the experience. In Nantes, school is also a more nagging source of independence, especially at the University, where the strike continues and we are expected to keep working outside of class... even at IES I get the feeling that we are supposed to be studying every night even if we don't have official homework, an idea that is completely unfamiliar to me :) I'm pretty sure by now that the motto for the French education system is that you only get out of it what you put into it, which holds true everywhere, but in France, I feel as if more is expected of you outside of class than in the United States where both sides pan out fairly evenly. Thus, my study habits have been put to the test these last couple of months. Being in France is a constant reminder of the fact that there is life after college, a life where I will have to buy groceries and pay rent and be a grown up. Oh man, I can already feel the stress.

Other changes - the desire to discover new places, everywhere. Not only here in Europe. I'm talking, United States, South America, India, you name it. I am loving the adventuring here and trying new things. C'est geniale (awesome). Along with being adventurous I would say that I'm also discovering my love of spontaneity, at least when it comes to traveling. Thus, the two together are making for an excellent time abroad.

As it comes closer to going home, I will come back to this whole idea of change and how this place has impacted my life.

Some big news - Dad's coming to visit! Woo! We'll do a little exploring in France over my break in April for 2 weeks. I'm excited!!

Also, spring is here. It's not quite the 70 degrees it was a week ago, but the weather is nice, and the flowers are starting to bloom - everywhere. They are so pretty, I can't wait for April when everything will be in full swing! I'm excited to see all the trees get their leaves back. They have some really weird, ugly looking trees here, so I'm hoping they looking better with leaves...haha. Do you see what I mean about unappealing?

Ok i'm off to make banana bread...the bananas are almost too brown...ah! I hope you all have good weeks!

Kelsey