Mont Blanc

Hey all -

This isn't an official blog entry, but just a small taste of some very cool mountains we saw today, aka the Alps. We were up by Mont Blanc, the highest point in Europe, in a town called Chamonix in France, about an hour south of Geneva.

The chair lifts made us a little uneasy...

I promise to write a real blog soon! With more pictures! Love!

Kelsey

Et le vacances commence....maintenant!

Hello all.

Sorry it's been a busy two weeks, which has left me with little time to blog!

The crepe and galette blog will have to wait, but I promise it's coming!

The big highlight last week was the Jason Mraz concert here in Nantes! It was unbelievably good. I can't even express on here how good it was. I was melting all over the place. I'm basically going to marry him, so you all can expect wedding invitations soon :) The only bummer of the night was that my camera died before he even came on...wonderful battery charging planning on my part... But I managed to get some pics of the venue and the opening singer, Marit Larsen who is a singer from Oslo, Norway. Some of the other ones here, I mangaed to get from some of the friends I went with.

Last weekend the Carnaval de Nantes started and it runs through this weekend. It's a lot like a Duk Duk Daze kind of affair, except bigger. Downtown, next to the ancient cathedral, are tons of carnival rides...tilt-a-whirl, pirate ship, etc., and tons of food vendors. Except instead of cheese curds and corn dogs, they have crepes and kebabs. Everything is also extremely over priced, just like home. It's always amazing how everyone gives into the prices anyway, even though they know they're spending too much money. Oh yes, and there is also a huge parade and a kiddie parade, except with very odd floats...

Yes, there is an alien on this one...

Hmmm...a mariachi band in France!

Last Saturday I also ran a 5k for Breast cancer here in Nantes, and I lived to tell the tale! haha... I was a little worried going into it, but I managed a 30 minute finish, and considering I've been running maybe once a week, I'll take that. Below is a link to pictures from the event. There were hundreds of people. It was actually pretty cool. I got a nice pink shirt out of it! :)

http://www.odyssea.info/photos/nantes09/index.html

Sunday morning I found a really nice Protestant church downtown. It has a woman pastor and is so much more laid back than the Catholic mass I had been forcing myself to sit through... It was really similar to home actually, and I really enjoyed enjoying church again. HOWEVER, the service was an hour and half long...an hour and a half!! I mean, really? You could say the pastor got a little winded with her prayers and the sermon and singing all 5 verses of every song... I figure it's better to sit through something I can enjoy and relate to, even if it is an hour and a half, than sit through a service I really don't like and don't really understand either. But we also did something really cool with communion. The entire congregation circled up around the sanctuary so that we were all facing each other, and then the wine and bread were brought to four different sides of the circle, and were passed clockwise until everyone had received communion. It was really unifying. Also a little nervewrecking as my friend and I were one of the first ones to be given the wine and bread, and we had no idea how to go about taking communion...tear off a piece of bread and dip it in the wine? drink from the cup? tear off a piece of bread for the person you pass the loaf on to? We figured it out, but i'm pretty sure the entire church thought we were Christian imposters haha. I'm pretty sure Jesus got a kick out of it though :)

This past week has basically been a blur. I've been scrambling to get some work done before my spring break starts tomorrow! Some work has gotten done, but I'll have plenty to do when I get back...lucky me. I also got 3 midterms back this week and all went really well, so even if I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, I'm feeling good about my French schooling at the moment! We'll see if that feeling stands when I go home in May...haha.

This week we also all received an e-mail saying the University was back on. So we made ourselves go to the FAC (University). BUT when we got there, there were no profs and negative students, besides ourselves of course. The funny this was, it was April Fools day, or Poisson d'avril. Funny joke! Haha we'll see what happens after vacation...

Also, the University is completely covered with graffiti, garbage, fire pits, and odd smells... clean up after all the strikes is really going to take some time... I hadn't been down there since January, but I'm glad I never found myself in the middle of all that while the strikes were actually going on. Scary.

Tomorrow morning I'm heading to Paris to meet my dad! It'll be the start of a two week adventure, and I'm super excited about it! We'll be in Strasbourg tomorrow night, just in time for the end of the NATO conference. My host family keeps telling me I need to go meet Obama! And I keep telling them that Obama is too busy being charasmatic with the rest of the world to meet me...haha. I'll let you know if I run into him. All of Strasbourg is pretty much shut down until Sunday morning though. So it'll be interesting to see all the security measures and such around the city. From Strasbourg, we're going to rent a car and head south on Tuesday morning. We'll be in Geneva by the end of the week and soon after Lyon. Next Sunday night, the evening of Easter, we're going to the Lyon-Maroc soccer game! Both teams are in the top 10 of the league, so it should be a really good game! From Lyon we'll head west, eventually meeting up with my host family at their country home near a village called Castelmaron-sur-lot, which is about 45 minutes southeast of Bordeaux. We'll stay with them until Thursday morning, and then head back to Nantes to finish the trip. I'll have the computer with me, so I will try to plug in a few updates every now and then, and get some pictures up!

Now, I'm off to clean and pack! I wish you all a blessed Easter and a fabulous upcoming few weeks!

Kelsey :)

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 :)