Wow, these blog titles are getting more and more creative ever time.
My family arrived in Frankfurt on Saturday morning, with the plan to rent a car and drive to Nantes. Of course, they had a bit of trouble since they hadn't slept in 48 hours, not to mention the jet-lag. So they made it as far as Reims, famous for the cathedral where every french King as crowned-King since the first French King, Clovis in 496A.D. Calling me on saturday afternoon to let me know they had arrived, I informed them that they simply couldnt leave the city without visiting the historic site. So they visited that Sunday morning, and arrived in Nantes Sunday evening.
Now, about everyone at IES was leaving friday afternoon for winter break. I beleive that most countries in Europe had at least some IES student in them, so I can't wait to talk to everyone and get advice for my 2 week break in April! However, meanwhile, I realized that I was going to be sitting at my house all weekend waiting for my parents, which as I found out last time that I tried to have a relaxing-do-nothing weekend, can become quite lonely. So I found a friend who wasn't leaving until Saturday morning and we went to see the movie P.S. I Love You in french. The story is basically about a young married couple who are completely in love, and when the husband dies, he sends letters to his wife for a year, helping her to rediscover life and move on. Wow. I have not cried that much in a looong time. Not in A Walk to Remember, not in The Notebook. It was entirely in French so I understood about 90% of it, and although it didnt get great reviews in the states, perhaps watching it in a foreign language made it even better because you had to fill in the parts you didn't understand with your imagination. I finally just stopped wiping away the tears because I figured there would just be more 5 minutes later. So that pretty much sums up my friday night..
Saturday and Sunday, I worked on homework that I knew wouldn't be touched during the week with my fam. I have midterms this next week, so I really have quite a bit of work to do! Sunday night, my family arrived and I made them potage (french pureed vegatable soup) and my version of Croque Monsieurs (hot ham and cheese sandwiches) and I enjoyed introducing them to my home here in France. They also came bearing gifts like Popcorn (which I missed sooo much), girlscout cookies (mmmhh), and the Office Season 3 (eeehhh...so exciting!!!!) from my boyfriend :) I think they made me realize just how much I don't know about France, since every time we went anywhere I was given hundreds of questions that I had no idea how to answer. What is that? Why do the French do that? How much does it cost to do__? Do they just do this at so and so a time or all the time? Now, occasionally I could answer with a nice satisfactory explination or just make something up :) But it was an interesting to hear their view on french customs/way of life.
Monday and Tuesday were basically spent touring Nantes. On monday, we started with the Castle, climbing the ramparts and trying to answer all those Why? What? Where? questions about the way of life of 14th century Dukes. Next we moved on to the huge St. Peter and St. Paul cathedral, walked down some cute french streets, had a street lunch of paninis, quiche, and baguette sandwiches. For the afternoon, I showed them the huge Theatre Graslin, right next to IES where I go to school, and the Fountain of Place Royal. It was kind of strange giving a tour of my every day life, for the simple reason that it is so every-day to me now. I realized how often forget that I am walking next to 14th century cathedrals and buildings built hundreds of years ago. Following French time, we had a nice pasta dinner around 8pm and I taught my family how the French eat in courses instead of simply setting everything on the table. Also, how the French put their bread on the table, not on the plate...something that my parents had a very hard time adjusting to. Tuesday, it rained. Kind of a bummer. But we made the best of it, shopping most of the morning, taking a tram ride to the Fac de Sciences where I take my Microbiology class, and then finally going to see the Machine de l'Ile, a giant mechanical elephant built for tourism that walks down the street, and gives rides to 45 people an hour. The engineers have started to do something every year like this. Last year, it was a giant, who would walk down the streets, sleeping on cars, etc. So that was fun, and I think that Dave, my little brother, really enjoyed that after being dragged about listening to boring history lessons for two days.
Wednesday, my parents decided that we needed to take a train ride somewhere, so since I had not yet been to the sea, we took an hour trip to La Baule, the largest beach in Europe, just west of Nantes. Little did we know that the weather was going to be the worst of the week. Although they enjoyed seeing what trains are really like, at La Baule, it rained all day, which was amplified by the freezing cold wind off the sea. So after about 5 minutes on the soaking wet beach, we retreated into a seaside restaurant to eat Galettes, the Brittany (the region that Nantes was in, before they redrew the borders) specialty. It is basically a crepe with meat, cheese, and vegatables inside, however, its a bit more cruchy. However, they were delicious and one of those dishes that you just cant miss if you go to Brittany.
Next, after spending an hour and a half walking up and down the main streets trying to jump inside any store that was open (Stores often close from 12-2pm for lunch....crazy French), we decided to give up and go see a movie. So, as nothing was in English we decided on a film that they had already seen in the states: "Le Dragon des Mers" or "The Waterhorse." Two funny antedotes. Dave loves french bread. Seriously, everytime we saw a Boulangerie(bakery) he wanted to go inside and buy a baguette. So right before the movie, he says to my dad " If you let me get a baguette, I won't eat popcorn!" So 20 minutes later, Dave and my mom returned right before the start of the movie with a 3 foot long baguette. I think the French people around us were extremly confused. Film and baguette are two things that the French don't even do! But Dave finished this huge baguette in the first 30 minutes of the movie and loved every bite of it :) Secondly, since it was in French my parents and Dave had to go off of what they remembered of the movie to understand it. And even though my mom didnt understand a word, she stilled bawled at the end during the "free willy moment", as I call it, when the lockness monster escapes toward the sea. (oh..oops, movie spoiler)
Thursday, we left Nantes for Rennes, where Marion, the french student that we have hosted for 3 weeks the past 3 summers, lives. On the way, we stopped at Chateaubriand and explored castle ruins. My mom insisted that we have true Chateaubriand(meat and veggies) in Chateaubriand so we ate a 4 course lunch at a local restaurant before continuing to Rennes. We toured the old city, with its pretty wooden midevil houses and I did my best to show them everything that Marion's mother had shown my some weeks before. Then, at 6pm, we arrived at Marions house where her family cooked us this 8 course meal which lasted for 3 hours and allowed us to stay at their home overnight. It was very enjoyable and I was very impressed at how well her parents could speak english. However, I still played the role of translator a bit and experienced again how tiring it is to try to think in both languages at once.
Friday we got up bright and early and headed for Paris. Since this was kind of a spur of the moment trip for my parents, and planning had never become a priority, we had to move a lot around just so that we could visit Paris. However, I think it was worth it. You just can't go to France without seeing Paris. However, not wanting to experience the crazy parisien drivers, we left the rental car at Versailles(the Palance in the country that was stormed during the French revolution) and took the 40 minute train into the city. We started by climbing the first two floors of the Eiffel Tower, getting a beautiful view of Paris. Although there was no snowshoeing, like the last time I was there, it was much warmer and therefore easier to enjoy our time outside in the city. Next, we took the classic boat ride down the Seine river that runs right through Paris and gives you a cute little British audioguide introduction of all the famous buildings that line the river. Following our mini-cruise, we headed over to the Arc de Triomphe right in time for the lighting of the French Tomb of the Unknown soldier and then walked down the Champs Elysee as the sun was setting, enjoying the "New York City" feel and hearing people in so many different languages walking by us. Paris truely is an exciting place. There are so many things to see, and so many interesting people to meet. But I am so happy that I chose Nantes over Paris, not only because I have heard that the IES program in Paris doesn't enfore an only-speak-French rule, but also because I just feel safe and secure here in Nantes, where as in Paris I am always looking over my shoulder making sure Im not getting pick-pocketed. It also is simply HUGE and even with its incredible metro system, takes quite a while to get from one end to the other. However, as this was my Dad and Dave's first time in France, I think they both extremly enjoyed seeing monuments that they had actually heard of :) We finished the day by grabbing some crepes in the Latin Quarter and stopping by the St. Michel Fountain. Its one of my favorite parts of Paris, just because of the nightlife, the people, and the smell in the air (90% of the buildings are restaurants.) The atmosphere is just so lively and fun and I wish we could have spend more time there.
For the evening, we took the train back to Versailles and stayed with an English couple a few miles away from Versailles. My mom and I had stayed with them on our last trip to France and their cute cinderella-ish french neighborhood, their forest full of huge holes from World War II bombings, and even them themselves were exactly as my mother and I had seen them 4 years ago. So we had a relaxing night there, and woke up early again to head back to Versailles to leave the car again. However, we found out that we could tour the gardens of Versailles in our car for only 5 euros, so we visited Marie Anoinettes little Austrian village that she had built so that she could dress up like a peasant when she was feeling homesick, the Temple of Love and other places the King would take his mistresses. Therefore, we got a later start to Paris than we wanted but we spent the day walking around the Tuileries Gardens (the Louvre Palace gardens), the exterieur/courtyards of the Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur (my favorite church) and Montmartre(the hill that Sacre Coeur is built on). It is always fun to walk around and look at all the Painters in the famous square next to Sacre Coeur, however, after asking the prices (2500 euros for a 3ft by 2 ft painting) we headed out to find something to eat. Tired and hungry, we finally sat down around 4pm and ordered some "Must-try" food : Escargot (not bad...i think you just eat it for the sauce), Creme Brulee, and some other classic french dishes.
We still hadn't finished our shopping so we tried to quickly head over to Paris's famous shopping district of the "Grands Magasins." Not having much success, we looked at our watches and realized that I still had a train to catch that evening. So, rushing over to the train station, we found out there was a train leaving in 15 minutes for Nantes, and I didnt have a ticket yet! Standing in line, trying to rush the people in front of us, we finally got up the ticket office only to find out that the train, leaving in 3 minutes was full, and the next and last train wasn't leaving for 2 hours and 15 minutes. On any week day, there would have been trains every 45 minutes but it was just our luck that I was trying to get home on a Saturday! But there was nothing we could do, and long story short, (because this blog is getting tooo long), I took my family to their train back to Versailles, said a quick goodbye (for their train was coming in 2 minutes) and went back to the train station to sit, wait, study, and read. I got back to Nantes at about 11:30pm and realized that my parents had been trying to call, but I hadn't heard my phone. So there they were, at their hotel outside of Paris, not being able to sleep because they thought I had been kidnapped or worse. Luckily they decided to call around midnight as I was walking into my room and they were able to sleep peacefully.
So now its Sunday, I am back in Nantes, safe and sound, and am going to spend the rest of my day studying for my midterms! I have European Union, Middle East, and Translation coming up, and these tests are 25% of my grade. So its been a fun and exhausting week, now its back to work! I hope everyone had a great break! Email/Comment/Message me and tell me what you did :)
My family arrived in Frankfurt on Saturday morning, with the plan to rent a car and drive to Nantes. Of course, they had a bit of trouble since they hadn't slept in 48 hours, not to mention the jet-lag. So they made it as far as Reims, famous for the cathedral where every french King as crowned-King since the first French King, Clovis in 496A.D. Calling me on saturday afternoon to let me know they had arrived, I informed them that they simply couldnt leave the city without visiting the historic site. So they visited that Sunday morning, and arrived in Nantes Sunday evening.
Now, about everyone at IES was leaving friday afternoon for winter break. I beleive that most countries in Europe had at least some IES student in them, so I can't wait to talk to everyone and get advice for my 2 week break in April! However, meanwhile, I realized that I was going to be sitting at my house all weekend waiting for my parents, which as I found out last time that I tried to have a relaxing-do-nothing weekend, can become quite lonely. So I found a friend who wasn't leaving until Saturday morning and we went to see the movie P.S. I Love You in french. The story is basically about a young married couple who are completely in love, and when the husband dies, he sends letters to his wife for a year, helping her to rediscover life and move on. Wow. I have not cried that much in a looong time. Not in A Walk to Remember, not in The Notebook. It was entirely in French so I understood about 90% of it, and although it didnt get great reviews in the states, perhaps watching it in a foreign language made it even better because you had to fill in the parts you didn't understand with your imagination. I finally just stopped wiping away the tears because I figured there would just be more 5 minutes later. So that pretty much sums up my friday night..
Saturday and Sunday, I worked on homework that I knew wouldn't be touched during the week with my fam. I have midterms this next week, so I really have quite a bit of work to do! Sunday night, my family arrived and I made them potage (french pureed vegatable soup) and my version of Croque Monsieurs (hot ham and cheese sandwiches) and I enjoyed introducing them to my home here in France. They also came bearing gifts like Popcorn (which I missed sooo much), girlscout cookies (mmmhh), and the Office Season 3 (eeehhh...so exciting!!!!) from my boyfriend :) I think they made me realize just how much I don't know about France, since every time we went anywhere I was given hundreds of questions that I had no idea how to answer. What is that? Why do the French do that? How much does it cost to do__? Do they just do this at so and so a time or all the time? Now, occasionally I could answer with a nice satisfactory explination or just make something up :) But it was an interesting to hear their view on french customs/way of life.
Monday and Tuesday were basically spent touring Nantes. On monday, we started with the Castle, climbing the ramparts and trying to answer all those Why? What? Where? questions about the way of life of 14th century Dukes. Next we moved on to the huge St. Peter and St. Paul cathedral, walked down some cute french streets, had a street lunch of paninis, quiche, and baguette sandwiches. For the afternoon, I showed them the huge Theatre Graslin, right next to IES where I go to school, and the Fountain of Place Royal. It was kind of strange giving a tour of my every day life, for the simple reason that it is so every-day to me now. I realized how often forget that I am walking next to 14th century cathedrals and buildings built hundreds of years ago. Following French time, we had a nice pasta dinner around 8pm and I taught my family how the French eat in courses instead of simply setting everything on the table. Also, how the French put their bread on the table, not on the plate...something that my parents had a very hard time adjusting to. Tuesday, it rained. Kind of a bummer. But we made the best of it, shopping most of the morning, taking a tram ride to the Fac de Sciences where I take my Microbiology class, and then finally going to see the Machine de l'Ile, a giant mechanical elephant built for tourism that walks down the street, and gives rides to 45 people an hour. The engineers have started to do something every year like this. Last year, it was a giant, who would walk down the streets, sleeping on cars, etc. So that was fun, and I think that Dave, my little brother, really enjoyed that after being dragged about listening to boring history lessons for two days.
Wednesday, my parents decided that we needed to take a train ride somewhere, so since I had not yet been to the sea, we took an hour trip to La Baule, the largest beach in Europe, just west of Nantes. Little did we know that the weather was going to be the worst of the week. Although they enjoyed seeing what trains are really like, at La Baule, it rained all day, which was amplified by the freezing cold wind off the sea. So after about 5 minutes on the soaking wet beach, we retreated into a seaside restaurant to eat Galettes, the Brittany (the region that Nantes was in, before they redrew the borders) specialty. It is basically a crepe with meat, cheese, and vegatables inside, however, its a bit more cruchy. However, they were delicious and one of those dishes that you just cant miss if you go to Brittany.
Next, after spending an hour and a half walking up and down the main streets trying to jump inside any store that was open (Stores often close from 12-2pm for lunch....crazy French), we decided to give up and go see a movie. So, as nothing was in English we decided on a film that they had already seen in the states: "Le Dragon des Mers" or "The Waterhorse." Two funny antedotes. Dave loves french bread. Seriously, everytime we saw a Boulangerie(bakery) he wanted to go inside and buy a baguette. So right before the movie, he says to my dad " If you let me get a baguette, I won't eat popcorn!" So 20 minutes later, Dave and my mom returned right before the start of the movie with a 3 foot long baguette. I think the French people around us were extremly confused. Film and baguette are two things that the French don't even do! But Dave finished this huge baguette in the first 30 minutes of the movie and loved every bite of it :) Secondly, since it was in French my parents and Dave had to go off of what they remembered of the movie to understand it. And even though my mom didnt understand a word, she stilled bawled at the end during the "free willy moment", as I call it, when the lockness monster escapes toward the sea. (oh..oops, movie spoiler)
Thursday, we left Nantes for Rennes, where Marion, the french student that we have hosted for 3 weeks the past 3 summers, lives. On the way, we stopped at Chateaubriand and explored castle ruins. My mom insisted that we have true Chateaubriand(meat and veggies) in Chateaubriand so we ate a 4 course lunch at a local restaurant before continuing to Rennes. We toured the old city, with its pretty wooden midevil houses and I did my best to show them everything that Marion's mother had shown my some weeks before. Then, at 6pm, we arrived at Marions house where her family cooked us this 8 course meal which lasted for 3 hours and allowed us to stay at their home overnight. It was very enjoyable and I was very impressed at how well her parents could speak english. However, I still played the role of translator a bit and experienced again how tiring it is to try to think in both languages at once.
Friday we got up bright and early and headed for Paris. Since this was kind of a spur of the moment trip for my parents, and planning had never become a priority, we had to move a lot around just so that we could visit Paris. However, I think it was worth it. You just can't go to France without seeing Paris. However, not wanting to experience the crazy parisien drivers, we left the rental car at Versailles(the Palance in the country that was stormed during the French revolution) and took the 40 minute train into the city. We started by climbing the first two floors of the Eiffel Tower, getting a beautiful view of Paris. Although there was no snowshoeing, like the last time I was there, it was much warmer and therefore easier to enjoy our time outside in the city. Next, we took the classic boat ride down the Seine river that runs right through Paris and gives you a cute little British audioguide introduction of all the famous buildings that line the river. Following our mini-cruise, we headed over to the Arc de Triomphe right in time for the lighting of the French Tomb of the Unknown soldier and then walked down the Champs Elysee as the sun was setting, enjoying the "New York City" feel and hearing people in so many different languages walking by us. Paris truely is an exciting place. There are so many things to see, and so many interesting people to meet. But I am so happy that I chose Nantes over Paris, not only because I have heard that the IES program in Paris doesn't enfore an only-speak-French rule, but also because I just feel safe and secure here in Nantes, where as in Paris I am always looking over my shoulder making sure Im not getting pick-pocketed. It also is simply HUGE and even with its incredible metro system, takes quite a while to get from one end to the other. However, as this was my Dad and Dave's first time in France, I think they both extremly enjoyed seeing monuments that they had actually heard of :) We finished the day by grabbing some crepes in the Latin Quarter and stopping by the St. Michel Fountain. Its one of my favorite parts of Paris, just because of the nightlife, the people, and the smell in the air (90% of the buildings are restaurants.) The atmosphere is just so lively and fun and I wish we could have spend more time there.
For the evening, we took the train back to Versailles and stayed with an English couple a few miles away from Versailles. My mom and I had stayed with them on our last trip to France and their cute cinderella-ish french neighborhood, their forest full of huge holes from World War II bombings, and even them themselves were exactly as my mother and I had seen them 4 years ago. So we had a relaxing night there, and woke up early again to head back to Versailles to leave the car again. However, we found out that we could tour the gardens of Versailles in our car for only 5 euros, so we visited Marie Anoinettes little Austrian village that she had built so that she could dress up like a peasant when she was feeling homesick, the Temple of Love and other places the King would take his mistresses. Therefore, we got a later start to Paris than we wanted but we spent the day walking around the Tuileries Gardens (the Louvre Palace gardens), the exterieur/courtyards of the Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur (my favorite church) and Montmartre(the hill that Sacre Coeur is built on). It is always fun to walk around and look at all the Painters in the famous square next to Sacre Coeur, however, after asking the prices (2500 euros for a 3ft by 2 ft painting) we headed out to find something to eat. Tired and hungry, we finally sat down around 4pm and ordered some "Must-try" food : Escargot (not bad...i think you just eat it for the sauce), Creme Brulee, and some other classic french dishes.
We still hadn't finished our shopping so we tried to quickly head over to Paris's famous shopping district of the "Grands Magasins." Not having much success, we looked at our watches and realized that I still had a train to catch that evening. So, rushing over to the train station, we found out there was a train leaving in 15 minutes for Nantes, and I didnt have a ticket yet! Standing in line, trying to rush the people in front of us, we finally got up the ticket office only to find out that the train, leaving in 3 minutes was full, and the next and last train wasn't leaving for 2 hours and 15 minutes. On any week day, there would have been trains every 45 minutes but it was just our luck that I was trying to get home on a Saturday! But there was nothing we could do, and long story short, (because this blog is getting tooo long), I took my family to their train back to Versailles, said a quick goodbye (for their train was coming in 2 minutes) and went back to the train station to sit, wait, study, and read. I got back to Nantes at about 11:30pm and realized that my parents had been trying to call, but I hadn't heard my phone. So there they were, at their hotel outside of Paris, not being able to sleep because they thought I had been kidnapped or worse. Luckily they decided to call around midnight as I was walking into my room and they were able to sleep peacefully.
So now its Sunday, I am back in Nantes, safe and sound, and am going to spend the rest of my day studying for my midterms! I have European Union, Middle East, and Translation coming up, and these tests are 25% of my grade. So its been a fun and exhausting week, now its back to work! I hope everyone had a great break! Email/Comment/Message me and tell me what you did :)
2 comments:
Well Joye,
I think you know what I did for spring break, so I won't repeat myself.
I just wanted to say that your blog brought back a lot of happy memories of our time in Paris. So much fun! Did you take your family to the Shakespeare book store? And even though it would have been cool if your family could snowshoe the Eiffel Tower, I bet their boat cruise was dryer than ours! :)
Good luck with mid-terms! <3
Joye,
Thanks for journaling our vacation for us! I wouldn't have remembered 10% of what you did! And we couldn't have had a better tour guide. Love,
M&D&D
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