St. Malo et Mt. St. Michel

So Im still confused about my classes and the works but!

Saturday we went to Mt St Michel, a castle along the English Channel, it's pretty cool, and old castle which was lots of fun. You might think that all I do around here is see castles, but I assure you that is not true! The down side was that Saturday morning I had to wake up around 7am to be able to catch the bus for the center since Saturday they dont run very often. I ended up catching a different bus and was lost in the city at 730 in the morning when it is still pitch black. Eventually I arrived a bit late and wet to the bus.

Anyways Mt St Michel was windy and stormy and it seemed to fit its general vibe. We ate lunch there, some of us thought to bring lunch because all they do is take advantage of tourists and charge you like 6euros for a small sandwhich, but alas.

We then proceeded to the lovely village of St Malo; where I was super hyper because IT WAS SUNNY and I havent seen the sun for extended periods of time in quite some time. Plus it was a cute little town right on the shore where we spent a good amount of time taking jumping pics on the beach and alyssa and I in our bright green and bright pink sticking out a mile away.
Generally a good day

Sunday on the other hand--I dont quite enjoy how everything shuts down on Sunday and the bus only comes once an hour so I missed the one right after mass and had to walk 30 mins in the rain to the next stop only to miss that bus and continue walking, shoes and socks wet; I was not a happy camper: Mais cest la vie:


Now Im at the university --word on the street-major greve (strike) thurs-but I suppose it wouldnt be a french experience without one- that just leaves us all a little stranded without our faithful buses and trams, perhaps no university classes, no mail-they take their strikes quite seriously!

Well I should be heading to class now but Ill keep you all updated on the strike and life:

bisous

Oh the Joys of Shopping

And mostly that refers to the fact that just so I wouldn't be homesick, here in Nantes we also are spending our time shopping for classes. Right now im in seven classes granted that a normal load it 5 and an overachieving load it 6 I'm actually not too much over the limit for now.

I've been to 5/7 classes and so far none of them have been dreadful which is always a good thing, as of now what im taking for sure is

Advanced French Language and Grammar 3 (M,F 10-11 W 430 to 530) -why I was placed here is still a mystery, but so far it's not so bad, then again there have only been two classes.

Teaching Intership (1015-1145 W) as well as four hours a week in a local school, I requested grade school because any bigger and they'd be taller, haha-but no hopefully it works out.

Up in the air but probably taking:

Developmental Psych- (T 11-1) This course meets at the University and I had a little bit of trouble trying to get everything the prof said while drowning out the chatter of the students, but not so bad,

Phonetics -1 hour theory, 1 hour conversation, 2 hours lab- it seems like it will be a good class perhaps ill learn to talk correctly, the only problem is that the labs meet at such inconvenient times, Wed and Thurs 630-730m which means ill miss dinner with the fam, lame.

Not Sure

Translation- 230-430 M, the prof is funny but i dont know how entertained i can be by translating texts from english to french and vice versa...

Socio of Education- starts this afternoon

Art History- something i know nothing about, but hey im in france whynot? But yeh the prof has been sick, so no idea.



So that was bornig huh?

those of you back at brown i miss you! I hope that inaguaration was a great party, i of course watched it as it was being dubbed and it was super lame because i couldnt concentrate on the french or Obama, but oh well-and Estrella- I'm jealous.

What I did do that night was have a Club de convo with french students-every tuesday night we talk 45 mins in french for us and 45 mins in english for the frenchies sake, to celebrate the first one of the semester we went to a creperie..yum

so I dont have class til 4 today because ;y first class is canceled because the prof is sick

oh and weekend trip to mt st michelle party

sorry this was ranty.

My Nantaise life

Hey everyone!

So it's 5am and I woke up like 20 mins ago, with nothing to do and no knowledge of plans for my first sat night, I fell asleep at 11, so here i am awake at 5, i should go back to bed soonish since I'm going to church with the fam in 5 hours. Anyways, its storming terribly but it rains nearly everyday, usually at night sometimes a drizzle during the day, but it's always wet.
This last week has been one of information overload and fatigue-orientation. We took a placement test on our offsite orientation and i placed into the middle level (quoi the heck) so we had conversation, french language and grammaire everday for an hour and then one day we toured the university, one day we got to know nantes better, academic advising etc-will spare you all the details.

But yeh, Friday was the insanity of picking courses, just so I wouldnùt be terribly homesick they also have shopping period here till the beginning of feb haha, the plan now is Level 3 gramaire (again I placed in and Im going to fail that class) Art history (figure france is good place), and a Teaching Internship (for credit) at the center with 4 hours teaching english a week to grade schoolers, should be interesting.
As for the other classes I think Ill take a Sociology of Education class and a developmental psych class at the university and maybe phonetics or translation, we shall see. The Uni is like 20 mins from the center so a lot of time in transport; but oh well.

As for the weekend I spent friday night watching a very popular 2008 french movie with my host sibs and yesterday i walked to the center which took about 30 mins, i stopped in a park!, and then we went shopping and ate lunch ata creperie it was nice and delicious. On the way back I took the bus halfway and then stopped at a park and walked around, its a 12 acre park near my house with a pond and all and i bet its beautiful in the summer:spring.

Oh also- random, I got my phone here, a local one, and the guy at the phone store gave me 2x1 he told me it cost the same for one as for 2 so i have 2 bright pink (not of my choosing) phones with 2 sim cards; dont ask me why.

Enough for now im going back to bed, bisous. Pictures to come!

Les chateaux de la Loire and stuff

Thursday morning we went off to Tours, about 2.5 hours from here, arrived at the hotel and had dinner and awkward ice breakers (not too awkward, 'get to know you bingo'. Friday and Saturday we spent all day visiting 2 chateaux each day that rest in the Loire valley. Some of them quite cool, await pictures once my inet situation is figured out.Sometimes I wish we were cool enough to have buildings around for 600 years or more, but we aren't that cool. The castles were nice but it was FREEZING and them being castles and all, lack central heating, which became quite a problem when no one paid attention since we were all shivering. Apparently it's the first time it has snowed there in over 25 years, crazy talk. The food that we ate at the restaurants was very good, these french and their 3 course meals at all but breakfast, I don't understand how they don't weigh 300lbs. The best dessert so far was a chocolate mini cake with raspberry sorbet--mhm.

We spent the nights in the hotel where I roomed with Michelle (the only other person from brown) and mostly we just hung out in someone's room getting to know people, the first night my room had no heat and it was freezing so we changed to one with a loft!

Weve since returned to Nantes and had our first day of orientation which included 4 hours of rules a 1 hour city tour and thats about it. Tres fun. Oh also we got our orientation groups today; somehow I placed into the middle level? Certainly a fluke. Well, not much else to raconte.

I hope all of you abroad or getting ready to have an awesome time! Keep me posted

Arrived!

hey guys

Im finally in france! Took a few planes and a train and a lot of waiting in freezing CDG airport but I made it! So far everything has been going well, but before i ramble on I hope thqt you excuse my typos just know that on the french keyboard
q=a ;=m and :=. those are my three lqrgest errors so i hope youll understand.

So I arrived at the center and we all met the people in charge who gave us some info and then we were free to go use the internet which apparently everyone wanted to do haha:

Our families cale to pick us up and it was like being picked for tea,s and I was just barely not last picked: My host brother (Alexys 14) and his mom came to get me. We got home and Alexys showed me around the house and I also met Paul (9). I unpacked in my room which had roses on the dresser (aww!!) and eventually met the girls Clotilde (15) and Maylis (13). I still havent met the dad bececquse hes on a business trip in the south.
Dinner was delicious especially because i was starved and airplane food on AA was AWFUL. We had carrot soup, quiche, salad, cheeses and a cake type thing, flakey exterior and chocolate interior which had a little figure inside and whoever got it became the king who then choose his queen= its a tradition for three kings day. At dins the mom asked me lots of questions while trying to keep the 4 kids quiet hehe they all seem very nice. I got them I love NY tshirts and reeses; both of which they seemed to enjoy:

Well now its thursday morning and i should go eat the food the mom left me and get ready for my weekend trip to Tours that i leave for in 2 hours. Until Monday I hope everyone has a good rest of break ( or beginning of school as the case may be).

Bisous

Ana

Pre-departure ramblings

Welcome to my blog for the upcoming semester! This will follow me through my adventures as I spend the next semester in Nantes, France, the 6th largest city in Paris about 2.5 hrs southwest of Paris. Hopefully I will remember how to speak French in the next few days--or rather learn it in the next few months...

Currently my room looks like a hurricane hit it and all of my clothing and most other possessions are out on the ground as I decide what I should bring and what I wouldn't actually miss terribly in the next 5 months.

I depart on Tuesday morning from Newark airport, connect in Chicago (? why?) and end up in Paris on Wednesday morning.

I've already received info and a letter from my host family, they look nice, 15 girl, 14 boy 13 girl and 9 boy.

So now I should go sleep so that I can spend tomorrow packing.

Stay tuned...