Exchange in France 09-10

wow it's been a long long time since I've posted, I have a feeling I wouldn't have posted at all if it weren't for a friend who told she still checks every day faithfully looking for a new post, well here it is :)

Alot has been going on lately and I only have one month left before heading back home. This is a mix of emotions for me: happiness (obviously) to be home, but of course a sense of sadness for leaving all the people that I have met here.

I still have a few more papers to finish and final exams to write before the end of the school year, and I'm looking forward to 2 weeks of break in mid-april and then my family coming at the end of April for a week! I only have 3 weeks of classes left, where did all that time go!

They are cutting the grass outside my window and it smells so good. That paired with the sun streaming in on me almost feels like summer. I am going out to lunch today with a few friends and looking forward to it, since it's so nice i imagine there will be lots of people out and about. Most restaurants and cafes have outdoor terraces which again are perfect for days like this (when it has finally stopped raining for a few days ).

I have been able to vist a few more cities, Lyon, Bordeaux, Paris, Marseille so I am hoping to put up a few pictures and tell you a little bit about hem soon!

bisous

Dear mother nature, I'm tired of rain, please send me some sun.

It rains almost every day here now. Leaving your room without your umbrella is like asking to get drenched. It can change from sunny with clouds to pouring rain in a matter of minutes. Almost every day is sort of hazy and gray, but it is mild not super cold or anything. Sometimes when the wind comes up it can get nippy. And when the wind drives the rain sideways it makes umbrellas pretty much useless. I am told that all winter will be sort of like this but a little colder. Just lots of rainy, windy, gray days. I feel like Eeyore looking at the sky and saying: "looks like it's gonna rain."

The dirt path that we take to school to avoid going on the tram and to enjoy walking through the park has long since turned into a mud trail, but we walk along the grass edges and try to avoid the mud as much as possible.

I think by the end of winter I am going to really be missing the snow.

Twice today it has poured rain and in between been nice enough. The rain is nice to listen to and watch from the window, but I don't look forward to having to walk through it.

Here there is a week of holidays from school for All Saint's day, Halloween isn't celebrated nearly as much as it is in Canada, but I must say I'd choose having a week off school over going out trick-or-treating anytime.

On Saturday, October 31, Krysteena (one of the other students here from Waterloo) and I went with two guys that we met from our residence, Nicolas and Johan, to go and see Mont St Michel.





From left to right: Johan, me, Krysteena and Nicolas on top of Mont Saint Michel.








We took sort of a long way around to get there so that we could visit Guérande, a fortified city that still has the old ramparts standing; La Forêt de Paimpont, where we saw Merlin's tomb and the Fountain of Youth; and then finally Mont St Michel.

Mont Saint Michel is a sort of self-contained town that is best described by a picture so here are a few:

Driving across the bridge to Mont Saint Michel (Mount St. Michael). It is a village that is in itself an island. Before the bridge was built it was accessible only during low tide by bringing horses and carts across the sand. Of course, with this visitors faced getting stuck in the wet sand and usually stayed overnight to wait for the tide to go out again.






Looking back to shore from on top of Mont St Michel. You can't see it well in this picture but they are sort of dam partway down this stream. Because of all the sediment that is washed in with the tide over time, the shore is building its way out to the city and it will soon not be an island at all. So they are building a dam to lock the tide in and let in out slowly over a longer period of time so that it won'ot wash the land out which cause the shore to grow. In this picture the tide is just starting to come in.



A closer view.















At the peek of the village is a church, and at the top of its spire a statue of St Michael the Archangel. The spire itself is 32m high, which doesn't include the height of the statue.
















A replica of the statue of St Michael the Archangel.



















Walking through the village we found a door that was built exactly for Krysteena and I ...













Inside the church:




























In the garden:













So there's my latest adventure in terms of visiting another city.

Oh and one last picture:
Just in case anyone was doubting my angelic nature....


:)









Lots more to come soon.

God bless,

This morning I made a laundry appointment for 8:00, my alarm went off at 7:30 and I fell asleep and woke up again at 8:16! oh no! so I went to the front desk to pick up my laundry token and soap and the secretary just looked at me, pointed to the clock and said: "you're 20 minutes late" What am I supposed to answer to that? So I just said "uh yea, sorry" (all this in french of course) I thought they were going to tell me I couldn't do my laundry anymore, sometimes they can be kinda mean. But this morning was my lucky day I guess because the secretary just told me to wash on a short cycle so that mine would be finished in time for the next person to put their stuff in at 9.
When you make a laundry appointment you get 2 hours, one hour to wash, one hour to dry. So I put my clothes in the dryer and came back , and they were still mostly wet, but the next girl needed to dry her stuff so I just took it back to my room and started hanging it anywhere I could find places to hang things off of, and since I had seen other students do it I hung some of my shirts on hangers and hooked them out the window. but of course a few minutes later the wind blew one of my shirts out the window, and I had to run outside and downstairs to go get it. oh dear.

I had history class this afternoon, the class is called French History and we are studying the revolution, which I love. Today we talked about the royal family trying to flee France and getting caught and punished to death for being traitors to their country. Then we covered "la terreur" where anyone who was suspected of being against the revolution was sentenced to death by guillotine without even a proper trial. The prof was telling us how some people would accuse their neighbours of being anti-revolutionist even if they had done nothing wrong, because if you turned someone in you would be rewarded by being given their land or other possessions, so people would turn in their neighbours just to get their possessions. I think this is crazy, I can't imagine an entire country living in the fear of being sentenced to death for addressing someone improperly when you met them in the street, or just because your neighbour thought you had a nice piece of land that he would like to own.

Walking home with the other students after class I ran into Eunice. She is a student from Ghana studying French as a second language for the year too. I met her at Agapé and she is just so nice. We always speak in French together even though we both speak English better, so it is good practice in French and we help each other out. We are going to meet on Monday after my class and before hers just to spend time together, I am so happy and blessed to have her as a friend :)

Tonight Rachel and I cooked and ate dinner together. I stir-fried some spinach, green peppers and carrots with garlic and put them in a wrap, so easy, and so good. It is always much more fun to cook with other people than alone.

Today I am thankful for all the friendships I have formed so far, and for all the friends I have at home who send e-mails and facebook messages and letters, and am looking forward to all the people that I still have a chance to meet. I am also reminded to slow down and make time for others, sometimes just a smile or a hello makes all the difference.

So I am only starting my third week of classes but I already have tons of reading to do. Today was so sunny and gorgeous, I was trying to read in my room but was mostly just looking out the window and not getting much done. So I packed up my books and walked down a wooded path to the park, where there were tons of students and some families all sitting in the grass, reading, playing soccer and some just basking in the sun. I read for an hour and a half before going back home to make dinner. I loved being out in the sun and getting homework done but still being able to watch everything going on around me, what a better way to study than sitting in my room all alone.

Man, I can't believe Tuesday marks three weeks that I have been here. The first week flew by in a series of meetings and city tours. We had to finalize our course schedules and choose a 5th course to take, settle into residence, learn how to use the tram and bus systems, and learn our way around town. Professor Robert Ryan from the University of Waterloo was with us for the first week, he had lived in Nantes for a couple of years, so he showed us around to some of the must see things in Nantes so that we could go back and visit them at a more leisurely pace another time.

On top of this we also met our host families the first weekend. My family is a retired couple, they have a son who is married with two children, I haven't met him yet. The first weekend they took me to the beach in a town called St. Brevin, where they have a small one bedroom apartment just across the road from the beach. They are very nice people.

The second week was the beginning of classes, a little stressful but not too bad. Most of our profs are really nice and have awesome teaching styles that make even grammar a pretty interesting class. I have four mandatory classes: philosophy, grammar, history and 20th century literature. The class that I chose as a 5th course is 17th and 18th century literature, the prof is again very interesting and seems to know his stuff really well, so I am looking forward to it.

There is a church just down the street that I go to on Saturday nights, it is such a wonderful community, the priests are very nice, and they have a student group that I joined. There is also another Christian student group called Agape (a.ga.pay) who meet on Thursday nights for "bibou" (bible et bouffe), or bible study and a potluck meal, I have been twice and love the atmosphere, I have met many other students and they're all such lovely people. They also play basketball together on Saturdays and soccer on Sundays, I haven't gone yet, but I plan to sometime.

I am starting to find my belonging place in this new country.

I am...
. a third year university student
. studying at University of Nantes, France for 2 semestres

My goals while here...
. to improve my written and oral skills in French
. not to forget all the Spanish I learned during the summer
. to experience the culture as much as I can

The purpose of this blog...
. to stay in touch with friends and family back home
. to share my experiences and photos
. to keep a sort of journal about my time here

I hope you enjoy reading my stories and leave comments :)

thanks for following along