I can't believe it's already over!

These past 2 months have flown by, it's incredible. I've definitely learned so much from this experience, had some crazy adventures, been really frustrated at times, but had so many laughs along the way. Now that it's over, I'm really sad to be leaving all the people that I've met. But, at the same time, I feel like I have a family now at MSU...because all of these students here with me have been through the ups and downs of France with me, and I'm excited to have a lot of new friends on campus this year.

I can't write much because I'm doing last minute packing (Matt you get to help me with a heavy suitcase tomorrow, aren't you happy!) and then I have a nice good-bye dinner with Huguette and the rest of the clan. Afterwards, I'm being somewhat kicked out of the house...Huguette refuses to drive me at 3am to get to our group bus thats taking us to Paris...so I'm going to be dropped off after dinner at a hostel where our group has a room rented to hold all our luggage for the night, right by where we are getting picked up in the morning. So I'm just going to pull an all-nighter as one last hurrah in France, and then I will sleep during the 3 hour bus ride and the 8 and a half hour plane ride.

To occupy all the waiting time tomorrow, I'll be making a list of all the food I want to eat, and all the things I want to do. Get ready USA, I'm coming home.

Long naps are not good

I have basically nothing to update on from this past week because I had to be very antisocial in order to finish reading 2 novels and write all the accompanying reading journals and post-reading questions. On Monday I sat at the institute from 3-630 reading my first book, then finished it all that night after dinner. Tuesday I felt slightly brain dead, but I finished the writing for the book. Wednesday I read all of the second book, and the reading journals, half of the questions...and then finished them up on Thursday during the day. That was a lot of work, but thankfully now that I'm done there is nothing left for me to do except enjoy my last days in France!

But for being the last weekend her, we haven't gone too crazy. On Friday we went to the bars for a little while and sat around and chatted, but called it an early night because we had an excursion early in the morning to go see more castles.

The castles were really beautiful, but it was a long day (8am-7pm.) My favorite was Chambord--it actually looked like a typical Disney fairytale castle, and it was enormous. There was also an orchestra practicing outside so we were able to sit down and listen.
Cheverny, a Renaissance castle
me and my knight in shining armor
my favorite thing about France! all the beautiful lavendar growing everywhere. mmmmm

Chambord
They actually still have hunting dogs that they keep at the castle! This picture was taken about 10seconds before they all jumped up and started howling and freaking out about something.

As for tonight, I'm watching a movie I borrowed from Huguette. It's an Italian film about a father and son relationship. Then going to sleep so I can gear up for one last week of celebration in France.

bachelor party on the atlantic coast?

Once again, apologies for neglecting my blog. July has been a very busy month, especially with a 25hour class load every week.

Bastille Day in France (La Fête de la Bastille, le 14 juillet) does not compare at all to the 4th of July at home. The national holiday is celebrated so differently. There are a few similarities, everything is closed, no one works, there are fireworks and a parade, but other than that, it has a very different feel. I went out to get lunch during the day on the 14th, and the city was completely desolate--it looked like a ghost town. I couldn't believe it! Everyone is always so active and out and about on the 4th of July. I talked to my host mom and I also asked Lindsey's host parents about it, I just commented on how empty I though the town looked and they all gave variations of the same answer, "Ehh, I don't really care about Bastille Day." I think in the USA we are much more excited for and take an active role with our national holiday. Typical French....lol.

The real party for Bastille Day was actually on the 13th, that Sunday night. I went to the gangette that night (the bar on the Loire river) with friends, and there was a crazy live band playing all night. They were so cool! They had an older, rag-time American sound to them, and yet they played a variety of music: jazz, swing, jive, rag-time...we had a lot of fun listening to them. There is also a big dance floor in front of the stage, so we were all up and dancing. If you've ever seen the movie "Big Fish", you would know what I am talking about. The look of the bar (which is an outdoors bar), with the dance floor in the middle, lights stringed from all the trees, the view of the Loire and the bridge lit up in the background, and definitely the music playing that night, reminds me of the scene when William Bloom is in the tiny town of Spectre. I am going to miss the gangette so much when I come home. It's been one of my favorite things to do here at night. There's always different music every night, beautiful scenery, fun people, and great home-made sangria :) .
The live band that night

Sunday night was also the arrival of a new British group of students at the institute, so I got to meet a lot of them that night. One of them, a guy named Jamie, is the new roommate of Jen. He reminds me of a character straight out of Monte Python, especially with his accent. I did my Cockney accent for him, and he said it was really good! Haha. He actually laughed really hard...and now I've picked up some new phrases to add to my cockney vocab!

So after being out late on Sunday night, I spent most of the day in on Monday (the actual Bastille day) and even when I went out for a little walk, nothing was open and no one was out and about. That night, however, we all met up at the Loire river again and watched the fireworks show. Top marks for the show! It was much much larger than I had anticipated. And they were shooting the fireworks off for a good 25 minutes. It was a really nice and picturesque evening. Then I went home and went to bed since we had class the next day.


Tuesday was very low-key. I just went to classes, then bummed around at home till dinner. The only crazy thing that happened to me that day was the dinner conversation! Normally at dinner Joan (the girl from Georgetown) sits there annoying everyone because all she does is make really terrible assumptions about world economies and politics (since she IS a georgetown student after all...) and everyone gets really annoyed and Huguette constantly makes sarcastic remarks about her over-generalizations even though me and Maria (the Swiss girl) are the only ones who notice and understand..haha. But at Tuesdays dinner, Huguette tried getting the Taiwanese girls to talk a little bit, and I realized that Taiwanese are much much much cooler than the Chinese, even though Huguette likes to lump them as being Chinese. She asked them if they eat dog in Taiwan and the girls were so shocked! The one girl, Jehn, said, "No, that's illegal! Only the Chinese eat dog!!" but then she continued to say, "In China, they also eat babies."

My mouth dropped wide open and I turned to look first at Huguette, who was sitting to my right, but she didn't make any weird face! I think she just assumed that Jehn mispronounced some word, or meant to say baby animals, so she just dismissed it and carried on eating. So I turned back to Jehn, really shocked, and said, "Babies? Like, real babies? Not animals?" and Huguette answered, "No no no Dana!! She didn't mean to say babies." but Jehn looked at us and shook her head yes, "Oui! They eat babies!"

"Human babies?!" I asked, and Huguette started looking really shocked, too. Then Jehn explained that the Chinese consider it a delicacy to eat miscarried babies! Oh my god. Needless to say, I completely lost my appetite and sat there stunned. Ugh, it's so gross. Huguette kept trying to clarify what she was saying in case she was just not explaining herself correctly in French, but yes, miscarried babies. Wow. I mean obviously it's not like you would go to a market in China and buy a baby to make for the night...but still I was super grossed out at dinner with yet another cultural revelation.

Tuesday night I was a very diligent student and wrote my huge portfolio/paper for my prof! Phew. Now I just have to finish these two novels...

Wednesdays I only have class in the morning (3 hours straight lecture...very hard to sit through) so in the afternoon I walked around a little bit with Jen and Lindsey and we did a little shopping. The sales are still going on in France, and every week they mark the merchandise lower and lower. I think this past week is the second to last week of the sales because ever store said it was their "last mark-down." The terrible paradox of my money situation here in France is that with all the sales this month, clothes are really cheap...but buying food for lunch, or anything else is just so expensive. I can't wait to come home and not have to pay as much for food!! So, I just picked up a couple souvenir presents to bring home.

Thursday was yet another day of studying. I had class all day, then went home right away to keep plugging along with my homework. After dinner however, Lindsey came over, and she and two of my roommates watched the movie, "Martin's Room" with Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, etc. I remember first watching the movie when it was out to rent when I was really young. Anyway, Yuka (my japanese roommate) asked me one day if I've heard of the movie, because she just bought the dvd of it, and she said, "The English title for the movie is--Mahii Loo" and of course I had NO idea what she was talking about...but then she told me the actors and the it suddenly dawned on me what movie it was; I got really excited and said, "YES I KNOW IT!" hahaha. These language boundaries are really funny to be dealing with. My other roommate Jehn came down to watch it with us too.

Friday finally came!!! Yayyyyy only a half day of class, then the weekend! I spent my afternoon still being a good student and working. Then I got very frustrated and tired from working 3 hours straight so I packed up my stuff and went back home where I went on the internet for a little while and talked to Matt. Friday night after dinner I went to the gangette for a couple hours with my roommate Jehn, Lindsey, Pat, Gary and Matt. We didn't stay out very long because we had to wake up at 6am the next morning for our excursion to La Rochelle.

Now for the big day, Saturday, at La Rochelle. La Rochelle is a little port town on the Atlantic coast, known for lots of fish (yum), open air market, adorable maritime architecture, etc. It also had a huge Huguenot population (French protestants) in the 16th and 17th century, but then they all left for Canada to seek religious freedom. Even though it is not very far south in France, and it is also on the Atlantic coast, the gulf stream that comes into the port gives it more of a Mediterranean climate (although I can say that it was no where near as hot as it was in Aix-en-Provence or in Marseille.) Nonetheless, when we left Tours with our coach bus at 7am in the morning, I was wearing jeans and a sweater, and by the time we arrived in La Rochelle at 11am, I was able to change into a sun dress because the air was nice and warm, and the sun was actually shining! So nice to not have a day full of gray skies. We had until 2:30pm to walk around the city. We visited the different sites (l'hotel de ville, the cathedral, the huge clock tower, etc) and also looked around at tons and tons of open air markets. There were lots of vendors selling jewelry, clothes, shoes, trinkets, and also food markets, with fresh fruit, vegetables, etc. It was so much nicer than Tours! I enjoyed the small town feel, and the weather was so pleasant.
View of the port
Me, Jen, Lindsey, and Kristen (in the wheel chair.) The story behind her being in a wheel chair is actually quite terrible. She wasn't originally going to go to La Rochelle with the group, she had plans for awhile to go to Germany this weekend where her boyfriend and some friends were visiting to during their study abroad. On her way to the train station on Friday afternoon (she was taking a train to the airport in Paris, and then flying to Germany) she was crossing the street and out of no where a car came flying through the intersection and hit her! She was taken by ambulance to the ER where Thao and Prof. Norris met her, and thank god, only her right foot is a little sprained/badly skinned. The flats that she was wearing were able to protect her feet for the most part, and her duffle bag that she was bringing for the weekend actually also protected her in lessening the impact of the hit, as she was holding it on the side she was hit. So, no bones were broken, she just got a little bruised. Stupid French drivers. They are TERRIBLE drivers. However, at least they don't drive SUVs, and it was just a little European car. At any rate, the accident was quite a shock. What is it lately with car accidents?
picture of the open air market

Here is another funny story. So a 2.5' grandma pushing a stroller in a VERY crowded and narrow street cut me off and I started complaining about it to Jen in english, saying, "How could this 2 and a half foot tall old lady just cut me off like that with her stroller?"and then she turned around and looked up at me with WHITE eyes that were completely crossed and she had no teeth and I started choking I was so shocked/terrified, hahahahahhahaha. I'm pretty sure I got hexed.

At 2:30, we took the coach bus to L'Ile de Ré, a little island off of the coast where there are nice beaches. The beach that we went to wasn't too bad, it was a little rocky, but I was so thankful to be at a beach in general and to be able to lay in the sun (so sad that I've only been able to do that a few times this summer!). Then of course, the day started to get interesting.
Zero and I!

A group of French guys arrived at the beach with a huge cooler on wheels, some of the guys were wearing ridiculous wigs, they were all laughing and being loud...and kept looking over our way. Jen and Lindsey and I were...taking in the sights...when suddenly one of the guys walked over to us and said, in English, "Um excuuze me guyz, but I juzt wanted to zay zat Michigan Sztate suckz!" Mikayla, another girl from our group, looked around at all of us and said, "ugh, ok who is wearing the Michigan state gear today?!" And then the French guy started laughing and explained himself. His name is Laurent, he apparently spent 2 and a half years in Michigan, living in Birmingham (although I'm not sure why he was there exactly). He studied for a little while and then stayed for another year or so. He spoke English very well, and was excited to be able to talk with us, as we had a lot in common anyway and he could relate since he lived in Michigan for some time. Then he paused for a second and said, "Well, if you guyz would like to have zome drinkz wiz us, thatz cool." And since they were offering, we decided , why the heck not, and a little group of us stood up and went over to have drinks with them (to which the rest of the French guys started clapping and cheering about haha).

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with the guys and talking with them, which was a very unexpected but fun event. They were having a party that day because one of the guys, Olivier, was getting married. And evidently for French bachelor parties, the guys take turns wearing crazy wigs. They were really nice guys and were probably just as excited as we were to hang out with them, because they were able to spend the afternoon with American girls. They invited us to go out with them that night, and even though we said that we couldn't because we were with our group and had to take a bus back to Tours at 6:30pm, they wouldn't take no for an answer. Laurent even offered to drive us back to Tours the next day, haha. THEN they went over to Thao, who came over to the beach around 6, and started talking to him and trying to convince him to let us stay. Oh my god. At first it was funny to see Thao standing there, acting like a dad, but in the end it was all good fun, and they said that they might come to Tours this upcoming weekend to hang out with us.
Picture of the bachelor party. It's kind of dark, but you can still see all of the lovely French men :)

We got back to Tours last night around 11pm, and I just went home so I could shower and wash all the sea-salt of my skin, and then I went to bed as it had been a long day. Today I've just been updating with this huge entry, and then it's back to work on reading..only 11 more days!

untitled

Sorry I haven't written in awhile, the website is having problems and for the moment it keeps messing up when I try and post pictures with a blog. I'll update hopefully tomorrow.

The Russians have invaded France

Last night was exactly what I needed. As most of you might know already, I eat salmon at least 4 times a week. I even made tallies and yes, the average is 4-5 times a week. On Wednesday and Thursday this past week I ate sardines. Which are cooked with all the scales on..and the little eyeballs that stick out. Needless to say, I've had quite the stomach problems because I am having a hard time forcing myself to eat fish every night.

Anyway, Thao said he wanted to take me out to dinner last night so I could have a meal where I didn't need to immediately run to the bathroom afterwards, so he, a guy named Andrew in the group, and I went to a little cafe that is completely run by a Venezuelan woman. There was a dinner special going on where you would get a glass of sangria and then a little dinner plate. She reminded me a lot of Mom, haha. The short dark hair, about the same height, same smile. She talked our ears off, but in a good way. She even introduced me to her little dog, named Mitch, and told me to come back whenever I want to play with him. The sad part is, I think I will come back and play with him because I am going through Clover withdrawals! I realized that I really appreciate this aspect of French culture--going into little family-owned cafes, and sitting down and getting to know and talk with the owner while being served delicious home cooked meals. I mean, we have great restaurants at home, but it's so much different to go eat at some little cafe and to socialize and get to know the owner.

After my delicious non-fish meal, the three of us headed over to a pool hall. Yay! I haven't been able to play pool in forever! It was actually an organized event through the Institute by a woman named Farida (she's about Thao's age and is in charge of students events, excursions, social activities, etc) but there were only about 8 of us there. Thao, Andrew, me, a guy named Christos from Greece, and....RUSSIANS. I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to start speaking to them in Russian, because quite honestly I am REALLY rusty even more so now because all my thoughts are in French and I've put my Russian in a back corner until I go back to State....but I took a deep breath and just plunged into it. I asked two of the girls what their names were (Kak vas zovout?) and their eyes opened wide and they got really excited and said, "You're from Russia?!!" And started speaking rapid fire Russian to me, and I said, "Njet, Njet!! I've only been studying it for 2 years at my university!" But they insisted that I spoke it well and had a good accent, which made me feel good about myself. Also makes me want to go study in Russia all the more... :)

Thao and I also had a really good conversation while we were playing pool. I was talking to him about how I feel like I have hit a wall with my French and am not progressing as much as I wanted to during this trip. It is kind of hard to speak French all the time, because even when I meet other foreigners from non-english speaking countries, they tend to know English much better than French and therefore want to speak English with me, or the others in our group. English is definitely, and sometimes unfortunately, the unifying language at the Institute especially among the lower class levels. But Thao told me to just keep it up, and he thinks I have made improvements and that I just need to keep challenging myself and try and use more complex structures and bigger words.

We also talked a lot about his own personal allegiance with France vs the States which is what I found the most interesting. I was telling him that I loved speaking French and I really like being here, but mostly just to meet new people and talk to them..but that I don't think I could ever live here or work here. He told me that he much prefers his life in the States, and that while France is where he was raised and he loves a lot of things about France (certain ways of thinking, the food, etc) he said that his appreciation for America really hit him the moment he was standing in the US embassy. He had to do some paper work or something regarding a visa, but he said when he was standing there, looking at the flag, that he got shivers down his spine. I was really surprised that he felt that inspired by our country. He said he really respects the mentality of Americans, his words were "Americans always have to be accountable." I definitely agree with him on that point. The French never accept blame, or fault, and are always complaining about different things and blaming it on everything else--even the simplest thing (for example, my host mom once knocked off a glass from the table and it broke, but instead of saying "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said, "What was that doing there in the first place?") Thao further went on by saying that our country truly does award opportunities for those who are willing to work hard and sacrifice--definitely the American Dream. In France, the government is so bureaucratic and there is always red tape everywhere, it makes it impossible to get things done and you have to have connections and know a lot of people to get any sort of decent position for a job, etc. But it's not necessarily all about connections in the States; networking helps, but hard work and perseverance are more important.

I felt this way about France the last time I came here even though only for 9 days, and I feel it even more now that I've been here for a good amount of time. If anything, my own patriotism grows when I am in France and I appreciate more and more what I have at home. There are certain cultural aspects that I love about France and that now I can guard with me in my own personality, and way of thinking, but it makes me feel very blessed and appreciative of everything we have in the States. Kind of like being raised with some Polish culture too---I love the food, the family ties, and values that I've been brought up with. :) just had to throw that in there as well.

What I'm getting at in a very inarticulate way is that diveristy is beautiful, and cultures are something to be protected. With diversity, you can pick and choose exactly what you like from cultures, what things work and what things don't exactly work, and you have such a more enriched way of life and thought process. I mean, whole concepts that exist in one language don't exist in other languages because there is no corresponding word for translation. It's just really fascinating to be experiencing this, to be growing and maturing in my own set of values, and to be learning about the lives of people from all corners of the world. All of us human beings, all of us who no matter what have the same essential desires for life and happiness.

We finished playing pool and then went to a bar with my new Russian friends. They seem to think that I speak more Russian than I actually do. But I guess its good practice, right? Oi! Thao kept asking me about Matt, and he told me that I need to make him learn French. He said that if I were to bring him here even one time, then he would want to learn it. Is that going to be true? Haha.

Today I am invited to go eat dinner at Lindsey's house (yay! normal food 2 nights in a row!) and I'm working on a paper about French slang for my professor. That's a subject entirely on its own.

I'm getting bad about writing frequently

Classes are officially in full swing. Last Thursday was my first day, and I was place into the 7th level (the levels are 1-9, 1 being beginning and 9 being fluent) so I was really proud of myself. However, there are definite differences between the American education system and French. I'm very sure that if I were to take 6 credits at MSU rather than getting 6 credits worth of class from this month's institute's classes, the MSU material would be much more challenging and intense than what I am covering right now. The homework varies between level to level from what I can tell, but as far as my work load goes I don't have much homework. Every day I have 3 hours of class in the morning, and then the other classes vary during the week. There's 3 hours a week of phonetics (reeeeally boring for me because I already took some heavy duty linguistic classes at msu), 4 hours a week of a conversation class, and then I have 5 hours a week of optional classes. I'm actually only taking 3 of the hours per week because one of the classes was the one that I took during the whole month of June, so there is no point in my sitting in the same class twice. But the optional classes I have are a literature class and an art history class (which I am really enjoying.)

Other than that, I still have plenty of my other homework to complete in the next two weeks for my professor from MSU, so I'm not complaining about my smaller work load with the institute!

The actual day of Thursday, however, when we all found out our levels, was TRAUMATIZING. I've never had such a chaotic day here as that day. At least 70% of the students in my study abroad groups were up in arms about the level that they were placed in. In their defense, the standardized test that we took was probably graded very subjectively because that is just the way French professors are, however, there was absolute mass pandemonium. Everyone went running to Prof. Norris' and Thao's office, yelling and carrying on and demanding to be put into higher levels because they were bored out of their minds and didn't want to waste MSU tuition on a classes that weren't even going to prepare them. It was all I heard about for at least 3 days. Man. Girls were crying and everything! It was ridiculous.

Then Friday was the 4th of July!! But it just wasn't the same in France. :( we were all really missing hotdogs and burgers and tubing on lakes and hanging out with family and friends and going to see fireworks. Our whole group went and met by the Loire river to celebrate the night. By the river there is a bar that kind of resembles something from Haiti, it's very latin looking and at night they string lights through the trees and have a big dance floor. Unfortunately, the weekend was a big theatre festival in Tours so dancing on the floor the whole night were really bad break dancers/ballroom dancers. Only the French would find a way to somehow connect those two styles together. The music sounded like carnival/circus music, and we all sat there with looks of horror on our face as we watched the dancers stumble around looking absolutely ridiculous. Hahah. Finally, late late late that night, the group got off the stage and then the dj started playing even weirder music, only occasionally playing something normal that we could dance to. All in all, we tried our best to make it feel like an American night.
4th of july

Nothing too much happened on Saturday. I was more preparing myself for Sunday, the Radiohead and Sigur Rós concert!!! It was really a once in a lifetime opportunity for myself, to be able to see two of my absolute favorite groups play at the same music festival, and Lindsey likes both of them as well as another band that played, so we bought tickets and took the train to Arras, France, to go see them play at the Mainsquare festival. The show started at 4pm and we got there just in time and started making our way closer and closer to the stage. The opening bands were really entertaining and fun, and then around 8pm Sigur Rós went on!! I almost cried they were so good. There were so many of them on the stage and they sounded amazing live. I couldn't believe how close we were to the stage, either. Also, they opened their show with my favorite song by them, and then played a lot of other good old and new songs. By the time Radiohead was ready to play, Lindsey and I were literally smushed in the crowd since we were about 5 people away from the front. We definitely got lucky with our spot. They played for 2 hours, and every other song was one from their newest cd, and then the next would be an older song. I was in no way disappointed.
Sigur Rós
the whole Sigur Rós group
Radiohead!!!!!!

a girl standing in front of me had this on her backpack....

The interesting part of the night, however, began AFTER the concert. Since it was on a Sunday, the latest train out of Arras was at 9pm, so we decided that we would just spend the night in the train station until the first train out in the morning. Not a good idea! We soon figured out at 1am that not all train stations in France are open 24/7...and we weren't the only ones camped out all night in the cold rainy weather. The street and area outside of the station was scattered with a bunch of hippies and backpackers who had been at the show as well. We were pacing around the train station complaining about how long the night was going to be until our train at 7am in the morning, when all of a sudden two guys walked up to us and started talking. They asked us where we were from (them being American as well) and we answered Michigan.

"Oh yeah? We're from Michigan, too. We go to Michigan State, actually."

What a coincidence! I never expected to run into MSU students, it was really random, haha. So we walked around and ended up sitting in a bus stop so we could get out of the rain (not only is it very cold in general in France right now, but it is even colder in Arras since the city is so far north) and we sat like homeless people---and by homeless people, for that matter---all night. We chatted and talked about school, they came to France for the weekend from London where they were on a literature study abroad program. Around 2am we were miserable from the cold and lack of sleep, and then somehow the guys were able to fall asleep laying on the cold and wet cobblestone, but Lindsey and I stayed awake and took turns reading each other stories from a short-story book that she had brought. At 2:20am, the short stories were really not that interesting and we walked over to a pay phone booth and sat huddled in it with the doors closed practically on top of each other thinking of people to call and laugh to about our situation. At 3am, we left the pay phone booth and walked around again, looking for hotel lobbies to stand in. At 3:15 am, the concierge kicked us out. At 3:30am, I swear to god I met a reincarnated version of Michael Jackson when he was in his younger black days. 4 am we decided that having a crazy European all night adventure was really not that smart of an idea. At 4:15am we decided to go sit against the outside wall of the train station. 5 am the train station opened and the masses ran inside to get out of the cold. Lindsey and I sat in a corner, really slap-happy, cracking up at how ridiculous the whole night had been and how cold we were. We ended up spooning on the train station floor to conserve body heat, and got an hour or so of sleep and then FINALLY our train arrived.

I've never felt more relieved than I did then to just collapse in a train seat. We immediately passed out for the 2 hour train ride back to Tours. There was a point during the ride when the conductor came by to punch our tickets and had to shake us both awake because we were both laying there nearly comatose and not responding to her. Hahah. We arrived back in Tours at 9:30am and I immediately walked to class from the train station...definitely had some trouble staying awake in class all day. However, it was completely worth it, and really hilarious to look back on.

I had time for a 2 hour nap after class that afternoon, which really turned out to be a 3 hour nap because I over slept my alarm, then I had to hurry over to Jen's host house because it was her 21st birthday and her host mom told her to invite me and Lindsey over for dinner. Finally a salmon-less dinner! I scarfed down all of the food. We had duck with lima beans and at that point anything that wasn't salmon sounded delicious. After dinner we all went out to celebrate her birthday, I opted out on the drinking however because my body was a little worse for wear from the previous all-nighter in the cold, but Jen had a really good birthday so that's what counted. We found a really cool bar that specializes in all these different kinds of shooters, some that were like candy with whipped cream on top, some that were served lit on fire, etc etc.
Jen with the candy shots

Came home late that night and crashed, woke up for school on Tuesday, nothing out of the ordinary. Yesterday we visited the Chenonceau, the castle that is built over the river. As far as castles go, the interesting points of it were that it served as a dividing line of territory between the Germans and the French, and also that you can canoe there! I spent most of the afternoon canoing on the river with Jen, Lindsey, Matt, and Gary. The sun was out, the temperature finally warming up. Hopefully it stays this way so I don't have to keep wearing jeans and sweaters everyday.

Vacation, and the start of July

This needs to be a rapid fire update, because I haven't written in too long of a time.

So, Friday, June 20th: It was a bit of a sad day because I had to say goodbye to my really cool roommates, Melanie, Gabby, and Robin. I was really fortunate to have started out here with great roommates since they made France feel more like a home for me, and this home-stay feel more like a family. Melanie was really excited to go back home (she's from around Albany, NY) because she has been homesick for awhile, but it was nice because that Friday night she stopped and said that she was actually going to miss France because we had all become so close. This is also going to sound a bit cliché, but you really do make Study Abroad families...people that you become close to and can lean on and go to for support, whether it be when dealing with homesickness, or coming to terms with some weird cultural difference, or just simply having a good laugh in a foreign situation you would never run into in the States. We all exchanged phone numbers and emails, and after that was all sad and done, we sat in le salon (living room/dining room) and played around with the piano and sang songs. Haha, it was hilarious. Melanie was very good at impromptu piano playing, and Robin mostly took the lead vocals while gabby and I were rolling on the floor laughing. We made songs up about Huguette getting upset that she was changing the toilet paper too often (hahah, oh the French) and songs about Tours, etc. We all agreed that we should have had "music time" every night after dinner, not just on the last night :( but it was a great last hurrah.
me and melanie (and robin jumping in the back)
Jin-ah and Yuka (I swear I didn't tell them to make peace signs)
Gabby and Robin

Saturday: La Fête de la Musique!! The craziest pagan tradition that exists everywhere in the world except in North America. Every year on the summer solstice is the music festival, in every city, and literally EVERYONE participates and goes out to have a good time. It starts at 8pm, and musicians and bands litter every single street, plaza, alley...all different sorts of music. And everyone comes out to take part in it. I saw parents with very young children walking around at 3 in the morning, and that was something that struck me as odd because I think if the festival were in the States it might be more just for a younger crowd than EVERYONE. But it made it that much better. I started the night off with Gabby and Robin (their last night in Tours) and we went for an organ concert in the cathedral at 8pm. It sounds dorky at first, but it was actually really impressive listening to this huge organ in the cathedral playing all these very baroque and medieval songs. The funny part though, was the 15 minute intermission in the middle of the concert where the organ player did an impromptu piece that was him simply touching different keys one by one in the most random order, and then playing Dracula music. HAHAH. Everyone kept looking at each other in the church, as if to say, "What the heck is going on? Where did this guy come from?"

After that little concert I met up with MSU people and started walking around the city. There were hippies, reggae music, 60s and 70s rock bands, grunge bands, hard core scream-o bands (really strange to hear in french), salsa and cha cha, techno, house dj's mixing beats, French rappers dueling and spitting mad-rhymes.. and a sea of people, in every street, dancing with everyone and going from different band to different band. We followed a drum line around for awhile and danced walked down the streets with them. It was such a fun night. I really wish we had the solstice music festival in the States.

Sunday: Stayed home most of the day and felt my plague coming on...I had a little bit of a sore throat that would later turn into a bad cold and laryngitis during my vacation with Lauren and Christian.

Then I got a call from Mrs. Silver! She told me that they would be in Tours that evening and invited me and Matt to have dinner with them. I met up with the Brighton group at 6pm at their hotel. It was very crazy. A little piece of Brighton in France. Suddenly I found that when I was speaking French with Mrs Silver, Mr Dufon, Mrs Carleton, that I could speak much more fluidly and easily than when I have ever spoken with my host mom... I don't get it. But it was a good feeling anyway. We went to the restaurant and had a really nice discussion with the French teachers and Mrs Prieskorn. Even Mrs Harvey was there which was odd. I didn't know that she was coming to help chaperon the group either. She was my Health teacher in 10th grade. We talked about different cultural occurrences, our host families, language things that only language students would find interesting, etc. Then they were really nice and paid for Matt's and my dinner. Hurray for free food, eh? I walked them to the park by Jen's house because one of the kids on the group wanted to go jogging a little bit. Some of the students tagged along for the walk, and I got a chance to chat with them (including Kelsey) about how they were liking their visit to France so far. The whole night was like having a little piece of Brighton in Tours, haha. It was strange but cool at the same time to meet up with them in France. Mrs. Silver walked back with Matt and I, and when I said my goodbye I kind of felt choked up. It was so nice seeing familiar faces, and so comforting, that I was reluctant to return back to my French life in Tours.

Monday-Thursday morning: Paris with Lauren and Christian!

I arrived on Monday afternoon in Paris with Matt and he tagged along with me as I looked for the hotel in the Latin Quarter. Uncle Greg kept calling me asking to meet up with them, but I was sweaty, hot, tired, and busy walking all over looking for the stupid hotel and I told him to call me back but we didn't end up getting a chance to meet up. Finally found the hotel, and they were sleeping. They told me that they hit a huge pocket of turbulence during the beginning of the flight and the plane just fell straight down and everything went flying. Oi. That would scare me so much. I think if that had happened to me I would have peed my pants. Oh là là. I seriously get so freaked out from flying anyway. But they made it just fine, to the hotel as well. We went to the train station to buy our tickets to go to Provence later in the week, then met up with Matt again after he got settled in his hotel and we had delicious croque-monsieurs at a cafe near the hotel.

We got to see a lot of different monuments and sights while in Paris. We went to the catacombs (which I was dieing to see and wasn't disappointed) and it was very eery and interesting to be walking down many damp passageways beneath the city, seeing all of the bones just piled up on either side of the corridor. We saw Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysées, Montmartre, Musée D'Orsay (with all the impressionist paintings), the outside of the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, Arc de Triomphe, and visited little shops and markets inbetween.

Thursday-Saturday: Made our way down to the south of France via the TGV train. I love that train. It's so smooth and really fast, only took 3 hours to make it all the way to Aix-en-Provence. Our hotel was really cute, and used to be a monastery. Now it was time to unwind a bit from such a rushed vacation. The first afternoon Lauren and Christian went to go walking around the city, and I went to a cafe and read one of my required reads for the program. The only draw back of being in the south was that it was soooo hot. There was no escaping the heat.

On Friday we took a shuttle bus from Aix to Marseilles so we could go to the beach! I loved that. The Mediterranean felt very refreshing in the heat. That evening Matt and I met up with Jen and Lindsey who had arrived in Aix. We sat at a cafe and talked about how our vacations had been going, and then walked around a little bit. But we were all pretty tired especially from the heat so we called it an early night and I went back to the hotel. Saturday I spent the afternoon buying my train ticket back to Tours and then doing a little souvenir shopping for people at home. We decided that it would be nice to stay another day longer since classes didn't start till later this week, so I went back on Saturday night to Jen and Lindsey's hotel, and said my goodbyes to Lauren and Christian, who were leaving early on Sunday morning to try and make it on some flights out of Charles de Gaulle.

Their hotel was a little bit outside of the city (only about a 10 minute bus ride away) but it had a pool!! I haven't uploaded pictures yet from this last leg of the trip, but I'll add them in the next entry I write. Needless to say, there is always some interesting Study Abroad adventure/crazy story around the corner...the hotel was more of a long-term hotel, where workers and people would stay for more extended periods of time. In our building? Three or four 30yr old Australians, one older 30s Norwegian, and an Englishman. Hahahahaha. They were really funny. One of the Australians had no teeth either...eww. But they were really funny to hang around with at the pool, and seemed to be glad to meet us (ehhh..hahah). It was all so random, but very amusing.

beautiful view from my hotel with jen and lindsey..mountains in the background

I finally got back home to Tours on Monday night after a long day of train travel. We had a lay-over in Lyon for a couple hours, so Alice came to have lunch with us inbetween our trains! It was good seeing her again.

So, thats the vacation week summed up in a long entry, I've got to getting going for the moment to meet up with my Profs and see how I placed in my classes for the month of July. Only 4 weeks left! Where did the first 4 go?!