Trying to get you up to speed!!!!

As some of you may know, I have approximately 6 days left in France before I return to the states and begin an awesome internship with the Heartland Film festival in Indianapolis. So I’ve been having some difficulties finishing my blog post on spring break because it has taken me forever to recount 16 days in full detail from memory and do school work. I know you’ve been missing my frequent posts terribly (haha) so I’ve decided to put you in the know as far as what’s been happening in my life these past 3 weeks. So my first week back in France after break was pretty fun but also stressful. The weekend before classes started, Megan and I had a sleepover at my place and we made puppy chow! My host family was afraid to try it, but Thomas, Thibaud, and Solenne liked it! Stephan was the only one who wasn’t a fan. They are all pretty anti peanut butter though! Weird! Solenne, Megan, Thomas and I watched Love Songs in my room and bonded. It was really fun. My theatre devoir à la maison was due the Tuesday after I got back from spring break, so I worked really hard to finish that. My students and I played a fun improv game in English that they ended up loving! I finally returned to conversation club after a month hiatus (we played Pictionary and a game kind of like scatergories, and I went out to this awesome creperie called St. Croix with my Megan, Kathleen, Andrew and our French friend Nicolas. I also registered for classes and got almost everything I wanted- Thank God. I went to observe this French school called Sacre Cœur with my stage pedagogique class and we got to make cake with a cooking class! It was so fun! We had to wear hairnets and pair off with a student. My girl was pretty cool but a little fast for her age. She wants to be a fireman. The facilities were incredible. They had several kitchen stations with the stove/oven, sink, and cooking supplies but they also had washing machines and driers so they can learn how to do the laundry correctly. They even had to be tested on how to properly clean baby bottles. Only one guy was taking the class- that’s a bit backwards if you ask me. I saw a play called the Mouse Trap with French actors performing in English. One of the women who works at IES was in the play and she was awesome! Her accent was incredible. It was pretty entertaining to hear the other French people try to force a British accent. One of the guys sounded like he was mentally handicapped! Another guy had an awesome British Beatles accent but his character was crazy!!! This other woman was supposed to be a foreigner in the play, and she touching herself and making funny noises and saying crazy things throughout the play. I laughed the entire play due to the ridiculous character choices. I watched this movie at IES called La Boum, and it was awesome! I loved it so much and I could follow the entire movie with out English subtitles. I bought this awesome cd/dvd by Renan Luce (a great French singer whose music is on my playlist if you want to check him out). Thursday when I went to my stage, everything was fun in the morning- we played Pictionary, hangman, and mad-libs. But in the afternoon, this crazy student of mine showed me a picture of himself holding a gun to his head, and then he told me that he had the gun in his backpack!!!! I was freaking out inside, but remained calm during my class. After my class, I told the teacher about it, and she said that she knows his dad wasn’t please about the photo and that she had already seen it! I was like okaaay…. But she assumed that he was kidding about having the gun in his bag. Joke or no joke, that kid would have been O-U-T out in the states. Luckily I would never have that class again! I finally returned to my class at the Fac, and I understood the majority of what my prof said this time! Too bad it was the last class I was attending because the first two Fridays in May are national holidays where no one works. He talked about Titanic, Martin Scorcese, and the Last Tango in Paris a lot! I’m so glad I’m in a French cinema class and we talk about American films…..not. I started filming Nantes, my friends and my family. I can’t wait to show the video to everyone, my host family was hilarious! So that Friday night, I went to La Maison with Megan and Kathleen and we got to have drinks in the bathtub! Yay. I finally got to go to Park de Proces that weekend which was pretty. There were so many colorful flowers and a big pond. Saturday night I went to a Breton dancing gathering with our activities coordinator for IES, Samuel. Megan, me and a bunch of other girls learned how to dance while holding each other’s pinkies! It was so strange and very much like Irish dancing. There were a bunch of people in this school gym, and there were 3 live bands playing. The music was so cool! It was very Celtic; well, Breton dancing is Celtic so I guess it follows that… Some of the people have death grips with their pinkies and I swear mine where going to be dislocated a couple of times. Everyone was really tightly squeezed together as we danced in circles and loops and waves throughout the gym. The crepes there were big and fresh and really good.

The next week was really busy! I had my job interview for my internship through skype! It was a great success!- obviously if I got the job! Conversation club that week was awesome because we played this game called Le Loup Garous (Werewolf) which is like Mafia (for those of you who know how to play it. Basically everyone is given a card that has there identity on it. You can be a villager, a loup garous, a seer, a matchmaker, or a sorcerer. If you know the rules of Mafia, it’s the same idea. If you don’t, then look them up. It was just the Americans at St. Croix that Tuesday. Kathleen and I made dinner for my host family that week and it was awesome! We had quesadillas- which my family loved- with guacamole and salsa, a fruit salad made with strawberries/pineapples/orange juice/tequila-also really good, and brownies!!! My host family was impressed by the fact that every time I cooked for them it was really good (and it was Mexican both times) because American cuisine is usually considered crappy by the French. They raved over the brownies! That Friday there was no class, almost all the stores and restos were closed, and all public transportation was shut down. Megan and I hung out at my house and had a dance party. This girl named Elizabeth joined us and we watched Velvet Goldmine and part of A Little Romance. It was fun! That night I watched La Boum 2 with Thomas. Yay for bonding. Last Saturday, Nicolas took Megan, Andrew and I along the coast to the many different cities along the ocean. It was a bit chilly outside, but the water was nice, so we stuck our feet in. The sand was very firm and smooth. We didn’t sink at all! There were a lot of windsurfers out and people were racing these mini cars/surfboards on wheels that had huge sails on them so the wind propelled them. It was so cool! I’d never seen anything like it! We saw where some of the biggest ships in the world are made and I couldn’t believe the size of some of them! They looked like horizontal skyscrapers! Our last stop was La Baule where had awesome pizza and good wine! I was so happy to be by the sea! I love the beach! On our drive back to my house, we saw prostitutes on a main road!! How crazy is that! Aapparently Nantes has the highest rate of prostitution per capita! And it’s legal! We also saw a bunch of people trying to hitch hike home. It’s so strange how normal that is in France. My host brother Stephan hitch hiked to Paris two weeks ago and just came back last Wednesday.

This past week was the last week of classes. It was so sad because it was my last week with my students at my stage pedagogique and it was the last week of conversation club. My students and I took photos and exchanged facebook information. I never wanted to leave them! I never realized how much I would love working with them. It was probably one of the best experiences of my life. Conversation Club was a free for all and we just chatted and had Haribou candy. A big group of us went to St. Croix- 10 to be exact- and we made our last night together count. At our last stage pedagogique class, we turned in our devoir à la maison and the professor gave us this chestnut candy! It tasted so good! We watched this documentary on a boarding school in France that is wicked expensive. They have horseback riding, an Olympic size pools, go carting, and aviation classes with real planes! It was intense. Wednesday night was sort of family night. Host families came to IES and we all had little snacks aka really awesome mini pastries. Thursday, my last day of classes, last day of my internship, and my first final (phonetics lab-ugh). I went to go see Incognito with Talya, Kathleen, Megan, Stephanie, Nicolas, Maxime, and his friend Florent. It was probably the funniest French film I’ve ever seen! I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard! Its about this guy who finds the lyrics to a song his friend from ten years ago wrote. His girlfriend here’s him singing it ad helps him become a big star. Suddenly his friend comes back to France and the guy tries to hide his fame from his friend the entire movie. It is awesome! I wish I could go see it again! And I understood practically everything! Friday there were no classes because May 8^th is when WWII ended. Everyone from IES went on our final fieldtrip to Clisson. It was so pretty. There’s a river that runs through it and people were kayaking or canoeing. There was a man made kayak/canoe chute for people to go down a mini water fall. It was cute. We actually sat on the chute later that day. We saw a really old chateau and checked out a cool market. I bought this delectable pastry called a Bermuda and it was filled with strawberry goodness. Megan, Kathleen, Andrew, Michel, Moy, and I hung out at a café for a while before exploring the wood trails. We discovered a cemetery, a seesaw, multilevel bars (which we tried to do pull ups on and do flips and things like in grade school), and some cool things to climb. It was a pretty steep trek which was not that fun in my sandals but I guess it was worth it. We walked along the river on our way back to the bus. Our next stop was a vineyard where Muscadet is made. It was so interesting. The land was covered in grape plants! Some of the little grape trees were over a hundred years old! The property was gorgeous, and all the flowers were in bloom. A couple of us discovered an underground cave/room with bats in it. We checked out- it was scary like out of a horror film where stupid teenagers die. Obviously I lived to tell the tale but I can’t say the same for the others…. Just kidding! We saw the machines that make the wine, the barrels that hold the wine, and a room with over 30,000 wine bottles- talk about intense. We got many demi glasses of free white wine, and I loved it! Muscadet is at the top of my list! I’ve really grown to appreciate wine during my sejour in France. I used to hate it! When we returned to Nantes, Kathleen and I tried new pastries at the Vienoiserie by IES. I got a Reliegeuse and it was the food of the gods! Its these two balls, a small one on top of a big one, filled with chocolate mousse and decorated on the outside with chocolate. It’s pretty much my new favorite thing. That night, Lauren, Michel, Megan, and I went to this bar called Web Ellis where people go to watch rugby. The bars were covered in rugby game pictures, and the people were all so chill and nice. They insisted on speaking to us in English though. Since it was us girls’ first time there, we got a free shot of what they call shrek poop. Michel just brought it over and said, “don’t ask what it is, just drink it.” We did, and it was awesome! It tasked like mint chocolate chip candy- like those Andes you get at Olive Garden. It was a fun night. Yesterday Megan and I went to the market at Talensac. It was incredible! They had antiques, old postcards with images of different parts of France before and after the war, jewelry vendors, clothing vendors, painters, and loads of food! Fresh fruit as far as the eye could see, live sea food, whole cow carcasses, chickens, Arab cuisine, wine, bread, honey- you name it, they have it (save American cuisine. We saw this guy skinning and gutting live eels!!!! They were still moving when he did it, and they continued to move a bit post mortem. Bleh! We got some strawberries and lettuce for dinner, and I had this awesome strawberry pastry thing that made my taste buds do a dance! We went back to Megan’s house for lunch and ate in the garden with her host parents. We got this potato and cheese thing from Talensac and it was incredible! I love French food!!! It’ll be so hard to leave it. After lunch we went to Parc de la Gaudinière and explored. The flowers were beautiful and the stream was so peaceful. We took loads of pictures! We got a few things from the grocery at Carrefour for dinner and parted ways to take a nap and study. That evening we met up with Michel and went to his house to make dinner. He took us down this wooded path that seemed to go on forever! Finally we made it to his host family’s house – he had it all to himself this weekend- and cooked an awesome dinner while listening to good music. That night we met up with Nicolas and Florent and went to Hangar à Bananes. Its on this island in the middle of the Loire near the Île de la Machine and it’s a big hangar divided into 7 bars with different ambiences, 3 restaurants, and a dance club. It was huge and right on the river! We went to 3 different bars before finding a good one to chill at called the Altercafe. We had a lot of fun, and I’d say it was a great way to spend my last Saturday in Nantes! We’ll now, you’re almost fully up to speed. I’ll get the post on spring break up ASAP. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you guys! Wish me luck on finals and my last week in France tear*tear*. Gros Bisous!