France

Saturday we took an excursion to Normandy, which is about a 4 hour drive. We went to the D-Day memorial museum, the American Cemetery, Pointe du Hoc (a landing beach), and the German Cemetery. It was a very long day as we left school at 6:30am and did not return until 9:30 that night. It was about the first excellent day weather wise, which we were all very grateful for. The museum was interesting and informative. There was a movie afterward and we got excited for that, but it ended up not having narration. We were all kind of confused about this at first, but then we realized that people visit that museum from all over the world and it would be impossible to translate it into all the various languages. We ate lunch (another CIDEF packed picnic lunch- which are not good) outside the museum—the only time we’ve had an option to eat inside was the one day it was gorgeous out. The past few excursions, we’ve eaten in the cold and rain. Way to go CIDEF!

We journeyed next to the American cemetery which was very beautiful yet very sobering. Most of the actual bodies are buried in the U.S., but their graves are still marked with white marble crosses. From there we drove past the Utah beach, another landing point, to Pointe du Hoc. They’ve left the area completely intact except for adding some gravel pathways. There are still tons of bombed bunkers, huge portions of ruins, and barbed wire littering the space. Gigantic craters are carved out from where bombs hit and you can walk down into them. It was interesting, yet it would have been nice if there had been signs or some type of information telling you where you were or what exactly had happened—like the actual battle strategies or something. It was such a nice day and we were right on the ocean, so it was kind of hard to picture it as the terrible war zone it would have been on that day.

We only got to stop at the German Cemetery for about 20min since some girls had been late getting on the bus earlier in the day and in France, there’s a law that the bus drivers can only drive for a certain amount of time before they are legally forced to stop. So if we were late, we just wouldn’t get back to Angers that day or something. The ride was kind of long and tedious on the way back—nothing too interesting to see except cows and farmland.

Sunday, I met up with the girls and we went inside the château d’Angers. We thought it was pretty cool to just have a château in the city, just chilling, that’s like a thousand years old. The gardens were lovely and we once again had a beautiful day. We were able to go up on the ramparts surrounding the château and walk around the walls up top. It was a great view of the river and the entire city. Angers hosts the oldest tapestry in Europe—from the 1300’s—and that is kept in the château so we took a look at that as well. Afterward, we grabbed some ice cream (bien sûr) in the centre ville (which was challenging as there is nothing open in Angers on Sundays). I had about 2 hours to kill until we met up with Mme Work, our UD prof, for dinner, so me and some of the girls walked out to Lac du Mail, a lake about 40min from the centre ville. We just sat on the bank and watched the sail boats and canoes and enjoyed the sunny day.

Rachel, Chris, and I met up with Mme Work and her husband and baby and we got dinner at a café on Blvd du Foche. They paid for the dinner, which was nice of them. However, I’m pretty sure they did not pay to spend a month here and that us 3 UD students paid for Mme Work and her family to come on vacation, so I didn’t feel too bad.

Monday we were back to school and school work, though we luckily are done with tests. I’m actually pretty much finished with school now because tomorrow we just have like a relaxed day and we’re watching a French movie since we only have class until noon. I’m kind of sad it’s the last day tomorrow. I’ve really enjoyed living here and though I don’t think I would want to spend the rest of my life in Europe, I definitely wouldn’t mind coming back for at least a year or so. I think I’d choose a slightly larger city—I love Angers, but sometimes there just isn’t stuff to do or things are never opened. I’ve heard that larger cities are a bit more “American” in that they’re open longer and usually open for “American” hours. It’s just annoying when you try to get groceries or a snack on Sunday and the entire city has closed down.

Tonight, my niveau (level) is celebrating the end of classes by going to a crêperie on Rue St. Aubin. I’ve been there once before and they have AMAZING crêpes. Afterward, one of the students we know is playing his guitar at a bar so we’re going to go there and watch him. I can’t believe this is my second to last night. The time has just flown by. I knew it would, but it is one thing to know it and another to actually experience it.

So this past week has probably been the busiest and longest week so far. I barely had time to do my homework and get to bed at a decent time, yet alone sit on the computer and catch up on this blog. I got to go to Paris with Catherine on the weekend of the 17-19th. We had an amazing time and saw about all we could see in the short amount of time we were there. We did a bunch of touristy things on Saturday- saw Sacré Cœur, walked around Montmartre, went over to the Latin Quarter, saw Notre Dame, and took a boat ride up the Seine to Les Invalides and the Eiffel Tower. Had a lovely dinner at a café near the Eiffel Tower and took the boat back up the Seine at night to see all the monuments all lit up. We had a wonderful time and it was so cool to be exploring Paris on our own together. The only problem we ran into was that we were in Paris in the middle of July on a weekend. Thus every tourist attraction was at its most crowded. We decided that with places like Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, it was not necessary to go inside or up them. It did not make sense to wait in line for a few hours when we could see the outside just fine and go see other things instead.

Sunday we went out to Versailles. Once again, we ran into the same problem and it was about a 2 hour wait in line to get tickets to go into the château. We only had about 4 ½ hours so we decided our best bet would be to just spend all our time exploring the gardens surrounding the château. I’ve never been to Versailles, so I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t go inside the château, but now this gives me an excuse to come back and visit it again. The day turned out to be wonderful and we had an excellent time in the gardens. We actually ran into a girl from my CIDEF class, Rachel Leech, so she walked around with us as well. We went out to the domain of Marie-Antoinette and saw the Petit Trianon, her peasant hamlet, and the Grand Trianon. It was incredible.

Catherine left to visit her family in England and I hopped the train back to Angers Sunday night. The school week was so long. We had class until 4 or 5 every day. We had another series of tests- 4 on Thursday. And two presentations. And our enquête, research project, due on Friday which was a 600 word report. So I was quite busy with school work most of this week. Anne-Do was home a lot this week as well so we had dinner together most nights. The food here always amazes me because it is so simple and it puts stuff together that I would never think to do. One night we had a tomato entrée (appetizer), which was actually an Italian dish, but it was just sliced tomatoes (fresh from the garden) with pepper, salt, and olive oil drizzled over it. They don’t use a lot of seasoning either. When Anne-Do cooks meat, it’s just seasoned with a little pepper and salt and sometimes a bit of butter. The side dishes are usually cooked vegetables of some sort- boiled carrots or boiled potatoes, again straight from the garden—you can really taste the freshness of the veggies. And then of course cheese and wonderful bread. Dessert is also simple— sometimes just a thing of yogurt or fruit. But I am always satisfied and feel like I ate something tremendously healthy.

Thursday night, I went out to dinner with Anne-Do and Joelle. We went to this adorable restaurant that had a huge wine selection. We had aperitifs (I’ve grown really accustomed to my before-dinner drinks) and a wonderful formule of a main course and dessert. It was a very enjoyable time. Anne-Do then dropped me off at Abbaye Café, a chic bar where we were having our final CIDEF soirée. All of my friends had come- Rachel, Esthella, Phoebe, Katie, and Marissa (minus Jamie who was leaving for England Friday and didn’t want to stay out too late). I got a cointreaupolitan- one of my new favorite drinks. It was a bit pricey (as all cocktails are here) but it was totally worth it because it came with a mini shaker to make my own cointreaupolitans :-D We split a few pitchers of beer—it was a bit of an expensive bar, but it was very nice. Everyone was dressed up and we voted for Miss and Mister CIDEF, haha. Sometimes this program is a bit like high school! But we had an excellent time and it was a nice evening.

Friday night, a group of us went to dinner at Auberge Angevine, an old cathedral that had been turned into a restaurant. It had a medieval theme and you could dress up in costume…for a cost of 3 euros. I had a very tasty aperitif; it was very sweet and cinnamony—kind of like Christmas. Rachel and I got 2 50cl of a great red wine and we all ordered a good formule that consisted of an entrée, a main dish, and a dessert. Everyone had a very great time and it was a good way to spend our last Friday in Angers.

I have to go get ready now to meet the girls at the château d’Angers- the old château here in the city that we have not had a chance to visit yet. I’ll have to finish up writing about the weekend and the excursion to Normandy later. À bientôt!

Sorry to keep anyone in suspense. I'm sure it was very hard to find other things to do since you did not have my blog to read :-D We've been incredibly busy this week. We started out Monday with 3 tests- oral comprehension, reading comprehension, and writing. It was over 2 hours long. It wasn't that terrible except that since I had missed the first few days of class, I had missed a lot of the important vocab that I was supposed to be using when I wrote the essay. So the comprehension parts went pretty well but the writing portion did not. She luckily gave us tonight to rewrite our essay, correct it, and turn it back in. They've really been piling on the work this week- probably to make up for the holiday on Tuesday. Just for tomorrow I have a 5-7 minute oral presentation (no notes), my essay rewrite, and an outline for the big final project we have to do. It doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're in school for about 6 hours a day and I am walking just to and from school or dinner or something for nearly two hours a day, well that doesn't leave a lot of time to get work done.

I got to celebrate Bastille Day in France (French independence day), which was pretty cool. I went with Anne-Do and Annaelle to see Ice Age 3 (l'age de glace 3) in French. I think it was more amusing because it was in French and I actually had to pay attention to what was going on. Then we met up with some of Anne-Do's work friends, including Joelle from the other night, to have a picnic on the river bank before the fireworks. It doesn't get dark here until literally 10:30 so we had plenty of time to enjoy the night. And though it doesn't get dark until late, it gets super cold very early. If you go anywhere after 7pm, it is imperative that you bring a jacket. The fireworks were enjoyable. They did some cool light displays with the château. Afterward, some people were going out, but I was ready to fall asleep so I just went back home.

On the 14th, some of the girls and I met up for a picnic lunch. Unfortunately, it started raining right as we all met. Luckily, one of the girls, Katie, lives in the foyer (the dorms) and there was a dinning room/living area that we ended up having our picnic in. We still had a ton of fun eating baguettes and cheese and sandwiches. And tons of dessert! Kinder chocolat, mousse au chocolat, compote d'apricots (an applesauce-like thing only with apricots). French dessert, even from the supermarket is vastly superior. Afterward, it was finally looking nice out so we took a bottle of wine and sat on the bank of the river. Overall, it was a very relaxing day.

School has been quite long this week. Every day gets almost longer. I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday. And I'm going to Paris!!!!! I'm so excited to see Catherine and go somewhere else for a few days! Well, I'm going to go prepare some dinner- I've got a pizza and there's salad and fruit and chocolate for dessert!

Friday we only had classes until lunch, which was much needed. There’s only so long one can sit in a classroom each week. Rachel and I went down to centre ville and did a TON of shopping. It was very sad seeing all my hard-earned money dwindle so suddenly, but I’m sure it will be worth it. And there were bon marchés (good deals) everywhere! I got a pair of heels (which you know, I probably don’t need, but the shoes here are much better made and comfortable). They were originally about 70€ and I got them for 15€!!! And they are super comfortable and cute.

I got home around 7pm and Rachel and I had planned to meet up again to go buy some things and make dinner at my apartment. When I got home, however, Anne-Do was with Joelle, a friend from work, who was American! So we started talking and she said she was going to eat dinner at an old professor’s house who lived here and invited Rachel and I along. Joelle is in her thirties from Georgia and is here on an internship for the summer before she finishes her Masters. Her old professor, John, had gone to Princeton and then became a linguistics professor in South Carolina. He spends half the year in Angers and half the year in the states. We had a very nice yet simple French dinner. We began with aperitifs- a red wine with kir- before starting dinner. He had cooked a delicious white fish and ratatouille. Everything was delicious! There was good French bread, real butter, good wine—French meals are probably my favorite thing I’ve experienced so far! And of course there was amazing cheese and fruit. For dessert, I brought along the rest of my birthday cake, which everyone enjoyed.

John was a very interesting and wise person. We were only there for about 3 hours, but I learned loads in that small amount of time. He told Rachel and me that if we really wanted to improve our language abilities, we had to find something in French and read it out loud for 10min each day. This will improve our pronunciation, our grammar, our comprehension/vocabulary, and our reading skill. The trick is, however, making time to read French for 10min a day. It was a very enjoyable dinner and it was just amazing how that worked out— 4 random Americans in Angers, France! Who would have thought?

Afterward, Kindy had invited to come over to his place. We brought Joelle since Kindy and his friends are more around her age and she was saying how she really didn’t know anyone here this summer. Kindy had some friends visiting from Royen, which is in the southwest of France on the Atlantic. Dashke (spelling??) was there also, who is another student in our program who lives with Rachel. She is 18, from Russia, and is totally crazy! After hanging out at Kindy’s for awhile and watching some interesting music videos, we headed out.

Dashke wanted to go dancing so we ended up going to a discotheque. Rachel, Joelle, and I were a little apprehensive because we have a very stereotypical idea of European discotheques. And we kind of just wanted to go to a bar. But it turned out to be amazing! You paid a cover fee that got you a free drink. Inside, there were crazy lights and smoke and techno music. But it was not exactly real techno music, it was like current songs, or popular songs at least, that were mixed. So there was a mix of American and French music and many genres ranging from rap to pop to of course, Michael Jackson and “Thriller.” We had an amazing time! It was so nice because you could dance without creepy guys coming up behind you—everyone was just there to dance and have fun! It was an awesome experience and I’m very glad I decided to go.

So thank you everyone for all the birthday wishes! I had a very wonderful birthday and got to celebrate throughout the entire day. I had about 5 friends over and my French mom brought home some amazing champagne. Any type of French wine or champagne has been so delicious here! Cointreau is pretty popular in Angers, so she made us “Cointreau-politans” that were also amazing. Anne-Dominique also brought out this superb chocolate cake and I once again was sung to. It was a very enjoyable evening. Afterward, we went out to a bar called Soft, which is pretty popular with the students in Angers as they have pretty cheap drinks. It was crowed, but we had a nice time and enjoyed some excellent sangrias.

Wednesday, I had school again. I sat through my morning classes and was bored out of my mind by the time I got to lunch. Rachel, Chris, and I had a brief meeting with Madame Work to just talk about our experiences so far. She was very surprised that the professor had not changed me to the higher class level, so we went upstairs to talk to the secretary. We ended up getting to talk the director of the entire program and I convinced him to put me into level 7. I’m glad I finally got that worked out because I did not come to France to be bored in class every day.

That night, I decided to go out and get my own food and make myself dinner since my French mom has not really cooked anything since the first night here and I was tired of microwave meals. So I got some green beans, some mozzarella cheese, and spaghetti sauce and made myself a big pasta meal with tomatoes and mozzarella. Typical though, I had just put my food all on my plate and sat down and Anne-Dominique walks in with a bag of groceries, ready to make dinner. Awkward.

Today was my first experience in level 7 and it was so much better. We’re actually learning things that I don’t know and we’re learning important and useful vocabulary and phrases. We’re even doing some more advanced grammar like present participles and gerunds, which are bizarre in French. In our labotoire class, we did phonetics, which is really smart and useful because a lot of times, we know the words to say, but we don’t pronounce them correctly and thus we’re not understood. It’s so much better to actually be challenged. I have to actually pay attention in class so that I can know what is going on. I feel like I’m at least getting my money’s worth now.

The weather’s been a bit odd. I’m never sure whether I need a jacket or an umbrella or nothing. It needs to make up its mind. Well, I’m off to do a bit of homework. Tchao!