Wow !!! What a weekend !!! Friday afternoon, after what seemed like quite a long week of classes, one of the other kids from Georgetown (Randall) and I took a train headed for Normandy for what has probably been my favorite trip of my whole experience here in France! En route to Bayeux, our base in Normandy, we had to stop in Alencon and Caen. We had about a 2 hour layover in Alencon, so we decided to walk around the city a bit and actually discovered some neat stuff, including a pretty cathedral and our first WWII historical site of the trip, a chateau that was converted by the Germans to be used to hold French prisoners. Our stop in Caen was much shorter, only about 20 minutes, so we were barely able to step outside the train station. Finally, we arrived in Bayeux, got to our pleasant three-star hotel, and found quite literally the last restaurant open in the town at 10:30 pm; we found that to be a bit odd, since we expected there to be a lot of tourists, but there really weren’t that many. Those that we did run into at the hotel were all English speaking, and Randall and I had fun playing off that we were French and having them not be able to understand us-haha!
Saturday morning, Randy and I got up early and caught the first bus out to the American Cemetery at Normandy. This may sound trite, but it was very moving and was definitely one of the best things I’ve done since I’ve been here. Figures it’s gotta be something American to qualify as such. We started off by heading to the museum, which had lots of great historical info and artifacts. We then proceeded outside to the cemetery. It really reminded me of Arlington with all the rows of identical headstones (except for the Jewish soldiers who had a Star of David), just much smaller. Next, we made our way down the hill to Omaha Beach, which was incredible to finally see. We wandered around for quite a while, exploring all the time, especially the remaining German pillboxes. Once, we’d gotten back up to the cemetery, we caught a bus out to Pointe-du-Hoc, which was also very impressive, especially seeing how some 250 Army Rangers, of whom 90 survived, were able to scale the cliffs and take out this strong German defensive peninsula. We walked among the bomb craters (which were found every 10-15 feet) and checked out the AA positions as well. Sadly, we didn’t have much time here, as we had to catch one of the last buses back to Bayeux to be able to see the famous Bayeux Tapestry before we caught our train for Paris. This artwork dating to the 11th century A.D. depicting the conquest of England at the Battle of Hastings by William the Conqueror (formerly William the Bastard) was also very impressive, all 70 meters long of it! Our day was not over though, as we caught a train to Paris that night, took our stuff to a hotel, and then met up with some other friends from the Insitute (one from NY and the other from Vancouver) at the Eiffel Tower. We only made it up to the second level, since it was kinda late (about 11 pm), but we still had a blast!
Sunday, I headed down to early Mass again at Notre Dame, and then went with Randall down to les Champs-Elysées at about 11 am to get a great spot to see the finish of the Tour de France. We waited around for a long, long time, probably until about 4:30-5:00 until the riders actually came through (and to be quite honest, I think waiting around for the Inauguration in January was great practice for this, cause that was way worse, but we were definitely prepped and soooo ready to keep everyone else from trying to squeeze in and take our spots 100 yards from the finish, second row!). In the meantime, we watched them on the jumbotron take their good sweet old time until they were about 25 km from Paris, and about 75 km overall from the finish. It was actually cool to see how many different nationalities were there-lots of French, but also lots of Spanish, since the leader and eventual winner, Contador, is Spanish; we actually ended up right next to the only American flag I saw all day-quite ironic, and great to have some support! Before the cyclists arrived, however, we got to view the Caravan, a sort of parade of all the sponsors of the Tour de France. Not long after, Lance and the peloton (or pack) came thru and made 8 laps down the Champs-Elysées and back down a tunnel under the Louvre. In the end, as I’m sure people may have heard, Lance placed third, and definitely looked very unhappy up on the podium-the mark of a true competitor! Tired as can be (but no where near as tired as all the cyclists must have been!), Randy and I caught our train back to Tours, and I promptly hit the sack once I got home. Overall, A++ weekend!!
Classes have still been great too. This week, we’ve been going over idiomatic expressions, something I was really hoping to be able to learn. Family life has been fun as always as well, but sad too, as I had to say goodbye to the kids last night, as they left today with their dad for the coast at la Rochelle for three weeks of vacation (while my host mom still has to work this week). We had a lot of fun during our last night together, namely playing dress up. Each one of the kids dressed up as a different Matt in my clothes: Matt de yo (cool Matt), Matt de sortir (going-out Matt), and Matt sportif (sporty Matt). I, on the otherhand, took on the persona of Jeanthiblys (a mix of Jean-Baptiste, Thibault, and Maïlys), wearing, as best as I could, something from each of their own wardrobe. We then had a fashion show for my host mom, who had a ball laughing with (not at) us. Finally, it was time for bed, and goodbyes. A bit of crying ensued, especially from Jean-Baptiste, who I heard after we’d all gone to bed go back down to his mom for a while. I was very very sad as well, cause I’ll absolutely miss these kids. They’ve been great and tons of fun and have definitely helped me learn all lot, but I’m also definitely looking forward to going home to see all my little cuzs, or should I say chipmunks, too!
So, only two more days here in France. Tomorrow should be a lot of fun, as we’ve entered into a talent show with a bunch of friends from Michigan State to do a hip-hop battle, West Side Story style. We’ve been practicing a ton, and yes, video will be made available-haha!
A bientôt!
Peace
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Chenonceau et Strasbourg
So, this past weekend was quite busy! I decided to get out off Tours for the weekend-it just feels like we’ve done everything there is to do around here, except maybe go biking along the Loire River, but that’s not entirely necessary. Donc, Saturday, I headed off to Chenonceau (see pics below). What a wonderful château! Seriously, I think it may be my favorite, even though it’s typical of tourists to make the same claim, but it’s true! I really liked how it was constructed over the Cher River; plus, it just felt different from the other château we had already visited. For the others, you always had to walk thru every room to get anywhere else-there was never a central hall with rooms branching off it. If I had a château (and I don’t think I’d want one, too snobby), I don’t think I could deal with that. At Chenonceau, it was just the opposite: every floor had a central hall with rooms branching off, just the way it should be! Finally François I had some reason!
Sunday, I headed to Strasbourg for the day. The train left at 8:50 and got there at 1:05, with the return train going back home thru Paris at 19:00, so I only had six hours there, but it was a six hours well spent, and constantly on the move! It was a little tough at first, because of the lack of a map, but the iPhone was very helpful with that! The city was very beautiful, and it actually reminded me a lot of Zermatt in Switzerland, where the Matterhorn is found, especially in terms of the architectural style of the buildings. Zermatt is definitely much smaller, but you can really see the German influence of both cities. I went to le Cathédrale de Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, which was the tallest building in the world from when it was constructed in the 1600’s until 1874. Very beautiful, and one of the best cathedrals that I’ve seen. I then headed, sort of out of the city, to the EU Parliament, just to say that I’ve seen it, because there really wasn’t anything to do but walk around it. After that, I finally got a map at the Office de Tourisme, which ironically was right next to the Cathedral, and walked around a bit more, admiring the architectural design. I also got to see a bit of the University de Louis Pasteur and its Hospital and Med School (from the outside only, again, since it was Sunday)-yes, very nerdy and very me, but oh well ;) At the end of the day, the train took me back to Paris l’Est; from there I had to catch the Metro and get to Paris Austerlitz for my late train home.
On another note, I’ve also had a bit of home with me, though that’s not to say that I don’t miss everyone and everything back home. Over the past week, I’ve been working my way thru Super Mario Bros 3 with all three of my French siblings, and I gotta say, they’re pretty good. They know all the tricks (like the magic flute in the 3rd stage of the 1st world) and other such things, and they pretty well over all (or “bon fait,” as we say when you do something good, though I often joke and attribute all of their skill to luck, or “la chance,” haha!). It’s been fun, and it’s kept me outta trouble, as if there was any to been had ;)
Peace
PS: We’ve still been keeping up with the street ballin’. Still perfect, at 6-0. I think Tony Parker is unique in coming from France…
Sunday, I headed to Strasbourg for the day. The train left at 8:50 and got there at 1:05, with the return train going back home thru Paris at 19:00, so I only had six hours there, but it was a six hours well spent, and constantly on the move! It was a little tough at first, because of the lack of a map, but the iPhone was very helpful with that! The city was very beautiful, and it actually reminded me a lot of Zermatt in Switzerland, where the Matterhorn is found, especially in terms of the architectural style of the buildings. Zermatt is definitely much smaller, but you can really see the German influence of both cities. I went to le Cathédrale de Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, which was the tallest building in the world from when it was constructed in the 1600’s until 1874. Very beautiful, and one of the best cathedrals that I’ve seen. I then headed, sort of out of the city, to the EU Parliament, just to say that I’ve seen it, because there really wasn’t anything to do but walk around it. After that, I finally got a map at the Office de Tourisme, which ironically was right next to the Cathedral, and walked around a bit more, admiring the architectural design. I also got to see a bit of the University de Louis Pasteur and its Hospital and Med School (from the outside only, again, since it was Sunday)-yes, very nerdy and very me, but oh well ;) At the end of the day, the train took me back to Paris l’Est; from there I had to catch the Metro and get to Paris Austerlitz for my late train home.
On another note, I’ve also had a bit of home with me, though that’s not to say that I don’t miss everyone and everything back home. Over the past week, I’ve been working my way thru Super Mario Bros 3 with all three of my French siblings, and I gotta say, they’re pretty good. They know all the tricks (like the magic flute in the 3rd stage of the 1st world) and other such things, and they pretty well over all (or “bon fait,” as we say when you do something good, though I often joke and attribute all of their skill to luck, or “la chance,” haha!). It’s been fun, and it’s kept me outta trouble, as if there was any to been had ;)
Peace
PS: We’ve still been keeping up with the street ballin’. Still perfect, at 6-0. I think Tony Parker is unique in coming from France…
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
le 14 juillet-le jour de la prise de la Bastille
Yesterday we experienced France’s national holiday, la fête de la Bastille, or le 14 juillet. I gotta say, it was kinda crazy! It was pretty quiet here throughout the day in Tours; in the morning, I watched the parade in Paris, which was unlike any parade on the 4th of July that I’ve ever seen. It was mostly a show of France’s military strength, with battalions of soldiers, arms a-swinging, and groups of tanks and other military vehicles. To be quite honest, it reminded me of some military parades we’ve seen in the Orient in the past 50 years. Really different from the U.S.
That afternoon, a bunch of us had a “pique-nique” at the Tours Botanical Gardens, which were really interesting. It was a mix between the gardens we saw in Paris and a zoo, as we saw flamingoes, a bear, wallabies, and peacocks. That night though, we all met up and went down to the Loire River for the firework show at 23h00 (11 pm). That was when the craziness began, because it was as if the whole city of Tours was there. On top of that, there were random spurts of mini-fireworks everywhere we walked, especially with all the little kids, and not just the little noisemakers, but actual big-bang fireworks. I can’t tell you the number of times we saw someone almost get hit by one on the curb; it took us about a dozen times to get used to them and stop jumping out of our skin as they went off unawares behind us. The real fireworks were decent, but nothing like the 4th of July—I think our desire to blow stuff up really lends itself to our firework shows, hahaha!
That afternoon, a bunch of us had a “pique-nique” at the Tours Botanical Gardens, which were really interesting. It was a mix between the gardens we saw in Paris and a zoo, as we saw flamingoes, a bear, wallabies, and peacocks. That night though, we all met up and went down to the Loire River for the firework show at 23h00 (11 pm). That was when the craziness began, because it was as if the whole city of Tours was there. On top of that, there were random spurts of mini-fireworks everywhere we walked, especially with all the little kids, and not just the little noisemakers, but actual big-bang fireworks. I can’t tell you the number of times we saw someone almost get hit by one on the curb; it took us about a dozen times to get used to them and stop jumping out of our skin as they went off unawares behind us. The real fireworks were decent, but nothing like the 4th of July—I think our desire to blow stuff up really lends itself to our firework shows, hahaha!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
More Vacation Pics-Paris en générale!
More Vacation Pics-le Louvre!
A sarcophagus-just like my 6th grade project, just a little bit better though...
The Code of Hammurabi
la Jaconde
Our group in front of the infamous glass pyramid, by I.M. Pei (just like the Rock Hall)
La première semaine des classes
First week of classes is over! Only three more left, though I don’t want to make it sound like a bad thing. I’ve definitely enjoyed being at the Institut de Touraine so far. Our classes are pretty cool. In French language, we read and analyzed a short story by a French author I’d never heard of before, discussed all possible themes (you wouldn’t believe how many we actually came up with-ugh!), presented them before the class, and then had a test on it on Friday-all in a week’s work! It all wasn’t too bad. I didn’t really enjoy the story too much, because it was about the Orient, and that’s not exactly my favorite genre of literature, but all the analysis in French was really useful and was good practice! Phonetics class is fun too, because we get to speak into these headsets and playback what we said, which is really weird. I don’t even think I’ve really ever listened to a recording of myself in English, or at least not for a long time!
Probably my favorite class is Civilization-the teacher is great, and I think we’re really going to get a better grasp on French culture in the 10 hours we have together over these four weeks.
We’ve been having fun outside of class too. I’ve been running a bit, though not as much as I’d like-that’ll have to start back up again when I get home to get in shape for the MCM again in October. A few of us have also been out to a park nearby to play basketball, and we’ve gotten to successfully defend the American prowess in streetball against some French teenagers we met there (probably because we had a 6’5’’ kid from LA, but we all played our part-as for me, these French kids now know what lock-down defense is, hahaha!) We’ve also made friends with other students at the Institut too, especially with the big group from Michigan State, who we go and hang out with at night sometimes. We’ve even been to a few movies, including Ice Age 3 in 3D (which I took my French bro to with some of the other Gtown girls, all of whom thought he was adorable; that was a good movie for us to see too, because it was easy to comprehend the language, which can be a bit fast sometimes on TV and in movies) as well as Public Enemies, which was great!
All in all, a great week so far!
Peace
Probably my favorite class is Civilization-the teacher is great, and I think we’re really going to get a better grasp on French culture in the 10 hours we have together over these four weeks.
We’ve been having fun outside of class too. I’ve been running a bit, though not as much as I’d like-that’ll have to start back up again when I get home to get in shape for the MCM again in October. A few of us have also been out to a park nearby to play basketball, and we’ve gotten to successfully defend the American prowess in streetball against some French teenagers we met there (probably because we had a 6’5’’ kid from LA, but we all played our part-as for me, these French kids now know what lock-down defense is, hahaha!) We’ve also made friends with other students at the Institut too, especially with the big group from Michigan State, who we go and hang out with at night sometimes. We’ve even been to a few movies, including Ice Age 3 in 3D (which I took my French bro to with some of the other Gtown girls, all of whom thought he was adorable; that was a good movie for us to see too, because it was easy to comprehend the language, which can be a bit fast sometimes on TV and in movies) as well as Public Enemies, which was great!
All in all, a great week so far!
Peace
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Les vacanes-la deuxième partie; et les classes!
So, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted, but I put up a few pictures so everyone could see what I’ve been doing. I think I’ll just kinda go thru what we did day by day, starting last Tuesday. This is gonna be a long post too, so be warned, bwahahahaha…
Last Tuesday, we were still in Nice, but we took a bus to Monaco. We walked around Monte Carlo for a while, checked out the stage for the start of le Tour de France, and then headed off to the palace. First we took a tour of a museum that was a personal collection of mostly Napoleonic artifacts that are held by the royal family of Monaco. That was probably one of my favorite things we did in Nice, because we got to see a lot of cool historical objects, like Napoleon’s tripartite hat, a piece of the sleeve of the shirt of King Louis XVI that he wore when he was guillotined, and even hand-written letters from King Louis XIV and Cardinal Richelieu! What a wealth of history! We then took a tour of the palace, which was nice, but after seeing so many chateaux, I more underwhelmed than I probably should have been. Before going back to Nice, we stopped in the Monte Carlo Casino. Like most of Nice, it was just for your typical rich snob types, which I didn’t really enjoy in Monaco, though I really wouldn’t mind being the valet there to drive all there sweet and super FAST cars! I played twenty euros, losing 5 on a slot, but kicking some minor league butt and winning back one on video poker! We headed back to Nice, and tried to go to the beach, but it rained again :(
Wednesday, we got up early and took our train to Paris-5.5 hours! We arrived at one of the several Paris train stations, Gare Lyon, took the Metro to the Louvre stop, and walked a block from the Louvre to our hotel-very convenient! We then proceeded to take a nice walk around the city in search of dinner, and we managed to catch les Jardins Tuilieries, la Place de la Concorde (where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillotined), the Champs Elysée, and the Arc de Triomphe. Plenty of pictures, no worries…
Thursday, we took a train to see Versailles, and what can I say but WOW! None of the chateaux I had seen even came close to that! Louis XIV=baller! After touring the palace, we spent a lot of time in the gardens, which were probably bigger than the size of the whole country of Monaco, no joke! After returning to Paris, we met up with the other group of girls from Gtown and went on a boat cruise on the Seine, which was very beautiful at sunset.
Friday, we spent most of the day at the Louvre, which was huge too! It was really impossible to even attempt to try and see everything, but we did get to see la Jaconde (the Mona Lisa), the Code of Hammurabi, and the Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques Louis David. I gotta say, AP Euro really came in handy, and I tried to a pic of everything I remembered from class, totaling about 200 pictures in all! Two days in a row of monstrous tourist attractions did not do our feet anygood, so we headed down to Montparnasse, where all the famous writers of the past hung out at certain cafés. In our search for something cheap, we ended up stopping at a restaurant called Indiana, which was a Tex-Mex place with pictures of Native Americans everywhere-something was obviously lost in the translation…After that, we caught a movie, Whatever Works by Woody Allen.
Saturday, we split up into smaller groups for a while. I went to the Musée d’Orsay, an old train station converted into a museum of impressionist painters, with artists such as Monet, van Gogh, and Delacroix. We then went back to the Arc de Triomphe and went up this time with our museum passes, and then down to the Musée de l’Orangerie to see Monet’s Water Lily paintings, which were quite incredible! After that, we saw Napoleon’s tomb at l’Hôtel des Invalides, stopped at Louis Vitton for one of the girls in our group (actually to take a picture there for here brother-kinda strange), and then went to Montmartre and la Basilique de Sacré Coeur, where we had a nice view of the whole city. That night, we went to la Tour Eiffel for the 4th of July, and sang the National Anthem right before midnight-oh how American we were!
Sunday, we got up early and went to Mass at Notre Dame, which I thought was pretty cool to do. We took the Metro out the to business district of Paris and went up the big cube, la Défense, for yet another beautiful view of the city. After lunch, we headed to the Panthéon to see the tombs of famous stars of history such as Zola, Dumas, the Curies, JJ Rousseau, Braille, and Voltaire, before checking out les Jardins de Luxembourg. We caught our train that evening for Tours, with much sadness in our hearts that our vacation was over. It really felt weird when we got back too, as we’d lost that big city atmosphere of Paris.
So we’ve finally started classes too-Monday we had our oral exam to see where we should be placed. It was a bit painful, because me and a few others had to wait around as apparently there was some problem with our test, but then there wasn’t-I’m still not sure what happened! The oral itself wasn’t bad, and I must have done ok, because I ended up somehow placing into avancé, which is level 8/9 out of 9 levels here. Merci M. Turner!
Class has gone well so far too. We have 15 hours/week of French language class, which for me has so far meant reading a story, discussing the themes, and then presenting to the class; 2 hours of phonetics; and 4.5 hours of options, which will include 3 hours on French civilization and 1.5 hours on French-English translation (which is what I chose). All in all though, pretty well, and no homework so far either, haha, knock on wood!
As I said, pretty long post-thanks for reading it, if you’ve made it this far! Time to go play with my French bros and sis! More pics to come!
Peace
Last Tuesday, we were still in Nice, but we took a bus to Monaco. We walked around Monte Carlo for a while, checked out the stage for the start of le Tour de France, and then headed off to the palace. First we took a tour of a museum that was a personal collection of mostly Napoleonic artifacts that are held by the royal family of Monaco. That was probably one of my favorite things we did in Nice, because we got to see a lot of cool historical objects, like Napoleon’s tripartite hat, a piece of the sleeve of the shirt of King Louis XVI that he wore when he was guillotined, and even hand-written letters from King Louis XIV and Cardinal Richelieu! What a wealth of history! We then took a tour of the palace, which was nice, but after seeing so many chateaux, I more underwhelmed than I probably should have been. Before going back to Nice, we stopped in the Monte Carlo Casino. Like most of Nice, it was just for your typical rich snob types, which I didn’t really enjoy in Monaco, though I really wouldn’t mind being the valet there to drive all there sweet and super FAST cars! I played twenty euros, losing 5 on a slot, but kicking some minor league butt and winning back one on video poker! We headed back to Nice, and tried to go to the beach, but it rained again :(
Wednesday, we got up early and took our train to Paris-5.5 hours! We arrived at one of the several Paris train stations, Gare Lyon, took the Metro to the Louvre stop, and walked a block from the Louvre to our hotel-very convenient! We then proceeded to take a nice walk around the city in search of dinner, and we managed to catch les Jardins Tuilieries, la Place de la Concorde (where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillotined), the Champs Elysée, and the Arc de Triomphe. Plenty of pictures, no worries…
Thursday, we took a train to see Versailles, and what can I say but WOW! None of the chateaux I had seen even came close to that! Louis XIV=baller! After touring the palace, we spent a lot of time in the gardens, which were probably bigger than the size of the whole country of Monaco, no joke! After returning to Paris, we met up with the other group of girls from Gtown and went on a boat cruise on the Seine, which was very beautiful at sunset.
Friday, we spent most of the day at the Louvre, which was huge too! It was really impossible to even attempt to try and see everything, but we did get to see la Jaconde (the Mona Lisa), the Code of Hammurabi, and the Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques Louis David. I gotta say, AP Euro really came in handy, and I tried to a pic of everything I remembered from class, totaling about 200 pictures in all! Two days in a row of monstrous tourist attractions did not do our feet anygood, so we headed down to Montparnasse, where all the famous writers of the past hung out at certain cafés. In our search for something cheap, we ended up stopping at a restaurant called Indiana, which was a Tex-Mex place with pictures of Native Americans everywhere-something was obviously lost in the translation…After that, we caught a movie, Whatever Works by Woody Allen.
Saturday, we split up into smaller groups for a while. I went to the Musée d’Orsay, an old train station converted into a museum of impressionist painters, with artists such as Monet, van Gogh, and Delacroix. We then went back to the Arc de Triomphe and went up this time with our museum passes, and then down to the Musée de l’Orangerie to see Monet’s Water Lily paintings, which were quite incredible! After that, we saw Napoleon’s tomb at l’Hôtel des Invalides, stopped at Louis Vitton for one of the girls in our group (actually to take a picture there for here brother-kinda strange), and then went to Montmartre and la Basilique de Sacré Coeur, where we had a nice view of the whole city. That night, we went to la Tour Eiffel for the 4th of July, and sang the National Anthem right before midnight-oh how American we were!
Sunday, we got up early and went to Mass at Notre Dame, which I thought was pretty cool to do. We took the Metro out the to business district of Paris and went up the big cube, la Défense, for yet another beautiful view of the city. After lunch, we headed to the Panthéon to see the tombs of famous stars of history such as Zola, Dumas, the Curies, JJ Rousseau, Braille, and Voltaire, before checking out les Jardins de Luxembourg. We caught our train that evening for Tours, with much sadness in our hearts that our vacation was over. It really felt weird when we got back too, as we’d lost that big city atmosphere of Paris.
So we’ve finally started classes too-Monday we had our oral exam to see where we should be placed. It was a bit painful, because me and a few others had to wait around as apparently there was some problem with our test, but then there wasn’t-I’m still not sure what happened! The oral itself wasn’t bad, and I must have done ok, because I ended up somehow placing into avancé, which is level 8/9 out of 9 levels here. Merci M. Turner!
Class has gone well so far too. We have 15 hours/week of French language class, which for me has so far meant reading a story, discussing the themes, and then presenting to the class; 2 hours of phonetics; and 4.5 hours of options, which will include 3 hours on French civilization and 1.5 hours on French-English translation (which is what I chose). All in all though, pretty well, and no homework so far either, haha, knock on wood!
As I said, pretty long post-thanks for reading it, if you’ve made it this far! Time to go play with my French bros and sis! More pics to come!
Peace
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Hall of MirrorsMonaco Pictures
Monte Carlo
Ya, that's the whole country...
Spending big bucks at the Monte Carlo casino!!! And successful too ;)
While we didn't get to see the start, we saw the set-up-pretty cool!Nice Pictures
The Beach at Nice
What a view!!!
Our group at the Blue Whale bar.
100 different flavors of ice cream-including cactus, amoretto, rose, whatever you can think of!Monday, June 29, 2009
Les vacances-la premiere partie!
Vacation!!! We wrapped up our last couple days of classes with our Gtown professors, which was kind of sad, because our group really liked our prof, Prof Sobanet. We definitely are gonna keep in contact with him, cause he's a great guy, and will be the head of the French department this year, even though he is the youngest and most junior member of the department, however that happened. We also took the first part of our placement test on Thursday, though we had to start over during the middle of the test because the power went off in the whole city during the test, and as we were using the computers for the exam, we were kinda outta luck. However, it actually helped us a bit, because the directions weren't really clear on how to do certain things, so we really got a dry run. We have our oral exam next Monday to place us into one of the nine levels at the Institut.
Saturday, we went to Chambord (pic above), a hunting retreat house built in the 16th century by the famous Renaissance king, Francois I, and redecorated by Louis XIV. This one was probably my favorite so far, and it was huge compared to all the other chateaux we had seen! Definitely some cool experiences and trips! After that, we were officially on vaca!!!
Sunday, a group of five of us left by train to Nice in Southern France on the Cote d'Azur (French Riviera). We had a 4.5 hour ride to Marseille on a double-decker train (and ya, we were on top!) and then a two hour trip to Nice, all the while checking the score on the American game against Brazil, and slowly sinking into disappointment once we lost...
However, we've had an awesome time so far in Nice. We got up this morning and went meandering around the city, along the beach a bit, and up a hill that was an old Greek acropolis and Roman fort, and later a chateaux, with some beautiful views (more pics to come later!) The water here is soooooooo blue and sooooooo clear, it's incredible and really beautiful! We went to the beach in the afternoon and went swimming for a while, but not for too long, because it started to cool off in the afternoon and actually rained a bit :( We plan to head to Monaco and Monte Carlo tomorrow, and hopefully hit the beach again with some better weather and more sunshine! After that, we'll be heading to Paris til Sunday, meeting up with some other Gtown students-it's gonna be a lot of fun to be in the city of lights!
Tchao/Peace!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Le deuxième semaine (The second week)
So, I've made it thru one week, though that's not to say anything bad, cause it's been a blast!!!
After I posted on Sunday, I went out with several other students to celebrate the Fête de la musique, a European festival originating in France in the 60s where there's music in the streets all day and especially at night, and where everyone pretty much parties in the street the whole night. While we didn't stay out the whole night, we did have a pretty good time watching the different musicians perform in all the major streets and squares, and we even got to dance some salsa for an hour or so (yes, very French!). The top two pictures are from my phone from that night. It's really quite a unique experience, with nothing like it in America. It actually reminded me of the night we celebrated our victory over UNC my frosh year to go to the Final Four when all the students were celebrating in the streets. Not as crazy as that, but close...
Tuesday, our class went to a shopping center to visit a "hypermarché" called Carrefour, which was basically a Super Walmart/Target, but with much stricter security. When we tried to go in, they made us use special twist ties to lock our bookbags shut so we couldn't steal anything, and they also wouldn't let us enter with our worksheets out into the open because they said it was "industrial espionnage," until our profs presented them with a fax allowing us permission to complete our worksheets. Apparently, this is something very French. I bought a big of French chocolate and other goodies for our train ride next week, as well as a couple of Astérix comics in French to add to my English collection.
Today, we had some time to visit different places on our own in Tours for our homework. I went to the Musée des Beaux Arts with my friend Stephanie to see lots of art from the 15th-20th centuries. The prize piece of the gallery (which reminded me of the Portrait Gallery in DC) was a Rembrandt, "La Fuite en Egypte," depicting the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt after Jesus' birth (last picture). There were also works by Monet, Rodin, and Delacroix, so overall, not a bad collection!
Tomorrow we've got our placement test for the Institut, so I'd better go study! Tchao!
Peace
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Les Châteaux!!!
So it's been a busy end to the week! After wrapping up classes (which also included an intersing visit with some French students preparing to apply to the big business schools here in France, Wharton-esque), we've spent the last two days visiting the châteaux.
Saturday, we first stopped at the Caves of Vouvray for another dégustation du vin (wine tasting-middle right). It was incredible to see how many bottles of wine they store there-almost 4 million! After that, we had a nice pique-nique outside, and then made our way to Amboise, a château that dates to the 15/16th century (middle left) and is the burial spot for Leonardo da Vinci (bottom). After that, we were all pretty exhausted, and we headed home, but not before buying some delicious chocolates at a famous chocoloatier in the little village at Amboise. I was then fortunate enough to be invited to the birthday party of one of the nephew's of my French family-it was a blast playing with the little kids and speaking French with them and their relatives, but there's still nothing like my own cousins ;)
Today, we went first to Langeais (top), and after that, on to Blois. We had guided tours at both places with the same guy who did the wine tasting at the Institute, and I must say, he knows his stuff!
Tomorrow, we start up classes again, and we'll head to a supermarket to see how that all works here in France!
A bientôt
Peace
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Une dégustation du vin!
So we've finally started our classes, and they've been excellent so far! I really like our professor (Professor Sorbanet, from Georgetown) and all that we've been able to learn and improve upon in only three days!
We also had a crash course in the production and tasting of wine with one of the professors from the Institut. It was really interesting to here about how it's all made and all the other little intracacies, combined with my background in yeast biology (yes, France has not made me any less nerdy :) And of course, the wine was delicieux!
I have some pics I want to post, but I'm still working at a computer at the Institut, so it's a bit difficult, but I'll try and get some up soon!
Peace
We also had a crash course in the production and tasting of wine with one of the professors from the Institut. It was really interesting to here about how it's all made and all the other little intracacies, combined with my background in yeast biology (yes, France has not made me any less nerdy :) And of course, the wine was delicieux!
I have some pics I want to post, but I'm still working at a computer at the Institut, so it's a bit difficult, but I'll try and get some up soon!
Peace
Monday, June 15, 2009
Les premiers jours
I'm gonna have to keep this one a bit short, because I'm typing on a computer at the Institut de Touraine, where we have begun to take our classes, and the keyboard is in French, so every time I want to type an "a," I end up with a "q," so it's a bit painful.
We traveled to a goat farm yesterday and got to see lots of cute baby goats all over the place-soooo much fun playing with them. But of course, we also learned how they make goat milk and cheese, and had some with a bit of wine-c'était très bien! We then had a little lunch of excellent crèpes in the quaint little town of Chinon, home of Rabelais. We ended the day at the castle/dungeon of Loches-lots of pictures were taken, and I'll try and put them up soon!
I also met my family last night too-they are all sooooo nice and helpful. The first thing I did once I met the kids when they came home from school was play the guitar with Jean-Baptiste, who plays the bass. We had dinner then with one of their aunts and two cousins-9 persons at the table was a lot! I listened a lot, and its a bit difficult talking sometimes with the kids, since they speak a bit fast, but its been ok so far. More on them to come!
A quick funny story about some vocab I learned today. Apparently, I made un petit erreur when I wrote the email to introduce myself to my hostfamily a few weeks ago. I told them that I was very excited to stay with them: "je suis très excité de rester chez vous." But, as I've been told by my friends here that the right word is actually impassioné; excité, which we looked up in the dictionary, actually means horny-oops. But my host mom has been extrmely nice to me-haha, just kidding. This seems to have happened to me a few times in the past year, but I don't know why...;)
Peace
We traveled to a goat farm yesterday and got to see lots of cute baby goats all over the place-soooo much fun playing with them. But of course, we also learned how they make goat milk and cheese, and had some with a bit of wine-c'était très bien! We then had a little lunch of excellent crèpes in the quaint little town of Chinon, home of Rabelais. We ended the day at the castle/dungeon of Loches-lots of pictures were taken, and I'll try and put them up soon!
I also met my family last night too-they are all sooooo nice and helpful. The first thing I did once I met the kids when they came home from school was play the guitar with Jean-Baptiste, who plays the bass. We had dinner then with one of their aunts and two cousins-9 persons at the table was a lot! I listened a lot, and its a bit difficult talking sometimes with the kids, since they speak a bit fast, but its been ok so far. More on them to come!
A quick funny story about some vocab I learned today. Apparently, I made un petit erreur when I wrote the email to introduce myself to my hostfamily a few weeks ago. I told them that I was very excited to stay with them: "je suis très excité de rester chez vous." But, as I've been told by my friends here that the right word is actually impassioné; excité, which we looked up in the dictionary, actually means horny-oops. But my host mom has been extrmely nice to me-haha, just kidding. This seems to have happened to me a few times in the past year, but I don't know why...;)
Peace
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Je suis ici!
So I made it! After two flights, from Cle to Det to Paris, worth about 15 hours of travel time, I arrived in Paris at the Charles de Gaulle Aeroport. Ctown to Det was pretty short, only about 20 minutes. While I was waiting for my flight to Paris, I thought I'd try and see if I could pick out Americans vs French waiting for our Air France flight. I must admit, I failed miserably. The only people I successfully picked out (after seeing people's passports upon boarding), were a middle-aged couple, with the man dressed in a hawaiian shirt and the woman reading a Rick Steve's book on Paris-obviously American.
I was pretty impressed with our flight to Paris too-not too bad food, and we each had our individual tv sets to watch movies on demand-quite different from what I experienced when I was little, and you can obviously tell I'm a bit nerdy and easily amused by cool new stuff!
Everything was simple at CDG too-just a simple stamp of the passport and then I headed down to the train station to catch the high speed train to Tours. I ran into three other girls from our program there, so we all stuck together and made it on the train, after composter nos billets!
We then had to catch a connector train (about 5 minutes) from the outside station to downtown Tours, and we almost missed it-I had to get pulled on by one of the girls as the door closed in on my backpack-just made it. We saw more Hoyas from our group at the station, and a bunch of us wandered down to our hotel, asking a bunch of people for help along the way, many of whom didn't know the streets we were talking about (which is NOT a sign of how well we speak French, I thank you!).
Sleep ensued, a bit of dinner and intro, and then a bunch of us walked around the city and got some drinks. Lots of fun, and I could write a ton more, but more sleep is upon me, so I must go...
Peace and love to all!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Allez à la France!!!
Hey everyone, and welcome to my blog. I'm going to be keeping track of my adventures in Tours, France this summer as I go for a summer study abroad program run by Georgetown University at the Institut de Touraine.
First off, I have to give credit where credit is due. I must recognize my buddy Ed for giving me the inspiration to do this! Thanks Ed! We miss ya and can't wait til you get back from Argentina!
Thanks also to everyone who is following my blog, as well as to everyone who has helped make this trip possible! (wink wink Mom and Dad)
Anyways, I'm super excited to be heading out tomorrow evening! I really hope to get a lot out of my trip: lots of new experiences, learning about French culture, and hopefully a bit of improvement on my French! I have two flights worth about 15 hours of travel time to get me to Paris's Charles de Gaulle Airport, and then take the TGV (a sweet high-speed superconducting train-expect nerdy posts like this-haha!) down to Tours on Friday. I'll head to a hotel to meet the rest of my group, check-in, take the language pledge, and then get going. I won't be meeting my host family until Sunday, so I probably won't post again until then. So for now...
Bon voyage!!!
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