Raspberry Tarts are AMAZING!

I just had the best Raspberry tart EVER. It was so delicious! I could go on for an entire page about how fantastic this tart was -- Sarah knows cause I totally just wrote her an entire email based on this tart -- sorry Sarah! :-) 

On Friday I had my grammar midterm which I can't tell how I did. I know I  messed up some things -- conjugated the passé simple incorrectly, etc but I also think I did alright. Although the other grammar class that's already had their midterm didn't do very well so I'm not really getting my hopes up. 

This week should be busy. I have a sociology midterm on Monday and on Tuesday is conversation club and the halloween party we're throwing for the French college students who come to conversation club. Wednesday we're throwing a halloween party for our host family's who have young kids. Then Thursday I'm going to Amsterdam until Sunday night!! I'm super excited! Woohoo!!

So I calculated how much time I actually have left in Nantes - this past week was the end of week 8 so I'm officially halfway through the semester. This weekend I'm going to Amsterdam, then I come back to Nantes for three days and then go to the south of France then come back and have a weekend here in Nantes then I go to London with CHRISTINA!! WOOHOO!! then it's Thanksgiving and then I go to Paris and then I have two weekends and then I come home for Christmas! So really I only have three weekends left in Nantes! It's going to go by so fast!!! It has gone by so fast and I haven't been doing as much as I have planned for the next half of the semester! 

I miss you all!! I hope things are going well! <3 

LONDON BABY!!!!! -- the extended disco version...complete with Christina!!!!!!!

OMG CHRISTINA'S COMING TO VISIT ME AND WE'RE GOING TO LONDON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sooooo-10 o's-ooooo excited!!! woohoo!! So she's coming in 29 days (20/11) which means YAY!

I had my art history midterm today, i think it went okay, although I think I confused two artists which isn't that good. I have my grammar midterm tomorrow and another midterm (sociology) on Monday at 7:45am BLECH. but you know, that's just how it goes. I'm really looking forward to sleeping in this weekend!! I didn't sleep at all last night except maybe like an hour and a half.

In a few minutes I'm going to the stupid Prefacture again to see if now they have my carte de sejour. LAME. i'm not really looking forward to that. Then i'm going to study for grammar and then go to my class then more studying....i miss you all!!

French Government

So I'm definitely not a fan of the French government. They definitely lost my (along with the other year-long IES students) identity. Supposedly they've found them again but I have to go to a different building this afternoon. I'm so sick of the French bureaucracy - I have to go down to their office 4 different times to tell them to spell my name correctly (which it's STILL not) and they lose my identity. 0 for 5. Not a good record...so yeah I'm really mad but trying to find the humor....it's not working too well.

FC Nantes vs. SA Saint Etienne

Last night I went to a soccer game Nantes vs. Saint Etienne (in the middle of France), and apparently Nantes is supposed to be a really bad team and Saint Etienne is supposed to be really good, but we won 1-0!!!!!!!!! It was quite exciting! Woohoo!! It was my first professional soccer game ever. FC Nantes colors are bright bright yellow and then green. So our team is called the canaries because of how yellow their jerseys are. haha. 

I don't have a lot planned for today - I have two midterms this week so I'm going to probably study and just take a little walk and wander around a little bit but  nothing big planned...Miss you all! 

The Watergate Scandal and a Refined Accent....

My host mom is holding a sale at her (our) house of clothes that her friend made herself, so today and tomorrow there are lots of random people here. Which is strange...especially when everyone is like "oh you're young, why are you here?" and I'm like "uhh...i live here..." haha but that's okay. 

So I have relatively exciting news. So I was talking with my host mom's friend today (explaining to her the Watergate scandal because there was a special program on TV about Kissinger and Nixon) and she's like "wow you explained that really well" and I said thank you and then she said "you have a refined accent, it's very pretty" which is about as high of a compliment as you can get from a French person!!! YAY ME! Well that's pretty much all that's happened. I have a midterm in French lit tomorrow that I hope I'll do well on, but I've been having trouble paying attention in the class because my teacher goes off on random tangents that has nothing to do with French Writers -- well on occasion, but for the most part, not so much. Anyway I'll probably write again this weekend! I miss you all! 

Chateaux de la Loire

So this past weekend I went on a field trip with IES and it was so cool! We toured the Chateaux de la Loire and saw: Serrant, Azay-le-Rideau, Villandry, Ambroise and Chenonceau. They were all super cool! Serrant had the MOST AMAZING LIBRARY EVER!!! It looked just like the one in beauty and the beast (only smaller, but still it was sooooooooooo cool!!!). The next one we saw was Azay-le-Rideau which was really pretty but nothing about it really stood out - the grounds were pretty but the inside was mostly closed so we could climb up the stairs and look out the windows but that was about it which was disappointing for me. The third castle we went to we couldn't actually go in but we saw the gardens which were beautiful! There was one part of the garden that had the theme of the four seasons of love and had different plant displays for each one. They were really cool. I could only find three though LOL. but still they were really pretty!! Then we went to a hotel in Tours which wasn't that nice but whatever we were only there for one night. Then on Sunday we went to Ambroise which is really close to where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last years and he's actually buried on castle grounds so we got to see his tomb. The guided tour at Ambroise was definitely the best one that we had all weekend. And at Ambroise we saw the suit of armor that Henry II was wearing when he was jousted through the eye and died 10 days later....what an idiot...anyway that was cool. The suit of armor weighed 70 pounds!!!  I took so many pictures that I have two photo albums again so here are pictures of Serrant,  Azay-le-Rideau, Villandry and some of Ambroise. 

   Then after Ambroise we went to Chenonceau which was beautiful. It was so cool. It was my favorite actual castle that we saw the whole weekend but I liked them all. Chenonceau is a castle on a bridge and has amazing grounds and the weather was amazing and made everything look that much prettier. That was one of the good things about the weekend. It only rained for 20 minutes or so Sunday morning when we started our tour at Ambroise but afterwards it was done and it was beautiful, sunny and 70 to 75 degrees the rest of the weekend. You can look at the rest of my pictures here. Enjoy! I miss you all!

A French Remedy for a Burnt Finger

Yesterday was Anna's birthday so her host mom threw her a dinner party with American birthday cake - or as close as one can actually get to it in France...anyway I burnt my finger at dinner and Anna's host mom told me that her cleaning lady said that if you burn your finger you need to put it in your hair and rub it against your hair for a minute or so and then it will still be red but it won't hurt. So she made me do it, and it sort of worked. I thought it was really hokey -- like really? Oooh you burnt your finger, stick it in your hair! And as crazy as it sounds, it doesn't hurt or anything today....so yeah that's my new advice if you burn your finger :-P 

London craziness...complete with pictures!

So this past weekend was a complete whirlwind. Friday afternoon I went to my doctor's appointment so I can then get my carte de sejour, and as soon as I walk in the nurse/doctor sees me and says "you know you could've changed your appointment right?" I was so angry....anyway, the appointment went well and then Erica and I took the bus to the Nantes airport to meet Emily and Anna to go to London!!! 

  We ended up getting to the airport ridiculously early since the bus only goes to the airport once an hour, but that's okay. Better early than late don't you think? So Erica and I perused the bookstores and gift shops for half an hour until Emily and Anna got to the airport. Then it was off to London!! When we landed in London we got to stand in the short line to go through customs/passport control since we weren't EU citizens like everyone else, it was awesome. And the guy saw my passport (I handed it to him backwards so he couldn't see the US seal on the front) and he was like "aah miss Canada" and then flipped it over and was like "nope miss usa" it was weird...but I got my stamp and everything then we took the bus to our hostel, got dinner and went to bed.

Saturday we got up early, had breakfast and went straight to the Tower of London and took a tour with a beefeater and heard the whole bloody history of the Tower. It was so cool!! I didn't realize the beefeaters actually lived in the tower, but that must be soooooooo cool!!! I'm jealous! After the tour we saw the crown jewels which were SO IMPRESSIVE!!! It made me want to be a princess or a queen until I realized that although the crowns look cool they've got to weigh a ton, so then I decided maybe not. lol. After the Tower we went to the tower bridge which was really cool! and after that we went to Starbucks! My first starbucks in over 6 weeks and I've got to say - it was fantastic!!! Then we went to Shakespeare's Globe Theater, although we couldn't actually see the stadium/theater part because there was going to be a performance later and they were setting up, but I peaked and it looked pretty cool. Then from there we went to Kings Cross station....you'll have to look at the pictures to see what we did ;-) and then from there we went to Trafalgar Square, Big Ben/Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey was closed by the time we got there but it was still super super cool! The weather was surprisingly good yesterday -- it only drizzled a little bit and it was at the end of the day. After the abbey and Big Ben we wandered around Soho before returning to our hostel. We ate nearby at a pub that was decorated for Halloween and was cozy. Then we went to a different place for dessert and drinks which was fun! Then back to the hostel. When we got back we discovered that there had been a mix up and they overbooked/gave the wrong room key to someone and so there was 11 people in our 10 person room and I didn't have a bed. So we had to wake everyone up to find out who wasn't supposed to be there which was awkward. But it all worked out and then we went to sleep.

This morning we got up, checked out of the hostel, went to Starbucks (of course!) and then met up with Emily's friend who's studying abroad in London and we walked through Hyde Park and saw Kensington Palace and the Peter Pan statue before making our way to Buckingham Palace. The only bad thing about today was that it was COMPLETELY pouring for the whole time we were walking so all of us got completely drenched. This afternoon we got back to France at about 5:30 French time and I didn't get home to my host mom's house until about 7:00-ish because of customs and then we missed the bus....but yeah I have lots more stories but I'm tired and have to get up and be in class at 7:45 tomorrow!!  

Check out my pictures from London here and here (I have two albums...they aren't the same things) 

London, here I come! and Kaitlyn's 21st :-)

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY KAITLYN!!!! WOOHOOO!!! Have fun!!! (tomorrow...)

So this weekend I'm going to London!! I'm so excited, but I'm still not 100% sure I'm going to get to go because of the stupid stupid stupid doctor's appointment that I'm not allowed to change. Raaaaaaaaaaar. I'm going to go right after grammar class and demand that they see me because I'm leaving the country and I think that should work, because I'm going to be there like an hour before my appointment and when I got to my xray appointment half an hour early they took me right away. and really? how long is it going to take? not that long hopefully, although if I miss my flight to London I"m going to be livid! But hopefully that won't happen. So if I post later today and/or this weekend (before Sunday afternoon) I didn't make it. However, I'm going to be optimistic and say that I'm not going to post until Sunday (or Monday depending on how tired I am and how much work I've managed to put off).

Cheers!