pictures

I've posted some of my pictures from the last two weeks here. You don't need facebook to look at them. I have way more but these were some of the best ones/my favorites :-) miss you all! (some of the pictures I've already posted, but there are some new ones!)

pinky promises and tide to go

So the last couple of days have been good. On Thursday we had a "family" dinner. Sophie (the French student staying here as well), Madame Bechaux and I all had dinner together and we had a good cheese, squash, ham casserole which was strange but good. At dinner we talked about the French soccer team, Zenadine Zedane (sp?) and somehow the conversation turned to the french version of "cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye" so I taught Sophie and Madame that and then we started talking about pinky promises which was interesting to explain. It was fun but they were like "what's the significance of that?" so I had to explain that to a young child it was an unbreakable promise. It was very amusing. 

Then yesterday at dinner my host mom and I were talking and she was like "oh no I spilled" and I had just come back from school and had my purse with me downstairs and I got tide to go out and gave it to her and she thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. She asked if someone in the US would be willing to buy one and mail it to her and she'd give them money. Once I explained to her that I had another one and she could keep the one I was holding she got really excited and was like "oh show me how it works", etc. And she got all excited and was like "I'm going to show my friends this, France should do this, etc". hahaha.

Today I slept in which was really nice. When I got up, I cleaned my room and sorted through papers then I went downstairs and read my book for like 45 minutes in her garden and she came out and joined me which was nice. At 12:30 I met my friends at IES and we walked to the Monoprix (like Freddies/Target) to get lunch and then we picnicked at le jardin de plantes, a really pretty garden in Nantes :-) After that we explored around and took lots of pictures, then we went to Carrefour to get school supplies and while we were at the mall I got a pair of really cute earrings. Now I have a little bit of time to myself before I meet my friends at Place Royale for dinner :-) 

Overall I'm having a good time, although the past couple of days I've been homesick -- I think it's because I haven't been quite as busy so I've had more time to think about it. Ooooh and on Friday I picked my classes - I tested into the middle level grammar class which I'm happy about. I'm also taking Sociology (7:45am monday morning blech!! but other than that I'm excited about it), a translation class at Universite de Nantes (French-English, English-French), French Writers and Foreign Nations and a Phonetics and Conversation class to improve my accent and ability to converse (in case that wasn't obvious from the title, haha). Anyway I miss you all!! I'll try to post some more pictures soon!

so the last couple of days here have been really busy. we start classes at 9:30 and they go until 6 or a little after at night but i think that's just for this week since it's orientation. so far this week we're taking grammar classes, basic language classes and a conversation class. they're all really easy because it's review but still. other than that we have lectures on safety, how to act around our host families, etc. and we've been taking tours. monday we took a walking tour of nantes and got to see the post office, the bank, ies, the bus/tram stop and useful things like that and tomorrow we're going to go see the more historical (and thus interesting) things in nantes which i think will be good but i have to remember to wear comfortable shoes!! a whole bunch of girls have been wearing shoes that are fashionable but they all have blisters. haha. ooh and today we took a tour of the university that's near by (universite de nantes). everyone has to take at least one class at the university but we don't enroll in classes until friday - but i think i want to enroll in a french/english translation class so that'll be good. 

as for the other parts of life here, i met sophie (the french student who's boarding here as well) yesterday and i think she's nice. she speaks fast but i think that'll be good for me. she's studying law at the universite de nantes so i can ask her questions about the campus and things like that. my host mom is really nice and i like her, although she intimidates me sometimes. i've found that i speak better french at night after i've had all day of french but she likes to talk in the morning at breakfast and it's hard because i don't have a lot to say and i'm still sort of in english mode, but she's understanding so that's good. oh and my host mom (madame bechaux -- pronounced bay-show) asked me if i watched what i ate or was on a diet and i said no not really, but i try to make sure i don't eat horribly all day everyday and she said "well that's good, because you shouldn't. you don't need to" so that was really nice since a lot of french people think americans are fat (because it's true....). she also said that i speak pretty well although i think she's just saying that so i will continue to speak, but she's taken to correcting me when i speak, although she doesn't correct me too much so it's still good for my self-confidence. LOL. 

i've made some friends here, everyone's really nice and there are only a few people who irritate me but almost everyone is super outgoing and understanding about trying to speak in french which is nice. i have my french phone and i think i figured out how to set up my voicemail. i had to record it twice although i'm not sure the second time worked but if it did i speak french briefly first and then switch to english so if you call me and you hear someone speaking french (with a horrible french accent) don't hang up unless you don't hear english afterwards. haha. okay well it's late and i wanna go to bed now. but i miss you all!! 

here are some pictures i've taken since i've been here. i've taken a ton so these are the best/my favorite. 

so the top picture is me in a castle in Bretagne where King Henry VII was held prisoner in the 1400s; the middle picture is the entire IES group; the picture that says Benjamin Franklin, was taken at the same port as the bottom picture and the sign says something along the lines of "this is where Benjamin Franklin stayed when he was traveling to Nantes (and got lost in a storm and ended up a ways away from Nantes) when he first came to France to negotiate the first alliance between France and the US."(around the time of the Revolutionary War); and the bottom one was taken at a port in Vannes and those are the "knights of oysters" (it was at an oyster festival....). 

boo

so last night was my first bad night. i got back from vannes and was waiting for my host mom to come pick me up and then i remembered that james (another ies student) was going to walk me home since my host mom wasn't in nantes and he lives near me. so he TOTALLY LEFT WITHOUT ME. so then i was in a panic because i hadn't walked to my house before so i had to wait until they confirmed that james was at his house, my host mom was still out of town and then i had to lug my stuff all the way to my house. only when i got there, my host mom told me that she wouldn't lock the deadbolt so i'm trying to open the door (which is difficult even without the deadbolt) for fifteen minutes until james and his host mom drive by because they realize they've forgotten me. so at this point i've been "abandonne", i'm sweaty and frustrated and i can't get the freaking door open. then james gets out of the car after watching me struggle and is like "try the top one" and i told him that it wasn't supposed to be locked, only to find out that my host mom had, indeed, locked the top one so once i figured that out i was able to go into my house. i then had to wait like an hour or so until my host mom came home and made dinner and at dinner she said "so you forgot to go with james?" like i was stupid. raaaaaaaar. NOT a good day. but it's over now so that's good. i'm going to go to the monoprix (like a freddies) now (hopefully) and get a hairbrush since the tsa took mine. ooh and get a phone if i can. although i'm thinking i might get one tomorrow instead because i have no idea where i'm going.

vannes=rainy!!

so i'm back from vannes which was actually pretty cool but it rained the ENTIRE time. we went out one afternoon and came back completely drenched and i couldn't wear my jeans for the next 2.5 days! it was crazy. and i had to dry my pea coat and my shoes with the really wimpy hair dryer and it took forever. i had a good time though. i took lots of pictures and we saw a few chateaus and fortresses. we were supposed to take a boat and then bike around an island up there but because of the weather we went to a sardine factory/cannery instead. it was totally lame. but i had a good time. i'm looking forward to having some down time this evening though. tomorrow i have to be at the ies center at 9:30 for classes. i took my grammar placement test today and i think i find out how i did tomorrow. i miss you all!!!

im finally here!!!

so i finally got here after an interesting adventure from pdx to dulles. apparently united airlines is completely dumb and was showing a movie about a plane being hijacked for the inflight movie which caused the woman next to me to freak out and scream terrorist which led to complete chaos. and not to take the side of the dumb lady who yelled or anything but seriously united? not a good call.....anyway i made it here safely so that's good. im at ies waiting for my host family to come get me. tomorrow i am going to vannes for 3.5 days so i probably wont update before then. miss you guys!!!