It is absolutely flabbergasting that I've been here for a month already. When I think about it - I have fit in so many amazing experiences so far, and have made a lot of progress toward becoming the kind of 'oriented' that I want to be. I have done a lot exploring around my house, and the town, and the region even, and I have developed a fairly good sense of surrounding. Here is what I have learned/seen in a nutshell:
Our neighborhood is very adorable, and also very safe. I get the feeling that a lot of families have searched out this place and decided it was the best. After getting off the night bus (which I admit, is usually full of crazies at about 11-12 at night) I feel completely safe walking the two blocks to our house. I have also met some neighbors, and this only confirms my thoughts.
The neighborhood is also really well-situated. My house is literally a block from the river, and last Sunday I went exploring which was faaaaantastic! When i go to the fac (university campus) from my house, I always walk the 'promenade' or the boardwalk-type path by the river, but only in one direction. So I decided to take a bike ride in the other direction...and I ended up going about 2.5 miles up the riviere d'Erdre and discovering, among many things, the beautiful Parc Florale de la Beajoire de Nantes (literally - the flower park of beautiful joy in Nantes haha)
Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so this is a Google Images production, but it was absolutely gorgeous. Plus, on the beautiful last Saturday of September, there were a million families and couples out and about and I sortof felt like I was in the 1800's on a promenade in Paris...it was so amazing. And it made it that much better that I just stumbled upon it!
Expanding out further, I got to see some of the suburbs/countryside surrounding Nantes yesterday when my host dad brought me with him to his horse riding lesson with his trainer. There were some really quaint little neighborhoods on the drive out, and then when we got off the highway, we were smack-dab in the middle of the country! It's so shocking how little 'urban sprawl' there is here, and my host dad seemed to be really proud of this fact. He told me that his favorite part about France is that you can drive for not much more than 20 minutes, and be in a completely different area, with different architecture, different culture and even different language sometimes; and then go for another half hour, and it will completely change again. It was great. Plus, watching the lesson was really fun too, and helping him groom the horse (it definitely made me miss Girl, the horse I had for a year-ish...)
We saw even more of the area last weekend as well, when IES took us to go see Mont St. Michel! It was so amazingly beautiful, and also quite a shock that we were actually seeing this amazing monument that people wait years and years to get to see. We left insanely early - 7 am - and arrived just as the morning mist was lifting from the island. We got to explore the church (it's actually a basilica, because there's a difference between church/cathedral/basilica...I'm pretty sure it has to do with what religion built it?) and the little town around it. It was quite fun, and really beautiful. After we finished our tour there, we boarded the busses again and went to St. Malo, a really cute coastal town. We lunched there, and then meandered down to the beach and spent most of our 6 hours there :-) it was wonderful.
I also think it's really interesting that a lot of towns in this region (meaning, farther north/closer to Normandy) were almost, or completely destroyed during WWII. I have heard this reasoning a lot, to explain why there is so much mis-matched architecture in Nantes, but also things like...my host mom said not to take a weekend to go to Brest, which is really close, because it's not very pretty after they had to re-build it completely during the Reconstruction period. It's really interesting, and definitely highlights how different our countries' histories are - we learn about WWII and all, but they LIVED it. I can't wait till we go to Normandy (next weekend!) and get to learn more about this.
So, in addition to all of this exploring, we also went to the Opera in Nantes on
Thursday night, which was absolutely wonderful - we got all dressed up and felt very sophisticated, and grown up (kinda. hah). It was really fun. I also bought tickets this week to go to Marseille in November, I'm going to Belgium to visit Nina and MY MOMMY'S COMING TO SEE ME FOR THANKSGIVING! I'm so happy I have all of these things to look forward to. Not only am I going to have all these amazing experiences, but it's also making it a lot easier to do things by the day. I vary between stressing about how MUCH time I have left here, and then 10 minutes later I realize how LITTLE time I have here. It's interesting, but in general I'm getting the sense that time is going to be passing sooooo quickly. I actually have papers to start writing, and homework to do, plus applications and hopefully some IS research (I know, I'm a nerd. Whatevs) to get done.
That's about it for now...I'm going to head downtown and cheer on our new friends from the Oxford Rowing team at the international Crew Regatta on the Loire. Check fbook for more photos soon!
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