This past weekend was, without a doubt, the best weekend thus far in France. I went on my first train adventure to the town of Chartres to spend the weekend with a friend of my mom's named Véronique. I had to take two different trains to get to Chartres....The first was a TGV (Train à Grand Vitesse) to Le Mans, but the second train stopped about 15 times in all the little towns between Le Mans and Chartres. In total, it was about a 3 hour trip, but it actually went by fairly quickly. I listened to my ipod for the first time in forever which was very relaxing. :)
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| Part of Le Louvre |
I arrived à la gare (train station) de Chartres around 6:30pm where Véronique and her son Pierre picked me up in an super cute little red car. (It's actually a tad bit smaller than mine! Hard to believe, right?) We dropped Pierre off at rugby practice, and headed back to Véronique's home. This was actually my first time being in a car in France! I've been in buses and trains galore, but never a car. Anyway, her house is sort of in the country, but kind of how my house is in the country. It's close to town and there are plenty of neighbors, but it's not in the middle of nowhere like those who "live in the country" back home. In the front of the house, there are lots of flowers, which make the house adorable. The inside is decorated with lots of red and Asian inspired decor as they lived in China for 6 years. I loved it!
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| Véronique and I in Paris |
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| Le Louvre |
I'm about to go off on a tangent, so bear with me. It's all relative to telling of this story, I promise! Now, if you know me very well, you know that I am, by nature, fairly shy. Some of you reading this may not believe me...especially if you've either worked with me or been my resident. When I was little, my parents would tell me to say hi to somebody, and I would bury my face in their pant leg. By working as an RA and having some of the most outgoing friends in the world, I've overcome a whole lot of my shyness, but when it comes to being outgoing in a language that is not my own, it becomes a bit more difficult. I don't really get much verbal French practice outside of class since most of my friends here are American, Irish, and Canadian, so I'm still very hesitant when I speak. I know that I shouldn't be afraid to make mistakes, but I am. I comprehend quite easily, but when it comes to speaking, I freeze. I'm in the 2nd highest level in my courses, so I know my French isn't bad...I just need to get over my shyness. I wish I had someone to practice with on a regular basis, but I'm in classes with other foreign students, and haven't really met any French students. I was a lot shyer with Veronique and her family than I wanted to be, but oh well. There's nothing I can do about it now.
Véronique and her family were so great to me. I had wonderful homemade food for the first time in 6 weeks, watched french tv for the first time, and learned so much from listening to them. It made me really wish I were staying with a host family instead of in this dinky dorm. I know there are pros and cons to both living situations (The main pro of the dorm option being the affordability). It made me realize how much I miss constantly being around people. For the past three years, I've been used to having next to zero alone time, so spending a considerable amount of time alone here in France has been quite an adjustment.
Friday night was spent eating an amazing dinner of lasagna with crêpes for dessert followed by some French tv. I loved just sitting with them watching the news/ a comedy program/ whatever happened to be on. I understood most everything said on the tv except for the uniquely French idioms that are so frequently used.
After a good night's sleep, we woke up and headed out to Paris. In the past when I've gone to Paris, things have gone a little like this: You spend 7 hours on a plane, arrive in Paris at what feels like 3 in the morning. Then, you're put on a huge tour bus to go tour the city in a haze of jet lag and exhaustion. By afternoon, you're so tired you can hardly appreciate the beauty of the city. This time was so incredibly different. To see the Eiffel Tower as you're approaching the city by car is an absolutely amazing sight. It didn't feel real.
Since I have been to a large amount of the hyper-touristy attractions in Paris, we spent the day seeing a side of Paris I'd never seen before. First, we went to the Musée de l'Orangerie where there are two enormous oval shaped rooms that were built specifically to house the super long "Nymphéas" (Waterlilies) paintings by Claude Monet. If you stood too close to the paintings, the paintings looked like nothing more than a mixture of paint. When you stepped back, however, the paintings took on a life. The water actually looked like it was moving. Amazing...just amazing. The museum also has a large collection of paintings done by Spanish artists...which were incredible.
After that, we walked around the city, and I took a ridiculous amount of pictures...as always. One of my favorite parts of the day was when we went up to the 8th and top floor of the big mall, "Printemps." It was an open roof with a restaurant. It was called "Déli-cieux"... Which is a play on words...You see, cieux means skies, and you can figure out the "Deli" part. Together, they form "Délicieux" which means delicious....Love it. :) Anyway, from that roof, you could see all the major landmarks of Paris... The Eiffel Tower, Le Louvre, L'Arc de Triomphe, Sacre Cœur, Notre Dame, Les Invalides, and even Moulin Rouge! It was absolutely breathtaking.
When I'm in Paris, all I want to do is look up (which is not good for a person as accident prone as myself). Everywhere you look, there's something beautiful to see. My favorite moments are when I'm walking/driving around and all of a sudden, I see the Eiffel Tower or the Notre Dame Cathédrale on the skyline. I also loved when Véronique or her husband Michel would point something out to me that I never would have noticed by myself. Having French tour guides is the absolute best way to see Paris. I highly recommend it. :)
We returned to Chartres that night, had crêpes filled with ham, cheese, mushrooms, and spinach, and later watched the cutest French movie called "Les Choristes." I was surprised at how well I understood what was said in the film, and I absolutely loved it. There's a good chance I'll buy it next time I go to Leclerc.
Sunday morning, we slept late, had a wonderful lunch of chicken and potatoes followed by cheeses and then a lemon tarte. I've definitely missed eating real food. My jambon-fromage sandwiches are good, but they get old after a while. After lunch, we went out to see the beautiful city of Chartres. I stupidly left my camera in Michel's car, so Véronique was nice enough to let me borrow hers to take photos.
Our first stop was the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres, which was built in the 1100's. (I know, right?) The cathédrale is built on the highest part of the city, so it is visible from basically anywhere in Chartres. The most striking thing about the cathedrale from the front is that the left tower is gothic style while the right is romanesque. There are also incredible flying buttresses on the side. From the inside, you see the windows that are mostly original except for a few that were destroyed by bomb blasts during the war. The windows of Chartres were the first to use blue as the main color. Véronique and Pierre told me that when the sun is shining, the blue is reflected all over the cathédrale. Even though it was very overcast, it was still gorgeous. After spending time in the cathédrale, we went down into the centreville of Chartres. The whole city was so cute. I really loved the small town feel of Chartres after being in Nantes for 6 weeks straight. Since it was a Sunday, the streets were pretty much bare, and most of the shops were closed. However, we did stop at a pastry shop where Pierre and I each had a
canelé and Véronique had a violet flavored
macaron (Which was purple!).
Unfortunately, the time came for me to go back to the train station to head back to Nantes. Véronique packed me a sandwich, an apple, and some cookies for the road, and dropped me off à la gare. I was so sad to leave just because I had enjoyed so much spending time with them. The train ride back came with some unexpected delays, which put me back in Nantes around midnight. I also had to wait 30+ minutes to catch one of the last trams of the night back to my dorm. I've never felt unsafe in Nantes, but do you remember me mentioning how the crazies tend to come out at the tram stops? This was no exception Sunday night when I was sitting for so long waiting for the tram. I was so glad to get to the Bourgeonnière tram stop near my dorm. I know this blog was extremely long, but this was as short as I could make it. I could ramble on and on about this weekend.
Side note: A friend of mine suggested a spread called "Speculoos." It's like a snickerdoodle in a jar! So. Good. Au revoir!
Last Saturday, I went to Saint-Nazaire with the groupe de jeunes (youth group) from the church where I've been going to the English Bible study. The group that went to the beach consisted of 6 French (Two of them were adorable little 2 year old twins), 3 Americans, 2 Ghanians, a Mexican, a Colombian, a Canadian, and the smartest dog I've ever seen in my life. We went by car (which is a luxury not to be taken lightly) and arrived at the beach around noon. It was an absolutely perfect day. It was too cold to really get in the water, but not too cold to just hang around on the beach. At one point, we were throwing around a nerf football. All of a sudden, a rugby ball was added to the mix. I had absolutely NO IDEA what to do with that thing. Rugby balls are enormous. I caught it and just started laughing because I looked so ridiculous just holding it. With a little instruction, I tossed it, but learned that rugby is not for me. haha. The rest of the time was spent listening to Rojo and Nikki play the guitar and sing worship songs. The amazing thing is that the French songs are the same melody and words (just translated). At one point, the same song was being sung in Spanish, French, and English. I also got a little bit of Spanish practice. Cecilia was talking to Catalina, the girl from Colombia, in Spanish, and I laughed...because it was funny,which caused Cecilia to turn to me and say, "Hablas Español?" To which I replied, "ummm, si?" Cecilia and I mainly talked in French, but she would throw Spanish in every once and a while when she didn't know the word in French. 
