Wofford College - Study Abroad

Where Amazing Happened

Keeping it real on one of my last days

 

I’ve been home for a little over a week and people have been constantly asking me how my semester abroad was and I keep responding with the same answer, “Amazing”. Whenever I give this response I feel like I am downplaying my semester. “Amazing” is a blasé, bland response, it feels like one of those corny NBA commercials with the slogan “The NBA: Where Amazing Happens”. Amazing did not happen to me while I was abroad, something that transcends amazing happened.

People who study abroad will tell you that it was a life-changing experience, that it was the best experience of their lives and they would trade anything to do it again; and they are right. They do not know how to properly explain it because studying abroad is a complicated experience where you lose yourself in the immersion of a new, foreign lifestyle.

Being in

Nantes

and being thrown into a foreign culture with a foreign language, I learned how to adapt in order to find comfort in the foreign. Studying abroad throws you into strange circumstances. You find yourself living in a completely foreign land, speaking a completely foreign language, and living with completely foreign people. In order to survive mentally it’s necessary to find comfort in your foreign surroundings and adapt to the surroundings. We all have our own comforts at home, and the key to studying abroad is to find your comforts through the alien and foreign surroundings that now control your life for the next five months.

Being able to adapt to a different lifestyle while abroad leads to the momentous change that occurs for most studying abroad participants: independence. Confidence. Self-awareness. Those of us lucky to have studied abroad come home and feel more self-assured and more confident. We feel like we can tackle any obstacle and remove any boundary. We are full of an optimism only found after successfully completing a trying task. But we also feel an undying urge to explore and test ourselves again. Through our newfound sense of independence we find a desire to live freely and explore life. We have seen the ignorance that one blanketed our comforted home lives striped away to reveal a newfound respect for humanity and a newfound desire to explore.

So to answer everyone’s question studying abroad was more than amazing, it transcended amazing into the extraordinary. It was eye-opening and life-changing. It was everything I imagined and more, and yes, it was amazing.

 

March/April in the Good Ole Nantes

Pont du Hoc had some cool bunkers

So, so, so, so, so sorry I haven’t written since the beginning of March, but I’ve been busy with school, Spring Break, and just downright laziness sometimes. I must say time has truly flown by. I’m just going to skim over my time in March which included seeing

Normandy

Beach

and me making food for my host family.

 Frogmore Stew....delicious 

Anyway, I made dinner for my host family earlier in the month, and I didn’t burn the house down in the process. I made a salad and Frogmore Stew and Charles came over and made Bananas Foster for dessert. I was very shocked that the Frogmore Stew was actually good considering I only really know how to make pasta, pasta, past, and cereal. After dinner Charles and I insisted on doing the dishes as well (be surprised parents, I voluntarily did the dishes) despite my host mom’s insistence that she do the dishes.

 

Normandy Beach

IES took us to

Normandy

a few weekends ago. Wow, that was an amazing trip. We left early on Saturday morning and arrived at

Caen

around lunch time. We ate lunch then went to the D-Day memorial museum. We saw the exhibition which was a descending timeline of the events from WWI to D-Day. At the end of the exhibition there were letters from soldiers to their families and on one of the letters someone wrote “My uncle’s last letter”, and the museum was only the third most moving part of the trip.

 

The graveyard at Normandy

Sunday we woke up early and went to

Normandy

beach. We only had an hour and a half to visit

Omaha

Beach

and the cemetery. We walked down to the beach before we saw the cemetery, and realized on our walk down those seventy years ago we may have been preparing to storm these beaches. The view up to the cliffs was breathtaking, and we realized how incredibly difficult D-Day was. After the Beach we saw Pont du Hoc which was full of old German bunkers that we could climb through. Now I know all these places sound amazing, but can you guess how long we stayed there, ready, a grand total of one hour and a half. That’s right folks; we stayed at two of the most historic sights in the world a grand total of ninety minutes because IES, who planned the trip, thought it would be better if we passed most of Sunday at a horse farm which has been called the “

Versailles

” of stables. Yes, I know it is very disappointing.

  Pont du Hoc

Well, that was pretty much the month of March. I did learn some valuable lessons in language though. I had to start working on my papers near the end of March and I soon found myself reading nothing but French articles for sources. While reading these I soon came to realize that my comprehension had dramatically increased. When I first arrived I needed a dictionary and wordreference.com for everything I read, now I need almost nothing except my brain, Just recently I started reading The Three Musketeers in French and I understand almost everything.

  Horse Stable...3 hours here

Now April has been a very funny month because half of it has been taken up by vacation. Following the French law requiring five months of paid vacation we received two weeks off for Spring Break. Charles and his family invited me to spend vacation with them in the region of

Provence

. I was lucky enough to spend a week traversing the Provencal countryside with the LaPrades. We never really had a set plan during our trip so everything ha blended into one big, fun, delicious adventure. We stayed in the tiny

village

of

Goult

and everyday we travel to a different tiny French village and go to the local market. Easter Sunday we saw Pont du Gard, an old Roman aqueduct that sent water to

Nimes

back in Roman times. On our last day we went to St. Remy-en-Provence and visited the old asylum that Vincent Van Gogh stayed at during his later years of life. Also in

St.

Remy we saw the ruins of an old Roman village and we also bought foie gras spiced with pieces of truffle. We visited Chateauneuf-du-pape and tasted some of the best wine of my life. It was an amazing vacation. I don’t think my taste buds will ever be the same after the food we ate. Everyday was a different food adventure because everything we ate was delicious. If we wanted a good meal we only needed to step out of our house and pick the first restaurant we saw, it was difficult to find a bad meal (which we never did). It was an amazing trip, and definitely one of the best vacations I’ve ever had.

  Pont du Gard

Lacoste,funny story behind this old boulangerie

Eau Potable

I’m getting close to the end of my stay here in

France

and I must say it has flown by. I do have a bit of advice for those future pupils of Wofford who plan on studying abroad. During one of your final meetings with Dean Lancaster and the Study Abroad department they will present you with a chart labeled something like “The Emotion Rollercoaster of Studying Abroad” and this chart shows your emotional up’s and down’s with an emphasis on a large down in the middle. What I want to tell you is that when I first saw that chart I was scared because it seemed that my trip would be completely depressing, but I can tell you that is far from the case. This stay has been nothing short of joyful bliss. Granted, some days are better than other, but for the most part I am happy everyday. I do miss home and my family and friends and Wofford, but I am completely happy to be here and wouldn’t trade this experience for the world. However, I must say that everyone's expirence is different and I have been lucky enough to have made many friends here which has made my expirence amazing, so I guess the key to Studying Abroad is making friends to enjoy your expirences with.

 

Chateauneuf-du-pape. The pope's old vacation house

The pope's old chateau,sadly we couldn't climb to the top.

Before I leave this blog I would like to thank the LaPrades for an amazing vacation. Thank you for putting up with me for a week and thank you showing me

Provence

, it was an experience I will never forget.

 Van Gogh's old sanitarium at St.Remy-en-Provence

 Old Roman village of Glanum

 Foie Gras with truffles,good Lord that was delicious

 

Sixty-Six Days Later

Me at the Ile de Nantes....still didn't get to ride the elephant

Sorry it’s been a while since my last blog but I was stuck in midterm week after my last post and just now escaped. Well, yesterday marked the halfway point of my stay here and I wanted to reflect on my experience.

 

When I arrived, waaaaaaaaaaaay back in January, I was immediately surprised by how hard it was for me to understand everything and how there weren’t many glaring cultural differences, yet. One of the first e-mails I sent back home was to my French professor, Dr. Wiseman, telling him that we had arrived safely, but that we had still not adapted ourselves to the language. This has been one of the hardest aspects of my stay. When I first arrived my host mom picked me up at IES and tried speaking with me, but I thought she was speaking some archaic language because she was speaking so fast and I could not understand one word she was saying. My comprehension was so bad the first week that I’m sure my host parents thought I was incapable of stringing together a sentence in French, because I couldn’t strong together a sentence in French. That is when the lightning bolt hit. Last semester I disregarded most of the “culture shock” information they told us about, but then I realized the culture shock comes speaking the language on an everyday basis. If you are traveling in

Europe

then there isn’t going to be a huge culture shock because they are just as technologically advanced as us and have similar cultures to our own, but their language is usually different and then sends your brain for a spin.

 

I know you think this must be a beautiful building....it's FNAC, the French Best Buy

However, my comprehension increased with every passing week. I could feel my vocabulary increasing and my understanding of the language increase as well. Before we left for Winter Break I could understand about all of my professors and I could carry on conversations with my host parents and people at IES. But something happened during vacation and I felt like I lost all skills I had built over the past four weeks. After break I felt completely incapable of speaking French and felt a little upset at my inabilities. That’s when revelation number two happened. I realized that I never lost my language skills, but instead I lost my language mojo. I had no confidence in my skills, which hampered my abilities.

 

Did I mention we found a burger place run by an American,great taste of home

Now, here’s a piece of advice for anyone planning on studying in a non-Anglophone nation, have confidence in your language skills. You wouldn’t be studying abroad if you didn’t have some ability in a foreign language, now all you need is the confidence to speak and understand the new world around you.

 

Well, I wish I could tell you about the cool social life I’ve had since vacation ended, but nothing has really happened here. The protests at the University have become a total strike; the large robotic elephant opened and we still didn’t ride it; the NCAA tournament is about to start and I have no way to watch it; and I have a vague idea of what I’m doing for Spring Break.

 

Well, I hope you enjoyed sobering, serious Pete in this post, but beware, regular Pete will return in my next post!

Bonjour baby can I achete you some dranken?

Us in front of the Eiffel Tower

I know you are a little confused by the title of this blog. It is Frenglutch, a mixture of French, English and Dutch. It is a part of the official European language Frenglanishermanutch, which consists of French, English, German, Spanish and Dutch. I learned about this wonderful mélange of languages during my vacation last week to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. Brussels is the capital of Frenglucth because it has two official languages, French and Dutch, and a many people speak English as well. I know I haven’t written a blog in about a week and a half, but that is because last week we were on winter break and I didn’t think I needed to write a blog before I left. I am particularly excited about this entry because my Dad told me my aunts also read this blog, which more than quadruples my readership. Well, enough for small talk, onto the blog!

View From Brice’s Apartment, I feel your Jealousy

 

Singing “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”

Let me start this entry by telling you about Karaoke Night. Our social coordinator planned for us to go to a bar together for Karaoke Night the Thursday before we (Charles, Michael, Will and I) left for our trip. I met our social coordinator and the IES group at Place Royale around 9:30 and we got to the bar around 9:45. Immediately after we arrived at the bar, Samuel, our social coordinator, signed Charles, Will, Justin and me up to sing “Comme d’habitude”, the French version of “My Way”. So after our first drink we sing “Comme d’habitude” and completely botched the song, we had the French patrons in the bar laughing along with us as we sang and botched every word of the song. A while later Will sang “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. After Will channeled his inner-Motown Charles decided it would be a great idea for us to sing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band”. This was around 11:15 and my last Tram left at midnight. At 11:45 our turn came around and we blasted “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” as loud and as proud as we could in a French bar, it was a great moment. I left the bar right after the song ended and I sprinted toward my Tram and made it just in the nick of time.

Me in front of the Louvre

 

NAPOLEON'S TOMB!!!

Rugby game, “Allez les bleus!”

On Friday, after our failed attempt at French Idol, I met Charles, Will and Michael at IES so we could go to the train station and catch our train to Paris. We arrived in Paris and took the Metro to Montmartre because we were staying with Charles’s friend and his apartment is in Montmatrtre. We arrived and met Charles’s friend, Brice. Brice then proceeded to leave us, four college guys, with his apartment for the night. We then proceeded to take copious amounts of pictures showing off how AWESOME it was to have our own French apartment. O and I didn’t tell you that the view from the bedroom looked out over Montmatre and showed the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees, and the Arc de Triomphe. After our little photo-shoot we went out to find some dinner. We walked around Montmartre and found Sacre Coeur Basilica and the famous steps leading up to the Basilica. We then ate at cheap little Parisian brasserie then we went looking for a good bar. We walked around awhile and eventually found ourselves in the Moulin Rouge area of Montmartre. If you are not aware of Monmartre then let me give you a quick summary: it is the oldest district in Paris and it is also holds Paris’s sketchiest buildings like the Sexodrome and other establishments with similar names, I will let your imagination run wild over what these buildings held. We eventually found a bar, but we left early because we were waking up early to view Paris. Saturday we woke up around 10:00 and left Brice’s apartment around 11:00. We went to the Eiffel Tower, but we didn’t go up because the line was too long and we were meeting Brice at 2:00 for lunch and so he could take us to the France vs. Scotland rugby game. We took some pictures around the Tower, which is very imposing in person, and then we went to Les Invalides. Les Invalides is the military museum of France and it also holds Napoleon’s grave. We only had time to walk through the WWI and WWII exhibits of the museum before we saw Napoleon’s grave because it was getting close to 2:00. Once we got to see Napoleon’s grave I reacted like a 13 year old girl in the front row of a Jonas Brothers’ concert, I was beyond ecstatic, I was hyper (great French adjective)-ecstatic. After I swooned over Napoleon’s grave enough we left and met Brice for lunch. After lunch he took us to Le Stade de France to watch the Six Nations rugby game between France and Scotland. The Six Nations is an annual national rugby tournament between France, Scotland, Ireland, England and Italy. We got to the game and it was one of the oddest sport’s atmospheres I’ve ever witnessed. I was expecting the crowd to have the energy of a soccer game, but it had the atmosphere of a baseball game. The crowd never really cheered unless something exciting was about to happen, but for the most part they studied and watched the game. France won the game, and afterwards we went back to Brice’s apartment to get ready to go out. Sunday we woke up around noon and went to the Louvre. We got to the Louvre around 2:00 so we only had three hours to spend looking at the world’s biggest collection of art. We started our tour by seeing the Winged Victory and the “Mona Lisa”, and for those who say the “Mona Lisa” Is overrated you are wrong, it is probably the most beautiful painting in the world. After seeing Mona Will and I went to find the Code of Hamurabi, we found the Code then we went to find the Rubens’ room which contained the twenty-four paintings that Rubens painted for Marie de Medici. We then met up with Charles and Michael and we left the Louvre and walked down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. We got to the Arc de Triomphe, but we didn’t climb to the top because it cost 9euro so we just walked around and took pictures. We then left and went back to Brice’s apartment because he was making dinner for us. We got to the apartment, ate dinner, and then spent our last evening in Paris talking with Brice about his stay in the States and other topics; it was a great night and a great end to our stay in Paris.

Code of Hamurabi

 

Charles, Arc de Triomphe

 

Le Chat Noir

 

Moulin Rouge

We arrived in Brussels on Monday around noon. We had a very exciting time getting to our train because we misread the time, but we caught it right before it left. After we checked into our hostel we realized that we had nothing to do while in Brussels except see the Manneken Pis. Brice had told us that Brussels was known for two things: beer and fries, and that’s what we set out for, beer and fries. We walked around for awhile until we found the main square where we ate a lovely lunch of Brussels Fries. After lunch we walked around some more and I picked up a bag of chocolate and Charles grabbed a waffle. After some time we found a bar with a wide selection of Belgian beer. We all ordered a different one, and they all were delicious. We left the bar and went back to our hostel to rest before dinner where we played a hearty game of Hearts. Nothing much else happened Monday except for dinner and then going out; however, after dinner Will and I ate a Belgian waffle with ice cream and chocolate and it was absolutely delicious! Tuesday we woke up late and walked around downtown. We went to the Belgian Beer Museum and learned that the patron saint of beers is St. Arnold. We saw the Manneken Pis, which is just a small statute of a peeing baby, and we tried more delicious Belgian beer. After dinner we bought some Belgian beers and stayed in our room playing cards because we wanted to rest before our trip to Amsterdam.

Manneken Pis

 
Will with waffle, notice the look of complete satisfaction

We arrived in Amsterdam on Wednesday afternoon for the last leg of our trip. I know what ya’ll are thinking, you’re thinking that the only reason four college kids are going to Amsterdam is for the lack of normal laws. Oh ye of little faith! For your information Amsterdam is full of history. There are countless museums and the city is absolutely gorgeous, and after taking Dr. Schmunk’s wonderful Art History 201 class I really wanted to see Flemish art at its best. Once we arrived Wednesday we went to the Anne Frank House which was one of the most moving experiences of my life, on the wall of Anne Frank’s room where the cut-outs she had pasted while in hiding there, it was very moving because it reinforced the reality that history actually took place where I was standing at that moment. Thursday we went to the Rijksmuseum and the Heineken Experience. The Rijksmuseum is the Dutch Louvre, but most of it was under renovation and only one wing was open, and this wing didn’t have many paintings and we were not very impressed with the size or selection. Needless to say once we left we named it the “Dutch Disappointment”. The Heineken Experience was one of the highlights of our trip. It was not only a tour of the first Heineken brewery, but it was also a lesson in the art of beer making. We also got two free beers at the end of the tour and it brainwashed me into only drinking Heineken for the rest of my life. Friday we went to the Van Gogh Museum, and that was also one of the more amazing experiences of the trip. The Museum not only held an impressive collection of Van Gogh’s works, but it also held many works by his contemporaries, inspirations, and students. I was very impressed with the exhibit of “Starry Night”, not because “Starry Night” is a beautiful painting, but because it showed the evolution of Van Gogh’s mastery of the night in his works. After the Van Gogh Museum we found a playground and immediately started playing. Don’t judge us, this playground was different, it had beams and a net. Saturday we were money drained and tired so we only went to the Rembrandt House, which was a huge disappointment for me because it did not have a large collection of Rembrandt’s works, it only recreated his house from his time period. I hate to admit it, but Charles was right and we should have gone to the Botanical Gardens (don’t get used to it Charles, it’s not often you will get some credit in this blog!). We partied a little Saturday because it was the last night of our trip, but we woke up on time Sunday morning to check out and hit our train.

 

Amsterdam

Van Gogh Museum

Van Gogh again

 

Heineken Experience, making the delicious beverage

This was one of the best vacations I have had in a while. I have always wanted to take a tour of Europe and I was so happy to finally experience a European trip. I have to say that Paris as definitely the highlight of the trip, with Amsterdam coming in a solid second and Brussels dragging into third. I highly recommend that everyone try to go to Paris at least once in their lifetime, it is unlike any city I have ever visited. Amsterdam was good, but only because it was like the European Cancun because of the influx of college-age kids coming to take advantage of the city’s lack of laws, but with more history, more beauty, and more debauchery (not by us, but because of its infamous quarter, you know the one I’m talking about), and you can actually take your family to Amsterdam. I would love to go back to Brussels again, but with my Dad and my brother because the beer was so good I think it would be fun.

A thin slice of heaven

 

Heineken brainwashing

 

And again

Before I finish this entry I want to mention that yesterday was Mardi Gras and I ate an authentic French Mardi Gras meal. My French Mom made crêpes, the traditional Mardi Gras meal, and I ate like no other, and today I went to the Ash Wednesday mass in French. I have been to French masses before, but never a holiday mass like this one and it was very interesting.

Our little playground we found, notice out little Dutch friend

The red lights give it away

Well readers, I know you were on pins and needles waiting for this entry and I hope you got as much pleasure reading it as I had as much pleasure writing it. Until next time mes amis!

We found a bar with the South Carolina flagging in Amsterdam, gotta love home!

Chateaux, Manifestations, Elephants, and Many More!

Michael and Me in Front of the Cathedral

I’m back, sorry for the delay my beloved fans, but I wanted the other bloggers to have a chance to catch up because I am definitely winning “Best Blog” award right now. Anyway, this will be a super blog because a lot has happened during my four month French class that I haven’t had time to talk about yet, but first I have some thoughts:

1) What a great Super Bowl, I got to watch it here and it was definitely a classic worth remembering, but I was a little sad the Cardinals lost because I’m not a big Steelers guy, but it was still a good game.

2) For the love of God, if anyone finds a way for me to watch March Madness here, let me know, I will sneak any sort of item you want through Customs if you know/can find a way for me to watch the national time waster.

3) If you are studying ANYWHERE where the Euro is not the main form of currency, be grateful because the exchange rate here is awful and I’m losing money like our economy. So if you are in Argentina, Ecuador, or anywhere in South America or Africa be grateful that you still have money, because I’m flat lining financially.

Well anyway onto the blog!

Altar of the Cathedral

Well two Fridays ago (I know this sounds like old-news but I forgot to mention this is my last blog), our first Friday of class, IES paid for a tour of Nantes for our group. The tour took us to the Cathedral (I don’t know the name of it), the Chateau in the middle of the city (again, I don’t know the name), and a tour of downtown. The Cathedral was absolutely beautiful, but it was missing many of its old stain glass because most of it was broken during WWII. The Chateau was also beautiful; it was walled with a moat. The tour around town was very nice, except for the weather; it was freezing cold with a crazy wind wiping everyone around, I was worried I would see a rogue cow or crepe come flying by it was so strong.

Chateau, over that brick wall is the moat.

Last Wednesday was Charles’s 20th birthday. To celebrate he took Julie, Alex (an American we met here), and me out to dinner. I know that seems a little strange, but his grandparents gave him some money for his birthday with specific instructions to Charles to take some friends out to a nice dinner for his birthday, so he took us to a mussels restaurant. For anyone who is confused, there are many restaurants here that specialize in one particular food, for instance there are crêperies which only serve crepes, and this restaurant specialized in mussels. It was absolutely delicious; Nantes is close to the sea so we all ate fresh mussels that may have been caught that day.

Charles's Birthday Dinner, sooooo good.

Every year their is a famous music festival held in Nantes called La Folle Journée, it’s a classical music concert which focuses on one or two different artists, this year is was Bach and Schultz. IES bought every student a ticket for a concert. The concert lasted from Thursday to Sunday, Julie, Michael, Will and I got our tickets for Saturday at noon. We met at IES and took a special bus to the concert. The pianist for our concert was only 22 and he played beautifully, but I don’t think classical concerts are for Will and me because Will fell asleep midway through and I started playing Tetris on my phone within ten minutes of the concert starting. Once the concert ended Will, Michael and I met up with Charles, who couldn’t go to the concert because he had been sick the day before, and we looked for a good way to waste time. We settled on trying to find the elephant. The elephant is a giant robotic elephant hidden somewhere on the Ile de Nantes
and we had been trying to find it for a solid three weeks. We finally found it, and it was a melodramatic moment. The elephant was cool looking, but it felt like a journey was complete and we no longer had something to do as a time waster. We later learned that the mechanical elephant was funded through tax money, the last time I checked, giant robotic elephant was nowhere near as important as funding for education or transportation, but that’s not important it, it was a giant robotic elephant.

The piano, the pianist worked magic.

Last Thursday the public transportation workers around France held a strike, but I had no idea what they were striking for. It was a hassle getting to IES because I rely on the bus to get me there and it only went halfway, but I got to walk through a crowd that was protesting, and it was pretty cool. After class Charles, Justin and I watched the people march through the crowd. They didn’t seem angry at all, on contraire, they seemed happy to be marching around time. It was like watching a giant parade of protest go by, and it was a good experience because there are never any strikes in the States.
The strike. VIVA LA FRANCE!

Yesterday Charles and I got to play touch rugby with our friend Ludo who is the owner and bartender of our favorite bar, Webb Ellis. He drove us to the club rugby stadium where, he is trying to get a club touch rugby team started and invited us to join. Neither of us had ever played rugby before so we were looking forward to either humiliating ourselves or really humiliating ourselves. Ludo started the game with a few drills for the group to do, which was good because it helped Charles and I get a feel for the game. After about an hour of drills we played 5 on 5 touch rugby. I was on the team opposite Ludo and Charles and I have to say we dominated. I scored twice and I stopped Charles just short of scoring, so it was a good day.

Me in front of the elephant, good to know tax money is going to a good cause.

Well that’s it and that’s all for this chapter in my four month French class. I hope all is good at Wofford and that everyone had a successful Interim and that everyone is safe and happy back home, à toute à l’heure! 

Mmmmm......crepes......

Charles and me watching the Inauguration at Webb Ellis

 

So, I had a great blog planned out for everyone. I was going to write about Obama’s inauguration and our trip to Mt. St. Michel and St. Malo’s. However, I missed out on seeing the beautiful site of Mt. St. Michel and writing an exciting blog by sleeping through my alarm. Although it’s not entirely my fault; I was staying at Charles’s house Friday night and he said he would set an alarm....he just forgot to wake up to the alarm. O well, c’est la vie. But if it provides any condolences to ya’ll, know that I was deathly sick Saturday night and Sunday with a cold, proving once again that one should always be mindful of karma.

Now you might be asking yourself, “Why did Pete and Charles sleep in and miss their bus?” The answer: we were invited to a private night club. If you need to read that phrase again, “We were invited to a private night club”. It’s a really complicated story about how we got invited, but let’s just say that we met some French kids who knew the DJ at the club and let us come as guests. This club was unlike anything I have ever been to; it looked like a club straight out of “Scarface”. Needless to say, we didn’t make it back to Charles’s house until the wee hours of the morning, and we slept well into the afternoon. Now, can you please forgive me for not going to Mt. St. Michel? I mean, after a story like that I think some forgiveness is needed for missing out on one France’s most beautiful sites.

Anyway, since I can’t write about the trip, let me describe Inauguration Day ’08 in Nantes, France. IES had planned for us to watch the Inauguration at the center, then we would have our Club de Conversation (where we practice French with students from the University), and finally we would have dinner at a crêperie together. Well, Charles, Julie and some others did not feel like watching the Inauguration in French (which is what IES would have shown); we felt that since this was a day for America we should watch it in English. We went to our favorite bar where they had the Inauguration on the big screen. There was some chatter going on during Biden’s inauguration and throughout the formalities of the ceremony, but once Obama placed his hand on that Bible the bar fell silent. The entire bar watched in solemn silence as Obama was inaugurated and as he gave his speech. It was this moment that made me realize how small the world has become, and how our country’s every action is watched and scrutinized by others. I know that times are bad right now, but know that we are still influential in the rest of the world. You would be surprised by how many aspects of American culture I see here: a McDonald’s, NFL highlights on TV, half the movies at the movie theater are American, and many more. I know I came here to learn about another culture and language, but it is comforting to be reminded of my home.

 

"Star-Spangled  Banner" not "La Marseillaise"

If you were wondering, the crepes were absolutely delicious! But there is a difference between a crepe and a galette. A galette is made of buckwheat and you eat it with eggs, ham, cheese, and other toppings. A crepe is made from flour and sugar and you put chocolate and other sweet things in them. That’s all for this week, adieu!

 

Me outside the creperie, notice the satisfied look.

 My galette: ham, cheese, mushrooms and sauce. Delicious 

Allez les Jaunes! (Until they played like the Panthers)

  Me at Stade de la Beaujorie. Notice the yellow and green scarf.

A few thoughts since I published my last blog:

1. I received a lot of messages asking me how I could get to LA for the Golden Globes so easily. I was a little perturbed by these, but then I realized that my readers were confusing me with Will Smith, it's OK people, I confuse myself with him sometimes too.

2. My girlfriend, who needs a catchy name for this blog, pointed out that I had many grammatical mistakes in my blog and that the Wofford faculty reading this wouldn't be too pleased by that. I say, if Flava Flav can get away with wearing a clock for 20 years I can get away with a few grammatical mistakes.

3. Since not many other Wofford bloggers are posting I am going to fully abuse my posting privileges and probably post a blog a week (I know you love that idea people). This isn't only so my adoring public can read my masterpiece of writing, but also so that I could win that blog award (again Ms. Lancaster disregard that as far as you know I'm writing this blog for Wofford's Study Abroad program to have help future students).

Anyway, onto the blog!

So yesterday (Saturday) I went to my first ever football game. (Since I'm in Europe I am obligated by sports law to call soccer football, I will refer to US as football as, well, US football.) It wasn't only a football game, it was a professional game. It was FC Nantes vs Bordeaux. FC Nantes is like the Indiana Pacers of Ligue 1, they were once good and played solidly,but they are now stuck in mediocrity, (however, they didn't have a crazy small forward who's name rhymes with "Shmartest" who single handedly ruined your team....but for the sake of my blog this analogy works), and Bordeaux is like the San Antonio Spurs, a consistently good team that is always a contender.

Our whole week had been in anticipation of this game. We bought our tickets Wednesday and felt like kids at Christmas knowing that we were going to finally get a chance to do something American/ universal here, go to a sporting event. We were a little disappointed to learn that the French don't tailgate, but what the French lack in fried chicken and half-cold beer they make for in number of bars, so we found some consolation.

My day started when I met up with Charles and Chris at the Place Royale around 2:30. Chris went shopping with his girlfriend and Charles and I went bar hunting. We quickly realized that the French don't start drinking as early as Americans and we just wound up walking around in a giant circle for about an hour and a half. (We literally walked in a giant circle,this is no exaggeration). We then found a bar that was open, we went in and ordered a beer. The TV there was showing the Heineken Cup, a huge rugby tournament. We stayed there a while until Michael, another IES student, met up with us and we left to find another bar. We then found an awesome bar called The Live Bar, we chilled there for a while then left to go meet everyone else at the Place Royale.

 Chris, Michael, Charles and Me showing our Nantes pride!

We left Place Royale for the game. We took the Tram all the way to the Stade de la Beaujorie, where Nantes plays, and we were immediately taken aback by the number of street vendors, it felt like we wheree at a State Fair. Once noticing that these vendors sold beer and wine I immediately retracted my comment about the French not tailgating, by the way if you're in Europe and someone offers you a vin chaud (hot wine) accept it's absolutely delicious. We made our way to the stadium and once we got i nwe realized we could sit anywhere in the fan section, so we took some seats about twenty rows and slightly left of the goal. With about 10 minutes left before the game started the entire fan section started lifting up a large white banner that completely covered us. I don't know what the banner said, but it was pretty sweet to take the banner down and see the players on the field getting set to play.

      Our seats...pretty sweet, I know.

Once the game started the entire stadium started yelling and chanting. In front of the fan section there are three guys who lead the chanting and keep the crowd in the game. Listening to these guys you would think a riot was going on. Bordeaux scored in the 12th minute, but that did not diminish our cheering one bit. Every time Nantes was attacking we erupted in cheers and support for les jaunes et verts. At halftime the score was 1-0. Except for the one defensive letdown that led to the score Nantes had played fairly well. The start of the second half was a second Bordeaux that looked like an accidental own goal by Nantes. Once the second goal came the crowd's morale and the team's morale dropped completely. However, once Nantes started attacking again we started cheering again, and in the 70th minute Nantes finally put one in the back of the net. Also, in extra time Nantes had a corner kick that almost went in the goal. I have never heard a place so loud when Nantes was setting up for a corner, nor have I ever heard a louder groan of disappointment when they missed the corner. Nantes went on to lose 2-1, but it was one of the most fun events I have experienced, a highly recommend seeing a professional European football game to any sports fan.

 Charles, Julie, and me cheering at the game.

Before I go I have one question: what in the world happened to the Panthers? How do you go from Super Bowl contender to being blown out by the Fredo of professional sports? This proves once and for all that no one should bet on any sports team from the Carolinas except for UNC basketball and women's soccer, somehow they are unaffected by the Carolina curse. 

Well, until I come up with another story to tell, peace!

  Getting ready to enjoy our first football match together........ 

Floating Like A Frenchie

Me at Loches....it's cold 

 

Bonjour Ya’ll!

This is my first blog post ever so bear with me. For those of you who don’t know I’m studying in Nantes France, and I’m here with two other Wofford Students: my friend Charles LaPrade and William Renneker. Charles and I flew to France together and we met Will once we arrived in Nantes. Upon arriving in France on January 7^th I learned a few things: customs is slack, their coffee is espresso, it gets dark around 4:30pm, and EVERYONE drives like they are in the Indianapolis

500, and it’s cold. When we landed in Paris, it was 18 degrees Fahrenheit and all we were wearing was a shirt and pants, no jacket, and Charles’s bag didn’t arrive so he had to wear one of my jackets from my suitcase (which arrived thankfully). We then went to the train station and rode a train to Nantes. We could see the French countryside from our window and it was on of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen. The entire countryside was covered in snow and every couple of miles we would ride past a small French village.

Once we arrived in Nantes we waited at the IES center for our families to pick us up. For some reason it was a nerve racking expirence. Charles and I would exchange nervous glances every now and then and say things like, “What have we gotten ourselves into”, and “Holy crap we are actually in France!” My family eventually came and picked me up. I’m not going to use my family’s name because I don’t have their permission and I think it would be exploitation or something like that.

(The real reason is that I really want to win the best blog award so instead of using their names I want to find something clever to call them each week. If you have any ideas please leave me a message in your comments. Ms. Lancaster if you are reading this please disregard the last few sentences.............now)

The first night with the family was a little weird. They would speak to me and French and I would reply in jet-lagged Franglais, which is a mixture of French and English words. After dinner I went straight to bed. The nest day, January 8^th, we were supposed to meet at the IES center for a trip to Tours where we were going on to bond together and get to know everyone in our group by visiting ancient French castles (Chateaux). Before I talk about the trip let me tell you a funny story. When Charles woke up his French Dad asked him, “Do you want a big coffee or a little coffee?” and Charles said he wanted a big coffee. So, when his Dad handed him his coffee it wasn’t in a cup or a mug, it was in a bowl. Like a cereal bowl. So for his first day in France Charles drank his coffee from a cereal bowl, now that’s what I call getting lost in translation.

Anyway, when we arrived in Tours on the 8^th we didn’t do any exploring; well the group didn’t do any exploring but Will, Charles and I did. We found a bar near our hotel simply called “Bar, Snack Land”. It seemed like a great place to go into, but when we tried opening the door it was closed.........zut (French word). So we went back to the hotel dejected because we couldn’t find a good bar. When we got back it was time for dinner, our first French dinner from a restaurant. When they served us the meal they didn’t tell us what it was, so we just ate and ate and ate. It wasn’t until later that we learned our first meal was.............eel. Yeah eel, take that as you will but if I had known at the time what I was eating I might have just gotten into the first taxi I could and find a McDonald’s.

 

Will in front of a statue dog at Loches 

 

We visited our first chateaux, Loches, Thursday morning. Loches was just a bunch of ruins covered in snow and it was so cold that I thought my feet had caught frostbite and that I would have a foot like Adam Sandler in “Mr. Deeds”. Even though it was just ruins it was still a beautiful place. It overlooks the town and offers quite a view. That afternoon we visited Chenonceau, one of the most famous French chateaux. It is built over a river and offers a breathtaking view of the Cher River. It also had a labyrinth made from bushes and a kiddie park where we took a break to act like five year-olds. Saturday we visited Blois in the morning and Chambord in the afternoon. Blois

was decent. It is located in the middle of a city and the inside was very cold. It also lacked a good collection of art; however, it did have a cool weapons rack.

Chambord was by far my favorite chateaux. If you don’t know what it looks like it’s the chateau that looks like it has a little city in the center. Chambord was the biggest chateau we visited and when we were in the highest tower we saw that someone had mowed the Rolling Stones’ 40 Licks sign in the grass......very cool.

  Charles and Me in the "cage" at Loches....very Medieval 

The labyrinth at Chenonceau.

We got back to Nantes on Sunday and yesterday was my birthday and my French family surprised me with a chocolate cake and they gave me a FC Nantes scarf. FC Nantes is the local professional soccer team, if anyone was wondering.  

Well, that’s it for my first blog. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn’t then you have no soul and no appreciation for the finer art of bloggering. Hope all is well back home, and if ya’ll kids ae good you just may be lucky and get a second blog this week.... sorry there are no pictures from Blois and Chambord, I forgot my camera when we visited those places.