Mama Rosin

I went to this concert last night.  It was stinkin' sweet.  There is a festival in Rennes right now called Le Grand Soufflet, which translated is kinda dumb sounding, but it is a bunch of Cajun style bands that are coming to Rennes and playing.  I went to Mama Rosin's concert.  They were a three man band that consisted of a drummer, guitarist, and accordion player.  Their style was pretty bluegrassy, so it was a lot of happy songs that you could tap your feet to, or as some people were doing, dance to.  They were all amazing musicians, for example, the guitarist brought out a banjo for several songs.  The drummer played the harmonica while keeping a beat.  And the accordion player sang, while playing accordion (coordination marvel), and he also played the triangle, guitar, and violin.  He was a boss. Anyways, they played a bunch of songs and then they were finished, and the crowd called them back for 2 encores, which is not at all uncommon in France.  The last of the encores, the band came off the stage into the standing area and played in the midst of the crowd.  So much fun.  They also were getting us involved and stuff.  At one point the two other band members picked up the banjo player -- it was ridiculous.  But, that was a ton of fun.  Here is an example of their music.

photos de Normandie

First two are Arromanches, the third is Omaha beach, and the last, the cemetery

Normandie, Cornouaille

Long time no speak. Sorry. I blame dad for passing the forgetful gene to me.

Anyways, I have been busy, and last weekend and the weekend of the 22nd of September, the CIEE group went on these excursions to Cornouaille and Normandy, respectively.  So, first one, Normandy -- sweet. We went to Caen where there is a museum of World War 2.  It was pretty interesting what they had in there, such as artifacts from mass graves of Jews, uniforms, just all kinds of stuff. Then we went to this seaside town called Arromanches, that was along the Gold beach section.  That was pretty cool, cause there was this park type place that was right on the cliff side.  I stood on the edge, which was awesome.  It was awesome because the wind was like super strong and as soon as your stepped away, it was immediately almost not even there anymore. Crazy.  Side note: I love wind, unless it's freezing.  Anyways, the scenery was stupendous. I will post some pictures.  Then we got to see these old German bunkers and batteries.  You could go inside and stuff -- also sweet.  We spent the night in Bayeux, but didn't get to see the tapestry...

The next day we went to an American cemetery on Omaha beach.  So, I was in the US or part of the trip.  Unfortunately it was quite rainy, but then Jesus took the rain away for me.  So we went down to walk on the beach.  Super cool.  It was kinda humbling to think that guys younger than me were running across that beach into machine gun fire.  But then I was proud to be an American.  Also, the wind was so strong.  The sand was packed down and wet, but it was still moving because of the wind.  If I unzipped my jacket, it was immediately a cape.  It was awesome.  Loving me some wind.  Then I went around the cemetery to try and take a picture of the graves that makes them look like it's not aligned.  Impossible.  But that made it cooler. While we were there, this one veteran was helping do this documentary, and  he stopped to tell our group a few stories. He would just be talking about taking some hill, and it was just like, what the heck...Crazy.

But last weekend, we went to Cornouaille, which is the tip of Brittany.  It rained all weekend.  We stopped for lunch in this little port town called Pont Aven. The port was cool, cause it was directly on the sea, but it was on a river that fed into the sea, and went up when the tide came in.  So I thought that was really neat.  There was this really pretty river that flowed through the town and they had these wooden walkways on it. It was really pretty.  I ate mussels for lunch. They were good. Then we went to a town called Quimper. It is more of a city than a town, but it was also pretty neat.  I really like the feel of these Breton towns and cities.  After that, we stayed in a coastal town called Concarneau. They had this old town section that was still walled in, and you had to cross a couple bridges to get there. It was really neat. We went there to see this "spectacle" -- I can't think of the translation right now.  But it was really cool.  There were these people dressed up as mimes and playing with fire basically.  They had hoolahoops with fire on them, twirly thingys, spitting fire, etc.  But I was really disappointed cause I didn't bring my camera.  Regret...Also, a couple of us went to this concert. In a old chapel.  It was a punk-type music band. They had 4 saxophonists, one of whom could have been a grandpa, 2 flute players, both women who were rocking out harder than most of the rest of the band, a singer, two drummers, one with a huge boom, boom drum and the other with a weird drum set, and finally a banjitar player.  That is a banjo head, with guitar tuned strings.  So yeah, weirdest band ever.  And then there was the audience.  People around our ages, so like 20-30 years, elementary school children with their parents, dogs, several 60+ year olds.  All in around 60 people.  So weird.

The next day we went to the Pointe du Raz, which is the most western part of mainland France.  It was super cool, but super foggy.  You will see in my pictures.  I did however climb around on the rocks and enjoyed a nice dangerous time.  It was kind of a cliff down to the water, so...yeah.  But I love climbing around on rocks.  I did find another path that I wanted to go on, but it was time to head back. Sad day. Then we went to a town called Locronan.  That was also really cool, cause it still looked like it belonged in the Medieval Age.  But...I didn't bring my camera again, cause I thought that we were going to just eat lunch there and leave.  Regret.  It was really cool cause the stores were like holes in the wall, but then you go in and it's surprisingly spacious.  And then you find another room, and then a basement, and then an upstairs! It's like Christmas. So that was really cool.  Then we went home.

St. Malo

I also went to St. Malo this weekend.  It's a fortified sea town an hour train ride away from Rennes.  The old town was really quite neat.  All the houses had this orange lichen stuff on the roof because of the humidity.  There is a castle there that we could go in for free because of this thing that happens in Europe called Journées de Patrimoine which allows anyone to enter into a city's historic places for a free guided tour.  And it was this weekend.  But in the castle, you could go up into the keep, and then eventually you could go all the way up into the tallest tower. Did it. I got a pretty sweet view of the city from there and the beach.  The stairs were not wide enough for two people to pass and were super steep.  It was fun. There is this fort on this rock thing that you can't get to when the tide is in, so since it was out, I went over there, but I didn't think it would be worth paying to go in, so I walked around on the rocks.  I am super thankful that I didn't fall or anything cause that may have been the end of my ankle. Then you could walk along the walls, so me and one of the people with me did that.  But there was another little island-when-the-tide-is-in, so we went over there cause there was no fort. There were some wild blackberry bushes there that we snacked from. Also, they have these pools on the beach that are fed by the tide and when the tide goes out, the pool remains.  It was neat.  Then it was time to go back, so we did. Trains are pretty nice here. The picture was taken from the second island.

Marché des Lices

In Rennes, every Saturday morning, there is this outdoor produce market, kind of like a farmer's market, where they sell everything from flowers to vegetables to fruits to cheese, bread, and meat.  It's pretty cool. I have been like every weekend since I got here.  I don't buy anything, but I like to look at everything, especially the berries which I always want to buy. Also going through the meat part is interesting to me as there are great cuts of meat that look delicious right next to livers and hearts and tripe. Tasty. Then there are the cheese vendors who have like 30 different types of cheese or more.  And the bread vendors with their baguettes and other tasty looking loafs. Also, they have galette stands where you can buy galettes or crepes. A galette is basically a crepe for the main course of a meal. It's made with dark flour so of course it's darker. But you can put just about anything inside.  I have had one with ham, cheese, an egg and mushrooms.  So good. Also there is this thing called galette saucise which is a galette with a sausage in the middle.  It's good too. The best part is that they are really cheap. Also they are the specialty of Brittany along with crepes. I came to the right place.

Rennes

So...it's been a while. But I guess that means I have a lot to say.

Rennes is a pretty sweet city.  It still has houses from the Middle Ages, although most aren't as there have been several fires in the past.  There is this awesome Renaissance-type park like 10 or 15 minutes from my house that I walk through to get to the place where we are having our two week intensive thing.  I just found out today that it has this rather large botanical garden area.  It is set up in rings and the last one was roses, and I am pretty sure there wasn't a repeat rose in the whole ring.  There was also a bird cage area for some reason.  The center of town is no more than a thirty minute walk from my house, which is great cause that means I can walk most places that I would want to go to here with exception to the university. I actually took a long walk by myself today.  It was super nice, a strong breeze, perfect temperature...

Moving right along.  Classes are at this place called the Franco- German Institute (only in French).  They last from 9-12 and then from 1:15-2:15.  The afternoon is a culture course.  We eat at a RU, or Restaurant Universitaire, where the food is pretty good.  Usually.  Once upon a Wednesday, I was standing in line with my two sides and roll waiting to get my main dish.  I decided to order this bratwurst-looking thing as I figured it would be tasty.  Well, I was wrong. Very, very wrong. In place of the delicious taste of the bratwurst, there was the terrible taste and texture of sheep intestines. Oh yes. Sheep intestines. I ate one bite and was done. But on the bright side, I still had a roll and cheese to eat.  Throughout the meal I kept smelling something funny, and it wasn't until we were about to leave that I realized it was my sausage-thing.

My host parents have some onomatopoeia toilet paper. Also some that says how to say woof woof in like thirty languages.

Erquy

So, this weekend, I went to the beach with my host family at Erquy, a small town of 3,000 people on the north side of Brittany.  In the summer, my host mom said it was around 30,000 people.  Now, they have a house there, but not just that.  They also own a blockhouse that was put there during WW2 by the Germans to guard the coast.  Also, they have this underground cave-like room that the Germans kept their wine in.  I don't know if there were any bottle from that time left, but I did see some pretty old looking bottles.  Her parents had owned the property before them, but they bought it from them because of their age.  So, yeah.  Pretty sweet.  Here are some pictures.

You can't really see the town in these pictures, but it gives you an idea of what the coast looks like.  Now, both of these pictures were taken at low tide. But as you can see on the second picture, there isn't really that line of sea-trash that you see on the beaches in the US.  You know, it's blackish, made up of seaweed and sticks.  Well, that's because when the tide comes in, the beach disappears almost completely.  I have no idea why this is so, but the difference in height between low tide and high tide is about 10m or 30ft.  So, in the first picture, you can see where the black stops on the rocks, that's where the tide is when it comes in. It's quite amazing.  The beach is like 10 yards long when the tide is in, and when it's out, it's probably a ten minute walk at least to get to the water.  There were boats about 100 yards from the water completely beached.  Super weird.  So, cool story of the week.

La famille d'accueil (host family)

So, yesterday I finally got to Rennes via Chartres.  That was pretty cool, cause we got to see probably the best Gothic cathedral in the world. Our tour guide was British, so that was pretty funny and cool at the same time.  He is supposedly the most predominant researcher of the Chartres cathedral, so he wanted to keep us there for a week, but we were only there for like 2 hours max. When we got to Rennes it was around 6:00 in the evening. We went into one of the buildings on campus and pretty much played Red Robin with the host families.  We stood on one side with all the baggage, and they on the other.  Then they called out the parents, and they walked to the middle, and then the students, who went to meet them.  I was like number 3.  Only my host mom was there cause my host dad was off on a boat for vacation.  So we raced one of her friends home who lives like 3 minutes away and is also hosting a student and we won. Woot. Anyways, she seems like she has done this before, so it wasn't too awkward or anything so that was good.  She has a son living there of 22 years I think, but during dinner, her other son who got married on Saturday came and showed us his pictures of the wedding.  The dinner was quite delicious. My host dad plays guitar and piano, which is awesome.  But all in all, I think that they will be great.  Also Rennes is seemingly a pretty nice city.

À Paris

Well, I spent three days in Paris.  No big deal.  But for some reason I didn't really go to the more famous of the landmarks and tourist places while I was there.  Instead, I went to the Montmartre where the Sacre Coeur is, and the Place du Luxembourg, and Notre Dame, and l'Hôtel de Ville.  I saw everything but l'Arc du Triomphe, but that was because we took a barge ride along the Seine River the last evening that we were there.  I was going to go to the Catacombs of Paris, but the line was too long to get there before lunch, so we decided to go to the Place du Luxembourg instead.
The hotel that we stayed at was rather nice, but also quite old.  It didn't have internet...except if you payed for it, so I was going to pay the last day that I was there, but all they had was a card for 10 hours for 10 euros, so I decided it wasn't worth it.  I would be leaving the next day anyways so, why would I need 10 hours worth?
I like to say that I was a metro savant after Paris because that's what we used to get around the city.  But I had a good time figuring it out, so that was good.
The food is good. They don't just serve tiny portions of gourmet food for a large price as people may think.  They fill you up for about ten euros.  So it's not bad.  The only thing is the drinks cost kind of a lot.  One coke about 12 oz costs about 4 euros.  Oh well.  They gave us 35 euros. Win.

J’arrive en France

So.   I got here, but not without some problems.  All my flights were on time, and once I got to Paris, I passed through customs in like ten minutes, and from there my bag was like the third bag at baggage claim.  So I went through in probably around 30 minutes from the plane out to the airport lobby place. But then I had to wait for the CIEE people, who, as far as I knew, were going to be here at ten o’clock (I had to pay for internet in order to get this info 1.90€), so I hung out at the arrivals place, because I assumed that they would come there.  But by 9:30ish, I started to get anxious because I figured any respectable study abroad group would get to the airport before the time that they said they would arrive in order to get ready.  Ten o’clock passes…10:15. I ask the information desk if they have any information about my situation.  I finally went up to another group of study abroad people waiting for students and asked them.  They for some reason thought I was a part of their group, and so did I, because I figured they went to the same place as the CIEE people.  So I got into a cab with some of their students, only to be taken out of the cab when the director realized I wasn’t one of them.  Good thing we didn’t finish leaving the airport before then.  Anyways, this director didn’t know any phone numbers, so she called her office to have them look some up and call her back.  That was taking too long for me.  I was supposed to be at the hotel by noon, and here it was 11:15. So, I had to bite the bullet and pay for another internet session.  I also had to turn on my computer.  That was enough to about kill me with how long it was taking.  I finally got the number like ten minutes later, and she called the director of my program, who by God’s grace hadn’t left because he had the bus drive by again to make sure there were no extra students.  So I walked over to that terminal’s arrivals gate (I only thought that there was the one that I was at) and met him and left with the rest of the group.  All this time with my 37.5 pound backpack on my back, carrying my guitar, and pulling my carry-on bag.  Relief was being felt by me, that is for sure.