Quality Host-Family Time and the End of Tours

I've gotten a little behind in posting since the final few days here in Tours have flown by! I really can't believe I'm setting off for Strasbourg tomorrow morning. I'm actually quite wary about leaving Tours--I'm all settled in here, I know the city well, I'm comfortable with my crazy colorful host family... and tomorrow I'm getting plunged once more into the unfamiliar. I guess that's a part of life, but I'm still a little hesitant.

Anyway, here's a few notes about my final week in Tours:

Monday was really special because it was the first time that I've really spent time with my host family outside of eating dinner or just conversing in the kitchen. After my classes on Monday afternoon, I walked directly home and hopped in the car with Ardiana, Miyu, Miyu's Japanese friend Arisa, and my host mother. We drove to a "fun park" located about 10 minutes outside of the city to play mini golf!

Okay, mini golf is a little different in France. Each course has a surface of concrete instead of grass or turf, which makes it terribly difficult since the golf ball never stops rolling until it hits a side barrier (none of which are close to the hole). The game took quite a while--over an hour--and our scores weren't too pretty, but it was still really fun.

After mini-golf, we all drove back to Tours and got ice cream at the best gelato place in Place Plume. (Nutella ice cream for me!). Miyu's friend Arisa departed soon after to meet her own host family, and the four of us returned home.

Old-town Tours, Place Plume: there are lots of cafés and ice cream shops

The ferris wheel of Tours at night

Together, we all made dinner--pastry topped with chicken, cheese, peas, and an egg-cheese quiche mixture--and it was quite cheerful in the kitchen. When the quiche was ready, the four of us ate together, chattering away happily. Miyu understands a few French words by now! The rest, I translated for her.

Once dinner was over, we all decided to watch a movie. My host mother has a huge collection of movies, but we ended up settling on a movie that I wouldn't have originally chosen, but it's a classic: Doctor Zhivago. Made in 1965, it's a romance set in Russia, and it's actually the 8th-highest-grossing film in history according to Wikipedia! We watched it dubbed in French with French subtitles, and I'm happy to say that I actually understood most of it!

Although it wasn't anything super French, I really enjoyed the host-family time on Monday. I also learned a lot of diverse French vocabulary about golf and cooking and Russia.

Fast-forward to Wednesday afternoon: my friends and I decided to hop on a train to see yet another chateau right after our classes finished for the today. So 12:25 p.m. yesterday found me running with Bridget and Julianne across the city to catch a 12:32 p.m. train. We made it just in time, luckily.

The chateau we visited is called Azay-le-Riddeau. It's a little like Chennonceau in that it is set partially on the river. It was quite a pretty little castle, but emphasis on the "little" : it didn't take us too long to tour.

As we tour more and more chateau, I've noticed that it's become  easier to devolve into the stereotypical loud, silly American tourists that others expect of us. In the beginning of this month in Tours, my friends and I were pretty quiet while visiting castles, sometimes following the tour guide and speaking softly in English.

Wednesday, though, was a different story: some of the novelty of so many chateau had worn away and we hopped from room to room at a pretty fast pace. Luckily, Azay-le-Riddeau was pretty deserted because we were being just silly at times--for instance, we were literally petting all the walls of the castle (many rooms had walls covered in midnight-blue velvety material which was so soft! And one room had walls which were made of braided corn and smelled slightly like tea). There were also quite a few crazy pictures taken posing next to lion statues and so forth, we were just having fun. We weren't complete idiots though. I still learned a lot, and the detail in the castle was amazing: one room featured a fairly large wooden cabinet dating back to 1580 whose craftsmanship was unbelievably beautiful, and another room contained huge old oil paintings of kings and feasts and medieval times, which I loved.

My friends being silly

 

 

Yesterday was our last night together as a Holy Cross group (seeing as 8 of us will be traveling to Strasbourg tomorrow and the other 4 are leaving for Dijon--including Julianne, Bridget, and Christian, unfortunately). So for one final time, the twelve of us went out to dinner at a brasserie right near the fountains of Place Jean Jaures. After the nearly two-hour dinner, we went to the Guinguette to chill and drink a little (the Guinguette a huge, popular outside bar on the Loire river, centered around two ancient willow trees strung with colorful lights--a very cool place on summer nights).

And today was the last day! I didn't do anything too exciting to say goodbye to this city, after class today, my friends and I did have one last lunch together at Mamie Bigoude... oh, those delicious crêpes with chocolate and macaroon pieces...

I feel like I know Tours so well now, it's very bizarre to leave for good. This past year, all I've been thinking about is my time in Strasbourg, and I never gave much thought to the month I would spend here, but now I'm so sad to see it's over. I just have to remember that tomorrow is going to be a new adventure!

Biking to Villandres

This Saturday I biked to and from a chateau with four of my friends. Remind me to add that to my bucket list just so I can cross it off and feel accomplished.

Personally, biking isn't my favorite method of transportation, so I wasn't too enthusiastic in waking up on Saturday morning. I ran to the bike store to meet my friends (seeing as I had overslept and missed all 6 of my alarms) and we rented bikes, which cost 15 euro for the day.

The first few moments on the bike were quite wobbly for Kat and I. Granted, I don't think I've ridden a bike for over 5 years, so I was bound to be a little unstable in the beginning, but I caught on pretty quick--a necessity, since our first ten minutes of riding took us down Tours city streets. The cars zooming past me on the roads (way too close for comfort) did not grant me confidence in my shaky riding abilities.

Setting off!

Once we got out of the city, though, it was perfect: we were riding on a paved bike path that wound its way through forests, past fields of dead sunflowers, and along the banks of the Loire. The gray skies and cool August temperature was actually quite ideal for the long bike ride as well.

Right outside of the chateau, we stopped at a patisserie for lunch--I bought a just-out-of-the-oven quiche Lorraine and a chausson aux pommes (a flakey pastry filled with cinnamon-apples)--then we all ate inside the castle walls on a bench overlooking the gardens.

Villandres is a chateau known for its gardens. The group of us--Bridget, Kat, Christian, Julianne, and I--took a quick tour of the chateau, then spent a while wandering around the gardens, just talking and taking pictures. Surprisingly, many of the gardens were filled with fruits and vegetables: we saw pear trees with fruits ripe for picking; there were archways overgrown with crawling grape vines (we tried a few grapes, but they were pretty sour); and there were blossoming bushes of basil and eggplant and arugula.

Overlook of the chateau and just a few of the many gardens

After exploring the gardens, we headed back home on our bikes. Ten minutes into the ride, though, the clouds opened up and it started pouring for a good quarter of an hour. The five of us took shelter under some overhanging trees and waited for the downpour to pass. Once again, set off, only to have another little raincloud burst a few minutes later (this time, however, we biked anyway while the rain lasted, which I really enjoyed). We biked the rest of the way home in sunshine, happily.

I found out afterwards that the ride to the chateau alone was 20 kilometers--that makes the roundtrip a 40 km (or 24-mile) bike ride! I'm actually really proud of myself that I managed to bike that much. Not to say that I'm not in shape--I go running three mornings a week here (at the beautiful hour of 6:20 a.m.) and I've been walking miles to and from school and around the city and the chateau each day--but 24 miles is still a decent bike ride! It was a very successful Saturday!

Lost in Translation

Last Sunday, a new housemate arrived!

Her name is Miyu, and she comes from Japan. She's here in Tours for two weeks to study tourism (such an aptly-named place for such a study! There are so many terrible puns one can make about taking a tour of Tours and so forth--however, Google-searching the city has been annoying: type in "things to do in Tours, France" and about 20 different guided Paris tours pop up).

Miyu is super sweet, but there is one little problem: she doesn't speak any French, and even her English is limited.

Since none of my other housemates are native English speakers, it has sort of fallen upon me to be her translator. While my host mother was taking Miyu on a tour of the house, I was made to shadow them: my host mother struggled to explain things with a few English words, but when she could not come up with the vocabulary, she would rattle something off to me in French and I would then translate into simple English for Miyu.

Switching so fast from English to French is very new to me. For the first two weeks in Tours, there were specified times or places where I speak each language: it is French-only in the house, while walking to school with Ardiana and Francesca, and in the classroom, but when I am with my American friends in a store or while eating lunch, English is more natural.

However, this past week with Miyu in the house has thrown me off a little: at dinner, we all speak in French (poor Miyu, not understanding!) and then we pause while someone attempts to explain to her in broken English what the conversation was about. When they do not know a word, they turn to me and say the word in French with a questioning look. Honestly, half the time, I don't even know the French word that they are saying, so they explain the meaning of the word (in French, of course) and then I relay the corresponding English word or phrase to Miyu. When she responds, I usually translate her words back into French unless it is such a simple answer that everyone else understands.

There are times, however, where they rattle off a French word and I know the meaning, I KNOW IT, yet my mind switches off English-mode or something: I just can't come up with the correct translation. My fear has come true: I'M FORGETTING ENGLISH!!

Not really, of course: I am just learning how difficult it is to translate one language into another so fast! It is like turning water into ice then back into water: English and French are the same thing essentially (both languages, both H20, necessary for humans), and they have some similar properties, but other properties are very different (ice floats, water conforms to its container, English and French use completely different words, sounds, and sentence structures). It is hard to turn one language into the other instantaneously.

On another note, my housemate Francesca returned to Italy this morning. Her course at the Institute finished yesterday, and she is going back home to continue studying economics at her university. Even though I only knew her for three weeks, I'm still a little sad: she was really welcoming, and I enjoyed going out at night with her and a few of the other Italians, even though they mostly spoke their native tongue and I couldn't understand a word. (I understand how you feel at dinner, Miyu!)

Languages are complicated and beautiful things, but they can be very alienating.

For the Foodies

So how is food in France, you might ask yourself?

Well, the answer is that it's so darn delicious that I'm already a little worried about returning the dull, normal food of America in about 10 months time.

Highlights so far?

First, the bread. Everyone raves about freshly-baked French baguettes, and there's a solid reason for it. Even I am starting to crave the crispy baguettes that are sold on every street corner, which is surprising considering that I don't even like bread. (Trust me, that was a major concern of mine while setting off for France, but I'm truly beginning to enjoy bread. Sometimes. In moderation.)

Brioche is subcategory of French bread that must be mentioned, of course. It's a rich, golden bread made with a very generous amount of egg and butter. My friends all rattle on and on about the brioche here, especially the slices with chocolate pieces baked in!

My personal favorites have been the crêpes and the galettes. Goodness, the crêpes here are fantastic: I've had simple (yet sinful) nutella ones (for only 1.50 euro!) from the cheerful little crêpe man who sings while he makes them in his food truck off Rue National; I've also had fancy crêpes with salted-butter caramel and bananas (so good, so good). Tours is the first place that I've encountered galettes--they are  somewhat thicker buckwheat crêpes  that are more savory than sweet, but can be filled with all things delicious--such as ham, cheese, egg, potato, lettuce, bbq sauce, etc.

The cute little singing crepe man's stand with 1,50 euro nutella crepes!

One night last week, my host mother made us crêpes for desert. I ate mine happily, spread generously with nutella. After, I was about to clean up when my host mother jumped and declared that she would start making round 2 of crêpes for everyone (my thoughts: round 2? I was only expecting one each!). Copying my Swiss housemate Ardiana, I took my second one with honey. To my absolute shock, my crazy (yet awesome) host mother again hopped up with the intention of ROUND THREE OF DESSERT CREPES. (Thank goodness I walk a good distance to and from school every day). This third one I took with strawberry jam, following the example my Italian housemate, Francesca.

Yay for delicious crêpes!!

There is a crêperie here  in Tours called Mamie Bigoude that I absolutely LOVE: the whole restaurant is decorated as if it is a house--for example, we sat at a table that was set up as a king-sized bed complete with pillows on the benches. Here, I split a beef-BBQ sauce-potato-cheese galette with Julianne (I know it sounds like a strange combo, but it was so good), followed by a lovely crêpe topped with homemade chocolate sauce, whipped cream, macaroon pieces, and white chocolate ice cream. I swear, I almost died.
 

My sugar crepe with chocolate, macaroons, and white chocolate ice cream!

Besides all those aforementioned heavenly carbs, France has also offered a great amount of ice cream (in flavors such as nutella, nougut, and salted-butter caramel) along with quite a fantastic wine selection--all bottles under 15 euro that I have seen; most in the 2-6 euro range--and strangely, a lot of tomatoes.

Again, tomatoes are not a vegetable that I often eat at home since I dislike them, but I swear we've had tomatoes every night for dinner here. And I'm eating them, of course, to be polite! Also, I'm dedicated to trying nearly everything that is thrown at me this year, (next up: escargot?) Slowly but surely, I'm even getting used to tomatoes, which proves to me that I can conquer anything! Well, food-wise. Seriously, I've always hated bread and tomatoes, and now I'm eating both regularly--that has to mean good things.

Summer days at Chateau de Chaumont

I promised a long time ago that I would write a quick blurb on my adventures from last Thursday, August 15, so here it is:

My friends and I had come up with about 5 different plans for our holiday on Thursday--all of which would've worked if it hadn't been a holiday. The buses weren't running or were full, and every bike store in Tours had already rented out all their bikes for the day (we were going to bike to the chateau Villandres, but the lack of bikes killed that option).

So, we all met at the train station, looked at local tickets, and bought one of the cheapest tickets, which ended up taking us to Blois.

And for a spontaneous pick, Blois ended up being a pretty good choice!

It was a nice city to walk around, and the chateau (located a 4-minute walk from the train station) was free admission due to the holiday (yay not spending all my money!). We also got into a little magic show for free.



Gargoyles!

The spiral stone steps of the Chateau de Blois

However, my adventure on Saturday is what this post is really going to focus on.

Saturday was the quintessence of summer, in my eyes: the sky was that deep summer blue straight out of the movies, marbled with marshmallow clouds; the cicadas were chirping in full force; and with the heat of the sun on my back, I felt like it was finally August. (The days here in Tours have been quite chilly in the mornings and reasonably warm in the afternoons, but nothing like the hot, lazy dog days I'm used to back home).

Kat and I decided to forgo the trip with the Institute and planned our own adventure: and we chose to visit Chateau de Chaumont.

It was absolutely perfect. The two of us arrived at noon and walked up the hill (already scoring points--I love my hills and mountains) to the chateau to discover very few other visitors. Apparently, Chaumont isn't one of the most well-known names of chateau in the region, although it's so beautiful that I don't understand why not.

The gardens of the chateau seem to stretch on for miles--there were white and purple flowers everywhere, and grassy fields, and patches of forest, and  rosebush gardens... It was the perfect day to wander around the colorful grounds of the chateau.
 

Kat and I in front of the Chateau

Kat and I snapped some pictures of the beautiful castle (sans a lot of other tourists in the background), then entered the chateau--to discover that the inside is probably THE COOLEST chateau that we've been in.

The ground floor is fully restored, of course--elegantly furnished with fine china, beautiful tiles and tapestries, silver candles, and plush sofas from the Napoleon III time period.

Upstairs, though, is a completely different story.

There are dozens upon dozens of unrestored rooms that wind through the second and third floors of the chateau, dimly lit (at first, Kat and I thought "Are we even allowed up here?") and truly creepy looking. Many were completely empty: there were lightning-bolt cracks spider-webbing across the ceilings and scraps of the chateau's original wallpaper were peeling off in tatters. Other rooms were arranged artfully to look like abandoned storage rooms: one room was full of ancient, rusted armor; another had a few dozen old, worn doors and cupboards with cracked glass shelves stacked up against the peeling walls.

A creepy old storeroom/art exhibit in the chateau, complete with peeling paint
 and stained glass

Best of all, these unrestored rooms were set up as a creepy (but awesome) art exhibit: in every ancient, dusty room, there was a beautiful stained-glass picture hanging in each window, casting richly colored light upon the creaky, scuffed wooden floorboards.

Coming to Tours, I thought Chennonceau was going to remain my favorite castle, but Chateau de Chaumont was definitely more interesting, and in many ways, it was equally as beautiful. I'm  so glad that Kat and I discovered it!

Saturday was so perfect.

Mont-Saint-Michel

Already I can check off two of the places I most wanted to visit in France--Chenonceau and the famous Mont-Saint-Michel (although they are only two of about 100 places that I desperately want to see in France alone, so it's probably quite good that I'm getting a sprinting start).

Last Saturday (August 10th) was the big trip to Mont-Saint-Michel, and I was extremely excited for it. I woke up with the sunrise and walked to the bus with my two host sisters for our early departure.

Just over three hours later, we were in Normandy, walking towards the island fortress.

In reality, Mont-Saint-Michel was built as a holy place (there is a huge abbey and crypts and halls of prayer at the top of the small island wonder). After walking up the sloping streets full of postcard shops and ice cream stands, we arrived at the top to tour the abbey. My friends and I really just wandered around by ourselves to take photos, though.

Favorite picture of Mont-Saint-Michel

After exploring the crypts, we had only an hour left before we had to meet back at the bus. Kat and I used that time to take a walk past the shuttle stations to get a few far-off shots of Mont-Saint-Michel.  

While leaving the Mont to get to St. Malo, our bus hit traffic (ugh) so we only had an hour and 15 minutes to discover the beautiful beach city. We walked along the beach for a bit before sitting down for a fast dinner (ham and cheese galettes followed by caramel-banana sugar crêpes--delicious!).

St. Malo!

Unfortunately, the dinner left us with only 10 minutes to buy caramels and cidre (hard apple cider, a specialty of Bretagne). My friends and I raced to find the sweets and the cidre, then ran back to the bus (where we discovered that being a few minutes late was completely worth it: the caramels are the absolute best that I've ever tasted, and the cidre was so sweet, it was like apple juice!).

Our group of 12 Holy Cross kids had the back seats of our bus. Many of the girls in our group had their own bottle of wine for the three-and-a-half hour bus ride back to Tours; Bridget, Julianne, Kat, and I split two bottles of cidre. When Bridget was opening one of the bottles, the cork flew out and hit the window with such a loud noise that half of the other students on the bus turned around, and someone even asked "Who's popping champagne?"

I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to see Mont-Saint-Michel: it was one of my top sights to see this year!

The rest of this week has flown by, though: Sunday was a sunny, lazy day where I went to a local  park with my Swiss host sister to lay in the grass and read.

Tuesday was notable since, after class, Julianne, Christian, Bridget, and I took a tour of the Saint Gatien Cathedral in Tours (only about a 10 minute walk from the institute). The little old man who leads all the tours (even the one to Mont-Saint-Michel) is so passionate about history, and it was really quite hilarious to watch him energetically explain with erratic hand motions his frustration as to why the first two columns in the cathedral were so carelessly and ineloquently crafted back in the 13th century. One thing that I had not bargained for was that the tour of the Cathedral lasted for two full hours. I definitely learned a lot, and the cathedral itself is absolutely gorgeous, but two hours of listening to the little man enthusiastically lecturing (in French, of course) every detail pertaining to the columns and stained glass windows was a little exhausting.   

The Cathedral, whose towers stand nearly 300 feet high

Yesterday was a holiday in France, so classes were cancelled and most of the 12 Holy Cross kids took an unexpected trip to Blois (since about 6 of our other plans fell through--why do all the cheap buses not run on holidays??), but I will have to save that story for my next post.

For now, though, c'est tout!

The First Week

I can't believe I arrived here over a week ago!

These past few days in Tours have been amazing in a way that screams "This just can't be real life!"

Let me start at the beginning: after wandering around Charles de Gaulle airport for 40 minutes on Sunday morning, I finally found Katherine near the train station. After hugs of relief, we ate our first French breakfast! I chose a tarte aux pommes (basically a croissant filled with cinnamon apples).

While waiting for our train, we discovered a few other fellow Holy Cross students in the station, and it was a mini reunion! Katherine and I were taking an earlier train, though, so we had to leave soon after.

Predictably, the train to Tours was a nightmare.

First of all, my luggage isn't a light load. Dragging it up the steps of the train required a strength that I only had due to a fear of the train departing before we were on board. Since the little luggage compartment of the train was too full, Katherine and I had to drag our huge suitcases and duffel bags through the aisle of the train, bumping the armrest of every single person who had the misfortune of being in the way of our bulky bags ("Pardon, Monsieur! Je suis desolee, Madame!"), and praying that we would have a place to put them during the nearly two-hour ride.

Luckily, everyone in our train car was so sweet. There was one man in particular who helped us lift our heavy suitcases onto a luggage rack between some seats, and he easily tossed our duffels onto the rack above our heads.

After that, it was a relatively easy ride to Tours! That is, until we had to struggle our way off the train...

...and onto another one--a 5 minute ride to the real Tours station--where we met our host mothers!

It was well past noon by the time I arrived at my host family's home. I met everyone (my host family: Madame, Monsieur, and their son, Eddie, who I'm guessing is around 25 years old. I was immediately given a tour of their beautiful home (it's so colorful and inviting. My favorite room is the dining room, which has a wall-to-wall glass window that looks out onto a lush green forest of flowering trees and bushes--not the backyard I was expecting in a city!).

I unpacked quickly, then I was called down to lunch, which was a grand affair. Eddie's two friends joined us as well, so there were six of us. My host mother served a delicious egg-parsley-cheese-mushroom dish in a tomato sauce, followed by bread with goats cheese, and finally, a little bit of ice cream.

(Side note:  of the other dishes that I have eaten this week--all of which have been great--my favorites have been the homemade carbonara that my Italian host sister made, the spinach-mushroom-cheese-tomato quiche, and the rice with roasted vegetables and chicken that we ate tonight. But everything has been so good!)

The rest of Sunday flew by, and before I knew it, my first day of classes had dawned!

I walked the 25 minutes to the Institute with my two sweet "host sisters" (and fellow students) -- Ardiana from Switzerland, and Francesca from Italy.

I've decided that the Institute is a really cool place. Everyone is international--I have people from Italy, Japan, Spain, Russia, Australia, Canada, and Korea in my class--and we have all come here to ameliorate our French. The ages vary as well: in my class, I am one of the youngest, but I have met 16-year old students, and I have met 30-year old students. Katherine said that her host family is also hosting a retired Japanese man who occasionally takes a class as well.

The classes flew by (with a two-hour break for lunch--that is definitely something the French do right!) and after class, Bridget, Julianne, Katherine, and I decided to be spontaneous. We popped into the nearest Carrefour grocery and bought a bottle of wine, some bread, and some cheese for an impromptu picnic! Amazingly, bottles of wine only cost 2-5 euros here! I even saw a bottle that cost only 1.80 euros! We actually splurged and bought a 3.60 euro bottle that had a hint of raspberry juice in it as well, then we wandered down to the banks of the Loire River for our very French  after-class feast.

The wine may just be cheaper than water here

On our way up Rue National

After dinner on Monday, I went out with Francesca and met up with a few of her Italian friends, along with Marissa, my fellow American Holy Cross classmate who had been invited by her Italian host-sister. The group of us went to Place Plumereau for a drink (I just had soda) and to chat (although the language of conversation was mostly Italian, understandably, so I mostly just listened).

It seems to be very normal to go out every night of the week here. My host mother is always asking at dinner what time I am leaving to go out with my friends. She even asked me on Sunday night (the first night I spent in Tours) what time I was going out, and she seemed a little confused when I said that I had no plans.

Anyway, by the end of Monday, it was hard to imagine that I had only arrived in Tours the day before!

On my way home from class

Classes on Tuesday didn't fly by as fast as they had on Monday (the "everything is so new" feeling had faded a little), but Tuesday evening, I went out to La Gangette after dinner with Julianne and Bridget. La Gangette is a huge outside bar and restaurant on the banks of the Loire, decked out with lights that hang from the huge willow trees, and it's extremely popular. Apparently they have live bands and dancing some nights.

Since it was just the three of us, we left early to explore a little more, and we ran into our Australian friend Lucy and a few others at another bar, and the group of us hopped around from bar to café for the rest of the night; it was a lot of fun.

Wednesday was particularly notable because since classes at the Institute finish at noon on Wednesdays, Holy Cross had signed us up for an excursion run by the Institute.

So on Wednesday afternoon, we discovered the gorgeous Chateau de Chenonceau! It was such a beautiful day for strolling through the gardens and visiting the castle, and although the tour guide was difficult to hear (and the words I did manage to catch were out-of-context French words) I still learned a bit.



Chenonceau avec mes amies!

After about two hours at Chenonceau, we were all herded back to our bus by our eager tour guide, and we were taken to what was basically a giant wine cellar. A tour guide walked us through part of the 3.1 km of underground caves where they story thousands if not millions of bottles of wine. After the dark, chilly tour, our group was given a tasting of three different white wines.

Another Chenonceau picture, because I liked it so much

 

Thursday's after-class event was a little French cooking course held just for our group of 12 Holy Cross students in the Institute's tiny kitchen. Half of us made little chocolate gateaux (cakes) and the other half made what I can only describe as cheese puff pastries, with the recipes all in French, of course. Afterwards, our group just sat around, eating and chatting and exchanging phone numbers (I had gotten my cheap little French flip-phone--such ancient technology!--that afternoon during our two-hour lunch break, along with a few other people).

Bakery close to my house. Yum, little cakes

Unfortunately, Friday is a testing day--at least it is for my class. The first part went terribly, since we were given a writing prompt to create a letter. The only word--literally the ONLY word--in the instructions that I didn't understand was the very adjective that we were meant to convince the mayor about. Since I didn't know what that all-important word signified, I made something up (which I later learned was completely wrong), but hey, I tried. Luckily, the second part of the test went quite well, I think.

Friday afternoon, my class somehow managed to convince our teacher to watch a movie (to say that it had to be a French film is obvious), which is why I so encourage everyone to see Intouchables (in English: The Intouchables). It was such a great movie--hilarious and touching at the same time!  

And that wraps up my first week of classes--and most of my first week spent in Tours! I'm truly loving it here.

For now, though, that is all. This post is long enough, so I will stop here.

However, I will write soon enough about yesterday's trip to Mont-Saint-Michel, with lots of pictures included, bien sur!

FINALLY IN FRANCE

I AM IN FRANCE.

Granted, I haven't done too much yet, but still: I am finally in France!

So this morning I woke up early to get to Heathrow Airport in time for my flight. My parents kicked me out of the car, left me on the curb, and sped away, eager to have a few days free of pre-study-abroad nervousness.

Just kidding, they were nice enough to get my luggage out of the trunk of the car before they sped away. There may have been a few hugs and words of wisdom, too. No tears, though.

At the airport with my all my luggage for the next 11 months!

 

I've flown many times before, so navigating the airport alone wasn't too hard, but since nearly every stranger seems to think that I look four years younger than I actually am (which makes a difference when you're 19 years old), and since I'm on the shorter side, people kept assuming I was a lost child in the airport, and I was asked "Are you okay? Are you lost?" way too often.

Anyway, the flight was quite quick--nothing like the long 7-hour journeys to England and back that I am used to--and I practically stared out the window for the entire flight (side note: I really hate people who book a window seat on a plane and then never glance outside. Book an aisle seat next time and leave the window seats to those who enjoy gazing out at the clouds and the tiny towns!).

We landed in Paris, and I dragged my suitcase and duffel through the entire airport--and they're not light luggage, I'll tell you--to get to the shuttle station.

Happily, the shuttle driver who drove me to my hotel thought I was French for a full TWO MINUTES! (success!) He realized I wasn't, however, when I completely misheard his question and mindlessly responded with "huh?" After that, he asked, "Wait, you're not French?" and the gig was up.

Tomorrow is a new day, though! I'm meeting my friend Katherine at the airport in the morning, and we're taking the train to Tours together! Maybe some other native will think I'm French...

Three Days in York

Arriving on Tuesday afternoon, my family dropped our bags at the hotel and walked the mile and a half to the main city of York. Entering at Micklegate Bar--the southern entry gate of the walled city--we wandered around the old city for a bit before stepping up and walking atop the city's stone wall.

Sort of in the middle of York is a large grassy hill arising from the paved streets, and on top of the hill stands Clifford's Tower, the ancient stone keep of York Castle (which, itself, is long gone). The original dates back to 1068. My mother, brother, and I paid a few pounds to get into Clifford's Tower, which was quite small, but held quite a bit of history and offered a great view of the city once we climbed to the top balcony.

Clifford's Tower

Around 6pm, we headed back to the hotel to meet up with my nana and granddad for dinner and to hear about their time at the Yorkshire Museum's Richard III exhibition.

Wednesday was another unusually gorgeous day. Everyone spent the morning relaxing and reading after breakfast, but near noon we headed off into York once more.

Winding up many of the small, cobblestone backstreets--many of which are too narrow for cars--my family headed to York Minster, the beautiful cathedral whose towers loom above the rest of the city. Inside, we walked around the cathedral quietly, admiring the decorative architecture and the enormous stained glass windows (one of which dates back to the year 1408!). Personally, the huge organ was the most impressive to me: it must have stood about 80 feet high. At the base of the organ, the architects had carved 15 English kings into the stone, starting with William the conqueror.

Happily, we also climbed one of the towers of York Minster. To get to the top, though, required clambering up 275 spiral staircase steps. Those corkscrew staircases are actually a bit scary, as the stairs are a little worn and quite small. It definitely wasn't a climb for anyone who was claustrophobic. By the end, my mom was quite dizzy with all the spiraling up.

The view from the top of the cathedral, however, was totally worth it. You could see completely across the city in all directions.

By the time we had descended those windy spiral steps, it had started to rain. We scurried across the city to Jorvik Viking Center, an exhibit detailing the  1976-1981 archeological dig throughout the city that revealed well-preserved evidence of Vikings. They discovered coins, skeletons, wells, pottery, and woodwork among other various things.

For dinner, we all walked through the drizzle to a local pub.

Thursday was slightly less touristy than the previous two days: we didn't really visit any attractions, but just walked around exploring.

Lunch was so good that I have to mention it. We went to Lucia's on a local's recommendation. It's tucked into a corner side street, only accessible by walking. I had a fantastic chicken-and-mushroom risotto and shared a caesar salad with my mom. I also had a delicious raspberry cocktail (why not? I'm legal here in England!).

Our next stop was to wander around the Shambles, a cute little ancient street that was actually rebuilt in the early 1400s (imagine something being rebuilt in the 1400s! In the U.S., I don't think there is anything that was built the first time in the 1400s!). There, we bought some fudge in a little shop after watching some of the shop workers starting to make another batch of fudge. There were also little jewelry shops, tea shops, and picture shops on the Shambles.

 

 

Later, my mother and I met my nana for a cream tea near York Minster. It's a tradition now that the three of us have a cream tea while on holiday. It's lovely--a warm scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam, complimented with a pot of earl grey.

Dinner was again at the local pub. Afterwards, my mom and I walked down to the horse racing track behind our hotel and took a nice stroll by the setting sun.

And this morning, we left York.

We're staying in Windsor now, just a few minutes drive from the airport. Tomorrow morning, I am flying to France!!

I really can't believe it. Someone pinch me?