Monday, December 3, 2007

Weekend in Madrid

Friday afternoon, I hopped on a bus to Beauvais airport and boarded a plane to Madrid. I got in at around 9:45, and arrived at the hostel at around 10:15. I was happy about this, because my flight wasn't supposed to get into Madrid until 10:00, so I warned the hostel to expect me between 11:00 and midnight! All was good, though. Dropped my stuff in my locker and headed to the bar downstairs in hopes of meeting people. Everyone down there seemed to be there with friends, so I got a sangria and simply enjoyed watching a couple of guys dancing to the random-ass music that the DJ was playing.

Lesson one from Madrid: Sangria from Spain is much stronger than sangria from mexican restaurants in the states. I didn't even finish my cup, even though I got a small one! Within half an hour, I was passed out on my bed.

The next day I decided to take Mandi's advice and go to el Museo de Thyssen. Map in hand, I set out for my first adventure. It wasn't too difficult to find the museum. In fact, it was more difficult to find the entrance to the museum. I spent a good two and half hours exploring every inch of the place. All of my favorite artists were there-Picasso, O'Keeffe, Dali, van Gogh, and Kandinsky (well, all minus Jackson Pollock, but I wasn't really expecting to see any of his work there). As happy as I was to spend my morning in front of these masterpieces, it was very tiring! As I was leaving the museum, I decided that I was not going to go to anymore museums during the weekend.

The weather was beautiful, and I decided that a day like this one should not be wasted inside! I checked my map and saw that there was a nearby park, so I went over there and walked around for the afternoon.

I was in a bit of a distress over dinner, though. The hostel had no kitchen! I went out at around 7:00 to find food, and I ended up eating at a fish and chips place. I know, I wasn't in England, but they had veggie burgers, and I couldn't resist! I promised myself authentic spanish food for dinner the next night.
Lesson number two about Madrid: BBQ corn bought from a street vendor is indeed a nutritious lunch

The next day was sunday, which meant a lot of things would be closed. I was prepared for this, so I borrowed a guide book from the reception at the hostel and wrote down what was open on sundays and the times they would be open. However, most of these things were museums, which I was not cool with. While eating breakfast that morning, though, I overheard some people talking about a flea market. I asked the woman working at reception where I could find this flea market, and set off. I was amazed by this flea market! It was nothing like the one in Nantes, where random people sold random overpriced crap that nobody wanted. It was the flea market of my dreams! After spending two and a half hours there, I walked away with some presents for friends, and a pair of earrings and a sweater for myself.

I decided to go back to the hostel to drop off my purchases. On my way there, I thought of what I could do with the rest of the day. I had narrowed it down to a tour of the national opera house or seeing if I could walk around the bullfighting arena. I asked about the bullfighting arena at the reception desk, and they told me that it was closed since bullfighting season is over for the year. I went to Opera house, but it was closed, which was weird since it said open on the door. I decided at that point that even if I couldn't go inside the arena, there was no reason not to go and just take pictures from the outside.

I arrive at the bullfighting arena, and to my suprise, not only are they giving tours, but I caught the last tour of the day! The tour guide explained not only the history of the arena, but the rules of bullfighting, too. I still don't approve of it, but it was interesting to learn about. Unfortunately, the circus was in town, and they were using the arena as a venue, so there was a big old tent set up in the middle of it. This caused me to not get a real feel for the inside of the arena.

After the tour, I went back to the hostel in hopes of getting work done on my politics paper. Half an hour of work goes by, and I'm suddenly talking to some Irish guy and some Australian girl. The guy is studying in Madrid and got kicked out of his apartment by his landlord, so is staying in the hostel until he finds a new apartment. I tell him my story. We make plans to get dinner together, but then he blows me off. I end up eating in a tapas bar. I got patatas bravas, which are potatoes that are fried and covered in brava sauce, which is a hot and spicy sauce. It was really good! Went back to the hostel, ran into the guy, apologize for not waiting, then blow him off to do more politics work. Three pages of writing and a cup of sangria later, I go to sleep.

The trek back to Paris was tiring. There was a group of school kids on my flight, and they were so obnoxious! All I wanted to do was sleep, and they were being so loud! Other than that, there were no problems. Except now I have all this work to do...
~Sarah, who has to catch up on her work

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Madrid!

So I'm in Madrid! I got here last night, and I'm leaving Monday afternoon.

Today was fun-filled. I went to el museo thyssen in the morning. I really enjoyed it, since it had all my favorite painters-Degas, van Gogh, Dali, and Monet. It was really big, though, so it kind of wore me out. After the museum, I decided it was too nice of a day to spend inside, so I went to a nearby park and walked around for a bit. They had stands where I could get my hand read. There was a mickey mouse handing out random looking balloons, and I tried to take a picture, but I got chased away by a woman trying to sell me a tree branch.

I wanted to eat dinner at a restaurant next door to the hostel, but it never opened! What losers! I walked around and eventually settled on a fish and chips place. I know I'm not in England, but they had veggie burgers, and I couldn't resist a veggie burger...it's been too long! Tommorow, I plan on eating authentic spanish food for dinner.

I'm looking into visiting the bullfighting arena tommorow, and possibly another museum. Nothing's for sure, though!

Until next time...
~Sarah, who is in Spain

Friday, November 23, 2007

This Update is Long Overdue

Happy belated Thanksgiving!!!!!

Last weekend was fun, because my parents and brother came up and I got to go to Normandy with them!

Granted, things started off relatively stressful. The public transportation strike was still happening, which meant that our original plan of me taking a train and meeting them in Caen wasn't going to happen because my train was cancelled. I told my host family that I was looking for a taxi online to take me to Charles de Gaulle airport (plan B was to meet my family there), and they said that they would call up their neighbor who is a taxi driver. He told them he wouldn't drive there because the traffic was so awful. They also told me that the RER would be running, so I could take line B to the airport.

I wake up early the next morning (6:00 AM for the second day in a row after being up way too late packing/organizing) and walked to the RER station. Surprise, Surprise-it was closed! I spent about five minutes sitting there figuring out what to do. I then saw a giant street map, which said there was a taxi station right around the corner. I went over there and saw another woman waiting for a taxi to charles de gaulle, too. After about 15 minutes of waiting, I had realized that the amount of time I had been outside caused me to lose feeling in my toes. I also realized that I hadn't programmed my family's phone number into my cell phone, and I didn't know it off the top of my head. I went to a nearby cafe to warm up and get the phone number. I returned to the taxi station ten minutes later, and the woman was gone. Assuming she got a taxi, I began to feel a twinge of hope. However, after ten more minutes had passed, I had not seen a single taxi. I was prepared to make my parents drive into the city to meet me, when I suddenly saw an available taxi! My parents called just as I got inside to tell me that they had landed.

One very expensive taxi ride later, I met up with my family, picked up the rental car, and set off for Normandy! Learning our lesson from Italy, we made sure to get a car with an automatic transmission and a GPS. We stopped in Caen on our way to the hotel to see the Caen memorial. The museum was interesting, as were the films. I decided to take a look at the book shop there in case they had something I could use for my politics paper comparing the french resistance to the german resistance, and they had the book of my dreams for the paper! However, it also cost 20 euros. I decided not to get it.

The hotel we stayed in was beautiful! Since I was not coming along originally, they had to make accomodations for an extra person, which meant I got my own room! After we arrived there, we relaxed for a bit before going into town for dinner. We were the only people in the restaurant! We heard them lock the doors behind us when we left.

We had a tour the next day. We went to Omaha Beach, which is one of the beaches where the American troops landed on D-Day. Our tour guide took us inside bunkers and showed us different military vehicles and such. He also took us to a military graveyard where the families of American soldiers who died during WWII while in France had the option of burying the soldiers. There are 9,000 soldiers buried there.

Even though the weather was beautiful those two days, it was awful the next day! However, we ended up going to Mont-St-Michel. This was my third time there, so I wasn't very into it, but I didnt mind, either. My brother had his first crepe, and the wind destroyed my umbrella.

I was happy to see my family, even though we weren't together for Thanksgiving. The group went to the Hard Rock Cafe for Thanksgiving dinner. We had caesar salad, corn soup, turkey/veggie burgers, mashed potatoes, broccoli, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. It was a lot of food, but it was delicious!

We were supposed to see the Nutcracker afterwards, but it was cancelled because the scenery people went on strike. Instead, we saw the Magic Flute! I enjoyed the play a lot, because it was frickin hilarious!

Possible trip to Madrid next weekend. Keep y'all updated on that!
~Sarah, who is thinking about going on that trip

Monday, November 12, 2007

Lille!

I think that our weekend in Lille was a lot more fun than I expected it to be! Granted, it was cold and wet, but it wasn't much better than Paris. The train ride was good, since it gave me time to catch up on my reading for Orphee. We were all pretty quiet, since most of us were reading, with the exception of Litos and Dan, who were listening to Margaret Cho on my iPod. After dropping off our things at the hostel, we went out to walk around for a bit as a way to kill time until the restaurant where we went to eat opened. We saw a couple of churches and the opera house! Claire, Mandi, and I also got our picture taken with a man dressed up as something crazy. Dinner was extremely delicious and probably the most expensive meal I've had since we've been in Paris! I forgot what the thing was called that most of us ate for dinner, but it's basically a flat, doughy bread (kind of like pizza dough) with different meats and vegetables on it. Mine had olive oil, mozzarella cheese, and tomatoes on it. Traditionally, they come with ham and onions, but I decided to pass on those. Some of us went out afterwards, but I opted to stay in and hang out with Ben and Mandi.

The next day was our only full day in the city. We started off with a visit to the Musee des Beaux-Arts. I liked this one much more than the one we visited in Nantes. There were really interesting video displays, including one about a town where there was only one young couple, and the traditions they kept. After a two hour lunch period, we met up at Tri Postal, which is where the used to sort mail for the city. There was a photography/video exhibit going on there. I liked most of the displays there, but some of them I didn't enjoy as much, such as the video of a cat eating a mouse.

It POURED the next morning, but that didn't stop us from going shopping! We found a flea market, where I bought myself a much-needed scarf and some cheap makeup. After lunch, we saw a movie called L'Heure Zero, which is based on an Agatha Christie novel. I enjoyed the film a lot, but it got slightly confusing at times. We walked around a little more, than went to the train station and went back to Paris.

I thought the visit was a lot of fun, and I can't wait for our next visit to Bruxelles!

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Stress Much?

Lots of work has to be done in these next few days. I have to write a one page proposal for my topic for my politics final, study for my politics midterm, read orphee, see the movie orphee, and write a compte de rendu comparing the film to the play. Suddenly, I'm back at school.

I got lost today on my way back to the classroom during lunch for about ten minutes, and in the process of doing so, found a tea store that I've been meaning to go to for a few weeks now. I plan on going back there during lunch on Tuesday, since we get three hours for lunch every Tuesday. I tried a cup of their tea when I went to Salon du Chocolat, and I wanted to buy more of it ever since then.

We're leaving for a weekend in Lille tommorow. Lille is a city in northern France that is very modern and is over-run by students, according to my host family.

Yesterday we went to the Conciergerie, which is an old prison that Marie Antoinette was held in during her imprisonment. I've been there before, but I still enjoyed it.

Next Tuesday, there will be another public transportation strike. The last one only lasted for three days, but if this one lasts longer, it means that I will not be able to take the train to Caen on Friday afternoon, which means I cannot see my family.

Shit, my k key just fell off my keyboard. I need to call IBM about getting a new one.
~Sarah, who needs a new keyboard

Sunday, November 4, 2007

I'm Still Around, I Swear!

So I discovered the wonderful thing that is the George Pompidou Centre. Free wifi AND I get to plug in my computer! Unfortunately, I can only get an hour and a half of wifi access every time I go there.

Classes have been keeping me busy. We went to Saint Germain and Notre Dame for art history, and the national opera house and the picasso museum on our own. I did a little research and found a Salvador Dali exhibit that's happening in the city, which is really cool, but it also costs ten euros to get in. He's my favorite artist, so I'm saving my money to go.

This weekend was fun. My host family left for a long weekend in the countryside, so last night I invited Ben and Jeana over to make dinner and hang out. We made salad, burritos, and crepes, but we ended up skipping the salad since we stuffed ourselves with burritos. The crepes turned out different than we hoped they would, but they were still good. I bought a present for all of us, too-sparkling apple cider! Overall, it was a good time, and I hope to do it again when my host fam goes to the countryside next weekend. Ben and Jeana also got to meet the other students that I'm living with, so that was nice.

The other day, Jeana, Justin, and I were walking through Forum des Halles to go to the FNAC when a woman with her two kids comes up to us and asks where the movie theatre is. I tell her, and she asks us where we're from. We tell her we're American students, and she insists that we each ask her kids questions in French. No joke, we couldn't leave until we each asked her kids a question. I'm sure she had good intentions, but it was kind of weird.

I saw Un Jour Sur Terre (A Day on the Earth? Something like that...) the other weekend, and I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't enjoy paying 5 euros to see it, though.

I'm going to wrap this up so I can go back to the apartment and cook dinner.
~Sarah, who wants her dinner!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Paris!

Ok, so I've actually been in Paris for a couple of days now, but I've been too busy to update.

Brussels was a lot of fun! We walked all over the city, ate waffles and chocolate, and met a bunch of really cool people in our hostel.

My host family here is really cool. There's a host mother, father, sister, and brother, as well as two other American students. They are from Seattle and are pretty chill. They're not very confident in their French, so we usually speak to each other in English until our host mom yells at us. She's been great about the whole vegetarian thing, too. She makes me fish or something else that I can eat every night for myself, and then makes meat for everyone else. She loves meat, but respects the fact that I don't.

I'm living in the 13th arrondisement (sp?) of Paris, which is also called the asian section. There's lots of asian restaurants/grocery stores. It's a really fun place to live! However, my classroom is far away as hell! I spend about 45 minutes on the metro between my host's apartment and my classroom. There's another earlhamite who lives next door to me, and another one who lives nearby. Other than that, I'm pretty far from everyone else.

Not much else to discuss.
~Sarah, who is in Paris

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Wondering Where I've Disappeared To?

Ok, so there's two versions to the story of what happened to me while I was gone.

Short version: I was painting tiles in the pyrenees, then started my independent travel. I am currently in Dublin.

Long version: My really cool host family in the pyrenees lived in the middle of nowhere and had no internet connection, so I couldn't update while I was there.

I lived with a family in a village called Brassempouy. They had two small children, and they were really nice. I spent my days painting tiles with my host mom. I made two tiles that have a rose painted on them. The rose was sketched from a picture I took at the rose garden in Richmond. It took a lot of time and effort, but I'm happy with my work.

As much as I enjoyed this, I didn't have much interaction with other Earlham folks. I spent one day with Ben and his host Dad, which was interesting. I ran into Ben, Litos, and Sam at a crafts fair another day. It was really nice, because I got a chance to catch up with them and have a good conversation with Litos. Mandi and Dan hosted a dinner party for the students, which involved pasta, lots of desserts, hot tubs, and me spending the night there because my host mom got lost on her way home. I ended up making a couple of drawings while I was there and got to try out their host brother's scooter.

We had a dinner for the entire group and their host families on our last night in the Pyrenees. We got to show off what we made to the rest of the group. A few people asked me about my tiles, and it was interesting trying to explain it all in French, especially because I didn't really know what I was doing half of the time. Overall, everyone made really cool stuff. Don't ask me how some of them are getting the things home, though.

After that marked the start of independent travel, aka, what I was losing sleep over the entire time I was in the pyrenees. It didn't help that we had three large suitcases, one small suitcase, two backpacks, and a carry-on. The train to Bordeaux wasn't too bad, and we found our way to the hostel without too many problems, even though the directions were sketchy as hell. We spent two nights there with a friend who graduated last year.

Next was Paris. This was stressing me out. We had a three hour train ride. The only issue with this train ride was when we were getting off the train, and I made the mistake of taking Mandi's bag down first, which is broken and cannot stand on its own. However, a really nice man held her bag for me while another man helped me bring my bag down from the train. People have been suprisingly helpful about these things! We find the metro and enjoy a puppet show while en route to the apartment where we were dropping off the bags. Take care of the bags, get on the metro again, and start heading over to the bus depot where there is a bus that will take us to the airport. Find it suprisingly easy, get to the airport, and RUN INTO JUSTIN!!!! WTF! I actually walked by him at first, until Jeana looked at me like I was a moron and I looked up and realized who it was.

Find out that we don't actually need to take a taxi to the hotel, take a cheap bus there, and crash. An hour later, Jeana wakes me up to tell me that we actually get to help choose people for the next program. I threaten to punch her in the babymaker, and go back to sleep.

Next morning: flight to Dublin. Arrive in Dublin, and freak out over directions to the hostel. Make it to the hostel, buy food, and pass out.

Since then, we've been to a museum and a library and a park. We've been walking everywhere, so my feet are tired as fuck. It's cheaper than the bus, though.

That's all, folks.
-Sarah, who is in Dublin

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Exams, Buses, and Goodbyes

Long time, no update. Sorry about that.

I had exams for history, conversation, and grammar earlier this week. It was all really intense and I'm glad it's over. We had study sessions in the Japanese garden for the history exam and celebrated the end of all the exams by buying pastries.

The other day, Jeana and I booked everything for our independent travel period. Our itinerary is looking like this:
October 2: train from Dax to Bordeaux
October 2-4: Chill with Sara H. in Bordeaux
October 4: train from Bordeaux to Paris, spend the night in Paris
October 5: flight from Paris to Dublin
October 5-10: stay in Dublin
October 10: flight from Dublin to Brussels
October 10-13: stay in Brussels
October 13: train from Brussels to Paris

I'm really excited about our plans. I'm just hoping something doesn't change at the last minute that throws everything else off.

Today is my last full day in Nantes. We're leaving tommorow morning to spend two days at Futurscope in Poitiers. After that, I'll be in the Pyrenee mountains for two weeks with no internet connection. However, that is not an excuse for any of you not to leave me some love on my birthday.

Ok, I need to pack...
~Sarah, who is leaving Nantes tommorow

Friday, September 7, 2007

Mont-St-Michel, Saint-Malo, and Class in the Park

Yesterday was our day trip to Mont-St-Michel and Saint-Malo.

Jeana ended up staying over for the night because her bus doesn't run early enough for her to make it on time. It reminded me of all those horse show nights spent in hotels with the team. Anyway, alarm goes off at 5:00 AM (not cool), we grumpily get ready, and set off for the train station to meet up with the rest of the group. Everyone shows up, and we hop on our private bus to Mont-St-Michel. I mostly slept during the ride, but the scenery that I did see was beautiful. There was a traffic jam at one point that was caused by a flock of sheep that wandered into the middle of the highway.

This was actually my second time at Mont-St-Michel, but it was just as beautiful as I remembered it to be. It was pretty foggy out, and even though it made it all look so eerily beautiful, it ruined any chances of taking pictures. After our guided tour, we had a few hours of free time. Justin, Jeana, Mandi, and myself all got some lunch and found a secluded balcony to sit and eat at. After lunch, we wandered around for a bit, then went down to the shore surrounding the castle. I took off my socks and shoes and walked around on the sand. I love the feel of sand on my feet. It's common for the water surrounding the castle to go all the way up to the castle during high tide, so the sand was relatively packed down. I dug my toes in, and it felt amazing. I really love the beach.

After that, we piled back on to the bus and set off for Saint-Malo. We walked around on the ramparts for a while and enjoyed the view of the city. The ramparts are built right next to the shoreline, so I really enjoyed the constant salty breeze that came in from the ocean. We walked around the town for a bit, windowshopped, etc. I also ate crepes with Mandi, Justin, Jeana, Candice, and Claire. I really enjoyed spending some down time with Candice and Claire. They're such great people and wonderful program leaders. After our crepes, we headed back to the buses and returned to Nantes. It was around 9:30 when I got in.

Today was a nice day, too. We were given the morning off in order to recooperate from yesterday's adventures. Today is also Jeana's birthday, so a bunch of us met up and had a picnic for lunch. After lunch, we met up with the rest of the group for a tour of Tour LU, which is an old cookie factory. It was ok, but seemed a bit weird for a cookie factory. We then had class in a park by the train station. We had a great time acting out random skits based on a poem that we read. After class, Mandi, Jeana, and I headed out to celebrate Jeana's birthday with crepes. A nice guy who worked at the restaurant gave Jeana flowers that he found on the street. We found out that today was his birthday, too!

My host mother is gone all weekend at a wedding, so me, Chloe, and Audrey have the apartment to ourselves. Tommorow, I'm going to a horse show with Jeana and her family, and most likely spending the night there.

I'll try and update again later this weekend.
~Sarah, who is sick of crepes

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Fun-Filled Weekend!

So, a lot has happened since my last entry...

Let's start with Thursday. Hauled my ass out of bed at 6:00 AM, met Jeana at the tramway stop, went to the train station, met up with Candice and everyone else, and set off for St. Nazaire. Took lots of pictures, toured a museum about ships and their importance to Europe, at lunch on the beach, took pictures of Dan in his speedo-esque bathing suit (Claire made me do it.), ended up seeing a really cool Estuaire exhibit that made me want to have a seizure, almost passed out on the boat ride back to Nantes, searched for other Estuaire exhibits with Mandi, Jeana, Candice, and Claire, found one and looked around in it, and finally went back to my host's apartment, only to be asked why I was back so early.

Friday: no classes, but we did have a test. After the test, Jeana, Justin, and I all went to an Estuaire exhibit in Tour LU. There were actually two exhibits there. One was this odd video thing of this woman who was underwater, but it was three different videos of the same woman being shown on three different screens at the same time. Slightly confusing. The other one was really cool. You walk in the room, and all you see is a screen with light reflecting different patterns. When you walk around the screen, you see a pool of water directly in front of it with lights shining on the water. The patterns were reflections of the different ripples made in the water. I thought it was fascinating.

Saturday (yesterday) morning was spent at Commerce. I woke up early and met up with Jeana, and then we went to the flea market. It started off as disappointing, but I quickly found some really cool things. I bought three books for 2.50 euros. One has a picture of an old lady who looks too much like the equestrian team coach at Earlham. After the flea market, we walked around commerce and stopped into random shops, just looking at things. We also went to Beaulieu, where I got two much-needed tank tops to layer under my white hoodie.

I haven't done much today, but I think I'm going to go to a cafe (if I can find one that's open) after lunch and work on my homework. I also need to find a way to print out my paragraph on St. Nazaire.

I hope the rest of you are having great semesters!
~Sarah, who is waiting for lunch

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Group Adventures

Since I did not post anything yesterday (whoops...sorry guys), I'll have to recap what happened then in this one.

Yesterday I ended up going to a soccer (er...football) game with Jeana, Ragia, Litos, Ben, and Andres. The seats were amazing, and they only cost us 5 euros! The game was a lot of fun. Nantes won, 1-0.

When I returned to my host mother's apartment, I had a quick dinner, then met my new roommates! There are two girls from China living with us now. Their names are Audrey and Chloe, and they're really nice. They got in kind of late, so we all talked over a bottle of wine, which was nice.

Today was pretty good. We had history class in the morning, then after lunch we set off for l'Ile des Machines, which is a sort-of museum with mechanical animals. There's a huge mechanical elephant that walks up and down the entranceway that people can actually ride on. Unfortunately, the wait is something like three hours, so we didn't do it. Lots of pictures were taken, including those of Claire operating some crazy flying thing.

Tommorow is our day trip to St. Nazaire, which means waking up at 6:00 in the morning...not cool.
~Sarah, who is not looking forward to waking up early tommorow morning.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Adventures in Nantes!

Today was fun in a sense because I actually went out and did something after class, aside from shop at Carrefour.

After our conversation class, we took a group trip to the musee des Beaux Arts. While I'm all for museums, I prefer for them to have a consistent theme. This one did not. There was an odd mixture of modern art, biblical art, landscapes, and still life. Granted, they were seperated by section, but it was still odd.

After we went through the museum, Mandi offered to show me and Jeana a nearby park. We walked around in the park for a little bit, then decided to take the tramway up the loire river to Ile-de-Versailles, which is a beautiful park on the Loire river. We walked around there for a bit, then headed back to our respective host families.

When I returned to my host's apartment, I found her entertaining some friends. She offered me a glass of sparkling cider, so I sat and talked with them for a bit.

Me, Jeana, and Mandi have planned a picnic lunch at Ile-de-Versailles for tommorow. I'm also going to a soccer game after class with some of the people in my group. At some point I'm going to have to find a place where I can get my watch fixed, because the battery died in the middle of history class today.
~Sarah, who needs to take another trip to Carrefour

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Beach

Today was scheduled as a day to chill with our host families. My host mom took me and one of her friends to Pornic, which is a beach on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It's a beautiful little town with a lot of charm and personality. Apart from the five minute rainstorm that occurred when we got there, the weather was perfect for a day at the beach! I finished my book, Everything is Illuminated, while we were there. This means I need to go to Carrefour and buy a new pleasure book.

In a recent turn of events, my host mother is taking in another student who is studying abroad from China. This means that I have moved into my host mother's room so the new girl can use the room I used to sleep in. I'm assuming that my host mother is sleeping on a futon in her living room. While I'm excited to have someone else living here who is around my age, I kind of liked the room I was sleeping in before more than this room, if only because it had a desk. No worries, though. I'll get by.

Until next time, I hope everyone who's on campus is having a great semester!
~Sarah, who has to go move her stuff

Friday, August 24, 2007

Wireless!

I finally got my wireless figured out! W00T!!!


Not much has occurred these past few days. Last night the entire group went to the movies and saw Ratatouille. I thought that Remy was the cutest rat I've ever seen, animated or real.

I'm finding it easier to find my way around here. I go for walks during my lunch time and have absolutely no problem finding my way back, either by walking or by taking the tramway. Today I went to the local mall and not only found my way back to my host's apartment building, but was also able to tell Jeana how to get back to her house. I'm amazed by this, since I only starting taking the subway in nyc by myself two or three years ago.

I'm discovering more and more in this city every day. Today I found the famous chocolaterie. I didn't have time to go inside, but I plan on returning very soon.

Otherwise, things have been good. Except for my eye, that is. It's been bothering me like crazy, and I'm not sure how to go about getting eye drops around here. My insurance only covers me here if I have to go to the emergency room, so I'm reluctant to see a doctor. I'm also oddly tired today, which hasn't been a problem since I got over my jet lag.

Time for dinner.
~Sarah, who is pumped about having wireless again!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Nantes

Ive been in Nantes for a few days now. My internet access is very limited, since my hosts wireless is not compatible with my laptop for some reason.

My host mother is very nice. Shes been wonderful about making vegetarian dinners for me every night. She always leaves for work before Im awake, but she always leaves out a tea bag, bread, and jam for me to eat. She reminds me a lot of Annie, which makes sense since theyre friends.

Nantes is a cute little city, and I have a wonderful view of the Loir River from my hosts apartment. Im also lucky that it only takes 15 minutes worth of public transportation to get to the school.

The only thing Im still adjusting to is using European keyboards. Im getting used to them, though.

Time to go call my parents for the first time since I got to France.
-Sarah, who is enjoying her semester abroad

Friday, August 17, 2007

Arrived

I'm in Paris now. My flight here was eventful, and by eventful I mean awful turbulence and going through three different meals before they finally gave me the vegetarian meal. Props to them for remembering it, though.

I've been here since noonish. Since checking in at the hostel, I've wandered around the city for a bit with Jeana, took a shower, and am now sitting here using the temporarily free internet.

It's beautiful here, but it's nothing like I remembered it to be. Up until today, I've only seen the touristy aspect of Paris. The hostel is located in a residential area. There's a lot of chinese food places around here. I told Jeana that it feels like the French version Chinatown.

All in all, things are good. We're spending tommorow in Paris, and then we're leaving for Nantes on sunday.

Until my next encounter with free internet connection, this will be it.
~Sarah, who is ready to go relax until dinner