Same Changes

Let's play catch up shall we?

It's been a little over a week since I last wrote in here and so much has happened that...well you might get bored before you finish reading this entry. Sorry in advance. I promise to try and update a little more frequently so as to avoid long-winded/nonsensical entries.

Last week lots of different things happened. One of the main things that happened though was me going to the bar, Le Soft quite a bit with some friends, which was really fun. They have delicious sangria for cheap and the bartender is pretty nice which means occasionally our drinks have been either discounted or free. Also a lot of my friends got free hotdogs one night when they were there for a birthday - so that's kind of awesome. Also Soft has salsa dancing/lessons on Friday's so this weekend we're going to attempt to do that and also just hang out.

One of the nights we went out last week was, obviously, St. Patty's Day. A few things first, St. Patty's day is not celebrated like it is in the US - for example, wearing green is not a real big thing. My translation professor wore it, but he also speaks English with a perfect midwestern accent (which can be really weird), apparently speaks Spanish, is only like 25? and was at the bar on St. Patty's; so who knows really. Anyway, the point is the French don't give a damn about wearing green and I'm fairly certain a lot of them didn't even know it was St. Patty's day. HOWEVER, young french people do know that St. Patty's day means you go to the bar and drink. Which meant that Bressignay was FULL of students all Thursday night and the bars were packed. We got to Soft a bit early so we were able to find a good table upstairs where we thought we'd be able to pass a fairly calm night. A little while after we got there, some guys came in and sat down at the other tables in the room - no problems until one of the guys had a full on seizure. I'd never actually seen someone have a seizure before and I didn't really know what was going on for awhile because it was so loud in the bar and I mean  a lot of people were pretty drunk in the bar. After our table realized what was going on we all stayed really quiet and calm and let the guys who were with him call the ambulance and take care of him. They knew exactly what they were doing which was really good, and everyone else in the bar was really respectful about the situation. The medics came a little while later and took the guy (who was waking up a little by then) to a hospital. The guys who were with him thanked us for being so good about the situation and said they'd buy us a round for being so nice. This never happened but I don't think that's really important.

Over the weekend Betsy and I went to La Baule which is a town on the Atlantic Coast for a nice day on the beach. This was a really really great experience and I'm glad I went. It was soooo nice to see the beach again after being deprived of Lake Michigan (or warm weather?) for so long. The water was still too cold for swimming but we put our feet in, and literally walked the beach for practically the whole day. The sand was literally like flour in some parts, except it sparkled (I'm serious, I couldn't make that up if I wanted to). Also most of the houses in La Baule were really cool looking - I'm taking super old/European it was great. I found my dream house at least 12 dozen times on each street. But! The best part about La Baule was the food. Apparently La Baule is known for "gaufres" which for all you American folk are WAFFLES. And as many of you know I LOVE WAFFLES, and ate them nearly every single day growing up before I'd go to school. So finding out that they're a specialty to this town cemented in my mind that I need to move to France and live in La Baule on the beach. Good plan, non?

As many of you probably knew, Sunday was the first day of Spring. This day usually doesn't mean a lot to me, being from Michigan where spring arrives sometime in mid April and we usually still have snow on the official first day. But in Angers, it really was springy! Which was GREAT. And it's been springy every day since then! I LOVE THIS. I could not have been more ready for nice weather. I've taken several long walks with friends across the river to this really nice grassy area and just hung out for a day, I've even gotten a tiny bit pink a couple of times! It's even been so nice that Betsy and I are going to rent bikes this weekend and go on a biketrip around Angers/the surrounding area! Awesome!

My dear friends. It's almost the end of March, which means I've nearly been in France for 2 months.
WHAT THE HELL!
I know I say this literally every time I write in this thing but seriously time is moving toooo fast. Sometimes I feel like I've only just arrived in France - there's still so much that I haven't seen or done that it seems literally unreal that it's been almost two months since my jet lagged arrival en la belle France. But then again, other times I feel like I've been here for ages. I have my own little nooks and places I like to shop at, parks I like to sit in, places I enjoy walking to, friends, etc. France is really starting to feel like, well, home in a way. And because of that even thinking about leaving it really makes me sad. But, it's ok I still have over 2 months to spend in this lovely country with lots of lovely people. I miss you all desperately at home.
Until next time!

A quick recap.

This last weekend was my first weekend staying in Angers all month; I feel like this accurately explains the level of madness that has been rampant in my life over the last few weeks, haha. It was really good to just stay home for the most part and relax, recooperate, regroup and reorganize my life. Which I DESPERATELY needed to do.

Friday I said good bye to Andrea and her mom, which was really quite sad; they were A TON of fun in Angers, plus it's always nice to see a familar face. I didn't really realize how much I missed all of the people at home until they both were here and then had to leave. So that was sort of emotionally difficult, but bearable, because I mean, I'm in France - my life is made of awesome right now - I eat pastries on a daily basis. So I suppose I can miss you all for a little bit longer without going completely mental. Later Friday night I just lounged around at home, drank some wine and caught up on life until Betsy got home and then we watched part of Lars and the Real Girl. I say part because I ended up passing out because as many of you know, I sleep when I drink; and had drank just about a bottle of wine at that point.

Saturday was another great day, I woke up fairly late and made a real breakfast before heading out to the Marche at the Jardain du Mail for some window/stall? shopping. After that we grabbed some lunch and I went home to do some for real grocery shopping, which hadn't been done in AGES. Later I went out with some friends to Soft ( a bar in Angers) which was really really great. There were about 10+ of us in the backroom at the bar and nearly everyone was from the states, which was kind of bizarre but also pretty hilarious/great. It was like our tiny corner of America hidden inside of France. I a fantastic sangria, and also a shot that not only tasted like bubblegum and vodka, but came WITH bubblegum! (I'm fairly convinced that it was the best thing ever.) Betsy and I got home pretty late and then ate some snacks and chatted before we went to sleep.

Sunday all of my motivation went flying face first out of the window and it rained most of the day, which didn't help. However, I did get a basic spring break plan nailed down with a mode of transportation, so that was a definite plus. But other than that I really didn't accomplish much; other than drinking an obscene amount of coffee, watching BBC's Japan Report all day and then not sleeping for most the night. BUT I did pick all my classes for next semester already, and got a summer-job interview set up for later in the week, so I'm not going to say that Sunday was a complete waste. It was just not very productive for France. However, I made up for that today by going on an hour long walk around Angers inbetween my classes, AND doing laundry WHILE studying for my exam.

Trying to be artsy

Some photos from my walk today

Whoa can anyone else feel that insane productivity?

To finish, it's nighttime here. I got about 4 hours of sleep last night and am now going to pass out.
I miss you all mucho. Je vous aimez!

It's been awhile...

Sorry about that all my dear and wonderful readers. The last two weeks in France have been INCREDIBLY busy so I haven't had time to update you all on the inner-workings of my life in France.
I'm SURE you're all feeling very neglected, and I hope this entry will make up for my former lack of blogging.
And off we go!

First off I've come to the realization that the French don't check their parks before they close them, which means if you are in a park 10 minutes before it closes no one will come around and tell you to get out; they'll just lock all the doors and leave you in there. This can be especially problematic if the park you're in is surrounded by 12 foot tall fences that have sharp pokes on top...however the problem usually can be solved by finding a flat top wall, and climbing on top of trash-bins to hoist yourself over the wall and out of the park. ;)

On another note, I don't like Paris.
Or, at least I really don't like the touristy aspect of Paris. It makes me want to throw myself off of the Eiffel Tower. There's just too many people taking pictures; it's like Mount Rushmore, it literally looks like the postcard. I mean, not to demean a national landmark or anything, I'm just not a fan,I'm probably one of the only people who doesn't like that kind of stuff. Also there are just too many people hassling you to buy things or sign things, or a million other things that it's hard to just sit back an really enjoy anything.

However, I will say that I really enjoy just walking around side-streets in Paris and not being near any big national landmarks. I could probably be entertained easily by just riding the metro for a whole day. I really like people watching in Paris, and France in general. Also pizza here is awesome. I've had it like 3 times in the last couple weeks. It's really cheap to split between two people, and also delicious; two things which make my life fantastic.

Other important things? My brother was in France over the weekend (just for Saturday) which was really fun, we wandered Paris for a day and walked from the Latin Quarter to l'Arc du Triomphe, which was fun, but a LONG walk and also a bit chilly. He left on Sunday morning and then my roommate from college and her mom arrived in France. They've been in Angers all week, which has sort of been the highlight of my life right now. We all went to Ash Wednesday mass at the Cathedral in Angers, which was incredibly gorgeous and a tiny bit confusing, because it was (obviously) all in French, and I still don't know church vocab. I decided to give up American television for Lent, and also partially speaking English in general; at least as much I can (I'm still writing this blog in English, and obviously will still speak English to all my friend in 'merica). I feel like Lent is a good enough excuse as any to really dive into the french language even more than I have been already so I'm really looking forward to seeing if this actually works.

Can you believe it everyone? I've been here over a month and it doesn't even feel like it. I've started taking tests and moving faster in my classes and every week literally feels like it takes a minute and a half to be over.
I need time to slowww down. Hopefully that will come a little bit this weekend and the next coming weeks.

Gros bisous mes amis!