And here... we... GO!

Alright people, this is my first attempt at an actual blog entry, so be gentle on me. I figure it's high time that I at least put something up, seeing as I have been in Nantes almost a month now. Granted, I haven't really done anything too exciting as of yet, but since I've only really been emailing my parents to let them know what I've been doing, I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do, for those who care to know. I'm going to start out by briefly recounting what has happened so far, and then as things go along, I'll be updating this more frequently, so hopefully I'll be able to give more detailed accounts of what goes on. Also, I'd love feedback so that I can know what people are actually interested in hearing about, and the things that I could just as well leave out.

Shall we, then? Okay. Here goes nothin'.

Sitting on the lawn outside of St. Pierre's Cathedral, waiting for the crypts to open to the public.

I got to Nantes, France on the 11th of September, after staying for a few days with my friend Marie in Paris. She was incredibly generous in letting me stay at her apartment, and when she had to leave suddenly, she gave me the keys and left me to explore the city on my own. On the 10th, I met up with people from our group, and then we made the trek together from Paris to Nantes on the 11th. For those of you who don't know, Nantes is a city on the west coast of France, and is in fact the sister-city of Seattle! The weather here is very similar, except slightly colder, actually. And in Nantes, when it rains, it actually rains, as opposed to Seattle where it's mostly drizzly 90% of the time, but not actually raining.

Some of the people from our group, taking a break downtown to devour some gelato.

So we arrived in a huge group, and moved all of our stuff into the dorm building, which is called Fresche Blanc. The rooms are very small, but surprisingly cozy and well-planned out. We have our own bathrooms, which have been nicknamed 'shoilets' on account of it being a shower/toilet hybrid, and most people have been forced to buy their own blankets, since the ones we were given not only smell weird, but they provide little to no heat. For those who know how to cook, there are communal kitchens are the ends of each hall, but as for myself, my diet has been mainly restricted to baguette sandwiches and microwave-able food, the latter of which is pretty hard to find in France. Other than it's art-deco cabinets, the room is pretty bare, and in a pathetic attempt to decorate it a bit, I've taped some pictures on the wall. However, if anyone feels like contributing to my wall decorations, let me know and I'll gladly give you my address.

This is my room after I fancied it up a bit with a comforter cover from Ikea.

The aforementioned 'shoilet'.

One of the spiders that lives outside my window.

It only takes ten minutes or so to get to downtown Nantes from our dorm via tram, and downtown Nantes is pretty awesome. I have to admit that I don't know it as well as I should yet because the first two weeks that we were here, there was a wicked cold going around in our group and it sometimes hindered me from following my wanderlust all over the city. That, and the fact that we didn't have cellphones for quite a while, so I didn't want to get lost without a way to get a hold of anybody. But we visited a few of the beautiful churches and cathedrals in the city, the Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne, and the various markets that happen on the weekends. It seems that everyone except me has been to the market on Saturday, but it closes at 1:30 and I generally have a tendency to be lazy in the mornings on the weekend, so I never make it. I'm working on it, but I just stay up too late! This past Friday, I stayed up watching Zombie movies with Ciara and Sydney and I just couldn't drag myself out of bed the next morning.

The man who sells sunflowers at the Sunday market.

If you look past this memorial statue, you can barely see a carnival ride.

It seems to me that there is always something to do in Nantes - there are plenty of sites to see, whether they be tourist attractions like castles and churches or scenic nature walks by the river and the nearby beaches. And of course, there are always movie theaters and plenty of places to go shopping. A few of us even went to a carnival that was going on downtown, complete with cotton candy and rides. It was strange because I went on this ridiculous ride that swings you around and flips you upside down and all of that, and while I was on it, I looked over and saw that we were right next to a beautiful cathedral. The juxtaposition of modern rides and medieval architecture was a bit baffling to me.

The castle of the dukes of Brittany.

Pac-Man ghost in the Bouffay region of downtown.

These rings are part of a piece of art along the docks on the Ile de Nantes.

Well, I think this might suffice for my first entry. I don't want to bore people too thoroughly, and since I've been here for so long already, I feel the urge to write retrospectively about everything that's happened up to this point, but upon reflection, I think that would be pointless and annoying for the people who do end up reading this.

Thanks for stopping by, and keep checking back, hopefully I'll be updating more frequently soon!