France!
Just in case anyone is interested, here's what I did in my first two months in Europe.
Paris
I flew into Paris mid-August with Sarah and my first impression was that everything was really circular. For instance, a lot of the traffic signs were round instead of square (but stop signs are still octagons and they actually say "STOP"), and in general things just seemed less angular than in the states. That is a really strange observation, I know, and may have just been the result of jet lag making my brain fuzzy. Actually, since our flight had been an overnighter, and I slept through most of it, I didn't really get the feeling of jet lag.
We spent the weekend in a hostel in the 14th arrondissement and saw lots of touristy things, including the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre (even though we didn't actually go inside), the Musée d'Orsay (this time we did go inside) the Champs Elysées, the cemetery at Montparnasse (where you can see the tombs of famous people like Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir), Notre Dame, and of course, the Eiffel Tower, plus you can't walk around Paris without seeing bunches of other fancy buildings.
Nantes
Next, we took a train to Nantes, a city in Brittany and spent about 4 weeks there. My family consisted of a mom, dad, and three kids ages 12, 16, and 18. However, the kids were on various vacations so the whole family wasn't together until the beginning of the third week. On my first day it was just me and the parents. They seemed really nice, and the first thing they did was give me rhubarb pie, then showed me a magazine with an article about Al Gore in it and a letter that they had received from Sehvilla, who was their student two years ago during the last program, and who happened to live next door to me in Barrett last fall.
The next day the group met up in the center of the city to do some exploring (of course it was raining), so instead Candice and Claire (the leaders) just showed us where the classroom was and then we all went to the mall. The classroom was in an apartment building which was in between a store for babies and a funeral parlor, which seemed kind of funny.
At dinner that night, Anne-Claire (the 18-year-old) was back, but only for the night, as she was leaving for Paris the next day. She tried to show me how to eat cantaloupe, but I assured her that I've eaten lots of cantaloupe. During my stay there, though, I did end up eating lots of foods that I've never gotten around to trying in the US including artichokes (the outside, as well as the hearts), radishes, prunes (not dried), figs, and leeks. We also ate a lot of eggplant and beets, which are not things I usually eat in the States. Then there were other times when I really didn't know what I was eating… I think the strangest food thing was the first time my host mom cut up a tomato, put some vinaigrette on it and gave it to me. I mean, sure, I eat lots of tomatoes at home, but not whole, raw tomatoes. The weirdest meal, I think, was what they called "pain du carrote" which literally means "carrot bread" but that makes me think of a pasty item like zucchini bread or banana bread, which do not resemble this, which I think could be more accurately described as "carrot loaf" like meatloaf. Anyway, what made it weird was that they served it with tomato sauce. It actually tasted pretty good, which was fortunate because we ate it several times. We had bread and cheese every night, which was amazing, and really not at all comparable to American bread and cheese. And the thing is, it's really not more expensive- a baguette usually costs about a euro, which isn't too much more than a dollar, at least for now!
We had a fairly regular schedule with French History class, taught by a local professor, from 10 to noon, then a two-hour lunch break, and then either Grammar or Conversation with Candice and Claire in the afternoon from 2 to 4 (ahem, 14:00-16:00). French families eat dinner rather late (never earlier than 8pm for my family) so there was a decent amount of time after class to go exploring. Nantes isn't huge, and the public transportation system is really easy to use- four main tram lines, and various buses, busways (a mix between a bus and a tram- it has wheels like a bus but doesn't drive in regular traffic lanes), and even a boat-bus system (Nantes has a few rivers, including the Erdre, the Sèvre, and the Loire). After dinner, I sometimes played cards with my family, which was always fun.
Oddly enough, I saw more movies in Nantes than I think I did all summer. The group went to see Ratatouille, and I saw The Simpsons Movie with my host dad and Pierre, the 16-year-old, and my host mom, who is a nurse, took me to SiCKO. I had seen Ratatouille over the summer, but it was interesting to see it again because it takes place in Paris and the second time I realized how well it captures the details of Paris such as the cobblestone streets and the black posts that line the sidewalks. Plus there's a shot of Notre Dame, which I didn't recognize the fist time around. The Simpson's Movie was surprisingly good, but that may just have been because it was nice to have some contact with US culture (if you can call it that) again. There were cultural jokes that I don't think most of the audience understood, and there were definitely times when I hoped the audience understood the idea of satire. SiCKO was an interesting experience because even though it was dubbed (as were the other films) they played the first and last few seconds of the interviews in the original English before switching over to French, so I would get really confused trying to figure out which language to be listening to. The movie opens with a clip of George Bush and for some reason my first reaction to seeing him was "oh, look, there's my president, how nice!" and then I remembered that I don't actually like George Bush and normally wouldn't be glad to see him. The movie has a few scenes that take place in Paris, and it felt strange to be watching an American film taking place in the country where I was and in a city where I had recently been. But then there were some scenes in Michigan! Plus Michael Moore was wearing a Spartans hat!!!
One weekend my host mom took me to the salt marshes, where we got an hour and a half guided tour, which was interesting, but really, that's a lot of information about salt. Next she drove me to the beach. I spent all summer near water, but obviously both Lake Michigan and Mystic Lake are fresh water, so it was really weird to be in the ocean. Afterward we went to a medieval village for dinner. My host mom told the waitress I was American and after we ate she (the waitress) said to me, "Well, I bet that was a lot better than hamburgers, wasn't it?" I didn't really know what to say, since I haven't actually eaten a hamburger in long time.
We also went on plenty of excursions as a group to places such as the local castle, the museum of modern art, the Jules Verne museum (hands-down coolest thing there was the actual globe he used to trace the routes of the characters in his books!) and two day trips. A few of us also went to a football (soccer) game. One of the day trips was to the ship yards of St. Nazaire, though I think the most dramatic part of the trip was when we rescued a pigeon (well, mostly it was Justin, but that should come as no surprise to those of you that know him). The other day-trip was to Mont-St.-Michel and St. Malo, which are in Normandy.
On the weekend that Clémance (the 12-year-old) came home, there was a jazz festival that she and I went to with her dad, but we were both really tired so we didn't stay long. I found it really amusing to listen to a band play "Stand By Me" and to hear the crowd singing along- even though they didn't really know the words.
On the morning of my birthday, I was leaving the house and saw two old women examining the fig tree in the front yard. They asked me if I lived there and I said that I was an exchange student. They told me I spoke excellent French, which was odd, since I'd said maybe three sentences, and stumbled through them, at that, and then they began to speak really, really quickly, at the same time, about figs and fig jam and fig pie and fig this and fig that and figs, figs, FIGS! So pretty much I had no idea what they wanted but promised I'd tell my host mom that they'd stopped by. They asked if I was in a hurry and I said I needed to catch a bus, but they continued to talk at me for a while and then finally turned to go. I figured that since they'd come from the direction that I was headed that we'd be going opposite ways, but no, they turned around and headed back in the direction of the bus stop, so I was stuck behind them for a while longer, during which time they asked me where I was from, and I think they said they have a friend who has a sister who has a nephew who is traveling around the US or something like that.
I met my friends at a tram stop and we ate lunch in our favorite park before meeting the group for a visit to an old cookie factory turned museum. All that's left is a big tower that you go up and look around. On the way there was a video of a guide who spoke such bad French (and who was obviously reading a teleprompter or something) and looking very nervous, that we had a really hard time actually listening to what she was saying. Next on the agenda had been to see a movie, but the only thing showing was about someone with cancer and probably would have been difficult for us to understand, so Candice had decided to have class instead. She did let us go to a park, though, and "class" consisted of doing skits based on a short story we'd read. Later, Mandi, Sarah, and I went to get crêpes, but we had to wait for the place to open (lots of little places close for a few hours during the afternoon). When the owner got there, he stopped to pick up a bouquet of flowers that someone had dropped in the street. He asked the people around if it belonged to them, but they all said no, so he offered it to us. Sarah took it and gave it to me as a birthday present, and after the owner had brought our food, he sat down at the table (yes, the table, as in there was only one) and said to me, "You know, we have something in common, because it's my birthday, too!"
My host mom had to work late that night, so my host dad made dinner, which was probably the least exciting birthday dinner I've had in a while: some leftover rice, cooked spinach, and a fried egg. However, we had a fig tart later, so that made up for it, though I'm not sure that fig tart is really a proper substitute for chocolate cake… That weekend Sarah slept over and we went to a nearby horse show to watch a jumping competition.
On our last full day in Nantes we didn't have class, so I went for a walk along the Sèvre. My host mom had taken me on a bike ride there one weekend, but I hadn't had a chance to go back, though I had wanted to. I ended up walking for 3 hours and 45 minutes, and would have walked home except that I ended up near a tram station and decided to get a ride home. The path was really pretty because it had these HUGE trees that look kind of like sycamores, except the bark is more yellowy-green. I saw them in New York too, and apparently they're called London Plane trees. That evening the whole group ate dinner at a fancy restaurant. I ended up sitting near the history professor which was a bit awkward, but mostly I just talked to the other people near me.
Poitiers
The next morning we met at the train station and took a charter bus to Poitiers. We spent the weekend there, visiting the Futuroscope during the days. Futuroscope is a "science museum" or at least, I think that's what Earlham thinks, but really it's a big amusement park with Imax videos instead of rides. The movies ranged from 45-minute documentaries about nature (one was narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, or would have been, except that it was dubbed in French) to 5-minute motion-simulator movies. There was also an attraction called "Dancing with Robots" which was probably the best. Mandi, Sarah, Ben, and I went on it at least three times. It's a big robotic arm with two seats on the end that twirls you around and around upside down, etc. with disco/techno music in the background. (We got "Staying Alive" and "I Love Rock and Roll" and something in Spanish).
St. Boes
I spent the next two weeks with Lynneve and Ragia living in St. Boes, a little tiny town near the Pyrénées. We all lived with a woman named Marie and they spent the days weaving with her, while I worked with her son, Julien on clock-making, well, really clock-repairing. Julien, his wife Emilie, and 7-month old baby Lila May lived in a little house that had previously been a barn. The weaving studio and the clock shop were on the property, too. I didn't really like watch-making because it mostly involved screwing and unscrewing screws and cleaning itty bitty pieces and trying to not lose them, and I surprisingly actually felt jealous of everyone else who got to do creative things, which is funny because I usually don't like being creative. I did get to work on and engrave a hundred-year-old pocket watch, which was cool, though. I also made a keychain to practice engraving.
Marie took us on a lot of little day trips, but mostly to other weaving studios or expensive clothing stores to look at weaving techniques, which didn't really interest me since I didn't know what she was talking about and because they often involved lots of fur or leather trim. I did appreciate the fact that one of the trips involved going to Spain! My favorite trip, though, was when Julien and Emilie took us for a two-hour hike in the mountains.
I loved living in the country- they grew most of their own fruits and vegetables, and had lots of animals, including two little dogs, a big dog, chickens, ducks, donkeys and horses. I even got to ride one of the horses once, but it wasn't a great experience. My host family's friend was in charge of a horse festival one weekend which included a trail ride. I was expecting a nice leisurely ride in the countryside, but instead it was a four-hour ride up and down really big hills, often at a full-out gallop. I didn't know anyone who was on the ride, and the friend who was in charge didn't ride. He was with the other organizers in a church parking lot where we stopped for a water break. He told me that if it was too much, I would be able to stop, so after two hours when we looped back to the parking lot, I looked for him, but I couldn't find him, or even remember his name. The other people were really confused when I asked if it would be possible to stop, but finally someone else took the horse and some random woman who knew my host family offered to drive me back. Before we had all split up with our families for the first time, Candice had told us not to rent cars and head off to Spain, like someone had done in the previous program. We asked why we would do that, and she said, "I don't know, but things happen." I felt like this situation fell under the category of "things happen" and was worried about getting a ride from someone that I didn't know, but given that it was a town of about three hundred people and that I had no other way of getting home, I took her up on it. When I got back, I told my family about my adventure and they gave me tea and cookies. I was worried that they'd be mad about the fact that I'd let someone take the horse, but all Julien said was, "Oh, well at least someone else got a chance to ride, too!" And then their friend brought the horse back later that night. In the evening we went to a horse spectacle, where I saw Mandi and Dan. The spectacle involved a guy doing trick riding, including a stunt where he dropped several American flags on the ground and then rode around and picked them all up. Mandi and I were kind of surprised, since the announcer said the guy was American and we explained to our families that in the States you can't ever let the flag touch the ground, and that there are people in the States who would be horribly offended to see anyone purposefully letting it sit on the ground, especially if it were French people doing it.
Toward the end of the two weeks, we had a party at Mandi and Dan's house for all the students to get together, and a few days later we had another one at Marie's house for all the students and families to show off the things we'd been working on. Next we had about ten days of independent travel.
Bordeaux
Sarah and I met up at the Dax train station and took a train to Bordeaux to see Sarah Howell, an Earlham grad who was spending the year teaching English. We only spent a few days with her and then took another train to Paris where we left our suitcases (and Mandi's, which we'd agreed to take for her) in the apartment of a friend of Sarah's dad. We took a bus to the Beauvais airport, which is about an hour from Paris and ran into Justin there. We only stayed long enough to get a shuttle to our hotel where we stayed one night and then went back to the airport bright and early the next morning to fly to Ireland.
Dublin
We spend five days in Dublin, where we visited a lot of museums, parks, and art galleries. The bus system was kind of expensive (1,90 each way, exact change only) and not very convenient, so we spent a lot of time walking. We were pretty tired at the end of the day, but made up for it by taking an afternoon nap before dinner almost every day. One day we took a train to the coast and went on a tour of an old castle. It was nice being in an English-speaking country, because when people asked if we were Americans, we knew it was because of our accents, and not because we were butchering our sentences, or something. Actually, though, I found the Irish accent really pretty, but sometimes difficult to understand. On our last day we took a bus to the Dublin airport and then a plane to Belgium.
Brussels
In Brussels we were a bit sick of museums so we mostly walked around and went to little shops. We did make sure to see "Manneken Pis" which is a statue of a little boy peeing. There are two theories about the statue, which is actually quite old. Either a rich man lost his son and was so grateful to hear that he'd been found that he declared he'd have a statue built depicting the condition in which the boy was found, or the boy saved the city by peeing on the fires set by arsonists. We also ate Belgian waffles and chocolate and discovered the secret behind Brussels sprouts, though we didn't eat any. We only spent three days in Brussels, and then took a train back to Paris to meet up with the rest of the group.
Maybe I'll get around to writing about the second half of the program (in Paris) someday, but don't hold your breath. In the meantime, you can read what other people wrote about the program here.
Paris
I flew into Paris mid-August with Sarah and my first impression was that everything was really circular. For instance, a lot of the traffic signs were round instead of square (but stop signs are still octagons and they actually say "STOP"), and in general things just seemed less angular than in the states. That is a really strange observation, I know, and may have just been the result of jet lag making my brain fuzzy. Actually, since our flight had been an overnighter, and I slept through most of it, I didn't really get the feeling of jet lag.
We spent the weekend in a hostel in the 14th arrondissement and saw lots of touristy things, including the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre (even though we didn't actually go inside), the Musée d'Orsay (this time we did go inside) the Champs Elysées, the cemetery at Montparnasse (where you can see the tombs of famous people like Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir), Notre Dame, and of course, the Eiffel Tower, plus you can't walk around Paris without seeing bunches of other fancy buildings.
Nantes
Next, we took a train to Nantes, a city in Brittany and spent about 4 weeks there. My family consisted of a mom, dad, and three kids ages 12, 16, and 18. However, the kids were on various vacations so the whole family wasn't together until the beginning of the third week. On my first day it was just me and the parents. They seemed really nice, and the first thing they did was give me rhubarb pie, then showed me a magazine with an article about Al Gore in it and a letter that they had received from Sehvilla, who was their student two years ago during the last program, and who happened to live next door to me in Barrett last fall.
The next day the group met up in the center of the city to do some exploring (of course it was raining), so instead Candice and Claire (the leaders) just showed us where the classroom was and then we all went to the mall. The classroom was in an apartment building which was in between a store for babies and a funeral parlor, which seemed kind of funny.
At dinner that night, Anne-Claire (the 18-year-old) was back, but only for the night, as she was leaving for Paris the next day. She tried to show me how to eat cantaloupe, but I assured her that I've eaten lots of cantaloupe. During my stay there, though, I did end up eating lots of foods that I've never gotten around to trying in the US including artichokes (the outside, as well as the hearts), radishes, prunes (not dried), figs, and leeks. We also ate a lot of eggplant and beets, which are not things I usually eat in the States. Then there were other times when I really didn't know what I was eating… I think the strangest food thing was the first time my host mom cut up a tomato, put some vinaigrette on it and gave it to me. I mean, sure, I eat lots of tomatoes at home, but not whole, raw tomatoes. The weirdest meal, I think, was what they called "pain du carrote" which literally means "carrot bread" but that makes me think of a pasty item like zucchini bread or banana bread, which do not resemble this, which I think could be more accurately described as "carrot loaf" like meatloaf. Anyway, what made it weird was that they served it with tomato sauce. It actually tasted pretty good, which was fortunate because we ate it several times. We had bread and cheese every night, which was amazing, and really not at all comparable to American bread and cheese. And the thing is, it's really not more expensive- a baguette usually costs about a euro, which isn't too much more than a dollar, at least for now!
We had a fairly regular schedule with French History class, taught by a local professor, from 10 to noon, then a two-hour lunch break, and then either Grammar or Conversation with Candice and Claire in the afternoon from 2 to 4 (ahem, 14:00-16:00). French families eat dinner rather late (never earlier than 8pm for my family) so there was a decent amount of time after class to go exploring. Nantes isn't huge, and the public transportation system is really easy to use- four main tram lines, and various buses, busways (a mix between a bus and a tram- it has wheels like a bus but doesn't drive in regular traffic lanes), and even a boat-bus system (Nantes has a few rivers, including the Erdre, the Sèvre, and the Loire). After dinner, I sometimes played cards with my family, which was always fun.
Oddly enough, I saw more movies in Nantes than I think I did all summer. The group went to see Ratatouille, and I saw The Simpsons Movie with my host dad and Pierre, the 16-year-old, and my host mom, who is a nurse, took me to SiCKO. I had seen Ratatouille over the summer, but it was interesting to see it again because it takes place in Paris and the second time I realized how well it captures the details of Paris such as the cobblestone streets and the black posts that line the sidewalks. Plus there's a shot of Notre Dame, which I didn't recognize the fist time around. The Simpson's Movie was surprisingly good, but that may just have been because it was nice to have some contact with US culture (if you can call it that) again. There were cultural jokes that I don't think most of the audience understood, and there were definitely times when I hoped the audience understood the idea of satire. SiCKO was an interesting experience because even though it was dubbed (as were the other films) they played the first and last few seconds of the interviews in the original English before switching over to French, so I would get really confused trying to figure out which language to be listening to. The movie opens with a clip of George Bush and for some reason my first reaction to seeing him was "oh, look, there's my president, how nice!" and then I remembered that I don't actually like George Bush and normally wouldn't be glad to see him. The movie has a few scenes that take place in Paris, and it felt strange to be watching an American film taking place in the country where I was and in a city where I had recently been. But then there were some scenes in Michigan! Plus Michael Moore was wearing a Spartans hat!!!
One weekend my host mom took me to the salt marshes, where we got an hour and a half guided tour, which was interesting, but really, that's a lot of information about salt. Next she drove me to the beach. I spent all summer near water, but obviously both Lake Michigan and Mystic Lake are fresh water, so it was really weird to be in the ocean. Afterward we went to a medieval village for dinner. My host mom told the waitress I was American and after we ate she (the waitress) said to me, "Well, I bet that was a lot better than hamburgers, wasn't it?" I didn't really know what to say, since I haven't actually eaten a hamburger in long time.
We also went on plenty of excursions as a group to places such as the local castle, the museum of modern art, the Jules Verne museum (hands-down coolest thing there was the actual globe he used to trace the routes of the characters in his books!) and two day trips. A few of us also went to a football (soccer) game. One of the day trips was to the ship yards of St. Nazaire, though I think the most dramatic part of the trip was when we rescued a pigeon (well, mostly it was Justin, but that should come as no surprise to those of you that know him). The other day-trip was to Mont-St.-Michel and St. Malo, which are in Normandy.
On the weekend that Clémance (the 12-year-old) came home, there was a jazz festival that she and I went to with her dad, but we were both really tired so we didn't stay long. I found it really amusing to listen to a band play "Stand By Me" and to hear the crowd singing along- even though they didn't really know the words.
On the morning of my birthday, I was leaving the house and saw two old women examining the fig tree in the front yard. They asked me if I lived there and I said that I was an exchange student. They told me I spoke excellent French, which was odd, since I'd said maybe three sentences, and stumbled through them, at that, and then they began to speak really, really quickly, at the same time, about figs and fig jam and fig pie and fig this and fig that and figs, figs, FIGS! So pretty much I had no idea what they wanted but promised I'd tell my host mom that they'd stopped by. They asked if I was in a hurry and I said I needed to catch a bus, but they continued to talk at me for a while and then finally turned to go. I figured that since they'd come from the direction that I was headed that we'd be going opposite ways, but no, they turned around and headed back in the direction of the bus stop, so I was stuck behind them for a while longer, during which time they asked me where I was from, and I think they said they have a friend who has a sister who has a nephew who is traveling around the US or something like that.
I met my friends at a tram stop and we ate lunch in our favorite park before meeting the group for a visit to an old cookie factory turned museum. All that's left is a big tower that you go up and look around. On the way there was a video of a guide who spoke such bad French (and who was obviously reading a teleprompter or something) and looking very nervous, that we had a really hard time actually listening to what she was saying. Next on the agenda had been to see a movie, but the only thing showing was about someone with cancer and probably would have been difficult for us to understand, so Candice had decided to have class instead. She did let us go to a park, though, and "class" consisted of doing skits based on a short story we'd read. Later, Mandi, Sarah, and I went to get crêpes, but we had to wait for the place to open (lots of little places close for a few hours during the afternoon). When the owner got there, he stopped to pick up a bouquet of flowers that someone had dropped in the street. He asked the people around if it belonged to them, but they all said no, so he offered it to us. Sarah took it and gave it to me as a birthday present, and after the owner had brought our food, he sat down at the table (yes, the table, as in there was only one) and said to me, "You know, we have something in common, because it's my birthday, too!"
My host mom had to work late that night, so my host dad made dinner, which was probably the least exciting birthday dinner I've had in a while: some leftover rice, cooked spinach, and a fried egg. However, we had a fig tart later, so that made up for it, though I'm not sure that fig tart is really a proper substitute for chocolate cake… That weekend Sarah slept over and we went to a nearby horse show to watch a jumping competition.
On our last full day in Nantes we didn't have class, so I went for a walk along the Sèvre. My host mom had taken me on a bike ride there one weekend, but I hadn't had a chance to go back, though I had wanted to. I ended up walking for 3 hours and 45 minutes, and would have walked home except that I ended up near a tram station and decided to get a ride home. The path was really pretty because it had these HUGE trees that look kind of like sycamores, except the bark is more yellowy-green. I saw them in New York too, and apparently they're called London Plane trees. That evening the whole group ate dinner at a fancy restaurant. I ended up sitting near the history professor which was a bit awkward, but mostly I just talked to the other people near me.
Poitiers
The next morning we met at the train station and took a charter bus to Poitiers. We spent the weekend there, visiting the Futuroscope during the days. Futuroscope is a "science museum" or at least, I think that's what Earlham thinks, but really it's a big amusement park with Imax videos instead of rides. The movies ranged from 45-minute documentaries about nature (one was narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, or would have been, except that it was dubbed in French) to 5-minute motion-simulator movies. There was also an attraction called "Dancing with Robots" which was probably the best. Mandi, Sarah, Ben, and I went on it at least three times. It's a big robotic arm with two seats on the end that twirls you around and around upside down, etc. with disco/techno music in the background. (We got "Staying Alive" and "I Love Rock and Roll" and something in Spanish).
St. Boes
I spent the next two weeks with Lynneve and Ragia living in St. Boes, a little tiny town near the Pyrénées. We all lived with a woman named Marie and they spent the days weaving with her, while I worked with her son, Julien on clock-making, well, really clock-repairing. Julien, his wife Emilie, and 7-month old baby Lila May lived in a little house that had previously been a barn. The weaving studio and the clock shop were on the property, too. I didn't really like watch-making because it mostly involved screwing and unscrewing screws and cleaning itty bitty pieces and trying to not lose them, and I surprisingly actually felt jealous of everyone else who got to do creative things, which is funny because I usually don't like being creative. I did get to work on and engrave a hundred-year-old pocket watch, which was cool, though. I also made a keychain to practice engraving.
Marie took us on a lot of little day trips, but mostly to other weaving studios or expensive clothing stores to look at weaving techniques, which didn't really interest me since I didn't know what she was talking about and because they often involved lots of fur or leather trim. I did appreciate the fact that one of the trips involved going to Spain! My favorite trip, though, was when Julien and Emilie took us for a two-hour hike in the mountains.
I loved living in the country- they grew most of their own fruits and vegetables, and had lots of animals, including two little dogs, a big dog, chickens, ducks, donkeys and horses. I even got to ride one of the horses once, but it wasn't a great experience. My host family's friend was in charge of a horse festival one weekend which included a trail ride. I was expecting a nice leisurely ride in the countryside, but instead it was a four-hour ride up and down really big hills, often at a full-out gallop. I didn't know anyone who was on the ride, and the friend who was in charge didn't ride. He was with the other organizers in a church parking lot where we stopped for a water break. He told me that if it was too much, I would be able to stop, so after two hours when we looped back to the parking lot, I looked for him, but I couldn't find him, or even remember his name. The other people were really confused when I asked if it would be possible to stop, but finally someone else took the horse and some random woman who knew my host family offered to drive me back. Before we had all split up with our families for the first time, Candice had told us not to rent cars and head off to Spain, like someone had done in the previous program. We asked why we would do that, and she said, "I don't know, but things happen." I felt like this situation fell under the category of "things happen" and was worried about getting a ride from someone that I didn't know, but given that it was a town of about three hundred people and that I had no other way of getting home, I took her up on it. When I got back, I told my family about my adventure and they gave me tea and cookies. I was worried that they'd be mad about the fact that I'd let someone take the horse, but all Julien said was, "Oh, well at least someone else got a chance to ride, too!" And then their friend brought the horse back later that night. In the evening we went to a horse spectacle, where I saw Mandi and Dan. The spectacle involved a guy doing trick riding, including a stunt where he dropped several American flags on the ground and then rode around and picked them all up. Mandi and I were kind of surprised, since the announcer said the guy was American and we explained to our families that in the States you can't ever let the flag touch the ground, and that there are people in the States who would be horribly offended to see anyone purposefully letting it sit on the ground, especially if it were French people doing it.
Toward the end of the two weeks, we had a party at Mandi and Dan's house for all the students to get together, and a few days later we had another one at Marie's house for all the students and families to show off the things we'd been working on. Next we had about ten days of independent travel.
Bordeaux
Sarah and I met up at the Dax train station and took a train to Bordeaux to see Sarah Howell, an Earlham grad who was spending the year teaching English. We only spent a few days with her and then took another train to Paris where we left our suitcases (and Mandi's, which we'd agreed to take for her) in the apartment of a friend of Sarah's dad. We took a bus to the Beauvais airport, which is about an hour from Paris and ran into Justin there. We only stayed long enough to get a shuttle to our hotel where we stayed one night and then went back to the airport bright and early the next morning to fly to Ireland.
Dublin
We spend five days in Dublin, where we visited a lot of museums, parks, and art galleries. The bus system was kind of expensive (1,90 each way, exact change only) and not very convenient, so we spent a lot of time walking. We were pretty tired at the end of the day, but made up for it by taking an afternoon nap before dinner almost every day. One day we took a train to the coast and went on a tour of an old castle. It was nice being in an English-speaking country, because when people asked if we were Americans, we knew it was because of our accents, and not because we were butchering our sentences, or something. Actually, though, I found the Irish accent really pretty, but sometimes difficult to understand. On our last day we took a bus to the Dublin airport and then a plane to Belgium.
Brussels
In Brussels we were a bit sick of museums so we mostly walked around and went to little shops. We did make sure to see "Manneken Pis" which is a statue of a little boy peeing. There are two theories about the statue, which is actually quite old. Either a rich man lost his son and was so grateful to hear that he'd been found that he declared he'd have a statue built depicting the condition in which the boy was found, or the boy saved the city by peeing on the fires set by arsonists. We also ate Belgian waffles and chocolate and discovered the secret behind Brussels sprouts, though we didn't eat any. We only spent three days in Brussels, and then took a train back to Paris to meet up with the rest of the group.
Maybe I'll get around to writing about the second half of the program (in Paris) someday, but don't hold your breath. In the meantime, you can read what other people wrote about the program here.