Last Week in Nantes

Chateau
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Tomorrow morning I leave for Croatia and this last week in Nantes was awesome. So much happened! Saturday I visited the petit chateau that belongs to my French father's family. We “dejeuned” at the chateau which means we ate lunch. The French don't say “I'm going to eat breakfast” they say they're “going breakfasting” or “lunching” or “dinnering” if the verb “eating” is used when referring to a meal, it's considered a little low class. So we “lunched” at the chateau which was amazing. If I understood correctly, the manor was a hunting lodge for the royalty who lived in the castle a little farther away. They used this manor for their side trips. I also has a garage and stables that are separate buildings, as well as servants quarters which the family rents out to other families. The first floor had a kitchen, a sitting room, 2 dinning rooms, and 2 living rooms though I wouldn't call them living rooms because they look like rooms in a museum with old furniture and no one really ever goes in them unless they have some kind of high class event hosted at the chateau. The rooms even have old paintings of family members, though apparently the French Revolution played into the family losing a lot of things, so they don't have most of the old stuff....I think I understood that story correctly. I think the best part of the lunch was the grandparents. They were so old and SO French. They were adorable. I will include pictures because they could be in some kind of French Disney Cartoon. After lunch we had coffee at a table outside in the shade and then took a walk to see the grounds. It was pretty unreal.

Fete de la musique
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That night was the fete de la musiqe in all of Europe. It's always on the 21^st of June – the summer solstice. I walked around Nantes and everyone was drinking and having a great time. Bands were everywhere – on the streets, in cafes and restaurants. There were congo parades and people were dancing everywhere. Salsa music was played in one cafe, three doors down a dj was playing rave music while 50 feet afterwards were African drummers. I danced the whole night! I do have to admit that I had never seen anything like the whole night, but the icing on the cake was the group of people moshing at 2am to a brass band that played songs that I didn't recognize but apparently everyone else did because they were singing really loudly. And yes, they were moshing like it was the best concert they had ever heard. I have video of it to prove it. It was a trombone player, a sax, a tuba, I don't know what else, but I think there were 8 people in this brass band and they didn't have an amp, so think high school kids moshing at one of those high school games where the band plays. Except the guys playing were wearing goofy hats with died pink hair. It was awesome. It started to rain just as I was walking home and I think that is when I got sick. It was well worth it though.

Fantastic last week.

A la baule
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The next morning I woke up early to go to the beach with my French mom Sylvie. She took me to the beach near St. Nazaare where her husband proposed to her. The weather was beautiful, but still not hot enough to go swimming. The water here is freezing! So we enjoyed laying on the sand. I think the beach was called St. Mars and it was very quaint. We finished up our time on the beach with a cafe in a cafe on the beach, which was awesome. It was a great way to lead into a stressful week of final exams and presentations. Unfortunately I was sick for my presentation on Tuesday, but I think it still went well, and I was better enough to study for my presentation on Thursday.

Monday night was my official American dinner night and for my gourmet American meal I decided to make my French family hamburgers, french fries, and milkshakes – much to the happiness of my 12 year old French brother Lancelot. It was a hit, which was good because I really don't have that much experience cooking hamburgers...I cooked them until I thought was the right amount of time but I do have to admit that I sent a small prayer up to anyone listening that I wouldn't suffer the embarrassment of creating a “disgusting unfinished hamburger.” All went well, and everyone actually had seconds!! The best though came Wednesday when they made me a special going away dinner. It was the last night we could all get together because I had a dinner with all of the professors and students of the program on Thursday and my host parents have a dinner they had to go to tonight (Friday). They set the table with the silverware that has the family coat of arms engraved on it and they even made me a gateau chocolate for my birthday and gave me some earrings. It was sad, but also very sweet (pardon the pun!!).

Today I went back to the beach La Baule which was really nice because I went with my host sister Cassandre. There were more people there than the last time I went with Edina. It was really nice!! The weather was pretty good too, but France has too many clouds and they are huge and they take away my sunshine for 10 minutes minimum at a time. During the clouds it gets so cold that I have to cover myself up with my towel but then when the sun comes back out it's really hot so I can throw it off again. Clouds are jerks. I decided last minute that I wanted to take the 4:30 train back so I would have time to sit in the garden with Sylvie before she left for the dinner today so we ran to the train and just made it. Literally the train was in the station when the woman was printing my ticket. But all was well. At la Baule I sat in the lounge chairs outside the bar on the beach and sipped wine but unfortunately I forgot about rotating with the sun and kind of got burned on my right side of my body...oh well.

Tomorrow I head to Croatia and I am really sad to be leaving my family here. It makes me kind of upset that I don't have a host family in London and I'll just be living in the dorms there. It made my trip here so special to have them to guide me through all of the rules and to answer my questions. With the language barrier taken away things won't be as difficult in London, but there will still be cultural differences. My host family wants me to come back in the fall and truthfully I wouldn't mind it either.

On to Croatia!! 2 more days of being 25 years old!!!