Coucou tout le monde!

So apparently we were the only family that turned our bikes into icecream machines?

The start of the Tour de France

The end of the Tour de France at McDonalds.

Train station in Tours

The Great Hall at Chenoceau

The gardens of Chenoceau

Chateau at Blois

The horse with the inaccurate legs. So obvious right?

A very exasperated gargoyle.

I've realized that all I do at the chateaus we visit is take pictures of beds. A personal favorite.

Who knew child labor could be so darn cute?!

One of the many gems at the chocolaterie museum

Putting my camp counselor skills to work

Well I've officially kept my promise of not writing frequently so you're welcome. The temperature has actually reached double digits here so I have been in a consistent good mood since my return from les vacances de fevrier, in which I visited Venice (for Carnivale), Berlin, and Prague. I know, it's a rough life I lead.

Life in Tours is wonderful. Before vacation we took (attempted) a bike Tour to Villandry, a chateau about 20km from Tours. The weather was beautiful and it seemed like the perfect little velo ride, UNTIL we got lost approximately 15 times and just so 'happened' upon a McDonalds. Being the dedicated Americans that we are, a few of us decided it was the best course of action to enjoy a lovely meal there, rather than journey on to a famous chateau. I think you will all agree with our decision. Some other noteworthy events before my departure was our second excursion with the Bucknell group where we visited chateau Chenoceau and Blois, as well as a visit to a Max Vauche chocolaterie. The chateaus were beautiful to say the least and I finally got to see a real castle with a moat at Chenoceau. Some fun facts from this excursion was that the artist who created the horse sculpture shown below committed suicide after this was displayed because the legs were in the wrong position. Naturally we all noticed how HORRIBLY off the legs were first thing and understood his decision. The chocolaterie was bizarre to say the least. They had a mini 'museum' if you will when you first entered that showed a little bit about how the chocolate was made at their plantation in Sao Tome. The previous semester I had to do a report on the labor exploitation and human trafficking in the cocoa industry, so naturally I came ready to make some arguments. I was a little surprised to find that they did all of this for me during their guided tour. The museum consisted of sculptures of small children wearing tattered clothes picking cocoa. We were then ushered into a room where we watched a 20 minute documentary on the owners of the plantation and their visit to their plantation in Sao Tome, in which they brought their workers used clothing. The movie also featured some very amusing English subtitles, one of which translated the word chocolate to greed. Fortunately, at the end of the movie they gave you some delicious chocolate mousse to make you forget all of the sweat and tears that went into making it before you ended at the gift shop, and by this time exploitation was the last thing on your mind. It was a very well organized tour to say the least.

The most important thing that occured before my departure was the meeting of the nicest man in all of Tours, dare I say all of France. For our program, we had to do a module of integration project where we basically had to pick some aspect of Tours to research that required us to interview/ talk to people around Tours. Naturally this was no one's idea of a good time, seeing as the people of France are not the biggest fans of Americans (although there are apparently a lot of Polish and Italian immigrants in France so I'm not sure why I don't fit right in), but my group had chosen dessert so there really couldn't be that much of a downside. Our first stop was a briocherie that, as we learned, is internationally famous. At one point the owner had 5 stores in NYC and his recipe is still used at the Waldrof Astoria. Anyhoo, the store has been in one family for 4 generations, and the current owner is wonderful. He was so excited to talk to us and for the first time we felt like someone in Tours might actually like us! He also gave us a free loaf of brioche and mini nutella brioches, which also helped his case. The fact that he smoked the entire time as he was baking really made the experience feel more authentic as well. Needless to say since this visit I have come to frequent his magasin, which is really helping me get into the French fitness level.

One of the things I have noticed after spending almost two months in France, and Europe in general, is there is a much more concerted effort to save energy here. I noticed it first with my host family who takes 5 second showers (which is fine with me seeing as those are not my favorite things to do) and how they ALWAYS turn the light and TV off when they leave the room. Even if they're coming back 10 minutes later. In public places all they have is air dryers for your hands and most lights are automatic/dual purpose with heat bulbs. It's just a much more conscious mindset I feel in terms of waste than I have ever seen back in the good ol' U.S. of A so it's been nice to jump on their energy efficient bandwagon.

This week we have the DELF exam on Friday, which is basically like an SAT but measures your profficiency in French. It's just a concrete way of saying your French competency and if you d well, it means you can go to grad school in France, or at French speaking universities which is pretty cool.

My first post only one month late!

Tours at night!

Bonjour ma famille et mes amis!!

As of today, I have officially been living in Tours, France for a month! I know what you're all thinking, and yes I am incredibly stylish now. I decided I would start this blog as a way to finally appease my mother and to give her yet another daily reminder of how I have not been kidnapped and sold. SO I hope you find it interesting, although I will warn you now I am no wordsmith so if you're looking for a more entertaining blog I would direct you here: http://animalsdressedashumans.com/.

A month in and I feel like I am very much into the swing of things! The first day seems very long ago, thankfully, seeing as the first day I momentarily lost my bag which contained my passport, all money and forms of I.D., phone, and ipod. I was off to a GREAT start needless to say. However now I'm into the routine of life here and am not completely terrified to speak French to actual French people which is always helpful when no one here really speaks English. I have also only gotten super lost once and in reality I was about a one minute walk from my house. I live in a town house right off the main street that leads to the city center I guess you could say, which makes my day-to-day errands/ life very convenient and stress free and puts my OCD at ease. The city itself is incredibly beautiful. It sits right on the Loire, the longest river in France, no big, and all of the houses and buildings are just adorable and the streets are all cobble stone. I am not being articulate but just imagine the setting of Chocolat modernized (not a stereotype at all). I live in this perfect little room on top floor of my house with my own bathroom and everything! My favorite part is that there are these pretty blue shutters on my windows I open and close every morning/night and I feel like I'm in a Disney movie when they open the shutters to all those little cartoon birds chirping about, but I think that's a pretty standard reaction to opening shutters so I'll move on. EXCEPT one time I opened my shutters and there was this HUGE cat perched on the roof of the house right next to ours. You can imagine how delighted I was. OK well I guess I'll just move on to talking about different parts of Tours. Sorry this is going to be so long and rambling but I promise after this one they'll be either shorter or non-existent.

I will start most importantly with the food, which is fabbity fab. I (very stereotypically) eat something with nutella on it daily, which has really worked in my favor seeing as I am currently only two stamps away from getting a free nutella panini from this panini place we frequent. I am looking forward to that day. My host mother is an amazing cook and I look forward to every dinner. In terms of eating around the city, I have yet to have a bad anything (except one time I had a nutella panini that tasted like lettuce, which wasn't necessarily bad, just unexpected). We eat very cheaply as a group and still find really delicious pasta, crepes, and panini places everywhere. Thankfully, I joined a gym here. The only thing that would make my eating life better would be if there was a place that made strictly pad Thai next to my house but that's neither here nor there. My quest to be vegetarian has been momentarily paused and I unfortunately consume many animals a week. I apologize Jane, although I do have your cookbook with so I plan on wowing my family any day now.


The wall of Love in Paris

My host family is wonderful! They are very open with me, which makes it a lot easier to feel comfortable around them quickly. The father (Jean-Jacques) works in Paris and is not around during the week but he is a wonderful person and is always telling everyone to speak slower/translates for me which is much appreciated. He also always makes a point to ask questions about my life at home which makes me happy. Elisabeth is my host mom and she is incredible. She is very excited to help me with things, like homework, or finding places to get a haircut, or running to finding me when I'm lost 3 minutes from home, and is overall incredibly easy to talk to or ask questions. She is also really open with me and we have some nice gab sessions after dinner or watch movies together which is nice, or was nice until we watched Changeling. I was really nervous before coming that the family would be sort of distant from each other and me, just based off of little cultural stereotypes I had heard, but they are incredibly open and affectionate with me and each other and remind me a little bit of my own family. My host brother (Adrien) is 15 and a hoot. I love him to bits. No one in France hugs, which is a big bummer, but he always gives me hugs and calls me his "Petite Soeur" because naturally I am shorter than him. He is very funny and chatty and gives me an idealized glimpse of what it would be like to have a brother. My host sister Alice is 18 and very hip. She goes to the school of commerce and has a boyfriend so she isn't around much but we've gone out together and she is very welcoming.


View of the Eiffel Tower from the top of L'Arc de Triomphe









View of the Eiffel Tower once the sun appeared




In terms of cultural differences, Tours, and I think Europe in general from past experiences really isn't THAT different. The big one here that really gets my goat is that people don't smile when they walk around. I am used to it now but it sort of bummed me out at first. They also are very unapproachable here. I guess I was picturing my experiences out here to be more like when we were backpacking when people were so excited to meet you from all over and hang out but it's very different here. The city is full of young people so that makes going out fun but it is definitely hard to meet people. We attended our first real French party this past weekend and it was definitely easier to get to know people in a smaller group setting, but nonetheless I have found people here to be rather cold which is an unfortunate stereotype I have found to be partially true. Because of all the young people though, Tours has a very fun night life. They have one main plaza where most of the bars/discos are centered around and we have some joyful nights there, even if one of them did end with us accidentily leaving through an emergency exit and attempting to scale a 14 foot fence that had a door right next to it. C'est la vie. I don't know if this is a cultural difference or just unfortunate but the gym tends to smell awful and I feel like me and my friend Denise that I go with are the only ones who notice.

Leonardo da Vinci's House

My classes are interesting to say the least. I do not have classes Thursday or Friday so it's a pretty hard life. I take a class at the university with actual French students which is moderately hysterical. Most of the kids in my class dress like John Bender from the Breakfast Club and there are an unsettling amount of parachute pants worn by the girls. They also tend to show up to class about 15 minutes late and talk/text the entire time. I feel like I am in the film Freedom Writers 90% of my classes. Our professor however is in love with the fact that we are in a class and daily refers to us as her beautiful American students to the rest of the group which is making it REALLY easy to become friends with this crowd. My other class is on immigration in film which is very interesting and with the students from Davidson. Although the class is all in French naturally it is nice having other Americans around so it's not completely mortifying when I go to talk in class. We have some half credit classes thrown in here and there on the history of Tours art and architecture, etc. and then basically an S.A.T prep course twice a week. In March, we take an exam called the DELF which, depending on if you pass, lets you go to grad school in France for certain fields. It is basically a test the concretely says your proficiency in French to future employers/schools which is pretty cool. I really have not had that much work outside of class but I think it will get worse as the weeks go on.

La Grande Roue in Paris at Place de la Concorde. You could see it all!

So far, my only visits outside of Tours thus far were Paris the very first weekend and then to a town called Amboise about 20 minutes from Tours. Paris is only an hour to two hour train ride from here and it was honestly incredible. We had a very touristy visit, mostly seeing all the sites and it was really incredible to see every site in person. The first day was a moderate monsoon of rain but that did not deter us from walking up a million steps to Sacre-Coeur. The best part was walking to the top of L'Arc de Triomphe and having an amazing view of Paris, that and nutella waffles. Our visit to Amboise was this past weekend and it was crazy cool. We went to the chateau d'Amboise and Leonardo da Vinci's house! The garden was filled with interactive replicas of all his inventions (or 'imaginings') and they were incredibly fun to play with. Apparently he invented everything from a playground to the canon (I think there needs to be some fact checking done on this garden). BUT I did learn some fun facts on these tours, one being that Louis XIV only bathed twice in his life, something I personally respect, and Leonardo da Vinci was a party planner! One of the many things we have in common. The other being we both invented, what would later be, precursors to the helicopter. Our final stop was a Huilerie, where the last remaining artisan in the province of Tourraine makes Walnut oil (I bought you a bottle mom. Thank me later). The artisan was adorable and I just wanted to hug him the whole time but it smelled really goofy in there. His workshop has been in his family since the 1800's though so I guess that happens.

Friends and l'Arc de Triomphe

Just your standard device used to make walnut oil

All in all France has really been great so far. I am speaking French most of the time and I can already see my French improving a lot already. I also bought my first French CD, well really she's Quebecoise but it's in French (Coeur de Pirate Jane!). I will try to do a better job of posting!

Chateau d'Amboise at Sunset

Love you all!
Annie O.