One more year, please??

Well here I am: halfway through the first day of the last week of my life...in Angers that is, let's not be too dramatic, Laura. Even though that's what if feels like! I am sad to leave Angers and France and Europe...very sad. I have been doing so many things lately, too much fun to count, too much to record it all. And, actually, it's no longer novel; it seems normal to live here and I feel like I'm being ripped away, not walzing out of the country.

~~~
Strasbourg was a great city to visit -the architecture was a bright mixture of German and French and the cathedral really was as great as everyone kept saying. It's built from the red stones typical of the Alsace region; a deep red with black and brown streaking through it. A stone that seems to be a dirty brown from far away and then reveals its fascinating colors up close.

~~~
This past week has held some of the best memories of all! Picnics and grass fights; longer, sunny days and warmer evenings; concerts and walking; coffee and gardens. In short, all of my very favorite things.

Would-be Ocean Territory

I leave France in a little over a month and I am definitely trying to cram as much fun into this last month as possible! A week ago today I received a call from my friends Dan and Ita at 11:30 pm. They were asking me if I wanted to leave the next morning to take a day trip to the Mont Saint Michel. Well, what's a girl to say? YES, of course! It was a lot of fun too - who knew a five hour trip each way in one day could be such a blast? We took a train to Rennes from Angers and then a bus from Rennes right to the base of Mont Saint Michel. The Mont is actually smaller than I had imagined from all the pictures I've seen but incredible nonetheless...We wound our way up the ancient medieval street (there's only one on the whole isle), taking pictures all the way. Then we ate a small picnic, of kebabs and water, at a Northern lookout point before continuing our trek up to the chapel and monastery on the tiptop of the hill. We were

goofing off and laughing and having a marvelous time; making up stories about the crazy rock formations on the side of the mountain and the strange path that was leading us along.

Once we finally reached the top, the sun broke through the thick fog for the first time all day and we actually saw what surrounded us on all sides - namely, nothing. It was low tide so the island was sitting on a neverending stretch of wet sand (and quicksand!); would-be ocean territory that had temporarily dried up. We arrived at the monastery just in time for the last English tour of the day, which was supposed to be about 50 minutes total. But when our guide found out that one of the other Irish gentlemen was also a tour guide himself, on a small island in Ireland with a monastery on it (sound familiar?), he must have decided to give us the deluxe tour because it lasted for an hour and 45 minutes!

The man couldn't stop telling his favorite anecdotes and spouting off fact after fact in each room we visited. It was funny at first, but then we three realized we could actually miss the last bus back to Rennes if this tour didn't end soon! It didn't help that our guide kept breaking into private conversation with the visiting man, leaving the rest of the group to shift uncomfortably from foot to foot or stare around at the thick stone walls (looking for the nearest way out, in our case). But it was all very interesting and we did end up making our bus back home. So there was no harm done, and more than a few things learned, in The End.

Château du Pin

My new picture is the charming Château du Pin. Converted into a music school, it happens to sit only one block from my house, in the Park du Pin down the street! I walk or ride my bike through the tiny park to get anywhere in Angers and I always love saying a silent hello to the chiming, singing, or trumpeting château on my way through. I love France...

Ahhh...the sea

I just got back from a very relaxing weekend in Bordeaux and I've already started planning my next trip. Things have gone pretty quickly here and I suddenly find that I have only 7 days of work left and, counting today, 35 days of pure freedom before I leave France. Does that seem a little off balance to anyone? This is why I am researching Lille and Strasbourg today rather than planning my Easter-themed lesson for school tomorrow. This is also why I am practially dreading my return to Seattle and the recommencement of a work-filled life.
~~~
I got to Bordeaux after four hours of travelling on Saturday morning. Allison and Will met me at the train station and we went straight to Nicola's apartment to drop off my things. She is an assistant from Scotland who said we could sleep on her couch that night. We explored the city all afternoon - walked from one site to the next in the pedestrian-friendly city center, ate the regional pastry (canelé: a caramelized sugar crusted bell with a thick, chewy dough in the center), and sat on a bench in a flower garden by the edge of the river. I like Bordeaux because it reminds me of Paris but it is filled with green and is much quieter. The buildings have the same lovely, cohesiveness of the Parisian style but the streets are more narrow and it is much easier to navigate by foot! (Or by the new, ultra-modern tramway that made me so jealous. Did I ever mention that Angers is in the middle of a 4-year tramway construction monster? There are new craters in the streets every week and roads are constantly being closed down or switched direction!)
~~~
The next day we decided to wake up at the crack of dawn (literally, since it was daylight savings day in Europe) to take the half hour train ride to the coast. The plan was to get to the small town of Arcachon where we could catch a bus to see the "biggest dune in Europe." Unfortunately, the biggest dune in Europe is unreachable on Sundays when the bus system completely shuts down! We half-considered if it was worth the trouble of A) paying for two hours (there and back) in a taxi (my idea) or B) hitchhiking (Will's idea, crazy boy), before we decided to spend the day wandering around Arcachon.
It was freezing cold in the morning wind, but the bright clear day promised to warm up soon. So we headed into a seaside cafe for a second breakfast (a repeat of the croissant and coffee we had already consumed at the Bordeaux station). After lingering in the heated restaurant for over an hour, we braved the cold air just long enough to cross the street and visit the town's "aquarium." Those quotation marks are there for a reason - we paid 3 euro each to see about a dozen fish tanks!
"I think this is just the beginning," Will said uncertainly, after half an hour of gazing at the usual assortment of turtles, seahorses, anenome, and...trout?? Needless to say, it was a bit bizarre and something of a letdown. The star attraction of the dark, little room was a 2 foot octopus in a 2 foot tank - more than a little depressing.
"There was an upstairs too," Will added. So we trooped upstairs, right into a taxonomy museum complete with a fox, a badger, and lots of owls. The good thing was that once we had passed through the town's immense shell collection and seen the minature model of a clam catching fort (I guess we saw a lot for the price of admission to one aquarium) the sun had done its job outside and the temperature was walkable again. We bought sandwiches and desserts at a local patisserie and headed up the hill to a tiny park where we sat on a bench overlooking the town and the ocean while eating our lunch.
After that it was back to the train station, back to Bordeaux and, two hours later, back to Angers. Allison is coming up to visit me this weekend and my two week vacation starts right after my 5th class tomorrow afternoon! Things are well.