The Knights of the Round Table

Bonjour!
   It was an incredible day here in Rennes, 61 degrees and sunny. Definitely the nicest day we had so far. Being that most of us have no school on Friday we decided to get a jump on the day and go out to the Parc Tabour which everyone has been telling us is really nice. The park was in fact incredible and it was exciting to see all the groundskeeping activity which means that it will be getting even better as the semester continues. There will be lots of fountains which are currently empty but I imagine should be getting filled soon. It was very French, lots of picnics and we ran into a couple of people from school and joined theirs for a while. Tomorrow we have been invited on a trip to visit King Arthur's Forest. Sounds very interesting especially if the weather stays nice. We are slightly confused about the fact that we are in France and King Arthur was British but we are going with it for now. Classes are good, we have started our conferences for our History and Culture class. We each have to give a 20 minute long oral presentation and it is intimidating to say the least. So far we have been working on the period of time right after world war one. Another post coming soon, right after the Rennes v. Nice game!
Parc Tabour

 Statue in Parc Tabour

 Me in front of the currently dry waterfall

 Stairs to no where

 Birds in the Aviary

 Parc Tabour Aviary

 Goldfish!

 We already have flowers!

 Another Statue

 Pictures from Cait's visit

 Musee de Beau Arts

 Market Trip

Love from France!

My Life in France

Salut!
   It has been a whole month since I arrived in France and it is hard to believe already that much time has passed. This week was another busy one as classes are in full swing. I have signed my class contract and am now officially enrolled in Constitutional Law of the 5th Republic of France, Law of the European Union, Comparative Politics, History and Civilization of France, French Language and Sociology of the Israeli Palestinen Conflict. It is a lot, two more classes than I would normally take in the States but here classes only meet once a week for two hours at a time. I also am supposed to drop one class, they want us to budget in the fact that we might fail at least one class. It is rather intimidating because even students who were here last semester are worried about grades. Crossing my fingers and working hard!
  Wednesday was a religious holiday which the French use as an excuse to eat crepes. We were invited to dinner at Helene's, a 4th year from school, and spent the evening rotating in and out of French and English. I did learn that all the French students who have studied abroad in the States love Jon Stewart as much as I do!
  On Thursday night I went to my first theatre piece at the Theatre National de Bretagne. It was called La vie est un reve ( life is a dream). It was really complicated but quite amazing and the acting was incredible. The play was very modern and the set was as well. I went with my second year mentor Dimitri and we managed to get front row center seats. I have never been so close to the stage. After the show the student ticket organizer from the theatre invited Dimitri and I to have drinks with the actors in the lounge so we were able to meet a couple of them and speak to them about their experience. One of the best nights in Rennes so far. I go to see Leaves at the same theatre in a few weeks.
   We have started a new tradition in the dorm, Brinner on Fridays. Everyone was quite jealous of our french toast and bacon. It was a challenge finding everything we needed for a real american Brinner but in the end we even managed to find maple syrup from Canada. It wasn't quite the amazing syrup from where I am from but it was pretty good considering we are in France. Our friends from Europe were interested to know that people from the States eat breakfast for dinner so often.
   Hopefully we will catch some of the Superbowl tonight and then its back to school early tomorrow morning. Have a great week!

Breakfast at Coffee Crêpes

Good Evening from France!
    Almost February and its chilly here in Rennes. This past weekend was very exciting because Caitie Clarke came to visit and we got in a lot of activities. Friday we made breakfast at the dorm and shopped around town a little. Then we went to the Musée de Beaux-Arts in Rennes and spent two hours looking at some very cool art. After we took a little shop around the Soldes, sales here in France. Tried out some sushi at a restaurant near the square and I have to say its just as good here as it is in the US, if not better. The market on Saturday was another big success purchased my first kilo of mussels and made another trip to my cheese guy for some gruyere. Dinner was amazing, mussels in white wine, garlic and butter over pasta. We are enjoying the use of our new pots and pans after our big group trip to IKEA. Also I finally have bedding, its a little funky but will do well for a few months. This next week should be good, I finally have picked out my classes and sign my final class contract this week. Also I am attending the National Theatre of Bretagne to see La vie est un rêve with my theatre group. We also bought tickets for a soccer game in February Rennes v. Nice should be good! Enjoy the photos look for updates on the show after Thursday!
Cait being very excited about our trip to the market.

 Cait taking gorgeous photos

 Church down the way

 Local church in our Square

 Cait in front of our dinner, Mussels! (or moules in french)

Notes from a small city

Salut!
Another week already gone from my great european adventure. Real classes started this week which was certainly interesting. Just as we all thought we had settled we had to run around trying to find new classrooms and listen to 2 hours long lectures of a french professor talking in monotone into a microphone. It is a bit of an intense experience at first but I think eventually I will get used it. I just have to get really good at taking lots of notes in french. All of my exams in my smaller classes will be oral presentations to the class so that will certainly be interesting. Some of the students who have been here since August were helpful with picking topics, some were not but I guess thats the french way. We have almost finished all of our paperwork missions, just a couple more this week and then I should be legal in this country (finally). Biggest news of the week is that Caitlin Clarke is coming to visit this coming Thursday, I am quite ecstatic. Look for lots of crazy shopping and food adventures once she gets here! Another big market day today, got my hands on some gruyere which will be gone in a day because it is even better than I remember. I met my marrain and parrian this week, my two mentor students at school who are both extremely nice and have already gotten me involved in the theatre group and made lunch plans with me. It is nice to have people at school looking out for all of us. Big task of the upcoming week is to find some places to take Cait to dinner and a decent laundrymat. All my love from France. For those of you in Burlington, stay strong the cold will pass eventually!

Our weekend hallway antics:

 Guy from the market with his very strange instrument:

 Mussels! Once I have a pan to cook them, I will eat them every day!

Fellow L'IEP students from left to right: Jennifer, Colin, Mariela, Tom, Jose and Ale

 Jennifer, Tom and Colin

 Rennes Opera

Have a great week!

A Series of Fortunate Events

Greetings from across the pond!
    This week has been another one of settling and learning the ropes. Finally made some progress on opening a bank account (even though at every turn came up against obstacles like banks being closed on Mondays?!) and should also receive (finally) my student ID card this week. French class has been good. We watched L'auberge espagnole, good film if you know anything about all the EU countries. Did not fully appreciate the movie the last time I saw it but now as an international exchange student myself so many of the jokes were incredibly applicable to my life here. In addition we did a unit on labor laws and professions in France and had a cool conversation between our French teacher, a student from Switzerland and some of us from the US. International relations at work. All of our elected officials should have to spend some time chatting with people from other countries on an informal basis, it certainly provides new perspectives. Saturday I was invited to a pick up soccer game (it was 54 degrees and pretty sunny) so I went and played with an extremely international group of players all of whom were guys except me. Learned a lot of new français familier, which is good because that is what we are working on in class at the moment. We have grown our vocabularies considerably, there are a lot of phrases they just don't teach you in the states. No pictures again, it has been kind of rainy and dark. Once the sky clears up I will hopefully post some pics of school and other places we go frequently. Definitely of our favorite little boulangerie (bakery) where I pick up our bread and daily mystery dessert. Thank goodness I walk an average of 3 to 5 miles a day or I would be gaining a ton of weight just from Pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants). Please post addresses those of you who want to get postcards. Finally found a post office and will be sending the first batch soon.
      All my love from France!

Week two and finally some photos!

Hello!
Yet another eventful day here in France. Ran around for another hour trying to find a bank open on Mondays, apparently most banks here are closed on Sundays and Mondays ( I cannot imagine what would happen in banks in the states tried to do this) and we all needed to open bank accounts asap. So found one and spent a good half hour trying to sign bank contracts with a woman who spoke no English. Thank goodness I have learned the smile and nod. Surprising I understood almost everything. I will soon be outfitted with a french bank card and proceed with my blending in. I finally have some photos for all of you. These first few are from the Marche de Lices which is the big food market on Saturday mornings here in the town square and then there are a few of my dorm. Warning: the photos are legitimate and my room is, yes, about the size of a closet. In addition my mailing address is ( I believe):
Morgan E. Saunders
Cité Université Patton
125 A
12 Rue de Houx
35700 Rennes France
     Love from France! Enjoy the Photos

 

Week One: Figuring out what on earth we are all doing.

Salut!
     I hope that everyone had a good new year. I am now in Rennes France and have begun my orientation here at Institut d'Etudes Politiques. The rest of the students are in finals from last semester so only the international students have classes. As of right now we are only in one french language class that meets for a couple hours each day. When it falls in the morning it is extremely difficult to get up because it stays dark here much later in the morning than in the US. The rest of the time we all run around figuring out where to eat, how to open bank accounts and do all the paperwork so as not to get deported. I am living in one of the university dorms where I live with other international students and regular students from IEP, Rennes 1 and Rennes 2. Those are the three major universities here. I live in a single but it very small, trust the French to be economical. There is a pretty intense system of buses and metro here so we are all still figuring out how that all works. Postcards will start coming to people once I find the post office! A couple of the other American students and the Mexican students and I went out for crepes last night. Crepes are a speciality in Bretagne and dinner crepes are gallets. I had one with cheese, egg and ham. Amazing! I cannot wait to have enough room in my stomach one of these days for a dessert crepe, with nutella of course. I have some pictures and things on my wall but it is still a little bare so my only request from all of you is small things to hang up. It is very yellow at present. Once I get my camera batteries charged there will be pictures soon. Love from France!