Espagne Part 1: Barcelona

Telephone Pictionary

¡Hola everyone! I’ve been back from Spain for over a week and I still have the urge to say por favor and gracias for please and thank you—probably not the best habit to be in while I’m in France, oh well. My eight days in Barcelona, Seville, and Madrid were exciting, adventure-filled, and exhausting. I was a bit concerned that traveling by train would be really time-consuming and boring, but the hours flew by between playing games with my friends, studying for classes, watching the countryside whip by, and napping. We all had a good laugh playing telephone Pictionary, where one person writes a sentence then passes the paper to another person who must draw an illustration for that sentence, fold over the original sentence and pass it to the next person who writes a caption for that picture, folds over the previous picture, and passes it to another person to draw a picture, etc. By the time the paper makes it all the way around the group, the final illustration is hilariously different from the original sentence.

Goofing around on the train

Garden House Hostel Barcelona, continental breakfast

By the time we got to Barcelona, it was after 11pm. We were so excited to have made it to Spain, but it was too late to explore a new city in the dark of night, so we took the metro to our ‘hood, found our hostel, and hit the sack. I had heard some unfavorable things about the cleanliness and safety of hostels, but the one we were in was beautiful. It well decorated, had a full kitchen, and gave our group a nice big room (with a locking door) all to ourselves, so we didn’t have to worry about our stuff being stolen. We also had a private balcony from our room—it was a shame we only got to stay there two nights!

Kathryn with a street performer on Las Ramblas

On Saturday, our first full day in Spain, we took the metro downtown to hit the major tourist attractions, armed with digital cameras and a map of Barcelona. We walked along Las Ramblas, the most famous street in the city, and encountered an overwhelming number of street performers and vendors. I had my money, passport, and train tickets in my [very attractive] money belt, but I still held my purse in front of my body because of all the warnings I had heard about Barcelona being the pickpocket capital of the world. Luckily none of us encountered any thieves, but I can definitely see how distracted tourists would make easy targets there.

Eventually we made our way to The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (AKA the Sagrada Família), Antoni Gaudí’s architectural masterpiece. It was started in 1882, and is expected to be completed in 2026. Even though it’s not finished, it was still absolutely breathtaking to visit. I was thoroughly impressed by the façade of the building and the way Gaudí made the church look like it’s a giant sand castle. However, the front is nothing compared to the beauty of the interior, which looks like a holy jungle with the many intricate tree-like columns leading the eye up toward the heavens. The more I saw of Sagrada Família, the more I was taken aback by the level of detail and perfection Gaudí achieved without even having any formal artistic training. I’m already planning on returning when I’m 36 so I can see the finished product.

A few people in our group (including the only two Spanish speakers) had been to Barcelona before, so they left on Sunday morning to explore Córdoba, leaving six of us to fend for ourselves a couple days. It was a bit difficult not knowing the language, but we made do pretty well with hola (hello), gracias (thank you), lo siento (sorry), dónde está (where is), cuánto cuesto (how much), and adiós (goodbye). On Sunday, the six of us remaining in Barça had a relaxing time visiting Port Vell and walking along the Mediterranean Sea. We sat down on the edge of the boardwalk to enjoy the beautiful view, but almost got attacked by a flock of seagulls! During our walk, we watched a salsa dancing competition in the streets, stumbled upon an open-air antique market, and found 20€ on the ground.

IWU trio with the mosaic dragon

On Monday, we got up early to catch an organized tour of Barcelona’s Old City, which was 3 hours long, but very interesting (and luckily in English!). We were able to see and learn about parts of the city we never would have known about otherwise. Later, we headed to Park Güell, an architectural marvel and beautiful garden designed by none other than Antoni Gaudí of Sagrada Família fame. We made our way up the precipitous climb we later dubbed “Rocky Balboa Hill” and towered above Barcelona—a truly magnificent sight. Even the enormous Sagrada Família looked tiny from the summit of the hill. As we made our way down, we saw countless souvenir vendors selling everything from earrings and scarves to painted rocks and fake designer sunglasses. Before heading out, we all waited in line to take pictures with the famous mosaic dragon at the front of the park. My friends were getting anxious to leave because they kept hearing an annoying high-pitched tone that hurt their ears. Apparently this high frequency pitch can only be heard by those under the age of 25 or so, and is used to solve loitering problems. I thought they were making the whole thing up because I couldn’t hear a thing… I guess I’m just an old lady.

We spent the rest of the night hanging out on Las Ramblas before heading back to the hostel reasonably early to get sleep before our 8 am train ride to Seville the next morning. Stay tuned for the details of my adventures in Seville and Madrid!

IES politics

I know I said I probably wasn't going to post until after break, but today is worth writing about un petit peu. After lunch, IES held elections for President and Vice President of the program. These student representatives will work with the program directors and social coordinator to communicate the needs of the group, as well as organize meetings, activities, and announcements for the program as necessary. I must have missed the memo about this election, because I heard about it for the first time today and showed up at the last minute to the meeting place. Be that as it may, I arrived in time to see my friend Jose become President and to put forward my candidature for the VP position. And guess what? I am now the Spring 2011 IES Vice President! My first order of business was to eat dessert.

Immediately after the election, we had a party celebrating the February birthdays. Only three of the 80 students in the program were born in February and only one of them even showed up to the party. That didn't stop us from celebrating like a bunch of gluttonous gourmands. This month's cake was a rich chocolate with caramel sauce drizzled on top. So delicious!

Dinner party

Lately it seems my life has switched focus from exploring the city and meeting new people to studying for classes and getting together with friends. Last Wednesday, I had my first midterm in grammar class, which focused on the past tense (passé composé, imparfait, plus-que-parfait), prepositions, and vocabulary. The test was quite challenging, but I feel pretty confident. Good thing I had excellent instruction when I learned this material the first time around (shout-out to Mesdames Bowe-Wielgus et Rettler!). I've noticed that there are fewer homework assignments and quizzes here than in the US. For most of my classes, my final grade will consist of a midterm exam, a final exam, and possibly one paper or project. I've already been assigned most of the work for the semester, so I should probably start working ahead...otherwise I'll be pulling out all my hair right around the middle of April when everything is due.

In other news, my host parents are on vacation to Île Maurice (near Madagascar) until this Thursday. My 17-year-old host sister Adélaïde and I have been bonding and enjoying having the house to ourselves. A few days ago (with permission from the host 'rents), I had a group of friends over to cook dinner and hang out at the house. We bought a bunch of vegetables, egg noodles, and turkey to make a stir-fry. We couldn't find teriyaki sauce anywhere, so we had to make our own with soy sauce and sugar. For dessert my friend Julia brought a rum flavored cake unique to the region called a Nantais. To say it's "rum flavored" is an understatement--I imagine one bite of this cake is pretty much the gustatory equivalent of a straight shot of Captain Morgan. Blech. At least the meal was wonderful!

Appetizer: baguettes with brie & goat cheese

Delicious stir-fry

Bon appétit!

 Starting this Friday (Feb 25) through March 6, I will be on winter break. A group of 8 friends (everyone at the dinner party plus a couple more) and I are going to Spain! We'll be spending time in Barcelona, Seville, and Madrid seeing the sights and living the life. Not counting the Spanish 1 class I endured senior year of high school, I don't have a background in Spanish and know little of the language except useless phrases like "I do my homework" and "you like to go shopping." Luckily a couple people in our group are fluent in Spanish, so we won't be completely hopeless wandering around the country. So, my next blogpost will most likely be after March 6th and I'll have plenty to say about my vaycay!

Field Trip

Yesterday IES organized a day trip for us to visit Saint-Malo and Mont Saint-Michel, which are a couple hours north of Nantes and on the English Channel. When I left the house at 7am, it was gloomy and rainy, but it by the time we arrived at St. Malo, it turned out to be a perfectly beautiful day.

St. Malo is a gorgeous port city and the most visited place in the region of Brittany. We walked all the around Saint-Malo on the ramparts, the wall circumventing and protecting the city. From the Great Wall of St. Malo, we were able to peer down on a traveling carnival, hundreds of creperies & seafood restaurants, and the ocean. I still can't believe this is actually my life. 

François-René de Chateaubriand's tomb in the background

After circling the whole place from above, we were able to roam the city freely in search of lunch. Despite the fact that Saint-Malo has one of the highest concentrations of seafood restaurants in all of Europe, some friends and I decided to skip on fish and went for crêpes instead (Yes, again. I'll never get sick of them!). We must have been a bit early for lunchtime, because we were the only ones in the whole place. After eating, we headed down to the beach to frolic on the sand and touch the ocean. The water was frigid, but I'm proud to say I've felt the English Channel between my fingers.

Skipping along the beach

We then rode the bus about an hour east and found ourselves at our second destination for the day: Mont Saint-Michel. This island city used to only be accessible at low-tide, but thanks to modern technology and common sense, a causeway was built enabling tourists to visit regardless of the water level. 

It's pretty much an unwritten study abroad rule to take a
jumping picture in front of every cool place you visit

According to Wikipedia, 41 people live there year-round, which is strange to think about considering there is one skinny road up to the top which is constantly teeming with tourists. This street is also lined with eateries and souvenir shops--one of the guys in my program bought a fully-functional crossbow there! 

Reaching the pinnacle was quite the workout, but the strong sense of accomplishment and stunning view were well worth the muscle fatigue. 

Now it's time to snap out of tourist-mode and get back to studying and doing homework for my classes tomorrow. Have a great week, and happy Valentines Day!

Spring has Sprung

Working for IES, there's a social coordinator (Elise) who plans and/or finds activities and events for us to go to throughout the semester. Typically, there are two or three events per week that she lets us know about. The last couple days I attended the suggested events hosted by the university, which were a lot more fun than I was expecting.

Last night was the Soirée d'accueil (Welcome party) for foreign students studying in Nantes. I was expecting this to be a pretty laid back meet-and-greet type event, but it turned out to be quite the party. When I got there, I filled out a name tag and wrote "USA" to indicate my home country. I was then given a yellow bracelet to let everyone know I speak French and am willing to mingle and speak in that language (native French speakers willing and able to converse in English wore blue bracelets). Next to the name tag/bracelet table, there was a large map on which to place a sticker denoting your country of origin. It was really neat to see that there were students at this event from all over the world.

Band performance and dancing outside the welcome party

 The whole student center was jam-packed with students speaking dozens of different languages, I could barely move, let alone hear my conversations over the music and everyone else's voices. I met an interesting girl from Germany who is working as a research assistant at the University of Nantes and I chatted with her for a while before we parted ways to continue mingling. After that, I started talking with a group of girls from Nantes who were very friendly--one of them even complimented me on my French accent! We took our conversation outside so we could actually hear each other and chatted for an hour or two. It was interesting discussing our perceptions & stereotypes of the other culture, exchanging slang phrases & idioms, and telling stories about our respective high school and college experiences. We exchanged Facebook information, so perhaps we'll meet up again while I'm here.

Tonight there was another event at the fac: a glow-stick ice skating shindig. Again, there were so many people there plus they didn't zambo the ice after the hockey practice that proceeded the event, but it was still an excellent time. I haven't been on the ice in quite some time, so it felt great to get out and skate (and in France, too!). We headed home fairly early so we could get some sleep before our 7:45 am field trip tomorrow. We're heading to the beautiful Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo for the day!

Having fun at the patinoire

Oh, and I just want to take a moment to gush about how gorgeous is was here today. It's usually pretty cloudy and/or rainy here, but today the sun was abundant and the sky was blue! Sorry to those of you back home with below-zero windchill, but I spent the afternoon walking along the river (in short sleeves!) and enjoying a chocolate picnic with some friends. I can definitely get used to living like this.

Hooray for Spring!

Part of my picturesque walk home from IES

Food!

 I'm going to be in France/Europe for another 16 weeks or so, but I am already dreading the return to cafeteria food. Don't get me wrong, IWU provides good meals, but they just don't compare to what I've been eating as of late. Fresh-baked bread, crisp crêpes, and glorious galettes--all filled with, covered in, and/or accompanied by cheese. Back home, cheese pretty much makes up its own food group in my diet; needless to say I'm quite enjoying the abundance of fromage here. Another wonderful thing about food in France is how quickly one can get their hands on a delicious lunch. Less than 4 minutes after I spotted this bakery on the street, I was enjoying the taste of toasted baguette, fromage, jambon goodness (food-heating and picture-taking time accounted for). 

Gourmet lunch on-the-go 

Gallette with ham, cheese, egg, and spinach

 I am quickly becoming addicted to galettes and crêpes. They're essentially the same thing, but galettes are made with buckwheat flour and are usually filled with cheese, meat, veggies, etc (for the main course) and crêpes are made with wheat flour and typically are covered in chocolate, caramel, jam, etc (for dessert). Yesterday after conversation club, some friends and I went to a crêperie to enjoy some traditional French cuisine. Apparently February is (un)officially the national month of crêpes, so I was just performing my civic duty. And if I needed further reason, crêpes/galettes originated in the Brittany region of France, of which Nantes was the historical capital. Luckily they don't seem too difficult to make, so perhaps I can sustain this new addiction after this semester.

Chocolate and raspberry crêpe

                         Chocolate and banana crêpe                                       Caramel crêpe

While restaurant and made-to-order bakery items are delectable dietary staples, it's also cost-efficient (and fun!) to get French groceries and make my own lunch most of the time. I bought some snack items just because the packaging looked interesting and others because friends recommended certain things to me, but everything I've tried had been really good. I love the chocolate sandwich smiley-face cookies, but I should probably slow down on my consumption before I gain a few too many kilograms. Peanut butter is really hard to find here (I brought the jar pictured below with me from the good ol' USA), but the French alternatives really give it a run for its money. Nutella is suuuper good, but easy to find back home so that's old news. Speculoos, on the other hand, I had never seen or tasted before. The best way I can describe the flavor is that it tastes like Teddy Grahams in spreadable form. So good. I bought a pack of plain cookie/wafer things just so I would have something to put Speculoos on, but I'm sure it would be good straight from the jar.

Snack time, France style

Don't worry, I'm not just filling up on French junk food. I'm also living off baguette sandwiches with sliced meat, cheese, and lettuce. You can buy a three foot long baguette for just 0.88€! Not to mention it's fresh and heavenly.

Baguette with fromage de chèvre (goat cheese)

As a final note, a shout out to my brother, Henry: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

La Vie Nantaise

Now that classes are in full swing, the days seem to fly by. It seems like this week just started, but here we are already on Saturday! Now that it’s officially February, I have been able to use my monthly pass for the TAN (Transports de l'Agglomération Nantaise), meaning I can take the bus or tram whenever I want and I no longer have to compost individual tickets for each ride. Now I don’t have to feel guilty or fiscally irresponsible about exploring the outer reaches of the city or taking the tram to the end of the line just to see watch it switch tracks. I've accumulated quite the stash of ID cards!

TAN pass, University of Nantes Student ID card,
SUAPS card, Library card, International Student ID card

This past week I took advantage of the SUAPS for the first time, which are the sports/gym classes at the university. I went to a rock climbing lesson and open climb session, and had a lot of fun! The instructor was very nice and made sure we understood how all the equipment worked before we started climbing. Another IES student and a guy named David were also first-time attendees, so the three of us got a walkthrough of how to tie the knots, proper belay technique, and climbing tips. Luckily I have experience climbing back home, because it would have been very difficult to follow his rapid demonstration if that had been my first time. Plus, the teacher left a lot of important safety information out so I pretty much just relied on my Upper Limits instruction. Once we were done ‘learning’, we were able to climb on our own. It was much more difficult without special rock climbing shoes, but I still managed to reach the top of several walls. I’m looking forward to making this a weekly adventure.

Climbing wall at the University of Nantes

On Thursdays I’m done with classes by 1pm, so I have plenty of time in the afternoon to spend however I want. This week it was in the 50s and fairly sunny, so I decided to take a leisurely stroll around my neighborhood before heading home. I live in a gorgeous part of Nantes, very near to several beautiful & historic churches as well as the Erdre River. My bus stop is just beyond St. Donatien church, so I walk past the back of it twice every day. However, it wasn’t until this day that I actually walked down the block and around the corner to view it from the front. I thought the back was pretty, but the front is way better!

The front of Saint Donatien

After finally viewing all angles of my bus-stop’s namesake, I continued my promenade down to the river. I’m not sure what I’ve been doing the last three weeks, because this was also my first time down to the Erdre. There’s a nice path all along the edge of the river where lots of Nantais were running, walking their dogs, and biking. I tried to take pictures of the view and the boats rowing by without looking too conspicuous or touristy. I probably failed miserably, but at least I got some decent pics.

L'Erdre

I bumped into my friend Devin from IES (and IWU) on the path, then the two of us decided to explore together and find the Isle of Versailles, a Japanese garden themed island off the river. It almost felt like a mini Asian vacation.

After class on Friday, a group of us took one of the tram lines all the way to the end, where we found a giant mall with an IKEA. None of us were in the market for Swedish furniture, but it was fun to look around and take advantage of the abundant photo-ops. On the way home, my friend Alyssa and I shared a tram car with what seemed like an entire kindergarten class, which to say the least was absolutely adorable! They were all speaking so quickly and excitedly (in French, of course!) and were dressed so stylishly. There were so many of them and they were so cute that I thought about taking one, but decided kidnapping is probably just as illegal here as in the States.

Yay for IKEA!

Today (Saturday) I got up early to meet a few friends and go to several outdoor markets. The first market, at Médiatheque (a tram stop close to IES), was a much larger venue than I was anticipating. Tents and tables full of everything from shoes and purses to live seafood and fresh bread extended as far as the eye could see. The food section confused my senses because one minute I would inhale deeply and enjoy the smell of baguettes, cheese, and fresh meat, then the wind would shift direction or we would keep walking and suddenly my nose would be ambushed by fishy nastiness. After the Médiatheque market, we took the tram to the better known Viarme-Talensac market. The first area of this market was similar to a flea market (or the Fleazaar) with a bunch of used items, artwork, and antiques. I enjoyed checking out all the old jewelry and books, but didn’t buy anything. Down the hill a bit there was another part of the market, which had an outdoor part with more flea markety items (I found and bought some cute shot glasses there) and an indoor section full of different food vendors. By this time it was approaching lunch time, so we ducked inside to find quelque chose à manger. I ended up eating a fresh baguette with little morsels of ham baked in and cheese melted on top. Yes, it was just as delicious as it sounds.

Fruit at Médiatheque

Bags, books, and clothes at Médiatheque

Kathryn ordering lunch at Talensac

Later in the afternoon (after a much needed nap), I went with some other IES students to my first French hockey game: Corsaires de Nantes vs. Les Galaxians Amneville. It definitely wasn’t the most skilled hockey I’ve ever seen, but it was still a lot of fun. Henry, you should learn a few key French phrases and move out here for the season, you’d be their star defenseman! I left the game after the first 2 periods so I could be home in time to eat dinner with my family, but I heard later that Nantes lost the game. I guess I’ll just have to go to another one to see the home team win.

Not the most exciting video... Nantes is black/blue

As you can see, I had quite an eventful week! Thanks for reading :)