Ma belle vie angevine!

Sorry it's been a while since I last wrote - life just comes like gusts of wind, and when you are swept away, all you can do is ride it out until you find sure footing again. So, the past two weeks have passed quite quickly, and one better than the other. The major news I have right now is that I am leaving tomorrow morning for Strasbourg (eastern France), and then I'm spending the rest of the week in Germany (Munich, Berlin, and Bremen)!!! An american friend I met here (who happens to have the same initials, the same birthday - different year, and who studies at UNC! A bit creepy, right? lol) is coming with me, and I am so excited that I will have someone on my adventures! It's been pretty interesting organizing this trip all by myself (with Mckenzie, but no adults, etc.) and I have to confess I am a bit nervous, while also definitely excited! A quick prayer now and then would be greatly appreciated!!!

Last week was full of its particular adventures, one being the stress of planning this trip (I need to relax, I know), and the other was the Valentine's Day party I attended. It was organized by a student organization in the institutes for languages, education, communication, and something else (they are called BDUs). I thought it was going to be in a night club, which would have been an interesting experience, but in actuality it was in a large room the BDU rented. Throughout the night, I could help but feel like I had stumbled upon a high school dance (with the addition of bar), and the music never ceased to amaze :) People dance to Aretha Franklin's "Think," but as soon as a song came on with more of a beat, everyone zoomed to the bar. lol Very amusing. It would have simply been an interesting social experience had I not found out at the end of the night that someone stole 20 euros and two tickets for the university restaurant out of my wallet. (I left my purse with the students of the BDU, as everyone else did...there were security guards there, etc. I thought it should be safe. Stupid, stupid Marie-Claire. Never again). It is really impossible to trace such a simple theft (I'm lucky they didn't touch my camera, phone, or credit cards!!!!) So, it happened, as it inevitably had to - the traditional theft abroad. With luck, that will be my only theft experience!

I have also been entrenching myself in some French litterature these past two weeks, and have absolutely loved it! So nice to have my assigned texts be NOVELS. I really do love litterature, so these classes have been a real pleasure. It's been a bit hectic thise week getting everything organized, and even though I have lots of time free each day, I've felt a bit pressed. I have really come to treasure the slow time I have in the afternoon to sit outside reading one of my books (it's so mild here - 50s/60s and no winter at all!), and when I get back from vacation, I am going to be sure to take advantage of these opportunities when I can!!!

Allrighty. My itenerary for the following week (February 23 to March 2):
Saturday: leave Angers at 9:37 and arrive in Strasbourg at 14:43 (with an hour in Paris - my first view of the city! Too bad I have to bussle about.)
Sunday: Strasbourg
Monday: Leave for Munich at 9:47...arrive at 14:17.
Tuesday: Munich
Wednesday: Leave Munich at 11:55 (by plane) and arrive in Berlin at 13:05
Thursday: Berlin
Friday: leave Berlin at 14:18 and arrive in Bremen at 18:06 (I'm going to visit Trevor - yay!!!) At this point, we split up and Mckenzie goes to Oldenburg, which is fairly close to Bremen - she has a friend there.)
Saturday: Bremen!
Sunday: Flight from Bremen to Paris at 18:45 - arrive in Paris at 20:15 and take the last train to Angers to end a crazy wonderful week!

We have made a list of the sites that interest us in each city, but we want to leave it with a degree of opennes - see what we can see, do what we can do. Even if it is a very active week, I don't want it full in a stressful, unpleasant way. So we'll see! I love and miss you all - I'll be sure to write a post as soon as I get back to let you all know 1. that I'm safe and sound and 2. all that I did!!

Love, Marie-Claire

P.S. Captions: My family in Angers - Marika (Japanese student staying for February), Joselyne (my host mother), and Alexandra (the French student renting a room), the ancient hospital of Saint-Jean/ the Jean Lurcat Museum (contemporary artist...has some very interesting tapistries!), a pretty picture of Angers from la Doutre (part of the city on the other side of la Maine - the river that cuts through and eventually joins the Loire), some of my friends preparing some Sunday dinner cooking (we had a get potluck sort of dinner two sundays ago), and finally Bouchmaine, a little village just outside of Angers with a walkway beside la Maine (Joselyne and I took a Sunday stroll ^_^)

P.P.S. I will be pretty much unreachable this week - no cell phone, since I don't have a German SIM card (although I am taking it just in case, don't worry!), and no internet really (and I'm not taking my laptop - my tangent would get way too stressed out, poor dear.)

Putting everything in its proper place.

It's been a while since I last wrote, and a lot of lovely things have happened. The past week and a half have been very focused on finding courses, making my way through the French education system, etc, etc, and while last week this was definitely caused some stress, I think I finally have everything worked out! Ok. My classes (note - in France, you take 30 credits a semester, and that equals into around 10 classes. I'm only taking 24 credit hours, which equals 12 credit hours in the US -the minimum I can take to be a full time student. These courses also only really meet once a week for several hours at a time. Pretty different!):
Allemand Grammaire et Thème - German Grammar and Translation (I know, I'm in France, but I have to keep it up! The professor is really nice, too!)
Allemand Expression Orale - German Oral Expression (small class - 1 credit)
Allemand Actualités - The News in German-speaking countries (another 1-credit...I think it will be very interesting and challenging - it's a course for students who are studying German as their first foreign language instead of their second, so it's a bit more intense, but in a good way.)
Explication de Texte - French method of analysing litterature, etc. We're working with La Princesse de Clèves [Mme de Lafayette] a pretty interesting historical fiction from the 17th century that deals with court intrigues, etc.
Littérature et Musique (I think I'm giong to just sit in and listen to this one [i.e. not take an exam/ write a paper at the end...there are exchange students who are doing that!], since I already have 24 credits, but it discusses music, culture, etc. in France in the 17h century - works with my course on La Princesse de Clèves and is pretty interesting.)
Poétique - Litterature course on how to analyse the characters in novels (while working with two specific novels - Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein [Marguerite Duras] and La Peste [Camus]
Francais Langue Etrangère - course created specifically for the exchange students to help hone our french skills.
Art, Langues, et Patrimoine - this is actually a very unique course and I'm quite exited to have been selected (only 20 spots between french and exchange students!) We meet on Friday/Saturday six times during the semester and learn about specific sites in the region surrounding Angers. Friday = classroom time - learning vocab, etc. Saturday = excursion to the site we discussed! Pretty sweet, eh?
Now that I've sufficiently bored you, I can tell you what else I've been doing. Last weekend me and some other exchange students took a trip to Nantes (bigger city about 40 min away from Angers), and we had a marvelous time! We ate at a lovely restaurant (where the day's special included an appetizer, main course, and a desert, all of which was very delicious. I was pretty proud of myself - I was the only one to order a pâté for my appetizer, since my host mother introduced it to me. It's hard to describe and have it sound appetizing at the same time, but it's quite good and very French. A mixture of meat and seasoning in a slab form??? See what I mean?)visited the town castle and cathedrale, and did a bit of shopping (even if I only bought post cards. ^_^). A very full and satisfying day.
It feels really good to finally know my schedule! Today, I only had one course - Allemand Actualités (in which I finally pushed my shyness aside and talked to some French students!) - that ended at 10am, so I read some at the BU (Biblothèque Universitaire - a french student taught me that today. lol), went to lunch at the University Restaurant with a friend, and then had the rest of the afternoon to free! I spent sometime reading La Princesse de Clèves (the book for Explication de Texte) at the gardens connected to the Musée des Beaux-Arts (which I visited Sunday - there were some very lovely exhibits) then wandered a bit around town, shopped, and then found a café/patisserie where I could do a bit more reading. I ordered a Grande Crème, as my Dad told me I HAD to drink coffee in France, so I could say I tried, and I can't say that I really liked it. lol Ah well - hot chocolate it is! On the way back home, I bought a couple regional chocolates to taste test. One is called le Toit d'Angers (the Roof of Angers) and is blue, like the traditional roofs of the region. Funny, non? There were all very interesting to try, and quite good. I've had a rather perfect day in France (while being productive!!!).

Pictures: Le Château des ducs de Bretagne, me and a statue by the castle (no idea why she was important, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to ham up to the camera ^_^), la Cathédrale de Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul, me and my lovely sipping chocolate, and Me and my Dad??? (i.e. a chain of restaurants - again, had to be a ham)