Crazy Causeys Come to Europe.

So... my family came to visit! After quite a long day of travelling and almost losing Thomas in the metro, they made it to the hotel in Paris, where I met up with them after class a few hours later. They were so jet lagged! We spent a few days in Paris, saw the Eiffel  Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, and did a day trip to the beaches of Normandy again. (It was my second time of course, but I got to see some different things, including the ocean because it wasn't as foggy as the last time).

However, the highlight of Paris was probably our segway tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours. Yes, a segway tour. Haha, I was so skeptical at first, but the combination of our awesome tour guide with a mustache and an Aussie accent, the hilarity and awesomeness of riding segways, and finally getting to see Paris in a wider context made it a wonderful night! I'd been to Paris twice before, but I never felt like I really knew the city; it is hard to get a grip on its vastness, so the tour was really cool. I also learned so much more about the history, like about the German general who, disobeying Hitler, refused to burn Paris and  let the Allies take it without contest.

Then, I got to show my family Nantes! It was so wonderful. I'm so lucky to be able to have this experience, and then even luckier to be able to share with them and show them this place that's been my home this semester. We ate at a crêperie and my favorite pizzeria, saw the Chateau, my home, the university, the IES center, the Jardin des Plantes, the Machines de l'Île. The only downside was that they couldn't meet all my host family, because they were on vacation as well, but in the South of France. They did get to meet one of my host brothers though, and they were very impressed with his English :)

My family said they loved Nantes more than Paris (success!). We had absolutely beautiful weather, and  I think the fact that I  know exactly where all the good pastries, ice cream, and chocolate shops are in Nantes definitely helped :) It was just such a happy time spending the break with them; I couldn't have asked for anything more. They also got to meet two of my best friends here, Rachel la Petite, who stayed with us in Paris, and Jordan, who met us for lunch in N-Ville. We had so much fun, and I think my friends probably understand me so much better now haha :)


When they left me at the train station to return to Paris for the flight back home, they were more than a few tears. Even though I love striking out on my own a bit and having great adventures,  I will always miss my family immensely, no matter where I am. I am so, incredibly, inexplicably, indescribably blessed with them. Seriously. Annnd, I get to see them in only a little bit over a week!




Obviously this post is really late, but I wanted to wait to upload it when I could include pictures. So, yeah...

Profitez-bien. The Final Countdown to 'Merica.

Bonjour à tous and à toutes. Well, today was my last Saturday in Nantes. These last few weeks, even though time has seemed to slow down a bit thankfully, have still been passing quicker than I would like. I'm such a roller coaster of emotions as the dreaded goodbye approaches. I am totally pumped to go back home. I've got my family, my friends (from whom I'm having serious withdrawals), an awesome job (summer camp), and warm weather to return to. But at the same time, I do NOT want this semester to end. Seriously, studying and living in a foreign country is such a thrill, so fun, so amazing, and I just don't want to leave. Sometimes, I even get a bit depressed. But I'm trying to avoid wasting my time with dread, and instead trying to profitez-bien, an awesome verb that means taking advantage of everything and living every day with vigor.

Some of the recent things I've done are: seeing the Hunger Games (amazing even in French), buying the book the Hunger Games (which will be even more amazing even in French), buying the last bit of souvenirs for my lovelies back home, going to Clisson with IES, a beautiful little Italian-inspired village known for its vineyards, playing laser tag with some church friends, going to the seaside with my host family, eating good stuff of course, and unfortunately, writing papers and studying. I still have a few more finals left, but honestly, je m'en fiche.  Haha I do care and I will study and do my best, but I'm not going to spend last few days here stressing and killing myself; I'm just going to focus on spending time with my host family and friends.

Confession: I committed the ultimate sin in writing tonight. I didn't plan before writing. Hence, I don't really know what the purpose of this blog is. Maybe it's something like: I love Nantes, I'm having a great time, but Saturday, May 12th is coming up way too fast. Il faut profiter!!!

Excuse my French

Ok, so I've been having the slightest worry that I've been accidentally cursing in French. There's this one phrase that I've started using, and I think it means "I don't care", but it could mean something stronger than that. So, in order to find out, I just looked up a list of bad words to see if it was on there. It wasn't. But there were a ton of other "gros mots" and phrases, along with their translations. Most were horrible of course, but some were just hilarious. Thus, the whole point of this blog post.

For example: (Translations only because they're funnier)

    1. "You have the body of a dog and the I.Q. of a five year old!"  

     Bah. Good one. Got the physical and the     intellectual side.

     2. "You are a potato with the face of a guinea pig!"

     How does that even work?? And what's with the combinations?                                                

     3. "You smell like beef and cheese!"                
                                                                       
     Hey now, that's just a quote from Elf. I bet he sits on a throne of lies, too.

I have a feeling that this website might not be the most credible, but hey, it was worth the laugh. If you don't hear from me for a while, it will probably be because I've died laughing after hearing one of these on the tram or something.


P.S. I found another website that says the phrase I've been using isn't a big deal; it's just a little informal. "Je m'en fiche."

Flowers, mountains, sea, and sunshine.

Now for a bit more cheery post. Éowyn and I travelled to Marseille and Aix-en-Provence the weekend after Normandie. We had been thinking Strasbourg for about three days, but then in about an hour's time we changed our minds completely, decided to head South, bought our tickets, and emailed her friend Hannah to see if we could crash her place for a few nights. It was such a whirlwind, but it was so much better than the usual stress that comes with planning travel. And it was an even better weekend.

We flew RyanAir and landed at MP2 airport, which is in between Aix and Marseille, so we decided to go to Marseille for the day before heading to Hannah's for the night. Marseille was awesome, a huge city completely different from the west of France, mountains in the background, Mediterranean in the foreground, and a whole bunch of diversity in the middleground (this sentence makes sense in my head, I hope in yours too). It was wonderful to shed our sweaters and admire the view from the top of Notre Dame de la Garde, a church set on top of a hill right in the middle of the city. We even got a bit of coup de soleil--sunburn. Uh oh. It's true that Marseille doesn't really feel like France, but it is France no matter what people say--a France that has lots of immigrants, lots of cultural diversity, and it can be cool to observe, despite all the controversy and problems that surround it.

Then we took a 45 minute shuttle ride to Aix-en-Provence, an absolutely charming little village that makes a grand contrast its metropolitan neighbor. The cute little buildings seemed to glow with their warm southern colors, and the tiny little streets make your head spin with all the unique shops and restaurants. Other than getting to know Éowyn's lovely friend Hannah, who was a fantastic hostess, the highlight was the big open-air market on Saturday. It was huge! The flower section was beautiful to see, and I found some super cute gifts for my peeps back home :) Oh, and there was also a woman singing Edith Piaf in the street. Semester made.


I absolutely loved the south of France; it was beautiful. But every time I travel, I become more and more thankful for Nantes. I am convinced that it's the best. More on that later, I could talk all day on that subject.

                                                                                                                           À tout à l'heure!

Normandie and Tough Questions.

Ok, so I have a ton of little posts to make. It's been a while since I last posted, and I want to write it all hehehe. IES sponsored a weekend trip to Normandy a few weeks ago; we went to the WWII Memorial museum in the city of Caen (pronounced kinda like con), the Bayeux Tapestry exhibit in Bayeux, Omaha Beach and the American military cemetery, Point du Hoc, and finished up with the German cemetery. Of course we had a lot of fun, as usual, but I think all of us also did a lot of thinking and discussing. No one could go to any of these places (except maybe Bayeux--tapestries are great, but not the most philosophical of subjects) without taking a hard look at the world.

Like most people, the Holocaust draws my attention like no other historical event, and it weighs heavy on my heart. Many ask themselves what they would have done in that situation--if they would have leaned out the window and cheered on the German soldiers carting away their neighbors, or if they would have stood up and fought, hid them in their cellars or attics. I think that's a good question. But I think an even better question is to ask myself what am I doing now? Our world has not changed, and until it is redeemed, there will always be evil, always be injustice. The 27 million human beings imprisoned in the horrors of human trafficking are evidence enough. I say this because when I think of the Jewish people--persecuted, hated, treated like animals, massacred mercilessly--I feel anger and deep sadness. But I do not want it to go to waste. Compassion is great, but if it does not result in action, it counts for nothing. We say we study history to learn from it. So let's do it for a change. These are just my thoughts.

La vie normale, je pensait.

Alors, this update will be slightly different than the last. Back to "normal" life. Whatever that is. I have seriously fallen in love with this city. I always liked it before, but lately I've just been enjoying everything about it. Like I said earlier, it feels like home now.

Earlier this week I went for the second (oh la la) run of the semester thus far. I ran down to the river Erdre and finished my run along the bank, which was of course very nice and wonderful in itself (as well as embarrassingly difficult). But then I doubled back to a spot I had seen earlier, a little stone wall overlooking the water, and just sat. It was so nice. After a weekend full of doing-- a museum, the opera, a cafe, a garden, church, and a picnic, I really enjoyed just being in Nantes for a bit. The slow moving water reminded me of the bayou (awwww), and I could barely hear any cars or trams; I got to think and just feel the cool air on my face. Little things like this are important, I think. Just thought I'd share.

I should really elaborate on the garden I went to, because I feel I have a duty to its awesomeness. The Jardin des plantes, however unoriginal in name, is highly spectacular in reality. Everything is really neat and groomed, and while I usually like the rough, natural kind of nature, I guess there is tea-party-kind-of-girl in me that adores this park! There were flowers and trees from all over the world, or so I hear, and walking through the furs and spruces smelled si wonderfully. We also saw the very spot where my friend Éowyn got engaged! He picked a good place, I'm telling you. There's also a petting zoo with goats.

A little blip about my teaching internship-- I taught the song "Louisiana Saturday Night" to my CM2 class (5th grade), and they loved it. It's really cute to hear them sing it, and even the boys were dancing and really getting into it. Brought some Louisiana to France, I did. Ooh, another fun fact: the French eat boudin. Maybe I'll finally be a really Louisianian and try some, ironically not in Louisiana.

I just finished a truly wonderful book. I know I've already used that word too many times in this post, but it's really true here. This book, Kisses from Katie, is about an American teenager who let herself be driven by the love of Jesus to truly and radically live out her faith in Uganda, as a mother to 14 adopted young girls. It sounds crazy hearing it from me, but reading the book, I have no doubt she is doing what we should all do: hearing God, believing Him, and following Him. She also has a blog kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com .

This book makes me want to do big things for God. It makes me want to help people. It makes me want to share some of my comfortable, clean life with those who live in dirt, in disease, in captivity, in pain, in slavery, in hunger. I know these people are everywhere. They're in Nantes, they're in northeast Louisiana for goodness sake. I'm praying this book doesn't add to my list of conviction without action, emotions and halfway broken hearts that don't help anyone unless change results.

I put "normal" in quotation marks earlier for two reasons. One is that my life is anything but normal here, speaking a language different than the one I've known for almost 20 years, running for trams, eating sandwiches made with freshly-baked croissants, it's completely different and exciting and great. But two is that life should never be normal, even in Funroe, and I don't desire it to be. It should be a struggle, a pursuit, a roller coaster, a heartache, a joy. I want my life to be as not-normal as possible if that means Jesus is pleased, if his people know his love.

These are my desires when I'm sitting at home, reading good books and thinking about God, but when I go out into the real world, I know those desires get skewed. May each day make my way a little bit straighter.

Paris et Bar-ce-LO-na

Ok, so I'm back in Nantes after a week of Winter Vacation. With three wonderful girls from IES, I traveled to Paris and Barcelona, and then back to Paris. It was crazy, tiring, amazing, challenging, and wonderful all at the same time. I got to know my friends better, got to see amazing things, meet some really cool people, and experience travelling in a foreign country where I don't know the language, at all. 

Paris first. After arriving via the TGV, we made our way to the Eiffel Tower, not realizing that we would arrive just in time for the hourly twinkling lights. AND it was midnight. Call me sappy and cliché if you want, but in my opinion, it was pretty darn magical.

The next day, after visiting the Sacré Coeur and the open-air market, we took off for Barcelona. Well, "took off" is probably a bit romanticized, considering we used RyanAir and had to take a hour-long bus ride to a city outside of Paris for the Paris-Beauvais airport. I'm not complaining though; it's insanely cheap. Favorite quote from that experience: "Please turn off your cellphones and other electronic devices, and for those who smoke ... please quit."

Some highlights from Barcelona include happening upon a late-night party in the street, seeing a demonstration complete with cardboard guillotine, and hearing a man rap about Jesus. Well I guess those are more like oddities than highlights...

We walked everywhere, and took tons of pictures. Gaudi, a famous architect, lived in B-Town and designed a ton of amazing stuff, including the Sangrada Familia. I loved the uniqueness of this cathedral; it's so different from the Gothic architecture all over France. The front wall recounts the events leading up to Jesus' crucifixion with abstract sculptures, and I found it really interesting to experience the story in that way. Hopefully my pictures can do it justice.

Paris will always have my heart, but if you took away the history, the language, the food, and the Eiffel Tower, I think Barcelona would definitely win. I loved the weather, the architecture, and the ambiance of this port city. The people of Barcelona were also strikingly warm and friendly. Half the time we had no idea what they were saying, but they were super kind and patient. Me gusta Barcelona!


If you ever need a pick-me-up while learning a language in a foreign country, just go away to another foreign country where you know zero percent of the language, and then come back. Seriously, after being almost completely deaf and mute to the Spanish for 3 days, speaking and understanding French was cake in comparison. It made me appreciate how much I actually do know--even if I do still get weird looks and "huh?" expressions. I love this language.

So returning to Paris was great, because words actually sounded like words and not like a mixture of rolled r's and I-don't-know-what-else. But it was also weird, because some words sounded like English. Because they were English. I heard so much English there it was crazy. Tourists--everywhere. And the storekeepers in the tourists section, too; they know English so they're going to speak it to you if they know you're American. The few people who didn't--who actually respected our attempts--have no idea how wonderful they are. I wish I could send them flowers or chocolates or a new car or something. On the reals. They're the best.

My four favorite things in Paris ...

- Nutella crepes. Obsessed. In love. A little scary.

- le Musée d'Orsay. My favorite part of the entire trip. I always had a hunch, but I've now decided Monet is my favorite impressionist.  His paintings are beautiful. And seeing real Edgar Degas ballet paintings was like a dream come true.


- buying an amazing water-color painting in the artist square at Montmartre. The woman who painted it was so sweet, and I'm so excited to hang it on my wall at home. A little piece of Paris.

- getting told I "don't have a heart" because I didn't want to give money to help feed insanely fat, stray cats in a Parisian cemetery. Definitely a first in my life.

I think this week taught all four of us how stressful travelling can be, but I'd say we managed pretty well, and even came out on top. Just navigating the Paris metro system in itself will give you about 10 years of life experience. Needless to say, I'm extremely happy to be back--it feels like home now compared to the big city. I had a wonderful time, but I'm ready to get back to exploring my Nantes!!

                                                               (Nantes -->)

Demain, une aventure

Tomorrow, I am going to Paris. Let me rephrase that. Tomorrow, I am going to Paris! I can't wait. Paris for one night, Barcelona for three, and the Paris again for two more. All this week and last my four other friends and I have been facebooking our lives away to plan our trip: the trains, the planes, the hostels, the couches. Yes, couches. There is in fact a large, somewhat comical possibility that I will be couchsurfing. Yep, this girl right here.

I say it's only a possibility, because, well, we don't know yet. We haven't nailed down the last two nights of our trip. A little bit scary? Yes, but hey, it'll work out. I think. Word of advice: don't try this at home/European country of choice. Get together with your friends in person and just work out all your lodgings in advance. It will free up the night before to work out your packing situation.

Speaking of, we are flying with a cheap company that only lets you bring one free sac à main (carry-on) of a very small size. For a girl who thinks it's normal to take an-almost-50-pound suitcase for one week of travel, this is a little bit crazy. It's going to be good for me, because the bare essentials are really all I need anyway. Right?
No matter how skeptical I sound, I'm obviously super excited. The Eiffel Tower is only like my favorite manmade thing in the world, and even though I don't know a thing about Barcelona, the pictures on Google look like warm weather.

These random pictures throughout this blog are from the past few weeks. IES took us to Mont St. Michel and St. Malo, a cool little island abbey and beach town. I toured the St. Nicolas Basilica in Nantes, which was beautiful. And we also got some great snow; that's our little snowman named Michel. Can't wait to update about my travels! I'm sure there will be lots of things to say. . .

Un Petit Peu

So I really want to blog right now, but I have homework for Madame de Pous. All I will say is that I went to a French circus today and had a blast baking chocolate melting cake with my homestay sisters (and cousin). Still can't believe I'm in France. Incroyable.

La vie est beau, errr, belle

Well, this is a tad bit in retrospect, but the week before this last week was a little rough. If I gave names to my weeks, I would name it "Yes, the Sign on my Forehead is Correct, I am American." Frankly, it was just the week of mistakes and awkward situations.

One day, I went to three tabacs to attempt to buy a pack of tram tickets, (tabacs are places where you're supposed to be able to buy packs of tram tickets). The first one looked at me like I was crazy, and the second one politely threw in a bonus self-confidence booster with "Oh. You don't speak French, do you?" Oh, that's right, I wasn't trying to speak French. I was actually speaking Portuguese. Oops.

Some of my other mistakes included: 1) running out of tram tickets multiple times; 2) missing my tram and having to wait/walk in the cold for 15 minutes; 3) having to walk in the cold to buy a tram ticket, only to realize I was walking the wrong way; 4) missing my tram stop 5) knocking over an entire box of cereal; 6) accidentally stealing a song pamphlet from my homestay family's church;  7) leaving my gloves on the bus and forcing the driver to run across the street to give them to me [who says French people aren't nice?!!]; 8) accidentally locking my booksack in the IES center over the weekend; 9) showing up way early to Agape and having to stand in the cold for a bit until some nice old people let me into the church. . .


But the cool thing about all this was that for the most part I never really got super stressed. God's given me this comfort of knowing He's in control with everything, even the little things. And that comfort allowed me to enjoy the moment in all its imperfection, finding the bright side of things. Like the night I showed up early to Agape-- I got to meet some really sweet elderly people... Including a couple from Kentucky. Who speak French. With the thickest southern accent I have ever heard. So. Cute.

Now of course there were moments when I did get stressed, moments when I refused to let go of my worries, trying desperately to hold on to control. But God is God, and he holds my sinful, silly self in his hand for some reason; so if I can just take the second to remember that, I realize I can trust him. While being in a foreign country is difficult, and being me in a foreign country is difficult, I can't let this little stuff get in the way of my purpose or ruin my experience. In fact, it's part of the experience. I mean hey-- if I can write a blog about it, it's good, right? :)

Petit à petit . . .

Whew. What a week! Lots and lots of orientation. Lots and lots of tours. Lots and lots of grammar. Lots and lots of French. It’s been good, though. I’ve experienced some of the famous Nantes weather: pretty cold with an almost-constant mist-like rain. Not. Good. For. The. Hair. Haha oh well.

I’ve also experienced some really pretty days, like when we took a tour through the historic cites in the city. It bothers me just a tad that I couldn’t understand everything our French tour guide said, not because that means my French isn’t good, but because that means I missed a lot of awesome information! Shout out to Sarah Rose here; she’s probably laughing to herself. Haha we’re such nerds.

I’ve also had some great food this week! A French-American organization invited IES to a galettes des rois tasting. Galettes des rois are kind of like King Cakes. I found the little clown—they’re not always babies here—so I was the queen! I think that cake won for the best dessert I’ve tasted so far. These cakes are usually made with a kind of almond paste filling, and the cake-part is like a thick crêpe. I probably just butchered that description, but trust me, it’s delicious. With my host family, I had a dessert called the roses du sable—the roses of the sand. It was basically a lot of fudge-like chocolate and corn flakes, but it was amazing! And it was made by my petites soeurs d’accueil, the 11 and 15 year-old girls in the family—pretty cool.

 

Saturday I hit the big sales with some friends from IES; les soldes are kind of like Black Friday in the U.S., but for a whole month! Woohoo!! Later that day, I went to the movie theater with my French parents and the two youngest girls, where we saw Les collines aux coquelicots, an animé film. I usually don’t really like animé, but this one was really cute! My ticket was only 4,50 euros with my student ID card, which is cheaper than Tinseltown. I’ll take that!

Sunday morning, my friend Éowyn and I went to church! I was super excited to find out last week that Éowyn was a believer, but I wasn’t super surprised. God always brings just the right people into our lives. The church is only about a 10 minute tram ride from my house; it’s a pretty simple place with a small congregation, one of the only Protestant churches in Nantes, I think. I thought the preacher was really good, though. He read from Ecclesiastes and demonstrated Solomon’s “chasing after wind” as a little kid who blows bubbles and tries to catch them in vain. It was a good message to hear; while I’m striving to learn a language and blend in with a culture, it’s important to stay centered on the thing that will never disappear, the thing that will always fulfill. Got to keep the Main Thing the main thing.

p.s. Classes have started!! ahhh!!! I’ll update on that later . . . haha

Photos from the Weekend

A tower at the chateau and dunjon of Loches.



                                                  The chapel at the chateau de Blois.

And Chambord, my favorite!!!

Alors! Je suis à Nantes!

Bonjour!! I'm finally getting around to writing this blog! I couldn't get the password for the Wifi to work last week, and then my computer died, and then I realized my charger doesn't fit into my adaptor... But voila!! my lovely friend Hannah had an extra connector! And so, here am I.

Note: I promise that the rest of my posts won't be this long, or at least I hope not. If you get bored, just stop reading or skip to the end or just look at pictures haha, whatevs!

I've been having an amazing time. Nantes is great; I'm starting to feel like I actually live here, which is good--because I do! I haven't had much time to explore as of yet though, because on Friday we left for a visit to the chateaux of the Loire valley. But I'll back up and start at the beginning...

With the plane from Monroe, the wonderful day in DFW spent with my friends Sarah and Katie (whom I will miss very, very much), the flight to Paris, and the train to Nantes, it was about 26 hours of travelling. And jet lag is real. I had trouble sleeping because I'd be really tired in the afternoon but wide awake at night. And it didn't help that I had a million exciting things to think about!

My host family is simply amazing. There are six children, but only four (ha--only four) live in the house; the other two are in college.  The three girls are 8, 11, and 15 (as of today!), and the boy is 16. The whole family is so nice and helpful, and dinner time is hilarious! My petite soeur d'accueil (host family sister), who is only 11, often says to the others, "Slower! Slower! Rachel can not understand you!". It's so true. I never dreamed the French would speak this fast; the first few days, I probably missed 70% of what they said. They all like to talk at the same time, too. It's crazy, but I absolutely love it!

And now for the important stuff... my room is super cute. Hehe. Everything is a pretty yellow and I love it! Ok--maybe not the most important thing, but it makes me feel at home for sure!

After two days in Nantes with preliminary info sessions and language tests, all of IES Nantes took off for the city of Tours and the chateaux around it. We saw Blois, Chambord, Loches, and Chenonceau. Chambord was my favorite because it was beautiful and impossibly massive. I cannot imagine what it was like to actually live there. The trip helped us all to get to know each other really quickly; I think we're going to be really good friends.

Today, there was more orientation sessions and a walking tour of Nantes to get familiar with the practical things like post offices, stores, pharmacies, and transportation. I hope I can get the hang of this whole map thing!

All in all, I'm having an amazing time. I'm so glad I came; I know I'm going to learn so much. Not just the language--although I've already learned an unbelievable amount--but about the differences between cultures, about the country, and about life. I can't believe how blessed I am to have this opportunity, and I pray God uses it in a big way. I'll post pictures soon!