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