Week 7-Week 9

It's been a while since I last blogged, but in abroad-time it feels like 3 days. It's midterm season here in Nantes, meaning I actually have to do work. Who knew that you had to study while studying abroad???

As far as my life goes... I am the chair of social events at IES, which basically means I get to plan all of our school-sponsored soirées. We had one halloween party with a lot of French students which was a lot of fun, and afterward we went out to a bar where I met even more French peoples. They're pretty fun to hang out with, and it really helps with my French! We also threw a party for our younger host siblings which they loved. Halloween isn't celebrated in France, so we kind of explained to them what the holiday is, etc. and then we decorated pumpkins, made masks, ate lots of candy, wrapped people up like mummies, played the game where you touch "eyeballs" (peeled grapes) and "brains" (noodles), and just played around. It was so cute and they really had a good time.

The weekend of October 17th-19th, I went to Scotland with two of my American friends here. We stayed with my friend from Denison in Glasgow and took a day trip to Edinburgh. It was a beautiful country, they had starbucks, and they spoke English so I was pretty pleased. They had a really fun club there called "The Garage" which was located right next to an asian noodle house- both of which were fantastic. It was also cool because my friend lives in a dorm there so it was like going back to University life for a weekend. His roommates were really sweet, and we actually ended up hanging out with them the following weekend too... Overall, a very cool country.

The following weekend, the 23rd-26th, my friend and I went to Ireland to stay with another Denison friend. We flew into Shannon and stayed in Limerick the first 2 nights which was alright. It was very cold, rainy, and expensive but pretty nice. We took a day trip to a random town "Ennis" which had a good pub and some cute shops, but otherwise just kind of hung out and explored the city. We took the Angela's Ashes walking tour which was really funny/interesting; it made me want to read the book again! We also saw a castle, cathedrals and a few museums. Then we went to Dublin for a night where we met up with our Scotland friends. I LOVE Dublin! We went to the Guinness Factory, the Jameson Distillery, a bunch of cathedrals, some monuments, a castle, and then hung out at the Temple Bar area all night where they had live music, a bunch of pubs, and real Irish food. It was a really fun night and the Dublin hostel we stayed at was surprisingly nice.

This past weekend was Amsterdam. I really do not have any words to describe how much I enjoyed that city. The entire trip was absurd starting from day 1. In brief (or at least I'll try), we take a train from Nantes to Paris Thursday night. We get in to Paris at 11pm and our train does not leave until 6:30 am so we go to a creperie where we feast on nutella crepes. There we met a group of guys who were really nice- turns out they were Israeli soldiers! Raffi, Tal, and Zwika. We hung out with them until 4am- they taught us words in hebrew, and we just had a really fun time talking to them. Then they carried our backpacks for us to the bus stop and we took the night bus back to the train station. (The night buses go in a circle, and we purposely went the wrong direction to kill time, so it was about an hour bus ride where we met another funny guy who sells Oysters.) When we got to the station, it was freezing so we huddled around these heaters they have there, where we met an Australian soldier names Glenn. Turns out he was going to Amsterdam too so we ended up hanging out with him all weekend. In Amsterdam, we just explored for a while, went into a few shops, ate lunch, and found our hotel which was AMAZING. It was a 4 star hotel that we somehow got for 60euro a person for 2 nights, which is the same price as a hostel. That night we went out to a halloween party which was really fun/kind of crazy. Saturday morning we went to the Anne Frank house, ate some gouda, did some more exploring and shopping, then met up with Glenn again and went to the Van Gogh museum. That night we went to a sports bar and met up with another friend from Denison who was in town. Then Sunday morning we explored this gorgeous park, and went back to the train station. It seems like an uneventful trip, but there were so many little things that happened which altogether created an unforgettable experience. I don't know if I want to go back because now my expectations are so high.

In Nantes I've just been chilling, eating so many soy crisps!!! (thanks fam haha) Going out at night, hanging out with both Americans and French, just loving Nantes! Although I love the Dutch culture, I think for every day functioning life I prefer the French.

A+
Mariel