A La Galette d'Antan

This is a galetterie. It makes galettes. And crêpes. And this is where I had dinner one night. If you're ever in Nantes I highly recommend this place. Most of its food was completely organic, and it makes its own cider.

 This is their cider. It's an alcoholic version of apple cider that is a tad bit more bitter than you would thing alcoholic apple cider would be. But it was pretty good. They also displayed the bottles everywhere in the shop. The restaurant itself was rather small with a really rustic feel. The ceiling made it look like a side of a barn, which was a nice touch.

 But probably the best thing is that they had hand crêpes. Here in France no one ever eats with their fingers. The other day, they ate an apple with a fork and knife. We also eat pizza with silver wear. It's infuriating. I cant cut things with my right hand and eat with a fork in my left. But every time I switch my silver wear around, the little girl give me this little smirk. I know she doesn't mean it to be condescending, but I must try to do things the French way, even if it's incontinent and takes me five times longer to eat my food. 

Any way, the galette on the left is made of all-natural buckwheat to give it a more savory flavor, while the crêpe on the right is made with regular flour.The one on the left is ham and cheese, the cheese, probably some sort of Swiss, was all  melty and amazing. The one on the right is caramel. The top wasn't that great, but since it was in a vertical position as I ate it, the bottom was oozing with caramelly goodness. My friend spilled hers all over the table. But it was good.

But the best part is the price. It was under 8 euros to eat like that. Yes I was still hungry, but that is because I'm always hungry. But 8 euros is a great price for good food like that.

 After that we went to a bar like thing. I got hot chocolate and chocolate cake while the others drank wine. 

Personally I think I won that one. Chocolate beats wine hands down any day. And that sauce was some butter cream sauce that was completely delectable.And the cake was delicious, it was crispy on the outside and dense and rich on the inside. The hot chocolate was not the best, but they gave me a cookie with it, and I can never complain when I get a free cookie. 

Here are two thing I found in the street too. When seeing the first all I could think about would be the akward teenage years of "Are you my mummy?" The second one is in honor of the District Day for TBS. Hope that goes well everyone. 

 

Kabobs

On night, after my professor decided he was going to move our Monday morning class that he was absent for to a time slot late on Friday night, I went out to eat. Because it was late, and my friends had already eaten  I decided to go some place that it wouldn't be weird to eat alone.So I wondered off the tram and straight into a Kabob shop. I had no idea what I was getting. 

I walk in and, like the knowledgeable person I have become, I asked the guy what I was supposed to do. He said order. ('Well duh.' were the first words in my head. But there werent any wait people and I was confused with little Romans running around in my head.) So I ordered what was on the sign outside and a coke, it said food for 6 euros, and that works for me. He asked me what I wanted on it and I responded with Ça m'est égal. It doesn't matter. So he made my food and gave it to me. It was a sandwich with meat and cheese and sauce that tasted amazing. And a huge heaping ton of fries to go along side. There was salt on the table to and I went at it on the fries. The coke with a straw was pretty nice too. First time they didn't give me a glass. 

He then asked me where I was from. When ever I open my mouth my accent flows out and it's really disheartening. But I try, even when they speak English at me to speak French with the French. I cheat a little with my American friends, speaking English to them, but when I speak to an actual Francais, I speak only in French. That's why I'm here. I keep learning, and I keep working hard. My French will improve, and until then, I'll just perfect the phrase, Je suis Américaine.

French Education

Why what is this? This is my classroom at the University of Nantes.

I'm taking history of Rome. In French. Its a pretty cool class. But it is about 50 times bigger than any class I have been to before. (Except for that one time I followed my sister around the University of Minnesota and took her classes with her, Chemical Engineering is crazy, and no one noticed I was there. Even though I know nothing about Chemistry, I still stayed awake better than other students who were actually there to learn.) So that is a little different. 

And Students talk throughout the class. I thought that in other countries they respected their elders more than we do in the U.S. but apparently that isn't true. At the IES center, when a teacher walks in, the entire class hushes and waits to learn vast amounts of French knowledge. They looked at us like we were crazy. And here is the reason why. When the teacher walked into this class room, and even when he tried to start teaching, the students kept talking. There were a few that continued to talk the entire lecture. It was infuriating. 

But this could be a thing in France because education is mostly free. I speak about it briefly here

http://nantes2013ajourneyofscholarship.blogspot.fr/2013/01/un-croque-monsieur-and-university.html

But things are different educationally here because of Jules Ferry

Jules Ferry (the French in the 1800's really liked the name Jules) was a Freemason, French Lawyer and Republican (Which is not the same as our Republicans so cool your jets my Elephant friends. (Did you know that the elephant became the symbol for the Republican Party because of a cartoonist named Thomas Nast, and it is from him that we get the word ''Nasty?") A Republican in France is someone who was for the republic, and not for the monarchy.) Any way he helped to create a law in France that made education obligatory, secular and free. 

From there the education system blossomed. Here it starts when a child is three years old in what they call Maternelle. It goes until the child is five. Three-year-olds are in the Petite Section, four-year-olds are in the Moyenne Section, and five-year-olds are in the Grande Section. There is a debt going on whether or not school should start at two years old, because it's basically free babysitting. 

Primaire ranges from six years old to ten years old. The six-year-olds are in Cours Preparitoire. Seven-year-olds are in Cours Élémentaire year one. Eight-year-olds, and the grade I teach are in Cours Élémentaire second year. Nine-year-olds are in Cours Moyen year one. And ten-year-olds are in Cours Moyen year two.

Collège is their version of middle school but with a lot more rigor. It ranges from eleven to fourteen. And counts backwards from six. Eleven-year-olds are in the Sixth Year before Graduation. Twelve-year-olds are in the Fifth Year before Graduation. Thirteen-year-olds are in the Fourth year before Graduation. And Fourteen-year-olds are in the Third Year befroe Graduation. In 6th students begin a mandatory First Living Language LV. (Langue Vivant). That would be English for most students. In 5th they begin their first LM Langue Morte, or dead language, such as Latin of Greek. In 4th they have the option to take a second LV, which would be German or Spanish or Chinese. 

After these years the students take a test called the Brevet to see what they have learned in their years of school. It will be their base for their high school education so many students want to do well on it. 

Then students start Lycée or High School. There they decide what they want to do with their lives. There is General Studies, Technological Studies and Professional Studies. Fifteen-year-olds are in their Second Year before Graduation. Sixteen-year-olds are in their Year before Graduation. And Seventeen-year-olds are in their Terminal Year. That doesn't make senior year sound scary at all. 

Then there is a giant hard test that everyone has to take to get into college. The Baccalauréat. It's kinda like the ACT or SAT but with more weight attached. I can only imagine how terrifying it is. 

The French also have four and a half days of school. The go to school half the day on Saturday and not at all on Wednesday. This is because Wednesday is considered activity day, where students get music lessons or take art classes. But there is a big push in France right now to have a weekend like us Anglo-Saxons. So they want to put the half day on Wednesday and leave Saturday open. 

So I hope you now know a little bit more about the French educational system.

Musée Jules Verne

The other day I went to the Musée Jules Verne. It was pretty cool. Even if you haven't read any of his work it would be a good idea to go and see. It was really cheap (only 1.50 Euros if you have a student card.) The only problem was that it was rather far from the center of the city. But normal people take trains. I however walk. It's only about a mile, and you get to walk through a lot of interesting things on the way. Especially if you walk by the river like I did. (That's the Loire River mind you.)

Born in Nantes he was a pioneer of the science fiction genre in Europe. He was born in a house on a refurbished sand bar in 1828, and from there he could see all the boats leave the harbors to their exotic destinations  This is probably what drove his passion for discovery. That passion is written about in many of his books.

 If you haven't read any of his books, I'm sure you've heard of them. 

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and A Journey to the Center of the Earth are two of his more famous books. But he wrote fifty five books most of which are included in a larger book Voyages Extraordinaires. All of his works interesting and have something to do with travel, which was a big part of the world that he lived in.

He also wrote Around the World in Eighty Days, which has been turned into many movies and films, and even a Mickey Mouse special. It's a really good book and I highly recommend it.

Overall I liked the Museum. It had tons of things to look at, and all of the drawings were 

really beautiful.

Blowtorches and Juice Boxes

Juice box redefined.

So two things about this picture, I'm wet and that is a box of apple juice.

There are things in France that I didn't anticipate. The first, obviously is the rain. The 'Before You Go' novel that I read before leaving on this excursion stated that the weather is 'much like the northern Midwest ' Which I knew was false because the direct sentence after it was 'although it hardly snows.' Midwest and hardly snows don't belong in the same paragraph. So I was expecting something a little more dry. I missed the sentence stating that it rains like Seattle with winds like Chicago.  So I'm in a constant state of wet mouillé.

Next there is the apple juice. Coming from a land that creates apples, (yes the University of Minnesota did create the Honey Crisp apple, just so you know,) I have consumed quite a few apple products in my days on this planet. And my one problem with apple juices boxes is that they are so darn small. Just when I am fully enjoying that rich apple flavor, the box is empty. But not here in France. Their juice boxes like that above are enormous. And wonderful. Although it doesn't taste completely the same, it has the soft undertones of home. 

What isn't close to home is the way they work road construction. All day today there were these terrible noises coming from outside while I was trying to understand French. It gave me a raging headache. Rather coincidentally, we were learning about aches and pains.  At lunch, I walked out side to go to the store. And there in the middle of the street were two construction workers. One was holding a shovel, scraping away at the paint on the road, the other blasting the paint with a blowtorch. A fiery, loud, full take of gas, blowtorch. I can't speak for any other state, but in Minnesota, when we are repainting the roads, we simply paint over it. We don't melt it away with lethal weapons. But hey! The French do!

Only here can you see a construction worker with a blowtorch as your thinking about buying another juice box in the swirly winds and rains of January.

Yes this is a shopping cart.

Rhythmic Clapping and Pancakes

To begin with I read other members of my groups blogs and I was displeased with the number who had the same background and layout as me. So I changed mine. It's a little too pink for me, but I like the repetitiveness of the colors, and it makes me feel brighter. Which is good, because I have the proclivity to hide away in my room, and think in a not so bright manner. So if you don't like it whatever.

The day started out nice. I went to church with my friends, and for once I'm actually beginning to think I have friends. And no, that isn't being melodramatic. I have a hard time relating to and developing relationships with people I haven't known for a long time. I don't know how to act to I simply take up space and time with talking, which usually ends up in me saying the stupidest things ever. (Did that already with around five students in my program, so) But I think the people I went to church with might actually like me. 

After the service, which I don't think was as nice as last week, we stayed for the congregational meal. I didn't thing the service was as nice because it was longer than the other one and there was also a ceremony (which would have been nice if I would have understood what was actually going on in said ceremony), But there was also a medial emergency during communion which I felt bad for not being able to help. 

But other than that I really like this church, its the same one that I wrote about in the other blog. 

http://nantes2013ajourneyofscholarship.blogspot.fr/2013/01/eglise-protestante-unie-de-nantes.html 

The meal was really interesting and I was rather pleased. It was franco-African, which meant food from French colonies in Africa. So the food was great and abundant, and it was the first time in a while that I was actually full, which by the way doesn't directly translate in French (it literally translates to pregnant animal.) I even got my peanut butter craving somewhat quenched with a peanut sauce on some rice. They also had tons of alcohol which apparently is normal at a church. There was a before dinner drink of grapefruit wine, and wine on every table  There was also beer chilling out in the corner  However I was really disappointed  cause the children drank orangia, and personally I like that a lot more than the alcohol. Desert was great too, although the church ladies accidentally gave alcohol drenched cake to children. Whoops.

 

After lunch I went back to my host house, and we went to a play. It was put on by the high school that one of my host sisters go to. When they first said French play, I thought it was going to be rather sad. Almost every French movie I've seen ends with nearly all the main characters dying or going insane. The same with a lot of the French books I've read, so I expected the same thing here. I was, in my prejudgment  completely wrong. It was a comedy. And I seriously enjoyed it. The only thing that could have made it better is if the audience wouldn't have done that stupid clapping thing. You know what I'm talking about. When the music plays and the audience tries to clap rhythmically on the beat and no one can manage to do it. Yeah that. I hate that with a passion. I've always hated it. Yeah it's audience participation but it's so annoying. One of my many many pet peeves. 

After that we went back to the house. It's a tradition here to eat a large breakfast meal for Sunday night dinners. So I asked if I could make them pancakes. Not knowing what to expect they told me I could. And man, did I. I think I made over 30 pancakes. And there are none left. my family loved them. I personally at six, but that's because they tasted like home. Both the father and one of the girls liked eating them with cheese, and that almost made me die laughing. Pancakes and French cheese just doesn't do it for me. But I'm very glad they liked them. And hopefully I can make them again some time.