On Saturday, I headed over to my favorite chocolate place to get a few things. This chocolatier, Louvigny, was recommended to me by Stephane my lang prof. We went back in September and got a really warm welcome from the owners. It is a nice store owned by a young couple, a French man and a Japanese woman. They are really nice. I went in looking for some good chocolate and they took the time to explain a lot to me, give me some samples, and just talk about things. One lady even remembered me from a while ago! They wished me a great trip back to the US but I assured them that I would be back one more time before going. I really love moments like that, when people here are honestly nice and friendly with you. Those people are by far the nicest I have met in Angers, and of course the chocolate is the best I've tasted as well! Hopefully I'll get a chance to bring some of it back home to you guys in a few weeks!
Monday, December 7, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
21st Birthday!
Well sure enough, today is my 21st birthday. It feels good, but obviously as far as drinking goes, (not like I drink that much anyways) it means nothing over here. All I had to drink today was a little cherry drink before dinner tonight at a restaurant. Here's how my 21st went in France:
-Got up around 9, surfed the net, responded to the 1st facebook birthday posts.
-Did laundry (one of my last loads) from 11-1.
-Lunch: PB and J on a baguette-obviously a homemade creation.
-Grocery shopping
-Going to my favorite chocolate store and getting a chocolate Santa and other chocolate
-Having dinner downtown.
So it was a good day. I'll tell you 1st about the dinner. I was just wandering around downtown since a lot of the people I'm normally with are off in a different city this weekend. Well I ran across 3 girls in my program and ended up going to an italian restaurant with them. I had lasagna, it was decent...lacking some spices, but not bad. Pretty cool way to have a 21st birthday dinner. I'll write a 2nd post about the chocolate store because I have more I need to say about that. All in all, it was a good birthday that will be even better when I can share it with everyone back home as well.
-Got up around 9, surfed the net, responded to the 1st facebook birthday posts.
-Did laundry (one of my last loads) from 11-1.
-Lunch: PB and J on a baguette-obviously a homemade creation.
-Grocery shopping
-Going to my favorite chocolate store and getting a chocolate Santa and other chocolate
-Having dinner downtown.
So it was a good day. I'll tell you 1st about the dinner. I was just wandering around downtown since a lot of the people I'm normally with are off in a different city this weekend. Well I ran across 3 girls in my program and ended up going to an italian restaurant with them. I had lasagna, it was decent...lacking some spices, but not bad. Pretty cool way to have a 21st birthday dinner. I'll write a 2nd post about the chocolate store because I have more I need to say about that. All in all, it was a good birthday that will be even better when I can share it with everyone back home as well.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Angers SCO: Soccer!
Yesterday my housemate and I made a decision to go see the local soccer team. They are not in the top league here, but they aren't awful. Angers SCO is the name of the team. It was really exciting to see a game and to see how enthused the fans are here about their team. It wasn't really a packed house, it's not often that they have Tuesday night games, so there were around 5,000 people there. Regardless of that, it was really cool to see a soccer game over here and to experience a bit of the passion that the fans have for the local club. It is really important to them. Just like I love the Red Wings, the Angevins and Angevines love their soccer team.
This was something that I'm glad I did, I'm shocked it took me this long to see a game over here, but it was well worth the wait
This was something that I'm glad I did, I'm shocked it took me this long to see a game over here, but it was well worth the wait
Monday, November 30, 2009
Salon des Vins et de la Gastronomie
This Saturday I was at the Food and Wine convention, and there was emphasis on the wine. The majority of the booths were wine, with a good amount of foie gras vendors, followed by chocolate, and then other products. It was pretty cool to see and to sample some of the local fare. But this one place caught our eye. Here's a guy who takes wine, and mixes it with chocolate. What you get is an incredible drink. They do one with white chocolate, one with dark, and then they make a cognac as well. I went for the dark chocolate one after tasting it, and if I can, this might be a product to take back. It's really different, and from what I tasted from a tiny sample, it's good! Another funny story, I didn't have enough Euro on me at the moment, so the guy took my American money since he has spent time in the US before, pretty funny. He still gave me a good amount of change back in euros, I think I got a pretty good deal on that small bottle, I'll take it!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
November coming to an end
Here we are in the last few days of November, the days are really going by now. I bought my train ticket to get back to Paris. I'll be leaving here 3 weeks from now to go to the train station that is right by the airport. Once I'm there, I'll spend a night at hotel that I need to book a room at soon around the airport, then I'll get up the next day and head back to the US. So we have 3 more weeks in this country and that seems pretty crazy, but it's going to be good. Today, I'm off to a food and wine convention, I can't wait to see how that works. Hopefully I'll get pictures but no promises. Next week the Christmas Market starts up downtown, I'll be checking that out and I'm sure I'll post about it in the next week or so.We have a few normal weeks of classes then exams coming up, the work is starting to pick up a little bit, but I think I'll do fine. Keith and I also got our tickets to see another popular French artist, Renan Luce, in concert on Dec 18. Luckily enough, this one is only a few kilometers south of our city, so it'll be easy. That will be my last night in Angers, and it should be a good way to go out.
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and Black Friday if you participated!
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and Black Friday if you participated!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
La Police!
So here's an interesting story, the most scary and funny thing that has happened to me in this country:
I was walking home from the university after the Normandy excursion, and a black car pulls up to me, a guy rolls down the window and says "Hey, stop it's the police!" And I thought to myself, "oh cmon, like it's actually them." But sure enough, 3 other cars that actually looked like policecars pulled up and before I knew it I was surrounded by 6 people! Of course I had my camera with me, so one officer took that and went it to his car as he sorted through my photos. Another lady asked for my ID and she looked at that in her car. Then I proceeded to get grilled with questions by the remaining people. I did pretty well, but obviously with my Michigan driver's license and my not quite 100% oral comprehension level, they knew I was American. So after the questioning I got my stuff back and they said I could leave. I was pretty curious about why they did this, but as I thought, they just told me that they were doing random checks on the streets because as one officer said, "il y a des fous" (There are crazy people).
As I walked away relieved that I wasn't in trouble with the French government and laughing from the experience, I thought about how crazy it would be if this happened back in the US. Obviously if someone has reason to just randomly stop you because of some kind of suspicious behavior then that's different, but this was rather unexpected. If nothing else, it makes for an interesting story down the road...."Well that one time I was stopped by the French police..."
I was walking home from the university after the Normandy excursion, and a black car pulls up to me, a guy rolls down the window and says "Hey, stop it's the police!" And I thought to myself, "oh cmon, like it's actually them." But sure enough, 3 other cars that actually looked like policecars pulled up and before I knew it I was surrounded by 6 people! Of course I had my camera with me, so one officer took that and went it to his car as he sorted through my photos. Another lady asked for my ID and she looked at that in her car. Then I proceeded to get grilled with questions by the remaining people. I did pretty well, but obviously with my Michigan driver's license and my not quite 100% oral comprehension level, they knew I was American. So after the questioning I got my stuff back and they said I could leave. I was pretty curious about why they did this, but as I thought, they just told me that they were doing random checks on the streets because as one officer said, "il y a des fous" (There are crazy people).
As I walked away relieved that I wasn't in trouble with the French government and laughing from the experience, I thought about how crazy it would be if this happened back in the US. Obviously if someone has reason to just randomly stop you because of some kind of suspicious behavior then that's different, but this was rather unexpected. If nothing else, it makes for an interesting story down the road...."Well that one time I was stopped by the French police..."
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Normandy
Yesterday was the final excursion of the semester, and we've certainly saved the best for last: La Normandie. It was an incredible experience. We are shown in this picture at Omaha beach. It was really incredible to see the memorial museum, Omaha beach, and the American cemetery. The other excursions featured the history of France, but this is truly world history. This is the history of the US as well. That is what made it more emotional than the others. I mean, I wasn't walking around crying or anything, but you can't help but stop and just feel for families and also feel grateful for what our soldiers did that day. Standing in the cemetery, you see thousands of white crosses, and it just becomes unreal, it's really incredible, and it's something I can't really do justice in a blog post. The same is true for the beach, sure we are smiling in the picture, but you can't really sum up what it means to be standing on the land where history was made, it was amazing.
Prof Morin, like always, had a lot of great things to tell us and we also learned more about the Normandy region and France in general. For example, many of names of the hundreds of cheeses in France get their name from the region or city they come from, I was shocked that I hadn't learned that before. There is an actual Camembert, France if you want to buy a house and say you live in the city where Camembert orginated, very interesting!
Prof Morin, like always, had a lot of great things to tell us and we also learned more about the Normandy region and France in general. For example, many of names of the hundreds of cheeses in France get their name from the region or city they come from, I was shocked that I hadn't learned that before. There is an actual Camembert, France if you want to buy a house and say you live in the city where Camembert orginated, very interesting!
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