Photos of the last days

These are pictures my friends took.  There will still be more to come, probably after I am already back!

Today in the last Etude de la Langue class.  With Kelin, Christine (I would butcher her Chinese name), Satomi, and Yao.

Wednesday night at the Phonecien, a Lebanese restaurant with Kelin and Becca.

Thursday night at the carnival holding Becca, Jenny, and Sally's bags while they went on a super scary ride.

Jenny, Sally, and Becca on the super scary ride.

Me, Nora, and Kelin at the Latino on Thursday night. My hair is all messy from riding carnival rides earlier in the evening.  The three of us were roomies in Paris four months ago! And yes, I dared to go to Rue de la Soif on my last Thursday in Rennes.  Not at all as scary as I thought it would be, granted only stayed an hour.

Our last dinner of galettes and cidre at creperie St. Anne.

Last time at this awesome place this afternoon. =(

My last hot chocolate with caramel, last cookies, and last brownie square from the Haricot Rouge.

The Mairie all prettied up for Christmas.

And this picture that is actually from Les Trans a few weeks ago! Jenny, me, and Sally. Both of them are staying the whole year. I will miss them soo much!!

SEE YOU TOMORROW, OMAHA!

Last Day

Today's the last day I have in Rennes. Quite bittersweet. I won't get too reflective here, just enough to say that it's been really, really tough at times and I wanted to give up more than once, but I made it and I'm better for it, and I will miss all the friends I've made here!

Yesterday I lived it up.  I went to the carnival thing outside the movie theater and had a blast.  We rode this TERRIFYING ride (my eyes were shut the whole time, Sally has some hilarious pictures I'll have to get from her), ate cotton candy, and rode the "Speed Mouse / Mousse" roller coaster.

I don't have photos for what follows but other people do so I'll steal them whenever they appear.

After that I had my last dinner of galettes and cidre with Sally, Jenny, Matt, Becca, and Kelin.  I had the classic galette complet tomate, and a chocolate crepe with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream for dessert. So yummy.  Then we bought some wine to take to Kelin's and played cards for a while and took some seriously goofy pictures.  The last thing we did was brave a bar Rue de la Soif (my first and only time!) on a Thursday night to see and say goodbye to some people.  It was surprisingly a good time.  Also the world didn't end.

Yesterday was great.  Today in my language study class we said goodbye to everyone, and it was kind of strange that I probably won't see some of them ever again.  I still have class again in a couple hours, but that one won't be so bad to say goodbye too, I didn't talk to anyone really. Just a bunch of snotty other Americans, ya know.  Then after that, it's one more time at the Haricot Rouge and one last evening with MP. 

On the train to Paris in t-minus 18.5 hours!

Just a quick picture

Remember when I said everyone was smoking in the halls for Les TransMusicales? Well here's what it looked like. My friend just put up this photo.

And yet I didn't even need to use my inhaler.

Wrapping up

I have six days left. Well, really almost five.  I've been kind of busy doing things with my friends before we all leave each other, so here we go.  Just some short little blurbs.

Sunday after Les Trans was Rachel's birthday so we went to her house for cake and snacks and wine and games and Christmas songs performed by Matt on guitar and Rachel on ukelele!

Wednesday I went and saw The Hobbit! (Two days before it came out in the States. 12/12/12!)  That was my reward for surviving my French History class, the final exam was that morning.

Thursday I rode the metro from one end (Kennedy!) to the other (La Poterie)!  No pictures. =( 

Friday was the end of the year party, so there was a performance of all the CIREFE clubs (music, choir, theater, cinema, journalism).  The theater kids did a part of Cyrano and I was excited that I recognized the lines in French when I had seen the show in English.  Anyway.  After the spectacle we FINALLY ate at Creperie St. Georges like I've been wanting to since the beginning!  I had a George Perros, which had beef, peppers, onions, and cheddar cheese. And a glass of Cote du Rhone red wine.

Then I went to L'Espace discotheque and danced until 1am! Probably not the best idea since I'm a little sick but it was super fun and it's my last weekend in Rennes so I figure I should do stuff.  Yesterday I went to Jenny's to bake and watch movies.  We watched Love Actually and Intouchables (french).  At the end of Love Actually, they show scenes of people meeting their loved ones at the airport.  My friend Matt (other Matt) turned to me looking like he was about to cry and said, "That's going to be us so soon!" I gave him a big hug and said, "I know."  

I can't wait for that moment.

This doesn't have anything to do with France, but read it anyway.

Friends, family, possibly strangers.  Please forgive me for what follows, as it is a shameless plea for money.
No, not for myself, but for my cause.

As some of you (probably many of you) know, I am very involved in Relay For Life at my school, Doane College.  For those of you who don't know, Relay is a world-wide event affiliated with the American Cancer Society, which aims to not only provide funds to researchers around the country looking for cures to cancer, but also provides valuable services to cancer patients and their families.  Some examples include Hope Lodges, which are housing for patients receiving care far from home, and Look Better, Feel Better, which helps cancer patients receiving chemotherapy feel confident about their changed appearance.  Just to name two.

Last year, I was a member of the Executive Planning Committee for Doane's event, and we managed to raise nearly $75,000.  Our little school of 1,000 or so students once again became not only the top fundraising school per capita in our division, but in the entire nation!  Unbelievable, and wonderful.

This year I am the Executive Co-Chair, which means that when I get back to the States, I will be diving in to the planning process headfirst, and in the highest leadership position no less!  I worked hard over the summer to make sure things went smoothly without me, of course. ;) And so far it seems like they have!  I'm so excited to get back into it.  Relay is one of my favorite things about Doane.

I am also on a fundraising team, which I founded as a freshman and lead as captain for the last two years.  We've successfully raised over $1,000 each year!  I've stepped out of the captain position this year, but I'm still planning on being highly involved.  And part of that involvement includes asking for money.  So I'm taking advantage of my wide audience here to ask for your support.

I Relay for my dad, who is a survivor of non-hodgkin's lymphoma; my good friend's dad, who lost his battle to the same form of cancer; my grandma, who succumbed to breast cancer; and for everyone else who has been, is, or will be affected by cancer.  Please consider donating to me and my team, the Minions, or even buying a luminary in a loved one's name, by clicking on the link below.
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?fr_id=48673&pg=personal&px=9078219

Relay For Life of Doane College takes place on April 12, 2013 in Haddix Recreation Center.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to send me an e-mail!
cali.neuberger@doane.edu

And thanks for following my French journey. All of your support means so much.  =) I'm down to the last week!  This time next Saturday I'll be on a plane back to the States.  Definitely bound to a bittersweet moment. Stay tuned.

The Struts

This was the last band we saw.  They were the ones who played Twist and Shout. =)

SUPERPOZE

This was the first act we saw last night at Les Trans.  Fun to dance to! And watch other people dance!

Les TransMusicales

So last night I went to that big famous music festival I was so excited about.  Sally and Jenny were my dates for the evening.  Turned out to be not quite what I was hoping for (seems like the theme for the semester...) but it was still pretty fun.  An experience to add to the list.  At least the first and last acts we saw were pretty good!

Before the concert, we had dinner at an Indian restaurant   We were laughing because the guy was obviously turning people away because he didn't feel like serving them (however I don't blame him in the least as he was all alone in the place).  We were also laughing because of all the franglish we kept speaking on accident.    Then we took the metro to the place where the shuttles were, as the Parc Expo where all the shows were is pretty far out of town.  So we got there around 9:15 or so I think, and it was pretty empty (and still very clean, more on that later).  We checked out the "lounge area" (there were lots of cool, pretty lights!) before heading to Hall 9 to hear some music!!  When we got there, a guy who goes by Superpoze was doing a techno set.  It was actually really fun, and there weren't too many people in the room yet.

Then the night got less fun.  We went to another hall just in time to see an act leave the stage, and found out that there was nothing else going on for another half hour, except a band back in Hall 9 where we had just come from.  So we went back to the lounge area, grabbed a drink, and headed over there, hoping it would be something good!  Turns out it was just weird.  More techno but with a guy in a silver suit and large mustache singing weird lyrics.  Soooo we left there.

We went back to the lounge area to get some water, and I think at this point is when all the vomit started appearing on the floor.  Sorry for that lovely image, but I guess that's what you expect at a music festival like that?  Oh, also, everyone was smoking in all the halls (I swear France is going to give me lung cancer... knock on wood). I think this was about 11:00 by then, and we sat there for a minute before heading over to Hall 3 to catch the end of The 1969 Club.  I liked them alright, but we only heard 2 songs.  They were a little more punk rock, which was refreshing after a lot of techno.  So after that was over we went to try and catch another act, St. Lo, which turned out to be some weird techno jazz hip hop.  I really didn't like that at all.

Finally we wandered back over to Hall 9 to see the band we left leave the stage and another techno DJ (in a mask, of course), take over.  He was entertaining enough, but what was more entertaining was the fact that the security guard was hitting on Sally.  We walked through that hall at least 4 times, so he saw us each time we passed.  He stopped Sally twice to say something flirty to her.  We sat in the stadium seating this time around, right behind a guy totally passed out drunk (his friend kept smacking him to wake up, but he wasn't moving, nice).  What I did find cool was that the whole hall was full by this time, and all the lights were going and everyone was jumping up and down.  A good image.  This was still masked techno guy.

FINALLY the time came to see the band that I actually looked up before we came and wanted to see.  On the way back over to Hall 3 we saw a guy from our program who has a reputation for partying hard.  He looked shocked to see us, and we had a hilariously awkward conversation before leaving him to get trashed (he was sober at the time) and "rage his face off."  We got a good place in the room to see the band.  They were called The Struts and they didn't disappoint.  They aren't my favorite new band or anything but they were much more entertaining than anything else we saw that night (including the guy in the Pikachu suit, or the guy wearing a flowered bonnet).  The frontman reminded me of a cross between Russell Brand and Mick Jagger.  AND THEY DID A COVER OF TWIST AND SHOUT (the Beatles song, of course). I think that was the highlight of the night.

Then we left, because it was 1:30 and the buses and metro stopped running at 2am, and none of us wanted to stick around until 5am when they started up again.  Shame, there was another band I would have liked to see but things were getting weird.  On our way out, there was a guy laying in the grass, obviously on drugs, happy as a clam.  We giggled but it was really sad.

I managed to make it on the metro at exactly 2am, thankfully.  Downtown was still hopping when I walked through, so that was nice.  I'd rather walk through a crowd of drunk people than walk alone, believe it or not.  I walked in the front door, texted everyone to let them know I was safe, and went to sleep!

I'll post again later to share pictures/videos (from youtube) of some of the music I saw.

Much love and TWELVE DAYS LEFT!!!!!!!!

What I've been up to

Sorry again for the delay between posts.  I don't know what got into me!  So I'm going to try to do a quick recap of what I've been up to the last couple of weeks.

The Thursday after Thanksgiving (I think) I went ice skating with some people.  We were five Americans, two French girls (I have French friends!), a Syrian, and a Colombian.  It was the first time ice skating for the Colombian girl and the Syrian boy, and it kind of blew my mind that I was there, holding their hands and helping them learn.  That's one cool thing about being here: meeting people from all over the world.

Lisa, Laura (From Colombia), Rachel, and Me

Two Thursdays ago, I went to Les Champs Libres with Sally and Jenny.  There we saw the Bretagne museum, the Dreyfus affair exhibit, and an exhibit about photography in Bretagne.  I was excited about that one because it reminded me a lot of what I did over the summer for my internship at the Durham.

Cameras!

After that we went to the Haricot Rouge for some hot chocolate, brownies, and cards.  We had time to kill before we went to see a movie.

From out the window, we were watching someone film some kind of movie or something.  It seemed pretty dramatic because there was a guy and a girl on the ground in front of a car, and the guy was holding the girl and like screaming.  Oh the drama!  Then we still had more time to kill, so we went to the Christmas market.

Pepe Noel!!

The movie we saw was called Populaire, and it was so adorable.  It was set in 1959, and it was about a girl who wanted to be a secretary and could type really fast on the typewriter and so she like won some competitions and stuff.  And that was two weeks ago I think.  Unfortunately I can't remember everything.

This most recently past Sunday, I went to St. Just to see some more rocks.

It was super pretty there. I was glad to get out of the house.

This week wasn't too exciting, if I remember correctly.

Eating truffles on the steps of the Opera.

Thursday I went to La Gacilly and Rochefort en Terre to see the artisan shops and Christmas lights.  I don't really have any pictures because my iPod takes terrible pictures in the dark and I wasn't smart enough to bring my real camera, unfortunately. Because it was really gorgeous.  Sorry =(

We saw Anna Karenina last night, it was really good.  Tonight I am going to the TransMusicales, a big famous music festival here in Rennes. I'm pretty excited!  I'll try to blog about that right away before I forget anything.  Haha.

Two weeks left.  Here's hoping they go pretty fast, pretty smoothly, and I don't cry too much.  (I've been crying a lot. Gotta admit that.  I'm very, very homesick despite all the things I've been doing.)

Still alive!

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted anything. I've still been busy doing things! I'll try to get a post together tonight. TWO WEEKS UNTIL I AM ON MY WAY HOME I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanksgivingy Things... again

On Saturday, I made a pumpkin pie!

I was scared to do it, because not only did we have to use a real live pumpkin (and not that canned stuff), I was also pretty sure MP didn't have any measuring utensils (I was correct).  Not to mention she wanted to cut up the pumpkin into little pieces, remove the skin, and cook it in milk, when I said it might be better to leave the skin on and steam it, then pull the skin off later.  Oh well, it ended up working out ok.  I'm so glad we at least cooked pretty much the exact amount of pumpkin we needed... MP almost decided we had enough already to make two pies, but I insisted that's not how pumpkin pie works.  Phew.  MP really liked it, I thought it lacked cinnamon and pumpkiny taste (probably because of too much milk and salt), and MP's friend also really enjoyed it (we brought it to her house for dinner last night.)  So, without further ado, the photos of the process:

Cutting the pumpkin up.

Cooking it... I still think it should have just been steamed like the recipe said.

The batter.  We didn't add enough sugar either.  MP was concerned it was too liquidy but I assured her it was perfectly normal.  Oh, and she also added a whole bunch of salt before I could stop her... she likes things "sale sucre" (salty sweet) but I don't think it worked here.

Before the oven!

The finished product!

Even topped with some homemade whipped cream (also with a lot of salt and not a lot of sugar).

Faults aside, I'm proud of it.  It tasted pretty good for a first try with real pumpkin, and in France no less.

Oh, and a picture of my Thanksgiving dinner, thanks to my friend Jenny.  Looks pretty American to me! And it tasted good!

Thanksgiving in France

So yesterday was Thanksgiving, as you all know!  As many of you also know, it is a strictly American holiday. Meaning that there was still school (not for me, but I never have class on Thursday), people still worked, and life went on as normal.  Luckily my program thinks of the needs of its American students, so I still celebrated turkey day... with turkey!  (Turkey in French is la dinde, pronounced dahnd.)

I had lunch at a retirement home, along with some other American girls.  They invited us because they put on a Thanksgiving lunch as a cultural event for their residents.  It was funny because they called it "The Christmas of the United States" and a lot of French people seem to think Thanksgiving is actually more important than Christmas!  It was funny to explain that, no, it's really not as important as Christmas, we just are lucky because we get an extra fancy holiday.  One lady thought it was kind of like July 14 (Bastille Day) in France, but I had to explain that no, our equivalent of that is actually July 4.  Thanksgiving just makes no sense to French people!  I have one picture to show, and it is hilarious (I think).

As part of the introduction to the lunch, the director reminded everyone that Barak Obama had just been reelected as President of the US.  She then proceeded to welcome the home's very own Barak Obama.  I cracked up when one of the chefs came out with a flaming turkey, wearing an American flag hat.  So goofy.

We ate pumpkin soup, turkey with cranberries (apparently the French don't eat those either... there was a lot of "Ohh... that's what that is!" going on), some kind of orange puree (possibly sweet potato? possibly carrot?), and pecan pie and coffee for dessert.  I also found it funny that they served kir (white wine with fruit syrup) and red wine with lunch. I feel like that wouldn't happen in a retirement home in the States!

I really enjoyed talking with the residents, and one woman told me she was happy to hear me speaking French so well, since a lot of other Anglophones don't really make an effort to do so, when the French work hard to learn English.  All of us girls had different experiences, since we were all in different parts of the room.  But at the end, one man came up to us and said "Thank you Americans for saving me from a German camp during WWII."  He was 20 years old at the time (our age) and is now 94.  What can you even say in response to that?  We were all kind of dumbfounded, but it was really incredible.  That's Thanksgiving, right there.

Sally, Kelin and I did some shopping after, then I went home and chatted with Mom for a bit on Skype.  Then I went to the Thanksgiving dinner the program had arranged for all of us.  I arrived at 7:30 or a little before, but in true French fashion, the meal didn't start until an hour later than we were told.  Oh well!  We started with more kir (an aperitif), and little finger sandwiches.  Then they brought out plates of turkey, sweet potatoes (SO GOOD), corn, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, family style.  I personally thought it was all really good, but others weren't quite so satisfied I guess.  Either way, we all laughed a lot and had a great time in general.

While it wasn't Thanksgiving at home, it was still a great, great day.  I'm thankful to have had the chance to live here in France and have at least a mostly good experience, and I'm also thankful that I only have exactly one month to go until I am home, back in good old Nebraska!

Carnac

Sunday after Nantes, MP took me to Carnac!

We got lost, I got carsick, and she got agitated about being lost... all to be expected on a car trip with my host mother.  But we finally made it.

Carnac is a town famous for having a huge arrangement of prehistoric monoliths.  In French, these are called menhirs (the single standing stones) and dolmens (the ones that look like tables, such as Stonehenge).  The rocks we saw were 6,000 years old!!!!  No one knows exactly why they were placed, but theories range from burial markers to alien landing strips.  We'll probably never know.

We were lucky to have nice weather.

There were sheep hanging out with the old rocks!

My watch stopped at this time. I noticed it an hour later. Carnac is radioactive or something!

It's a joke. =)

Not a very good picture of the dolmen.

I would have liked to have just sat and been quiet with the history for a little while, but MP wanted to point out every potential rope mark on every little stone.  Haha. Oh well!  After we saw the rocks, we got some more lost and finally made it to Lorient where MP's aunt and uncle live in a home for the elderly. I sat in the car and read Jane Eyre while she visited with them, then we drove home!

Now I've seen Carnac!

Just another niiiight in Nantes

Song lyrics for my title. Oooh yeah.

So first of all, all my tests went really well, I managed to get A's on them all except one (a B in my grammar class), so that's happy news. It's also happy news that my grades will transfer in the French equivalent, because if I scored a 15/20 on a test at Doane, that would not be an A at all.  Different grading systems stress me out!

This most recently past Saturday, I went to Nantes with some friends. We took the train. I enjoy train travel.   The weather wasn't great, but thankfully it didn't pour rain because I forgot my umbrella. Our first stop was the castle of the Dukes of Brittany (even though Nantes isn't a part of Brittany anymore).  That's where Anne de Bretagne was born, and she's important because her marriage to the King of France made Brittany a part of France, no longer independent, and sort of saved it from disaster.

We visited the museum inside, where I learned that Nantes was a major port in the slave trade, and also had a big resistance movement during the occupation of France by the Nazis in WWII. 

This guy made me laugh.  I'm assuming he's a figurehead from the front of a boat, but I'm not sure.

We ate pizza for lunch, and it was very good. We were also all very hungry.  After that we went to the cathedral and looked around. It was pretty, another old cathedral to add to my list.  Ya know.  Then Sally, Jenny, Rachel and I got macaroons (I had a bergamot and a coffee flavored one - YUM!) and we all walked to where La Machine is.  They have a giant mechanical elephant.  We didn't ride on it, but it was fun to see.  It sprayed water out of its trunk, and one little girl started bawling because she took a direct hit.  Sad!

After all that, it was unfortunately already time to go.  It was nice to see another city, though!  Lots of shopping to be done there, apparently.  Seemed like they were about to have a big Christmas market in the near future too.  All in all, a good day out.  I only wish we would have had time to go into the gallery of La Machine... line too long... poor planning.... that's how it goes.

I'm sure I'll return one day.

Stay tuned for a post about Carnac!

My photos

I don't put all the pictures I take up here, because that would take up a LOT of space.  So I've created a site where I can dump all my pictures in a somewhat organized manner.

http://rennesadventure.shutterfly.com/pictures

Cool!  It's not exactly how I want it (as in, most of the pictures don't have captions or anything yet), but I think it will get there.  If you want to check it out, go for it.  If you want to wait until I have everything captioned so you know what you're looking at better, that's cool too, but that will be a while I think.  Maybe not even until I get home. (IN SIX WEEKS!)

There are no pictures of Rennes, the city I'm staying in, at this point. Simply because I have a lot, I want to take more, and I want to put them all up at once. Those might have to wait until I get home too, or my very last day.

Loire Valley... two weeks late

So I realized I never posted about my day trip to the Loire Valley with my host mom. Probably because it wasn't hugely fun... but whatever.  We went there the day after my meh trip to Mont St. Michel.  I was having a very off weekend.  BUT.

Our first stop was in Angers, after two hours in the car, where we thought we were going to have time to see the chateau but thanks to poor planning we got right back in the cars to drive another two hours to another place.  MP is part of a group that organizes outings and carpools to them together, and you don't necessarily know the people it's with... you just go.  I'm not sure I necessarily enjoy that, but I've done it with her two or three times now.  Anyway.

That's the castle we didn't get to go in.  I was really sad because it also houses the Tapestry of the Apocalypse  which would have been cool to see because we talked about it in one of my classes last semester at Doane. Sigh.

Then there was a bunch of madness about trying to eat lunch, trying to pay for the castle entrance, and blah blah blah... stressful.  Then a two hour tour of a castle that was only sort of cool on the inside but had really cool gardens.  Also, the woman who "organized" the whole day, and who doesn't know me at all, had to stop the tour guide in the middle of a sentence to say (in French of course), "We have a young American with us, is there anything you can do to make it easier for her?"  Um, excuse me lady, I've been here two months already, after 7 years of school French which I realize isn't the same thing, but I can still understand spoken French pretty dang well.  Way to embarrass the crap out of me in front of all these people I've never met before.  I almost cried right there because it was already such a bad day.  But I didn't.

Part of the really cool gardens at Villandry.

I guess I didn't take many pictures of the castle itself.

After that lovely experience, Marie Paule decided it was time to leave the group and go off on our own. Thankfully!  We went to one last castle, Azay-le-Rideau, and it was much prettier and much better because we just walked around on our own.  And there was sweet fog on the lake nearby.

Then we drove home along the Loire river at sunset and at least that was gorgeous.  Four hours is a long time to be on the road though!  I guess it was a good experience. I got to see some more neat things.