Joan Returns

She’s back and better than ever!*

*Okay, this may actually be a lie, as her hair suffered some abuse with the removal of her hat…

 

Confused? This should (sort of) clear things up.

 

Another Perspective

Tim has graciously agreed to guest post and share another perspective on our trip to France… enjoy!

I am honored to be able to guest post on this blog. As you may or may not already know, I have also had the wonderful opportunity to go on the trip to France as a fulfillment of the Modern Civilization intercession course. The past two weeks have been a series of laughs, riddles, inside jokes, and adventure. After Mary Grace told me that I could guest post, I have been contemplating how to write it, so here it goes.

To start off, I am glad that I was able to go on the France trip with Gretchen and MG. It was an amazing time to be able to see all of the places we traveled to as well as explore some of France on our own time. Even in the 12 days we had, I feel like we made hundreds of memories and took even more pictures. From card games at the study center to snowball fights at the Louvre, the trip kept getting better and better.

But along with all of the fun memories came some embarrassing and crazy ones also. As MG alluded to in a previous post one of the embarrassing moments happened at the cathedral in Angers when MG and Gretchen tried to mimic a statue- unsuccessfully, as the video below shows.

Another time earlier, while we were eating at a fine creperie with the whole group we discovered that the dessert candy wrappers were slightly transparent.  This caused us to use them like monocles, which probably looked pretty crazy to the other French people.

Then in Guerande when we were touring the wall around the city there was some controversy over the color of MG’s eyes.  This resulted in some serious picture taking, which looked pretty funny, although I’m not sure if it even resolved the debate.

Then when I tried to take a picture of Brendon, MG decided to randomly put her face in front of my camera which turned into a blurred close-up of her.

While we were waiting for food at a restaurant, Gretchen decided to test out her skills with a knife by using one to solve a word search on the place mat at the table.

This next picture is a good representation of an accumulation of habits we had in France. First off, it is the cartoon setting on my phone camera which I was testing out, which is why it looks the way it does. Yet it still captures how we always took pictures of any food/drink we ordered, and how we always took forever to get the exact change to effectively split the bill, since French restaurants didn’t do it for us.

Then there’s the time when we were just bored on an escalator and decided to pose for the mirror on the side.

There were also some nice and relaxing times, like when we acted out the royal history between the region of Brittany and France.

And when we marveled at the Eiffel Tower as it glowed in the snowfall at night.

Or when we were just drawing some pictures on the bus in between cities. The first is a portrayal of a small town at night, and the other is a sunset. Which picture is better? Guess who drew the better picture?
 

So, I hope I was able to partially capture some of our fun, crazy, and embarrassing pictures and videos on the journey. Gretchen and MG have already done a fantastic job in showing a majority of the highlights, but I hope this helps to add a different side to things. So, as the French would say, “Au revoir” or “Adieu.”

Jet lagggg (and the fun it brings)

As MG said, we’re home, but I’m not sure if our bodies know that yet. We have been catching up on sleep pretty well, but our Neurobiology night class on Monday was pretty rough for both of us. At 8pm (which felt like 2:00am), we were learning about glial cells and myelin sheaths. Yeah, the nerve endings in our brains were not picking that up. After yawning our way through we collapsed before 11pm. There is a positive to this though… MG has miraculously become a morning person just like me! I am quite aware that this will not last, but it’s been nice to have her awake in the morning with me. I suppose that’s a little selfish, but true. We have also said some pretty ridiculous things to each other in our sleepy states. I would give you an example, but honestly I just can’t remember any at the moment. Oh well. One thing I do remember (due to photo evidence) is the that MG and I had the most delicious frappuccinos from the airport Starbucks:

I’m sure you can see our our happiness despite the jet lag. Well, the semester is now in full swing! Hopefully we can catch up with it soon.

Home.

After a looooong day of travel we safely made it back to the USA. Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days of our trip. We wrote them, but had no internet to post them.  They are all posted now though, so check them out below!  Paris was definitely the best part of our time aboard, so you don’t want to miss them!

I Love (the food in) Paris!

Well, as Gretchen said, yesterday was pretty much the most awesome day ever.  I knew we wouldn’t be able to top it, but today was pretty darn great.

We did lots of sight seeing around Paris, including the Panthéon, Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides, the Grand Army Museum, the Arch of Triumph, St. Chapelle’s chapel, and a few other things.  We also did some shopping.

Pillars on the outside of the Panthéon
So pretty inside!
Foucault’s pendulum
Rousseau’s tomb in the crypts at the Panthéon
Napoleon’s tomb
Part of the Grand Army museum
Les Invalides
Arch of Triumph
Eternal Flame
St. Chapelle chapel
Stunningly beautiful

All of that was great, but to be honest… the best parts of the day were meal times.  At lunch we went to a small café near the Grand Army Museum where both Gretchen and I had delicious chicken, mozzarella and tomato sandwiches.  Dave chose to eat the 26 Euro menu meal, which was 4 courses consisting of escargot, lamb, tiramisu and coffee.  Everyone else was done and he was still working on his first course, ha.  It looked delicious though, so I’m sure it was worth it.  Brendon and Luke ate nearly raw steak, but so far so good on the Salmonella front.

We ate dinner at Ratatouille, and it was hands down the best meal I’ve eaten while in France.

For an appetizer I had a tart with tomato, caramelized onions, and slices of eggplant with a small salad… SO delicious:

And my main course was salmon with pesto and rice… also completely delicious:

Gretchen enjoyed a large steak with seasoned potatoes as an entrée, and baked apple with vanilla gelato for dessert.  According to her, it was also delicious.

The nine of us spent 2.5 hours in the restaurant and I don’t think I’ve laughed as hard as I did in a really long time.  Dave gave a great toast that was something along the lines of “Paris… the city of light.  May we add to the ever increasing brightness of it’s glow” which was hilarious and awesome all at the same time.
Couldn’t have asked for a better group to explore France with than these people.

I can’t believe we fly home tomorrow… on the one hand I am sad that our trip is coming to an end because it has been so much fun, and I’ve really enjoyed experiencing another country with some extremely awesome people.  On the other hand I am definitely ready to be back in the United States, where I know the language and culture (though I’m not exactly thrilled for the loooooong flight that lies ahead.)

I must add a thank you shout out to Tim and Alex for being Paris tram champs.  That subway system is ridiculously confusing, and we never would have found our way if not for them.

To close, here is a Haiku about Paris written by Brendon:

The City of Light, Paris
Walking, seeking, foreign tongues
Twas most amazing

Topping the Best Day EVER.

Yesterday was awesome as MG explained, but today was amazing. The day was packed to the brim and overflowing with the beautiful wealth of Versailles and then the beginnings of our Paris journey. The day was extremely cold, but walking through the halls of Versailles in the morning provided the most beautiful shelter one could ask for. My favorite part of Versailles was the Hall of Mirrors and all of the historic Horse paintings. (Predictable, I know) The gold garnishing almost every surface along with the decadence of paintings, carpets, and tapestries was truly overwhelming. As I told one of the members from our group, “If I was a French peasant, I would ticked that my money bought this… but, I’m not, so this is awesome.” Here is a small, spectacular sampling:

MG with some goats

After Versailles we were given one hour to run through the city and find lunch. Our group of 9 successfully found a cute, warm creperie to sit down in. The creperie looked a little like a pirate ship on the inside- just a fun fact. (side note by MG: Gretchen took this to the extreme and made MANY comments/jokes regarding our ‘voyage on the frigid sea’  ‘walking the plank’ ect.  So ridiculous, ha.)  One of the funniest parts of this lunch was a mystery crepe ordered by 3 of the people in our group. The crepe was called the Grand Marnier. We though it had fruit in it, but when it came it appeared to be simply sugar and butter. Expecting this, the three each took huge bites… but it wasn’t just sugar. There was a certain, ahem, ‘kick’ to this crepe and in the words of one of the victims, “This smells like hand sanitizer.  My throat is burning.” Of course the crepe included a similar ingredient and we’ll let you fill in the blanks. Lesson learned- Grand Marnier ≠ fruit.

Doing a word search with a knife since there were no writing utensils.
MG’s crepe

Dave eating the Grand Marnier crepe

We rushed back to the bus and were off to Paris and its intimidating metro system. We began by going to the Concierge and Notre Dame. The Concierge was essentially a Castle Museum and was the place were Marie Antoinette was held before her execution. There was even a creepy display of mannequins acting out the scene.

Notre Dame was of course, spectacular, especially the rose windows.

While we were checking out the outside of Notre Dame, we found a playground with a seesaw. Super exciting until we realized that the age limit is 6 years, so we just pretended to sit on it.

If the morning wasn’t enough, the evening made this day one that we will never forget. The Louvre has been on my mind from the day this trip was a reality and today was the day to see it. I came in knowing that I couldn’t see it all, but I’d say our group gave a gallant effort. I could write for hours about this experience. Seeing painting after painting that I have admired for years was fantastic. I just couldn’t get enough. MG on the other hand was not as enthusiastic about halls and halls of Italian paintings:

(side note by MG: this is a slight exaggeration of my feelings.)

Of course we saw the Mona Lisa in all of her glory:

And took note of all the paintings of goats for MG’s sake:

The finale of our Louvre visit was our reward for enduring a day of cold- a snowball fight. Who can say that they had a snowball fight around the glass pyramid entrance of the Louvre? We can.

An adequate depiction of the chaos of the snowball fight

MG even admitted to loving this despite that fact that the experience included snow. (This means it was suuuper fun.) We were soaking wet after the fight, but we had one last mission for the night- we wanted to see the Eiffel Tower lit up amidst the snow. Thankfully, our mission was accomplished and we had one of the most breathtaking views either of us had ever seen.

It was truly a night we will never forget and we still have a full day tomorrow! (Actually, I guess tomorrow has already started) We even topped off the night with warm, nutella crepes right in front of the tower.

It was too great for words. All I can say is Bonsoir!!

(Side note by MG: All Gretchen can say is Bonsoir, but I’ve got more.  You know how people usually end good (or really bad) stories with ‘and then I found 5 dollars’?  WELL, I legitimately found 5 Euros tonight.  FREE CREPE, WOOOHOOO!  Tonight was pretty much the best night of my life.  As I said on the tram ride back to the hotel, the only thing that could have made it better would be if there was a goat petting zoo under the Eiffel Tower.  One can dream, right?)

The Best Day So Far.

The morning started twice for me.  The first time I groggily got out of bed, stumbled onto the bus, and promptly fell back asleep.  The second time my morning started, one of the first things I heard was our professor say, “I have no freaking idea what’s going on.”  That’s always comforting.  Eventually he figured it out, and our adventure to Mont Saint-Michel began.  This was one of the things I was most excited about seeing while in France, and it did not disappoint.

 

After our adventure at Mont Saint-Michel we hopped back on the bus to head to several different places along the coast at Normandy.  First stop was at Pointe du Hoc to see what our professor called the “bomb holes.”  He corrected himself a few minutes later, they are in fact called craters.

From Pointe du Hoc we headed to Omaha beach, where we saw the American Cemetery and museum.  To be completely honest, I could have bawled my entire way through the museum. (I didn’t, but I also basically ran from the beginning to the end willing myself not to sob.  Can’t believe I just admitted that on the blog…) I just cannot hold myself together when it comes to things like that, which is ironic, because it’s probably the only thing that really gets me.  Gretchen struggled a little as well, but we made it through.

Words can’t really adequately describe the cemetery, and the pictures don’t do it justice.  But here are some anyway:

Unfortunately we weren’t able to make it all the way down to the beaches here, due to flooding on the path.  Having just watched the beginning of Saving Private Ryan it was sobering to know what took place on what is now such a serene beach.

After Omaha beach we drove a little ways down to see the Mulberry.  We also got to see a very neat tank a short walk up the hill from the beach.

From here we made the trek to our hotel about an hour or so outside of Paris.  The room was cute but TINY.  Liz and December legitimately had to crawl over a bed to get into their bathroom, haha.

We went to a French McDonalds for dinner and made all the French people hate us with our uproarious laughter about washing spoons, awkward comments, and other things which probably wouldn’t have been funny had we not all spent hours on a bus/been pretty sleep deprived.

We finished the night out with a few rounds of Mafia, which were absolutely hilarious.  Gretchen is a horrible mafia narrator, but Dave made up for it with some weirdo stories involving our bus drive Philippe, snipers, and a giant freezer. All told in a ridiculous French accent… that’s been a running thing this whole trip that I don’t think we’ve blogged about.

Overall, this was the best day of the trip so far, but I’m very excited to see what Paris holds for us.  I can’t believe we only have 2 days left… this has been so much fun and I’m not sure I’m quite ready for it to end!

Blog Hiatus Of Sorts

The internet in the hotel we are staying at right now is being really finicky and keeps kicking me off while I’m trying to post.  Today was the best day of the trip so far (in my opinion) and I definitely want to have time to post lots of pictures (I took wayyyyy too many) so tonight I’m just going to leave you with this, and hope it works.

Mont Saint-Michel… SOOOOO cool.

Hopefully there will be the opportunity for a full post once we get to our hotel in Paris tomorrow.

Splitting up ‘The Pair’ (Part 2)

(If you haven’t read part 1, it’s below and you should check that out first.)

So, as Gretchen said we were split up this morning.  I had major separation anxiety.  Just kidding, I was fine.  While she was living it up at the vet school, I was living it up at the mall.  After an hour of tram hopping, we ended up in Atlantis.  First stop… FOOD.  (If I come back with like 155 extra pounds, you’ll also know why, haha.)  We found a café with a student discount, meaning we got a sandwich, a pastry, and a drink for 4€.  SCORE.  It was so yummy… and this is coming from someone who always forgets that sandwiches are a thing and are sometimes good.

We then shopped around a little bit.  Can I just say… French clothes fit so weirdly.  And I had no idea what sizes I wore in the European sizing.  This led to the discovery that I am really bad at looking at something and knowing if it would be even close to fitting.  (Or maybe I really have gained 155 pounds from all the nutella, crepes, and other various foods and just haven’t looked in a mirror lately, haha.  I’m kidding.  I think.)

After our shopping ventures, I had my first Ikea experience.

It was pretty awesome, not going to lie.  It’s unfortunate that it took a transatlantic flight for me to get to a store that is a mere 3 hour drive from my home, ha.

This was also Brendon and Luke’s first Ikea experience, so we documented it.

When Gretchen said we had an epic afternoon after being reunited, she was lying to you.  We had a very short lecture on Normandy in preparation for our visit there tomorrow, and then we watched a movie on the ‘Machines of D-Day.’  Let’s just say that was a struggle for me to remain conscious for.  Then we watched the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.  Let’s just say that was a struggle for me to remain composed for.  I want to bawl every time I see that.  And I NEVER cry (unless it’s of laughter) so that’s saying something.

Anyway, we had a spaghetti dinner at the study center and then cleaned the houses since we’re leaving tomorrow for the next part of our trip.  Gretchen and I were put on 3rd floor bathroom cleaning duty.  Let me tell you… cleaning with French cleaning products is difficult because you have no idea what product is for what surface.  We may have mopped with toilet bowl cleaner… I really have no idea.  This also may have happened:

If you’re wondering, “is Mary Grace wearing a… toga?”  The answer is yes.  Here’s why… I had to use bleach and I really didn’t want to ruin any of the clothes that I brought here because none of them are crappy cleaning clothes.  I looked around my room and tried to decide what would be the best course of action to avoid a bleach disaster. My decision was to use my sheet like a toga.  This decision was working out great, and would have been fine, except that as I was cleaning the toilet in my toga, one of our professors walked up the stairs to check on the cleaning.  The only thing I could think to say was, “Um… when you have me in class next semester… please just don’t remember this moment.” So embarrassing.

You can’t really see Gretchen’s awesome cleaning outfit in either of these pictures, but I assure you it was a sight to be seen, haha.

Welp… tomorrow is another early morning so we can get on the bus to head out to Normandy.  I’m wondering how close to 6:45 I can wake up and still make it to the bus in time.  6:42 is sounding pretty good right now.  I’ll let you know how that plan shakes out next time I post, haha.  Au revoir!

Splitting up ‘The Pair’ (Part 1)

Today in France was a unique day as MG and I were actually apart for the morning. Crazy, right? I went to the French veterinary school Oniris with two of the professors from our trip, while MG travelled to Atlantis. No, not the underwater Atlantis, but a large French mall called Atlantis. (She’ll have to tell you more about it) My tour of Oniris was great. The director of the university gave us a tour and showed us the research labs, surgery classes, equine centers, cancer center, research animals, clinic rooms… the list goes on. Every room was interesting and I particularly enjoyed the skeptical stares of one of the professors (the one who is not a veterinarian). He (the professor) was generally surprised at the depth of veterinary medicine into all areas of mammalian anatomy. Our stop in the rectal palpation teaching barn was particularly entertaining. We were there primarily to check out future internship opportunities for students between the schools. I think it went pretty well. I can also say that I saw over 80 cats in one day. Check that off the bucket list. After the vet school outing, I went to lunch with three professors from our school. Needless to say, I was on my best behavior. (When am I not? Haha) I think one of the most challenging parts of the day was eating awkwardly sized pieces of lettuce while answering professors’ questions about my future plans. Whew- I also had ‘pizza’ with ground beef, tomato slices, a fried egg, and bbq sauce. It sounds weird, but it wasn’t too bad. If I come back with a few extra pounds, you’ll know why. ‘The Pair’ reunited at 3:00pm and so did an epic afternoon.