Another great day!

Breakfast (and therefore my wakeup time) was even earlier today than yesterday… luckily though, I did not have any ridiculous dreams about professors that I was forced to share over the meal. 🙂

Soon after our 7:45 meal time, we loaded the bus for a trip to Saint Nazaire where we saw a former U-boat Nazi base.  To be completely honest with you it was just a lot of concrete, and I was a little bored.  (Just keeping it real here, people.)  The 45 seconds it took me to envision what it was like during WWII was pretty cool though.  And there was a nice view from the top:

After we left Saint Nazaire, we drove up the rocky coast and also got to see some salt marshes, which were pretty neat.  Now I’ve seen the Atlantic ocean from both sides!  Fun stuff.

A man working in the salt marsh.

The coast!

Tim jumping around on the rocks.

We sort of look photo-shopped into this, but I promise we were actually there.

Really pretty!

We continued our drive until we got to Guerande, where we were set loose for lunch.  We ended up in a cute little creperie (imagine that!) and had a very nice meal. 

The table we were seated at had this GIANT flower display which essentially made it impossible for anyone to see the person sitting directly across from them:

None of us knew how to request it be moved, since none of us know French (and even though there are lots of really weirdo phrases in my phase book, ‘could you please move the flowers’ was not one of them.)  Luckily for us, Brendon was also at this crepe shop, and due to the many French classes he took at a really great high school, he was able to help us ask the woman if it could be moved.  (It could.)

Once the flower situation was handled, we were able to enjoy our meals.  I had a sausage, onion, and tomato crepe, and Gretchen had an apple crepe, which she enjoyed immensely.

I also had 4 mini dessert crepes and coffee, which looked too nice not to photograph:

Our little group.

After lunch we headed back to the gates of the city for a guided tour.

Our tour guide needed volunteers to act our the story behind the construction of the wall… Gretchen was happy to participate.

On top of the wall… really neat.

After our tour we were given some time to wander the town and visit the little shops and things with instructions to meet back at the gates at 3:30.  We of course stopped in a chocolate store (among other places).

We arrived back at the gates at 3:30 only to find out that our bus would not start.  We were told to just keep coming back every half hour until it was fixed.  Oooookay then.  At 4 it was still not fixed and they were planning to just send another bus.  So, we decided to go wait out the rest of our time in a café.  Guess what we did…

…if you guessed riddles, you’re correct.  So many riddles over the past 2 days.  I’m unsure how there could possibly be any more riddles that I haven’t heard.  Unfortunately I will forget them all by the end of the week, no doubt.

Initially we had all coins in this dish to pay our 15.80€ bill.  Luckily Dave had a 10€ bill, so it looked slightly less ridiculous.  The server definitely laughed at us though.

Finally around 5 we were all loaded onto another bus and made our way back to Nante for a free night.  Our group headed downtown to get dinner and hang out and we had a great time.

Tomorrow is another free day and I have no idea what is in store for me.  Gretchen on the other hand is headed off to a French vet school with our professors, which should be a cool experience for her!  I’m sure she’ll give a full report.  Actually, I’m not sure of that at all, but we can hope.

A joyful day at Angers

Morning for me, 6:45am. Morning for MG, 7:30am. (side note by MG: I was only awake at this ungodly hour because breakfast was at 8.) At 7:30am I was blessed to be joined by a (semi)conscious MG for listening to French bird calls outside our window and for dream telling. It just so happens that MG had a gem of a dream last night about one of the professors on the trip with us. The dream involved this professor’s wedding day- awkward, but hilarious. The respective prof was running late, driving a 15 passenger van, and running even later because she was trying to capture and save a stray cat. In the process of saving the cat, the prof ruined her wedding dress and had to buy another at target. We don’t try to explain these dreams, but we did end up telling the prof to her face (this may have been my fault…) at breakfast.

Moving on from the morning, we traveled with the group to Angers. (On-jay) Angers was a beautiful town with a huuuuge castle (chateau) right at its center. Before going to the castle, we stopped at a late Romanesque cathedral for an hour and a half. Yes, 1.5 hours. Although I was skeptical of filling the time, I think these pictures show that we did a good job of it:

A human head relic… creepy but cool.

Our boredom once we saw all of the cathedral in 20 minutes may have resulted in an attempt to mimic this statue:

As you can see… it did not end well.

(There may be some video of this event… you can look forward to seeing that in a coming guest post from Tim.)

After the cathedral we walked on to the castle.

 
The King and Queen!  (Two of the professors on the trip lost a card game- the wager for which required them to wear the crowns from King cakes the whole day in Angers.)

The castle was amazing, but the 700 year old Apocalypse tapestry it houses was even more spectacular.

After being set free to find a place for lunch on our own, we sat down at a fashionable creperie near the chateau. It was certainly the right place because our professors arrived after we did. Score. This was a double score because again, neither of us (nor anyone else in our small group of friends) knows much French, so our professor, even on the other side of the restaurant, could help us out with emergency questions. Our lunch was huge and delicious. MG topped off her goat cheese galette with a nutella crepe and I had a ham, spinach, and crème galette followed by chocolat chaud. (side note by MG: you may be aware that goats are my favorite animal.  And by ‘favorite’ I may actually mean that I am slightly obsessed with them. Something I am NOT obsessed with on the other hand, is goat CHEESE.  It is gross, and not what I ordered in my crepe.  Unfortunately my limited French did not allow me to communicate that they got my order wrong, so I sucked it up and ate most some of it anyway.  This nutella crepe mostly made up for it though: ) 

Although we did ask our professor some questions, we did not think to ask how to pay for our meal. We waited for the bill, and waited some more. Finally, we discovered that you had to pay at the door. Oops. Our poor waiter was confused at us, I’m sure.  We eventually did pay the bill, and made our way out to explore Angers.

After shopping for the afternoon in fancy, financially inaccessible but fashionable stores, we headed back to Nantes and ate a huge dinner in a mall. Getting back to Nantes involved a bus ride of riddles courtesy of Tim’s phone. (side note by MG: the riddles were not contained to the bus.  In fact, the whole night pretty much turned into riddles any time the opportunity arose… waiting for dinner, waiting for the tram, on the tram, walking the streets… I’ve never in my life done so many riddles.)  Anyway, at dinner we caved and got hamburgers and french fries. (side note by MG: a wonderful change of pace after the nasty goat cheese crepe.) French fries are pretty good here in France.

Simply enjoying the sights and eating food has been a great joy today in Angers.

Eggs in all forms

Today was a success as we started off with an egg bar. It was classified as an egg bar due to the fact that there was a large goose stretching around the room with egg shaped chairs. Really- here it is:

 

Here is MG and me on the goose head:

The egg bar, being on the 32 floor of a building had a great view of Nantes:

(note the fried eggs painted on top of some of the buildings… kind of funny!)

We then made our way to lunch at a Creperie where MG and I both had delicious galettes (meal crepes) followed by raspberry crepes for dessert. MG, who hates eating warm fruit, forgot that raspberries are a fruit and crepes are warm, but she was a trooper and enjoyed it anyways.

(side note by MG: I actually did not forget that raspberries are a fruit because I am not an idiot, but did not think about the fact that the jam inside would in fact be warm [so maybe I am an idiot… who knows].  The crepe was good but since it was warm fruit and I was super full from the meal crepe, Tim ended up finishing mine.)

After enjoying our eggs in crepe form, we proceeded to have an afternoon free to enjoy anything that Nantes had to offer us… which was not a bathroom or “toilettes”. We learned that knowing how to ask, “Do you have a bathroom” or “Where is the bathroom” does not automatically make the store have a bathroom. To make the story short, we found one, but it took 45 minutes. Oh well. (side note by MG: I almost peed myself on the streets on Nantes during this process…) Other highlights of the day included Japanese gardens, a machine elephant, a rainbow, more eggs, a metro in boat form… well, just take a look:

My final delightful dose of eggs came from the Delight cafe where I ordered a quiche for dinner.

The Delight happened to be a wonderful choice as multiple employees quickly realized that their rapid french was lost on us. One particularly nice employee explained to us how the ordering work at the cafe and helped us through the process. It was quite a relief. Even the cashier was quite nice. He asked (in English), “Do you need a napkin? Well, I’m sure you don’t need one, but I’ll give it to you, I’m sure you’re clean…” I think he didn’t want to offend me by saying that I needed a napkin, but it was much appreciated.

With that, our group closed off our evening with gilotto and chocolat chaud (hot chocolate). Any night ending in chocolate is a good one in my book.