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.”

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!

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.

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.

So much HAM.

This morning we went to a French church.  All I have to say about that is… not understanding French and going to a French church is not exactly the most fun activity.  The only word I understood through the service was ‘Pizza’ and hearing it really just caused more confusion than clarity.

Ironically, after church we had a big pizza lunch at the house.  Then we headed to a little town about 45 minutes away called Clisson.  While there we got to see an old castle and explore around the grounds.  It was really cool.  No big stories from it, but I’ll try to throw little stories in with picture captions.

Funny sign before entering the old castle area.

The guys enjoyed climbing all over.

When we saw this old well, my first thought was the beginning of Call Me Maybe (“I threw a wish in the well…”)  Gretchen on the other hand began singing the song from the beginning of Snow White.  I think this is a very accurate representation of our differences, haha.

So cool!

Some of our group.

Alex and December

At the top of the castle, overlooking part of the city of Clisson.

Tim with this weirdo van parked on the street.

Really pretty sunset from the bus on the way back to the houses.

We spent the evening playing some very rousing card games and laughing to the point of tears multiple times.  One of those times was while our professor was telling us what was for dinner.  If you don’t know this about me, one of the only meats I don’t like is Ham.  Can’t stand it.  The pizza we had for lunch had ham on it, which distressed me slightly.  Well dinner was sandwiches and for some reason there were like 6 different kinds of ham. Gretchen started giggling while Dr. B was telling us about them and there were just more and more.  Eventually he just quizzically looked over at her which caused both of us to just completely lose it.  And if you know me, once I cry laughing once, it happens pretty much every time I laugh for the rest of the night.  And I was laughing quite a lot, ha.

Overall, I am surprised (in a really good way) at how quickly all the people on this trip have bonded.  Before we left I had remarked that it was a really odd assortment of people coming… but we’ve meshed really well and there is definitely a great sense of camaraderie.  It’s awesome, and is making the trip even more enjoyable.

Well, it’s late and breakfast is early because we are headed on a day trip to Angers.  Hopefully Gretch will have some great stories to tell you about that tomorrow, but for now I’m signing off.  Bonne nuit!