Joyeux Noël! (Merry Christmas!)
Wow, does time fly by or what? It’s already the end of the semester, and I’m wondering how it’s been 4 months since I’ve been in Europe! In what little retrospect I have at this point (because it’s still far too soon to really be able to understand everything I’ve learned this semester), this has been a fantastic semester, and I feel extremely fortunate to have had all the wonderful experiences and to have met all the people I have. When I’m on the bus, I try and think about being on a bus in a week and no longer hearing French all around me, or eating baguette every day, or daily taking the metro/bus, or no longer living in my French house with my French family, or no longer seeing the familiar faces of new friends- American, French, and other students with whom I’ve made friends from all over the world- and it’s just… well, strange. I can’t really picture it, but I know it’s coming soon. I wanted to share with you all some recent experiences I had in “La Bretagne”/”La Normandie” (I’ve already mentioned the two of them in previous blog posts). Not too long ago, I took two different day trips with my boyfriend, Ivan (a Richmond student), who came to visit me for a week from London to two well-known places in this region, St. Malo, and Mont St. Michel. I don’t really know how to describe these places except as beautiful, lovely, and fascinating, with so much history it’s impossible to take it all in in one day (like most historic places, no? even though that’s what everyone does, including me- oh time…).So, let’s start with St. Malo. This is a seaside city located on the upper coast of Brittany, basically right across the English Channel (or “La Manche” to the French) from England. Here’s a picture of the sea and the rock we went out to to have lunch. Have I mentioned yet how beautiful the weather was that day? Nothing less than perfect. We spent most of the day walking around in the old part of the town that is still surrounded by walls from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. 
View from the shore to the island-ish deal (how precise!) we walked out to to have lunch on.
Before walking out to the “island-ish deal”. It was pretty cold because of the wind… as you can tell from the bundling job I did on myself!
A view from where we came (the old part of the city surrounded by walls) once we were out on the “island-ish deal”. Gorgeous, no?!
A picture of another “island-ish deal” taken from the original ”island-ish deal” (I promise I’m done mentioning “island-ish deal”… you won’t hear it from me again! I’m kind of sick of it myself…).
Now tell me this isn’t art- how AMAZING!!! I had never seen ice cream so beautiful before this… love at first sight, most definitely… we bought this in a cute (and very popular, for obvious reasons) ice cream place in the old part of the city.
The day at St. Malo was great! It’s actually an extremely popular destination for the French for short or long vacations, as well as tourists, as you can see why. There were so many other pictures I took and wanted to add, but you know how having to choose goes… well, moving on.
We took another day trip to the famous Mont St. Malo, over which (supposedly) the French from Brittany and those from Normandy have an on-going dispute over in which region of France it is precisely located. Wanting to claim it as their own, some say it’s in Brittany, others in Normandy, but I think most people would agree that it’s in Normandy, and that it looks out over Brittany. Anyways, that’s at least what I heard. Once, I met a French student who was studying at Rennes 2 from Normandy, and when I told her that I would be soon traveling to Mont St. Michel, she said (translated from French) “How great!! Why, that’s in Normandy, you know?!” And so yes, you can see the pride :) Well, it did indeed turn out to be a pretty spectacular trip. Only about a 1.5 hour bus ride from Rennes, I went there with Ivan for the day. It’s pretty much just east of St. Malo. It’s history is pretty intense to say the least… I took the audio tour in French, so I’m afraid I didn’t catch everything, but it basically started out as a fortress around the 6th century. Not long thereafter, the first monastery was built there, and since then, it’s been primarily a monastery. Here’s a plethora of pictures below.
Driving up to Mont St. Michel in the bus, which literally becomes an island as the tide comes in. And yes, those are sheep on the side of the road. Cute, huh?
Inside Mont St. Michel… what a cute city! It’s definitely made out for tourists these days, but extremely charming and rich nonetheless.
A view of the land/water out below. In the mornings when there is a low tide, you can literally go walking out there, but by mid-afternoon, you need to be out of there because the tide starts to come in and that’s when it becomes an island. Talk about good, natural defensive measures, eh?
Me and Ivan with the “ocean” out behind us. Embarrassing as this picture is (for me, that is, though I doubt I even had to specify for whom it is embarrassing) because of my hair (I should mention it was pretty ridiculously windy there too… as you can tell… ;)), I find it so hilarious that I just have to post it. My friend told me I look like an emu. Or maybe she said ostrich… oh well. We can’t always have good hair days, can we? 
And plus, it’s already on facebook… and you know that that means that everyone’s already seen it.
Inside the cathedral at the top of the island fortress-monastery right before the beginning of the afternoon prayers by the monks. Gorrggeeeooouussss cathedral, and very beautiful service.
The courtyard (though I believe there’s a more specific term I’m lacking) where the monks can walk around (and tourists too!).
Looking down down down!!! Checking out the old way of bringing goods up from far below. Pretty neat.
Good bye Mont St. Michel!!!
Again, just like St. Malo, if you ever get the chance to go to France, I would highly recommend coming here. It’s well-known and highly visited for a reason, and if you go on a good day (I went on a Friday afternoon), you don’t run into too many people and avoid those tourist hoards we all hate (or… at least I do, although yup, I’m guilty myself!)
And now moving on once again… I just wanted to put up a few last pictures that I think sums up many great things about my time in Rennes, as well as my final weeks here.
This is the “Marche Noel” (forgive me for the lack of appropriate French accents… I’m not using the right keyboard) which has sprung up in the past fews years every December. It’s so incredibly cute… basically, tons of artisans sell their crafts, their artwork, their French food specialty… really nice place to walk around in for an hour, and of course, you can buy great, unique gifts there too! (Although I didn’t… let’s just say the euro to the dollar is painful X a lot, and leave it at that.)
Christmas caroling at the Franco-American Institute. Although the French don’t do the typical christmas caroling like we do in the US where we go around and knock on peoples’ doors, many French and Americans still came together to celebrate this American tradition in the courtyard of the F-A Institute. In the picture are two American friends and one of my French friends, Mallorie (to the right of me if you’re facing the picture, in the grey jacket), with whom I got to know throughout the semester. Oh, and it was cooollddd!!! We were outside for about 45 minutes in 20 degree F weather singing christmas songs. To be quite honest with you, by the end of those 45 minutes, I was pretty done with Christmas carols… I just wanted to go find a warm, cozy place to get a drink at that point!
A picture of me and two of my French friends, Stephanie (on the left) and Valerie (you guess… on the right!) whom I got to know throughout the semester. I got in contact with them because they had posted an ad in my school building about wanting to meet an anglophone for a linguistic exchange. Of course, being interested in meeting more French people and having the opportunity to partake in a symbiotic relationship (whooaaa… bio terms are coming back to me from freshman year of high school, weird), I called them, met with them, and continued to meet with them for about once a week for a few hours, either going to their house for tea, cooking with them, going to the movies, and even playing Scrabble in English (Stephanie beat me 
the anglophone didn’t even win in her own maternal tongue…) AND French with them (I don’t even want to say how badly I lost in this game.). It was one of best experiences of my time in Rennes and I’m very happy that we’ve all agreed that we’ll stay in touch through skype, etc. That is how I met Mallorie (two pictures above) too (linguistic exchange ad)!
My Iranian friends! Yes, somehow I ended up befriending my first 4 Iranian friends ever in France. I guess that just shows how limited my thinking was of France and much of the rest of the world before going abroad. I figured “France” meant “only French”, but I learned that, similar to the US, there is a great amount of immigration to France as well! Anyways, I first met Behrouz (the guy next to me) through a linguistic exchange ad (yes, another one! Actually, there were four in all!), and I eventually got to know the other 3 through Behrouz. It has really been one of the most enriching cultural experiences I’ve ever had. And can be pretty confusing at times too! Maryam, the girl farthest to the left if you’re looking at the picture, speaks some English, hardly any French, Kurdish, and Farsi. Mobim, next to her, to my knowledge speaks pretty much just Farsi (both Maryam and Mobim just arrived to France 3 months ago and have only begun to learn French), Behrouz speaks fluent French (he’s been living in France for 12 years), Farsi, Kurd, Arabic, and is starting to learn English, and Marabin next to me speaks Farsi and French pretty well… THUS, you can imagine the madness of translation that was going on, and all the different languages that were being spoken at the same time. Still, I think it has been a really eye-opening experience for me especially since Iran and the US are on such poor political terms right now. It has been so amazing to meet these Iranians and see how they are real people who think and feel just like me and all the Americans I know. Also, it has showed me firsthand how friendship, understanding, and love really transcends even such drastic language and cultural barriers. I will really treasure this group of people, and I told them all that when I go back to the US, I will tell everyone what a nice, down-to-earth bunch of Iranians I met. I will really miss them, and I’m sad we will not have more time to get to know each other.
And last but not least, my little kiddies!!!! Here’s a picture of the class of French “petits” (little kids) that I had the great pleasure of teaching once a week throughout my stay in Rennes. It was a really great experience to have taught these kids- one of the best for sure(!) of my time in Rennes. On the last day, we celebrated at the end with some cookies- yay! I will most certainly miss them and their cute French accents when they speak English. Plus, little kids are hilarious!
And wow, well… besides that, what can I say?! It was a great semester, and although I’m sad to leave, I’m also ready to go home and see my family and friends and share all this with them (though they might get sick of me talking about it all after a while, don’t you think? ;))! Andddd, it looks like I’m going to keep writing next semester too when I’m back at Richmond, so I’ll see you all around next semester! I’m actually on my way to Lima, Peru of all places, to spend Christmas and a few weeks there with my Ivan’s family. I’ll definitely update you all on my trip there and how it all went when I get back to Richmond in January. But until then, have a great vacation and happy holidays!
Bisoux,
Shannon
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