Nantes

 

Friday evening after school, I took the train (all by myself like a big girl!) to Nantes to visit a friend.  The journey started off with Pantagruel, a book for French class which I hate.  But don't worry, things got better, lots better.

 

After an incredibly enjoyable sleep-over spent playing wii, eating food, and laughing, we went for a tour of Nantes.

 

 

We found this totally adorable car.  It was old and cute and red.  Call me weird (and you'd be right!), but I just had to have my picture taken with it.

 

When we went in the city, we found these guys giving a live performance.  They were fairly good and it was pretty cool to find a real band just randomly giving a performance.

 

We visited the gigantic shopping district in Nantes.  The prices there were gigantic too.

 

On a street corner, I randomly found this and it made me think of Ratatouille.  When my friend saw that I stopped to take a picture of it, I think she began to question my sanity.

 

Here is a picture of the large cathedrale.  It was incredibly beautiful, but again it made me reflect on the church situation here.

 

You can't see it very well in this picture; but on the building on the left there's a cool painting of branches that was very pretty.

 

I'm really disappointed that my photographing skills (yes, you may laugh at this point; I know you can't call my efforts "skill" by any stretch of the imagination) can't adequately capture the beauty I see around me.  Here, I wanted to show you guys the beautiful buildings, especially the beautiful railings.  In Nantes, just about every railing is a work of art.  It's pretty awesome.

 

My friend to me to see Le Passage Pommeraye, a beautiful building filled with shops.

 

It was incredibly gorgeous, and, again, my photos don't do it justice by a long shot.

 

I was worried that some of you might miss seeing my crazy shoes, so I took a picture.  :D  Yup, I know I'm weird.

 

Oh, and here they are again.  But there's something more interesting and important here, and that's the snippet of the mosaique.  It was randomly just there on the sidewalk, which was totally awesome.  Unfortunately, it was very damaged and you couldn't really tell what it was.

 

And here was a very cool building covered in ivy.  I don't quite know why, but I love buildings covered in ivy, so I took a picture.

 

This was another cathedral that we barely saw in passing.

 

And you see that green structure there?  That was the most awesome advertising board I've ever seen.

 

Here we have another bit of a cathedral.  Sadly, I didn't get to take a better picture because I was in the bus.

 

As we rode along in the bus, I found this random painting on a house of a desert.  Call me weird, but I thought it was cool.

 

Here's a little picture of some of the lovely houses in Nantes.  If I had taken pictures of all of them, this post would last for an eternity because there were tons of beautiful hosues.

 

Me and my wonderful friend.

 

And me on the train on the way home.

 

 

Now for an assorted collection of miscelanious photographs that I have not yet shown you all.

 

This is me with a dear, dear friend from school.  Like me, she's an exchange student, but she's staying the entire year at St. Louis (I applaud her for that because that's a long time to be in a foreign country!).  We feel a certain commrodery because we can both feel rather clueless at times and we both speak English better than French (although she's Finnish, so even English isn't her first language!).

 

When walking around the town, I love finding random nautical decorations like the one on this house.  I find it totally adorable.

 

Here's another beautiful house in St. Nazaire.

 

These have got to be two of my favorite houses in the town just because of their colors.  I've found that the house colors (or the accents on the houses) are so much brighter and more cheery here, and I love that.

 

And, as requested, I have more pictures of eraser sculptures.

 

Unforunately, I only had time to make one, but hopefully I'll make another one for you guys soon.

And thus concludes another glimpse into my activities here.

Guérande, a rainy day, and randomness

 

On Sunday, we went to Guérande, a beautiful fortified Medieval city.

 

This is what the main road looked like, with touristy shops lining either side.  Most of the buildings were just as old as the city.  It was just so different from America, where something from a hundred years ago is considered old.

 

In one of the shops; there were all these clay piggy banks that stared out the window at the passers-by.  It struck me as funny.

 

 

Here's another view of the main street.  I also love how this picture captures the European biking spirit.

 

Here is the cathedral.  (And yes, those are my two brothers horsing around in the corner. :P )

 

 Although magnificant and incredibly impressive, as I walked through the cathedral, my heart was saddenned.

 

 

The beauty that everyone admired there was the beauty of what man can create, not the beauty of a God who mercifully saves sinners.

 

With its musky smell and cool, damp atmosphere, the ambiance seemed to reflect most Europeans' view of church: something cold, old, and outdated with no practical use.

 

While somewhat beautiful, the beauty was stiffling and I couldn't wait to get out.

 

If that building is what "church" means here, I can see why most people wouldn't want to go, because, quite frankly, I wouldn't want to either.

 

Visiting the cathedral gave me a different perspective on what images the word "church" can evoke.

 

It also gave me a desire to pray more for the church in Europe, that it would be rejuvenated and that "church" would no longer mean an old, stuffy building, but a body of people, ready to love like Christ.

 

As we walked back to the car, we found this cute little ally.

 

I found this door incredibly adoorable.  (Can you tell that I miss puns?  It's so much harder to make them in a foreign language.)

 

I also permitted my brother to take a picture of me, just to prove that I didn't take this photos off the internet, but I actually went to Guérande.

 

 

 

 

And now we get to something that I love about this place: the rain.

 

It finally started raining, and I love it.

 

 

 I love gazing at the sea covered with a thin mist that veils the horizon.

 

I love seeing the view from my window smattered and blurred with rain.

 

I love watching the rain drops drip from my window.

 

 

And now we come to random Renee-ness.  :)

 

I think I was brilliant to bring along my squishable eraser.  Here's one of the many creations I've made.  Let's just say I never get bored.

 

Here are two of my host sister's friends, but they're now my friends too.  On Saturday, we spent a lovely day together full of lots and lots of laughter.  And I get to tutor at least one of them.  These English lessons are going to be awesome.

 

And if you look closely in the lower left corner of this photo, you can see the most awesome car ever: a multi-colored punch-buggy.  Unfortunately, I was in the car, so I couldn't take a better picture.

 

And that's all, folks!

Once upon a time...

Three girls up and left in a camping car to go to Puydu Fou (and get away from the crazy boys at home!).

 

 

The trip started out nicely, with a little candy and some homework.

 

 

When we arrived at Puydu Fou, we had a little time to kill, so we ate a snack and played hangman.  In case you were wondering, hangman is not the same in every country.  It was interesting to learn to play it with different rules.



 

We had to arrive at the big show an hour before it started, so we did what any two bored girls with a camera would do.

 

We took silly pictures!

 

 

 

 

We didn't have any paper or pencils, but that didn't stop us from playing hangman!  I lost, obviously.

 

I'm not quite sure what she was pretending to be, but it was funny.

 

Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take any pictures of the big show, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was good.

 

The next morning, they tried to take a picture of me.

 

Tried, and succeeded, unfortunately.

 

We had to wait in line in the hot sun for the different events.  It wasn't exactly fun, but it was better than in Virginia.  They're "hot sun" is like a spring day for us.

 

This was the setting for the Viking show.  It was really neat to watch a show out in the open like this.

 

 Next, we went to the Roman show.  It was in a collesium, of course, and they had us do the wave, but because it was in a collessium, it just kept on going round and round.  It was pretty fun.



 

We saw a real live chariot race. (White won, in case anyone was wondering.)

 

We also went to a Miedeval bird show, which was spectacular.

 

The finale was the Ballet of the Birds and the birds would fly from one side of the stadium to the other, intermingling in pretty patterns.  It was too lovely for this picture to capture.

 

Next, we walked through the Miedeval village.  It was quite adorable.

 

One of my favorite shops was the wood carver's.

 

There were gorgeous carvings like this hand.

 

Last stop before leaving was this cute 18th century town.

 

And then we got on the road and went home.

The end.