Meet my good friend Hannah

So my American friend Hannah is here with me.  We went on a walk for her birthday, and here are the resulting pictures.

 

She has unique shoes too.

 

We may have different styles, but we're still good friends.

 

 

I just have to say I love this girl.

 

We have good times together.



 

We get to take artsy pictures much to the wonderment of the passing Frenchmen.  (There were many.  We stuck out like sore thumbs.  It was awesome.)

She makes me have my picture taken from timle to time, but I still love her.

I assure you that every person we passed stared us down.  I think it was a mixture of our English and our weirdness that made them turn their heads.

 She's succesfully teaching me how to be a good tourist who takes pictures of everything.  Not an easy task considering her student, but she's a good teacher.



 

The quote that goes along with this picture: "It's a good picture!  We can't see your face."

 

I showed her this very awesome sculpture on our walk.   If it's windy, the sculpture will actually move and re-balance itself.  It's pretty cool.

As we were taking this picture some passing runners called out and asked to be in the picture too.  It was rather funny.

Here's another sculpture that I showed Hannah.  The sunset made it even more beautiful.

 



 

Here are two of the pretty old hosues near by.

 

And look!  An American flag!

A closer picture of the sculpture.

And the magnificent sunset.  In reality, it was much more beautiful than this.

 

Over the weekend, we went to a soccer game together.

We passed a castle on the way and took the opportunity to do some sightseeing.

 



Here is my fellow tourist.

 



 

It was situated on a gorgeous lake.

 

Apperently, it used to be a Protestant fortress, but now it belongs to the government.

 



There aren't many trees in St. Nazaire, but I found one here.  It made me happy because it reminds me a little of home.

 



I also saw a door that I really liked.  Am I the only one who finds European doors cool?  Because people here think it's weird that I like taking pictures of doors.

 

 

 

Hannah and I have been paried up for a school project, but because we're not staying the whole year, it's basically two hours where we get to have fun.

 



We decided to make little people on our fingers this week.  We started out with Toad from Mario.

 



 

Here is the finished product, my hand on the right, Hannah's on the left.

 

 

And now we're going to go through head shots of our fingers.

This is Hannah's hand.

 



 

She had very interesting characters on her hand.

 



 

I can't provide much commentary on them, though, because I didn't make them.

 



 

But I think this one was Elvis.

 



This is my hand, and here we have a dinosaur-esque man with a mohawk.

Next up, Princess Leah.

 



 

And a very spunky Pipi Longstockings.

 



 

A cute little granny.

 



 

And a random man with a mustache.

 



 

And then we took off all their wigs and had a bunch of bald fingers.

 



Two hours of nothing to do is quite long, so after that, Hannah made a snowman.

 



 

And I made a teddy bear.

We then squashed them together and called it modern art.  Yes, we really are that weird!

And those are some things I do with my friend Hannah.  The end.

La Grande Brière

This weekend, we went to La Grande Brière for our Sunday outting.

 

On our way there, we passed this quaint little castle.

We also stopped by my host family's old house in the country, but unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of it because there was a gigantic fence around it.  Instead, I snapped a photo of this old mail box next to their house.

La Grande Brière is a gorgeous system of canals, so on the way there we passed this little boat hut.

 

And this would be la grande Brière.

 

It was stunning.

 

My host mother asked me if I wanted my picture taken.  Being me, I said no, but I compromised by taking a picture of my shadow, so that I could prove I was there.

 

The clouds that day were completely stunning.

 

I'm afraid I took many similar shots because it was just so beautiful!

 

Unfortunately, I don't think any picture could capture the beauty of that place, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was about twenty times more beautiful than my photos.

 

 

In each of these pictures, imagine the sky to be much bluer, the grass much greener, and a light, refreshing autumn breeze whipping your hair in your face, and you might have succesfully imagined a small part of what it was like being there.



 

But words and pictures can't adequately describe it's beauty, so just hop on a plane and go and see it.  Oh, and visit me too, of course.  :)

I wanted to stay there for an eternity.

 

On our way back, I took this quick picture, but unfortunately, the light was not my friend and this appears rather plain compared to the pretty scene that it actually was.

We aldo stopped by a little town that had this gorgeous view of the main canal. This picture captures its beauty poorly because as you looked down it, it just seemed to go on forever, like you could hop in a boat and travel for ages.

 

Here's another view of the countryside.

 

There was also a flock of ducks that passe by. Interesting fact: the French call these birds geese, but to me a goose is a totally different bird and I called them ducks. Let's just say that there may have been a great debate as to what to call said birds.

 

This has got to be one of my favorite photos I've taken here. Just saying.

Next, we strolled through the very tiny town.

The houses were so very cute and they all had these sort of thatched rooves. I'm not sure of the word in English for it though.

The houses were so very cozy and cottagey.

My favorite houses were the ones with flowers in front of them because tht made them not only adorable, but cheery too.

 

Even though the old mailboxes are a little ugly, I can't help but love them because they're old and so different from the mailboxes at home. Yes, yes, I'm very strange, but we all already knew that.

 

This was the only house in the town without the thatched roof. Appraently, this house is old because it's actually illegal to not have a thatched roof in this region. (Gotta love those European laws.)



And yet another cute cottage.

 

 

 

Now, it's time for other varoius news.

I absolutely love recieving letters in the mail, like this one.  They brighten my day so much!

 

The other day in class, there was nothing to do, so my friends and I used my squishy eraser to sculpt mustaches.  Yes, that eraser was a good investment. 

And here is a very pretty door that I pass occasionally.  No real reason for the picture, except that it's pretty.

And much to my delight, I got a package from home too!  It made me very happy.  :)

 

On Sunday, my dear, dear friend Hannah arrived!!!!  It's been many years since I've lived relatively close to her, but now she only lives five minutes away and she goes to school with me.  An added bonus is that we convinced the director to put her in our class, so I'm now not the only clueless Amrican in class!!!!  Yay!

 

And that's all.