La Vie de La Rochelle

Bonjour tout le monde!

Wow, I just realized that I haven't blogged for two weeks! My time here has gone by so ridiculously fast and I am trying to fit in as much as possible, so I haven't made much time to update my blog. So, here is a brief overview of my last two weeks.

Life in France literally could not be any better (except for the addition of air conditioning, due to the fact that it will soon be in the 90's every day, hello beach!). I seriously cannot remember a day where I have been bored or thought about wanting to leave. I think La Rochelle completes me somehow. There are no words to explain how amazing life here is, but I will try my best.

Everyday, I walk 10 minutes to school and then have class for four hours. We take a 30 minute break in the middle, when we go down to the caf or go out in the courtyard and play ping pong. By doing that, we met two German brothers taking French classes at Soup de Co this summer too, Simon and David.  I am now in a ping pong bracket with them and two other guys and I intend on crushing all of them (thanks Highland for the practice this year :) )! Also, Simon and David have been coming out with us whenever we go to the beach or downtown, so it has been awesome to get to know another culture through them. In addition to that, it has been really interesting taking classes at Soup de Co, because I get to meet other students from all over the world. So far, I have conversed with students from Germany, China, Libya, and of course France and America. Having friends from different places is really exciting, and everyone is always opening invitations to come visit their home countries. Looks like I have a lot more traveling to do!

Ceciley, Simon, and I!

Life with my host family is awesome. They take me to festivals, movies, restaurants, and many other places. I have spent quite a bit of time with them, which is somewhat unusual for the American kids here. But I am happy that they want to include me in their everyday life! It's really fun! Also, like I said before, I speak 100% French with them and this has helped me immensely. I have found that I can now speak for hours in French, and I have even had political, economical, and educational based conversations with them and others in La Rochelle. When I came to France the first time, I was terrified to use my French speaking skills (or lack there of). But now, I will talk to literally anyone. For example, everyday I take the same walking route to school. Therefore, I see the same man everyday because he works at a student apartment building by my house and he is always working outside. After passing him everyday for two weeks and exchanging "bonjours" each morning, I decided I wanted to know his name because it made me think of what I have talked about in my Overflow group at Hosanna Highland in Mankato (For those of you who don't know what this is, it is the campus church that I am a member of at school. The Overflow group teaches us that it is important to live as Christ-Like as possible, and one of the means of doing so is spreading God's love by just showing others that you care. Therefore, we are encouraged to reach out to the people we meet, even if it means just saying hello.) So, Friday morning, I approached him and told him that because I see him every morning I would like to know his name. He was pleasantly surprised and told me that his name is Frédéric. It seemed like it made his day. I now plan on talking with Frédéric every morning and I am excited to see what that reveals! In addition to that, I am comfortable speaking with whoever talks to me here. La Rochelle is a very safe city, so I have no problem getting to know the locals. Currently, I have great friends at our favorite Kebab place named Hedi and Mourad. I also became besties with my cab driver, Djamen. Last night I even taught him how to say "I am going to go to the train station" in english because he has a lot of english-speaking clients!

At a town festival with my host mom.

In addition to going to school, hanging out at the beach, shopping, spending time with my host family, and conversing with the locals, I also have the privilege of going on weekend excursions with Soup de Co and the other American students. Last weekend, we took a bus to the region of Cognac, where Hennessy Cognac is made. We took a boat tour of Cognac and also got to visit the Hennessy distillery, which ended with a tasting. It was surprisingly really good! This weekend we took a 2 hour bus ride to Nantes, a city north of La Rochelle. There, we visited Les Machines De L'Ile where they are making a large mechanical tree house. Also, we rode a three story carousel and saw a large electronic elephant. Afterwards, we toured the Chateaux de la duc du Bretagne. It has been really fun to explore places all over France, but it makes me appreciate La Rochelle even more. I cannot wait to return home every weekend because I just love it so much. Someday, I would be extremely content to live here permanently.

Chateaux de la duc du Bretagne in Nantes, France.

Hennessy distillery in Cognac

For those of you who are my Facebook friends, you probably got annoyed with all of the Francofolie pictures I uploaded in the past week! :) So, I guess I should probably explain exactly what that is for those of you who saw it all over the newsfeed. To start simple: Francofolies is the bee's knees (Mary reference). It is a massive music festival that is held in La Rochelle for 5 days every year in July. It attracts 150,000 people to La Rochelle, so the city was extremely busy. Venders set up tents in the streets, entertainers were constantly doing things around the port, and music was ALWAYS playing. The atmosphere of La Rochelle during the Fracofolies was completely different than the normal atmosphere, but it was extremely fun. Each night, there were 4 or 5 bands that play at the main stage (which you have to pay for). Most of the artists were French bands, along with some British groups sprinkled around. We payed to go to two nights of the Francofolies and it was extremely worth it. While I didn't return home until 4am both times and I had school at 8:30am the next day, I wouldn't take back a thing. Even though I didn't know any of the artists, I loved all of the music. It was so fascinating to hear French music and I am now hooked on a couple of groups. What was really interesting though, was that a lot of the French groups only sang in english. Apparently that is a thing here! It was hilarious to hear the French fans sing along to these songs in horrible english, trying to formulate what words were being sung. I am positive that 90% of the audience had no idea what any of the lyrics meant, but they were loving it. Also, the second night we attended the main stage, it was Bastille day in France (their version of the Fourth of July). Therefore, the concert took a pause and we got to see fireworks over the port. It was gorgeous. I have decided that I have to come back to Francofolies, it isn't an option.

Francofolies main stage!

Second night of Francofolies!

So, overall, I hope this has given an insight to what my life has been like for the past three weeks in La Rochelle. As of today, I only have 6 days left here, which makes me extremely sad. On Friday, I will return back to Paris, stay there for three nights, and then I am on my way to Norway to see my wonderfully amazing friend Marin :) So, while leaving France is something I do not want to do at all, I have a light at the end of the tunnel because I get to travel around Europe with a best friend of mine! So, I will try to update my blog more often than I have in the past three weeks, but I will be extremely busy!

Bisous,  à bientôt!