2nd Week in Rennes

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Greetings!

I know it's been a little over a week since I last posted something, but I had a lot of homework this week, so I suppose I put my academia first and keeping you informed second. I guess that's alright though 😊

So last weekend was nice. On Friday night Abbey and I once again had a misunderstanding with the bus system. You see our bus schedule was changing the next day, but they decided to put up the new times that night so we missed our bus by two minutes and then had to wait 40 minutes for the next one, but that one was late, so we had a lot of bonding at the bus stop that night. A few of us gals met in town and enjoyed a bottle of wine together in one of the parks. It was a nice way to relax after our first week of classes.

Saturday we had a guided tour of "centre-ville" of Rennes. It was nice because he told us the most interesting historical facts because some of the other guides in Paris would overwhelm us with too much information and I would forget all of it. So after the tour a few of us got coffee and just relaxed for a bit. Then I came home and helped my family set up the backyard for our soiree that night. Virginie, a family friend, has been living here for awhile, but she's moving to the south of France on Monday, so we threw her a going away party. It was a lot of fun. There was this adorable little girl who spotted me right away and 20 minutes later she was sitting in my lap. So we played together most of the night which was fun. Then we ate dinner around midnight and I had a nice discussion with a younger couple. Everyone here is so patient and nice while I speak French and they help me out and listen to what I have to say. So that night was a lot of fun.

Sunday we mostly cleaned up from the party and just relaxed at home which was nice. Abbey and I went on a walk and randomly found this path with all these signs that told you to do different exercises. It was pretty random, but a lot of fun, especially when we found the monkey bars. It is really nice living out here in St Jacques de la Lande because we are in a nice suburban neighborhood, but you can walk for five minutes and your in the countryside. It was also fun because we ate blackberries off the bush and had an apple fresh from the tree and found a pear tree but all the pears were too high to reach. It's just so different here because all of the veggies we eat at dinner are fresh from our garden and we have homemade apple sauce from our apple trees. It's quite delightful.

Then it was another week of classes. This week was much better and less stressful. I had more work to do, but the in-class time was a lot better. I already know that my French has improved a little, so that's great. I had to write a little paper on the history of a food and the first time I tried that food so of course I wrote about grilled cheese. My professor loved it. I even got a "Super!" on my paper. That might be the last time that happens, but it was really nice to feel like I had done something right at last.

I registered for classes on Wednesday and start my classes at the university tomorrow. I'm pretty excited. There's been a slight snafu with my history class being cancelled and it was the one class I needed, but my program director is so nice and wonderful that we'll get it figured out.

On Friday night my friend's mom was in town so she took us all out. We went to St George which is apparently the best place for galettes/crepes (which are specialties in Bretagne) so we decided to go there and it was so delicious. We had champagne, galettes that were all named after famous Georges (I had the George Carpenter) and then we shared a delicious crepe with caramel ice cream for dessert. It was a lovely/chic restaurant and we had a room to ourselves which was so amazing. Kat's mom is great too. She wants to help us write a book after all of us sharing stories about the little differences here in Rennes and how to prepare/cope with them.

Saturday was really nice. I went for a run in the lovely park next to our house and then I went for an hour long bike ride around the neighborhood with my 13 yr old brother Damien. He's so sweet and he was so excited I wanted to go with him. We biked through this tunnel of graffiti at one point which was really cool. Then I came home and Nathan had a birthday party to go to so we went to the toy store and goofed around while looking for presents and then we had a little time before the party so we played around outside. It was windy so we were joking around that we were blowing away and had to save each other. Then we went to McDonalds because apparently that's the cool place to have birthday parties. We were still early so Nathan and I arm wrestled and had a thumb war. He's such a funny kid.

Then we came home and relaxed for a bit and then we had some yummy pizza and watched Fort Boyard which is becoming a Saturday night tradition which is fine because I love the show already.

Now it's Sunday morning. Not sure what to do since I was going to go for a walk/take pictures, but its raining out. I guess that just means I'll have to go see Harry Potter for the third time (this time in French though).

Sending you all well wishes and love from France!

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