Blogs from Rennes, Brittany , France, Europe - page 3

Oh la la! After three wondrous days in Paris, we finally were on our way to Rennes, which is about four hours south west of Paris by car or two hours by train. On our way to Rennes we stopped in Chartres where there is the most magnificent cathedral I've ever seen. Perhaps even better than Notre Dame. The exterior of the church is all intricately sculpted and all of the sculptures tell a story. Then on the inside, there are columns and stain glass galore. Once again, each stain glass window, and even each section of the window tells a story--either about who bought or made the window, the history at the time, or from the Bible. Malcolm was our tour guide and he has been giving tours for 55 years and has written 4 ... read more

Rennes: Rennes was an interesting place. It was a reasonably sized settlement where, it seemed, the students had a grasp of the streets. Graffiti everywhere, but not the usual commonly found French graffiti, here it was street art. That and the dirty, stone, medieval buildings gave it a slight Gothic but definitely grungy feel. I had not heard from Mr 'T' since I had contacted him a few days before leaving home. The arrangements were vague and general, “not sure which day but I’ll call before I arrive”. I had tried to call but I hadn’t received an answer. We were nearing the outskirts of Rennes, when he finally got in touch. We arranged to meet in the town square. The square was alight with atmosphere. There was a collective of bars and restaurants many with ... read more

Bonjour tout le monde! It's hard to believe that 5 days have already passed since the journey began with this group of students. It was a wild beginning to the trip, with a 3 hour delay at the St. Louis airport and BARELY making the flight from Chicago to Paris (the airline held the plane for us for about 25 mins because we were such a large group). But it gave us an early insight into how our students would deal with and adapt to unexpected changes; all were amazingly good sports with zero complaining! Some students played cards, a small group did a couple of "laps" around the terminal, others read or listened to iPods, some chatted with us, and all adapted well to the unexpected delays. It bode well for the trip as a ... read more

I haven't put anything up in a while for two reasons: One, my parents were here and there were much better things to do than blog! and two, they didn't have internet at their place and reception is spotty in public places. SO, I have many things to write about. After class on Wednesday, of which I remember nothing, I ran across town to see my parents. It was so great to see them actually here! We wandered around their neighborhood to try to find somewhere to eat. As we were walking, we found ourselves in the midst of a huge crowd of African people, talking and chanting. The block also seemed to have ten hair salons, all of which were full to the brim with more African people. We made it to the corner and ... read more

So today I decided that I would be ambitious and try to hit two places, Vannes and Carnac. I managed to get out of the hostel by about 9am and zoomed down to the train station to buy a ticket to Vannes. My thinking was that they should have buses to Carnac from Vannes, and at the very least I would see Vannes, as I had planned to. I got my ticket with three minutes to spare before the train left, ran through the station and made it down to the train to discover it FULL. I don't mean just all the seats were taken, but there were people stuffed into every nook and crannie of that train, so full that I would not even be able to squeeze my way on. Apparently they don't assign ... read more