The Time I Went to Europe: Nantes

So, you may have heard me mention this before but last semester of college I studied abroad in Nantes, France for a little under four months. I really wish I would have been blogging then because it would have been so awesome to share some of my experiences!!

So, I've decided to share some of my overseas adventures while the memories are still fresh.  Read it or not, haha I feel like these posts will be as much for me to look back on as for sharing with you all :)

AND SO. While most of my friends headed back off to college this past September, I had a tear-filled goodbye with boyfriend along the side of the road (his car broke down on the way to meet up with my parents to take me to the airport. talk about bad timing) and headed off to the airport.


After about 7 hours, I made it to France! Then we had a five hour bus ride to Nantes. While it was 10AM in France time, it was 4AM back at home. Tour buses are not good for sleeping in. bah.

Me in all my jet-lagged glory about to use the tour bus bathroom...haha

16 students went on the trip with 2 professors from my school. We had two houses next door to each other that we lived in and had classes in. Here's the girls house!


And my cute little IKEA furnished room I shared with two other girls for the trip.


Here's all of us students on the trip (I'm on the very left)


We're in the courtyard of this castle:


Europe has so much history and culture. You're just walking around downtown and then BAM. look! A castle!! How cool.

 I took this picture of the old cathedral in the town from a ferris wheel. Isn't it beautiful??


This is me riding this funky mechanical fish thing...haha...


And drinking Orangina...the French always match their glasses to the drink you are drinking. And there's me drinking coffee outside of a legit French cafe. I felt so cool


 

I met lots of cool Frenchies. I saw this guy in a French bar downtown and thought he looked like Edward Cullen. He looked a lot more like it from the side I promise... In my broken French I blurted out something like "Excuzed-moi, avez-vous vu le film 'twilight?' Parce-que vous resemblez Edward...Puis-je faire une photo avec vous???" which basically means have you seen twilight cause you look like edward, can I get a picture with you??? Haha. He totally knew what I was talking about too!!


Here I am with some more French friends, they were trying pumpkin pie for the first time!! The French don't celebrate Thanksgiving obviously, but they don't even sell pumpkin filling! This stuff was brought straight over from America. 


The French also do not understand the importance of private bathrooms...hahaha. I had so many awkward encounters in mixed bathrooms. They are NOT my thing.


There were a LOT of strikes going on in France while we were over there. It's their favorite way to show their unhappiness towards the government I guess you could say...


And also, the French think all Americans are exactly like Americans on sitcoms are portrayed. Case in point: all of these episodes of Friends were found in the English section of the local college library in Nantes. Right next  to academic stuff...and then bam, Friends. Cultural learning for them haha. 


This was my favorite craft store in town:


These two pretty headbands in my etsy shop were made with supplies from here!


PS. Do these seem 10 times cooler now that you know the supplies came from France and you want to buy them now??? Enter code "France" at checkout and I'll give you free shipping on them!! I'll keep the code good until Wednesday.

P.S.S. I have a French themed giveaway coming up on Tuesday! Get excited!!

Ok that's enough for now haha. I'll be sharing more occasionally, I don't want to bombard you with pics all at once.  :)

3 comments

  1. Next time you must come to Portugal and visit me:)

    Kiss

    ReplyDelete
  2. I would love to go to France someday, and Germany and of course Italy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh my gosh I love it! I am reading this thinking, 'I am so jealous!' Then I thought, wait, I live here, what a dork! I wish I met you then we could have hung out. I would have totally driven up to nantes to see ya! I hope there are more posts to come! I am gonna start a series on my life here in France soon. I will start Friday. Oh and excited about the giveaway! ;)

    ReplyDelete