Claire in Nantes: First "real" week

For some reason unknown to me IES has a full week of what they call "on site orientation," which means that for a week we sit at the Institute and hear about how the buses work, about the one maybe slightly sketchy place in town, and other moderately inane details about how the administration of IES works. I could have read and understood the IES student handbook in under 2 hours. I definitely didn't need a week of putting some much information in my head that I could barely remember it at the end of the day!

But last week was the first official week of classes! Mom, if you think I get overly enthused for the start of classes at the end of August you should be glad that there was a whole ocean in between you and my pre-school anticipation! I'm still technically in the shopping period so I don't have a firm schedule yet but so far I'm taking a gramar course (mandatory), a course on French poetry and modernism, one on French society as a country that is part of the EU and an intro(ish) art history class. I now have to decide between a developmental psych course and two history courses at the Université de Nantes. I've tried two other courses at the university but neither really worked for me. Part of the problem was that one of the classes was essentially for freshmen and they hadn't yet figured out not to talk through a two-hour lecture because it's rude and disrespectful. I know that everybody says to be open to new experiences and try to embrace the European education system, but that doesn't mean I have to sit through that kind of behavior. I'm hoping that a smaller class or one earlier in the morning will be better.

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Now on to the social stuff!

I think yesterday was far and away the happiest I've been since I got here. There were several contributing factors:
1. The night before (friday night) I bought train tickets to go visit a friend in Milan. I was so happy I felt like I was going to be sick! (Thanks Aunt Pooh and Aunt Susan for financing the trip!)

2. Saturday morning I went with my good friend Ryan Campeau to an open air market. It was full of delicious looking food, clothes, shoes and jewelry. We ate lunch at the market and afterward had coffee/tea and un pain au chocolat in a cafe.

3. We went to a 6 hour French theatre production. It consisted of 3 plays by Sophocles: The Trachiniae, Antigone and Electra (I linked to the Wikipedia descriptions/summaries because I wasn't really familiar with the first and the last so I had to do a little reading). The director made this amazing decision to replace the Greek Chorus with a band (singer, bass guitar, guitar, drums). It added this amazing depth to the movements the actors made on the stage. So, even though I often didn't understand the words I could watch the movements and listen to the music.
***Doris and Grumps: I used some of the money you guys gave me to buy tickets to see this play and two others later in October, thank you!!!

4. After the play we found a crêperie, had a little dessert, drank a glass of wine and discussed the plays.

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I know this is a huge post but I just wanted to add some pictures at the end here. We went on a historic tour of Nantes during orientation and then that weekend is something called Les Journées de Patrimoine, which means that all the museums and historical sites are open for free!