Vannes

For some reason, IES felt it was necessary that we have a three-day vacation the second day we were in France. So, I didn’t have much time to get settled at Nathalie’s. I unpacked my bags and packed them again. In my opinion, this was a blatant attempt to rid anyone of his or her jet lag by exhausting us during the day. Not only that, but it was also a blatant attempt to teach us a little etiquette so we don’t make fools of ourselves in front of our host families. That’s right…put us in a completely foreign environment after a full day of travel and let us go to our new home and THEN tell us what and what not to do.

All seventy-nine American students (60 girls and 19 boys), were carted around by two bus drivers who found our silly American accents hilarious. We moved just about every two hours to do something else. Vannes is a small city just a few minutes from the coast of the Atlantic. Instead of the tops of buildings peaking out from the tops of houses, the tops of sailboats scrape the clear, blue sky. Like Nantes, the streets have no rhyme or reason and defy basic geometry by scattering in any which way they please. My favorite part of Vannes is the cobblestone streets everywhere that lead off to hidden boutiques for cute clothes, risqué French novels, food, and of course, chocolate! I had my first taste of French chocolate here and it almost ended with me buying the whole store from the little round woman making small talk with me.

It is also here I learned for the first time that smiling at someone passing by on the street is a very American thing to do. It is considered flirting here. I wondered why I kept getting funny looks from everyone I looked at until venturing out at nighttime. I smiled at a gentleman walking past and he stopped and told me I had a very nice smile and would I like for him to buy me a drink. Needless to say, I was taken aback and replied quite rudely (which doesn’t sound quite as threatening in broken French).

The next day, we traveled to the Ile de Moines—otherwise known as L’ile des velos (Island of bicycles). They weren’t kidding. Everyone was on a bicycle. I spent the five hours we were there walking around with the one person from DePauw—Alicia. She joined me in seeing the Atlantic for the second time in my life and we spent much of the time sitting with our feet in the water on the beach while practicing our French and admiring the confidence of French people in their bathing suits. You would never catch a forty-year-old American woman dead in the bikinis we saw. Even though the island is small, we managed to get lost twice and finally made it back where we enjoyed the best ice cream I’ve ever had. Things just seem to taste a little bit better around here—more real.
The rest of the trip was spent traveling around to several other small, charming towns where we each partook in some sort of café drink—some people had a French beer, others wine, still others whiskey…me…water. It’s free.

This lovely visit came to a conclusion with a grueling placement test lasting three hours and then we returned to Nantes. Welcome to France, right?