Sailing

So this past weekend (the 22nd) 5 of us went sailing at La Boule, which is the closes beach to us. It's a really, really nice beach. It's something like 5 miles long in a quarter moon shape, so it's large. Just about everyone else was gone this weekend (either Ireland or Prague) so we decided we should do something cool. Eric Anderson has sailed quite a bit before, so he was our captain. We rented two kayaks and 3 stayed on the sailboat. It wasn't windy at all, but it was probably the last weekend that was really warm enough. Kayaking was more fun, since there was no wind. We would ride waves in and get flipped and such. Pretty good times. Wet suits are pretty awesome. It's amazing how warm they keep you in chilly water. Anyway, here's some pics:

L2R: Nate Brunk, Chris Allebach, Me, Dan Utley, Eric Anderson














Sailing

9-20

Today was a really busy day. We had class for most of the day; and in between classes I went running, hand washed some clothes (yay for frugality), and ordered train and plane tickets. We decided what we're doing over Thanksgiving and spent a mere 200 dollars for 3 flights, and 4 train rides. Simply amazing. Over Thanksgiving we're going to fly into Venice, and from there hit Florence, Rome, Sicily, and London. London just got added on cause we're going to have to stay overnight there anyways because flights didn't work out. So we're just going to stay 2 nights and experience the city. Can't wait for Sicily because we're going to be staying at a campground right on the coast. I saw pictures online and it looks simply amazing. I can't wait so swim in the Mediterranean. Here's a pic of what class usually is like. Notice Dan Huber and Dan Utley on the right with their heads each on a pillow.

Pornic

Last weekend we went to a coastal town by the name of Pornic. It was a very beautiful city, even though there wasn't much to do in the way of tourism. They have a harbor built that completely dries out when the tide leaves, but fills in when the tide comes in. So when we arrived there were a bunch of sail boats just sitting on the ground in the harbor, but by the time we left, the harbor was all filled up. It was really pretty neat. While we were there, we stopped at a place called "Fraserie" or something like that. They had the best ice cream I've ever had. Period. I had this coconut-chocolate that was simply amazing. There are also a few cool rock formations that we spent the last of our time on. They were nice to just sit and watch all the sailboats on the ocean. (Pornic is a big sailing town) Check out the sailboats in this pic. Notice the "chateau" on the right. At this point the water flow was out to the ocean. Later it was cool to see the flow of the water change to coming into the port, to eventually fill up.















A pic of the full harbor. This is taken looking the opposite way of the previous pic. Notice the chateau and the church steeple that's about center of the image in the background. Remember, you can enlarge these pics by clicking them.

Stuff

Not a whole lot has been going on lately, obviously stated by the fact that I haven't posted in a long time. I tried to upload a video tour of our house, but that didn't work; I may try later. We've been just having class and doing stuff around here on the weekends. On Sunday I played basketball with some French guys. When we were playing, other people our age that were from the church showed up too cause they were hanging out or whatever. It was cool to see the group of friends they had, just like I've got back home. So next week I'll be trying to finalize and organize trips; the main ones being: backpacking in Switzerland, Thanksgiving break in Italy, November trip to Spain, hopefully a trip to Scotland, and of course the trip to Paris that everyone goes on, so I don't have to plan that :) And of course doing random small stuff in between those. This Saturday I'm going to Pornic, a cost town an hour or so from here. Not sure what all is there, but heard from others it's worth visiting. Especially since it's like 7 euros to get there. There are just way too many places to go in Europe and not enough money to go everywhere...

Random Stuff

Last week was just a week of classes. We've been having intense French language tests that are worth 10% of our grade, with the last one being Tuesday. Altogether there are somewhere around 550 French words we've "learned". Friday we went to a park called Puy du Fou. It's essentially a park with outdoor dramas about the history of that area in France. So we saw viking raids and a gladiator match too. Pretty cool, but a little long since we stayed there all day. Saturday a few of us took the train to the beach. It was a real nice day, but the water was too cold for me to swim. I stayed in for about 30 minutes but others stayed in for a few hours. Today was my first day at church since earlier was an all youth thing instead of a regular service. The pastor is an American missionary so he summarizes everything in English every now and then, which is nice. This afternoon we played basketball with a few French guys from the church. Some of them speak decent enough English, so we can get by. Hopefully we can speak more and more French and less English. I don't have many pictures, but here's one from Puy du Fou.

Amboise

This last weekend I went with 3 other guys to Amboise which is on the Loire River in the heart of chateau country. Our group included Damon Ferechetian, Chris Allebach and Adam Aljets. We left Saturday early morning and returned late Sunday night. In the morning we explored a little bit of Amboise and saw da Vinci's house Clos Luce and the surrounding area which has been turned into somewhat of a museum of his works. We checked into our hotel, Cafe des Arts after noon and had lunch. Then we rented bikes to take to Chenonceau. We biked back to Amboise at 7 then ate dinner and sat by the Loire until dark. The next day we went to Chateau d'Amboise and just relaxed and didn't do much until our train left at 8. We had a connecting train in Tour which didn't leave for 1:20 after we arrived so we went out and walked Tour, although everything was closed and there was nothing to see. Great trip overall.

Chateau d'Amboise















Chateau de Chenonceau, which is built out over a river.















Bike ride to Chonenceau