Misc Things

So 2 things of interest happened to me this week

Since we're heading to Switzerland this weekend, I bought a tent to sleep in while backpacking. I decided to put it up so I knew how to put it up for when we're there. So I decided to sleep in it to prepare for sleeping in it in Switzerland. I set my alarm, but somehow I slept through it and didn't wake up until I heard people talking. I realized it was people talking right before class started. So I needed to go to class. The only problem was, I had to go through class to go to my room to change into clothes, to get to class. So as I enter the classroom from the back door I'm greeted lots of laughter. Mind you, at this point, I hadn't even cleared the stuff out of my eyes yet, so I couldn't really see. So I went to my room and put clothes on and came down to class, only 7 minutes late or so. It was quite funny

I also learned how to solve a Rubiks cube. One of the guys here taught me how to do it, and it's a great study break. So... yay for me.

This weekend: Switzerland. Trust me, you're gonna be real jealous after this weekend.

Fall Break - Paris

So while all the little noobs still at GCC were bored and not doing anything all that cool, we took a trip to Paris, that GCC paid for :) (I say 'noob' because it was a word that came up often this past weekend) There is a lot to see in Paris. A whole lot. We were there from Wednesday to Monday, and didn't get to see half of it. Not even close. The Lovre itself takes forever to get through. That being said, I was ready to come home. Here's a short summary of what went down.
Wednesday:
Left the house at 6am for the train, got to the 'hotel' shortly before noon. Then for the rest of the day Dr Reuber paraded us around Paris and we saw the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, the Louvre and the general area around the Louvre. Then at night I went with a group of a few up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Great view, and was fun to do at night. We walked a lot this day, but we were soon to walk more...
Thursday:
We were supposed to actually go into the Louvre, but the French pansies decided to strike today, so the subways weren't running. So we walked to the closest tourist stuff. We first walked to the Pantheon. This is a cool building and we came back to it on Monday, which I'm glad we did. Of course it wasn't open on Thursday though because, as I said before, the French are pansies. We were then given a couple of hours to eat and see what we wanted. We had kebabs (why aren't there any in America?) then walked to Notre Dame. After that we met up with the rest of the group for a guided tour about France and it's involvement in WWII. After this, walked around a lot of Paris before having kebabs again (yum) and then proceeding to walk all the way back to our hotel. I'm sure we walked more than 25 miles that day...
Friday:
Today the subway system is kind of running, just not as often so the trains are all packed. We first go to Les Invalides, which is the place where Napolean is buried. It's a really decorated building with a shiny gold dome roof. Next to it is the War History museum, which had quite a few interesting war artifacts. My favorite was the pistol with an axe on the bottom instead of a bayonet. "You're charging me with a stupid bayonet? Well let me show you what an axe does." We then went to the Louvre for a little bit before going on another tour. This one was about the French Revolution. I liked this tour better, because it was really interesting to learn about the revolution of a country who was already established, unlike the revolution of our country. Then that night we went back to the Louvre to look at more things because it was open until 9:30, later than usual. My favorite thing of all of the Louvre was Napolean III's apartment. This was an extremely decorated area of the Louvre that just allowed you to imagine the luxury the French kings lived in before the Revolution.
Saturday:
We started the day off early by heading straight to Versailles. This is an amazing building, it's just too bad that most of it isn't open to the public. I was kind of rushed out of the place though, because we had other things to look at. I hear the gardens behind the building are simply magnificent, but sadly I left before I got to see them. We went from there to the worlds largest flea market! It's actually not that exciting, because there was really nothing good to be bought. The only interesting stores were the 'army surplus' shops, but I didn't buy anything anyways. Straight from there we went to see the Basilica du Sacre Coeur. This basilica is located on the highest point in Paris, which provides quite a nice view. It's also a beautiful building located in my favorite part of Paris. Nearby, there is a small square where painters do there work, and you can walk around and watch and buy some of their stuff. There was a small pizza joint with a guy playing live piano, but we weren't, eating at the time. I'd really love to go back there some day and have a pizza there. That night we watched the Rugby World Cup final, and South Africa beat England. We were probably the only people cheering for South Africa.
Sunday:
First thing was mass at Notre Dame. Very boring, but cool to attend a service in such a large, beautiful cathedral. After church we walked across the road to visit another church, Saint Chapelle. This church's auditorium had the most stained glass of any church, probably ever. The walls were pretty much made of stained glass. We then went to Musee d'Orsay, the museum of impressionistic art. This was a nice museum, and I especially liked seeing the van Gogh pieces. That night we did a boat tour of Paris, which was kind of pointless. It just pointed out all the stuff we already knew was in Paris, and it was quite cold on the boat. Good experience though.
Monday:
After breakfast we went to see the Pantheon, this time while it was open. We went inside and saw just how beautiful and large it was on the inside. In the basement are all kinds of tombs, where the still bury people. Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo are both buried there, along with many other people I've never heard of. We went up to the top as well, which provided a nice view of Paris. Afterwards we went to the Louvre again and I browsed through the large collection of Italian and French paintings, including the Mona Lisa. It was pretty funny how many people were crowded around the Mona Lisa, so I took a picture of them looking dumb.

Anyways, that's the condensed version of what went on in Paris, even though it's quite long in itself. Here are a few pics. Remember to click them to get full resolution.

Me by the Eiffel Tower























The Louvre















The Pantheon

Ireland

This past weekend I went with a group of 5 other guys to Ireland. (Damon Fereshetian, Dan Utley, Eric Anderson, Chris Allebach and Nate Brunk) This all came about because I was just browsing the airline's website and saw we could fly round trip for 29 euros. So why wouldn't we go to Ireland? We flew into Shannon and spent that night in the airport because we arrived after 11pm. That wasn't the most pleasant night I've ever had. I think they turn off any kind of heat the building may possibly have at night. Plus the ground wasn't the most comfortable thing I've laid on. Regardless, we made our way to Galway on the 7am bus. Once we arrived, we booked a tour of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren countryside. The Cliffs of Moher were the best thing of the whole trip. If you haven't been there and you're going to Ireland, you better go there. They're absolutely amazing cliffs off the west coast of Ireland that stretch to almost 700ft at their highest point. Pictures don't do it justice, you just have to be there. On the tour we got to see just how rocky the Irish countryside is. The reason they have the stone fences everywhere is just because there are way too many rocks. If you had a plot of land, you move all the rocks to the outside of it so the animals can graze. They also make nice walls to keep in the animals. We spent the next two nights in Galway at a really nice hostel, the Kinlay House. Then on Saturday, we booked a ferry to Inis Mór, the largest of the 3 Aran Islands. They're located just off the coast near Galway. We rented bikes and biked all over it. There are also cliffs on one end of the island. These are "only" 300ft high yet they're still very impressive. Especially when you can just stand by the edge, a foot from death. We talked to a local lady that knitted sweaters. She was quite a talker, but we found out more information about the area. It was pretty interesting to find out how many people actually speak the celtic language still. Quite a bit of rural Ireland still has it as their first language. On Sunday we went to church with some people Damon knew. He spent 2 summers previously in Galway on missions trips. We went over to the pastors house and had an awesome lunch there and had to meet some local Irish folk our age. Real cool. In the afternoon we took a bus to Dublin. Dublin was kind of a letdown. Whenever someone thinks of Ireland, they usually think of Dublin too. It's really not that cool. The city itself is nice overall. It's got a canal going through the center of it, it's got a nice "hangout district" called the Temple Bar, and it's got quite a bit of history as well. The thing that's most disappointing is that there are so few Irish people around. I'm sure there are plenty of Irish people in the suburbs and elsewhere, but downtown, there were so many foreigners. Just walking around you had maybe a 25% chance of overhearing an English conversation. There are just a lot of tourists and a lot of immigrants into Dublin. If you want a real Irish experience, go to Galway. It's a nice, smaller city that feels Irish. We then got up Monday morning and flew back to Nantes, ready to sleep in our own beds again. And tomorrow we leave forParis. Voilà

Me at the Cliffs of Moher















One of the sights on Inis Mór















Looking down a few hundred feet

Mt St Michel/St Malo

Today, instead of going to class like normal college students, we had the school pay for a trip to Mont Saint Michel. It's a monastery located on a 'temporary' island off the north coast of France. When the tides are low, you can actually walk across sand to the island. This can be dangerous though because of quicksand and such. When the tides are high, you can't get to it, except for the man-made road that connects it. Check it out on the internet to read up all about it. It's pretty cool. Then we went to Saint Malo. This is a walled city a little ways from Mt St Michel. It was apparently destroyed during WW2 but has since been rebuilt. It's really, really nice inside. About all the buildings are 5-6 (I think) stories high. Almost all of them have shops and such on the first floor, but they're residential (I think) on all the floors above them. This has got to be expensive real estate for sure.
While in Saint Malo, we decided to walk out to an island a short distance away. While we were walking out, the waves were lapping over onto the walkway, so we figured we didn't have much time until the tides came in and covered it. This was true. I quick ran to the top and snapped a few pictures of the town from the ocean view and started right back to mainland. I was the first one to walk across, and luckily for me, the water only came up halfway on my calves. The other people though, well it was pretty funny. The last people back had their jeans soaked almost up to their waists. Good stuff. Pics:

Mt St Michel
















St Malo from the island















Walking across, after the tide came in
















And tomorrow we leave for Ireland. Voilà

Future

Tomorrow: Mt St Michel. This weekend: Ireland. We're going to see Galway and the Aran Islands and Dublin as well. Updates coming...

Update

I haven't updated in quite a while, mainly because there's absolutely nothing huge going on. We're mostly just involved with class and that's mostly it. I hope to get more involved with the youth aged people at church, and that happened more this past weekend. I invited a few of them over for lunch, and I seem to be making pretty good friends with David. David's dad owns the townhouse we live. His parents are Irish, but he was raised in France as a missionary kid. His parents moved back to Northern Ireland, but he's still here. He hopes to live in the US someday, so I hope we keep in touch. I'd like to hang out with him on a regular basis, but he lives in a town 20 min from Nantes, so it's not possible for me to go there. He comes to Nantes every weekend to see his friends though, so I'll see him at least every weekend.

Next weekend is a trip to Ireland. We fly into Shannon airport (tiny town) late Thursday night and we'll probably have to end up staying the night in the airport, cause there's really no place to stay in Shannon that's even close to cheap. We're gonna then go up to Galway and spend a night there, then to Dublin and spend a night or two there and fly out of Dublin. We plan to do a couple bus/train tours of the countryside and cliffs and such, so I'll put up pics of that in a week and a half or so.