I am drowning in a digital sea

So here I am, procrastinating away. It is almost midnight and I still have to work on subordinate prepositions in the indicative. What does that mean? Not quire sure. However, I was listening to Thrice and I heard these lyrics and it reminded me of a picture I had taken in Angers, which is shown here. Enjoy!

A song from somewhere below

Deadly and slow begins

Both sickly and sweet

Now picking up speed

Ushering in the world's end

And the ghost of Descartes screams again in the dark

"Oh how could I have been so wrong?"

But above the screams the sirens sing their song

Musee David D'Angers

That's right, David Dangers is back! For class on Friday we went to a museum with a bunch of his sculptures in it. Considering I've never been a big fan of sculptures, I actually enjoyed it. Here are some of my favorites.

Bonchamps... this one was a funeral tribute to a guy who pardoned prisoners on his deathbed. David's father was one of those prisoners.

This was on the back of a statue. Some pretty French script. I don't know.

Benny Ben Franklin !!! Hey there, somewhat great uncle !

Young Greek Girl... there was a story that went with this one, about how she symbolized a child of the future passing into independence, but I just thought she was so pretty.

Big..... thing.

Yes, yes, I photographed the school children having a field trip in the museum. I noticed that instead of raising their hands to be called on, they raise their pointer finger. They were too cute.

Il plu

Rain, rain, go away
Come again when I'm not in Angers

"G"s in French are pronounced like "J"s, so Angers is said like "An-jay". Now read my poem again. Dang I'm clever.

Mardi

It's been a loonnggg weekend. I have been having such terrible allergies! It makes me so tired that I do what I must during the day, then go back to my room and crash. I also got sunburn (ouch) and there has been some unnecessary catiness amongst some people in the group. Regardless, I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by.


This week I will be updating with lots of pictures of chateaus! Today we went inside the Chateau d'Angers which was very beautiful. Want some picures? Okay good.
Enterence to the chateau. Flag blowing in the wind. Not much to say.
















I love doorways. So, I took a picture of one.




P.S. I am eating dinner as I write this, and I just had the most delicious tuna. I don't know if it tasted really good because I'm hungry, or if it was just really good tuna.



















I also enjoy looking through things to take pictures.

















Panorama of Angers!



















Oh look, c'est moi.




















Kick-ass garden, no?


























More chateau-y garden stuff.




















As I mentioned in a previous entry, I loveee French children. And since I will not be working with kids in a classroom setting until January, I am taking advantage of seeing all the kids around me. This one was walking on the ledge of the chateau with her father... but you have to understand... that ledge goes straight down. I thought these two were cute though.

More itty bitty ones. These were being shown falconry.

Follow the signs to the Apocolypse !!!

The sign was referring to the Apocolypse Tapestries, but I thought it was kind of funny. Ha ha ha. Anyway, I think that this qualifies as one of the coolest things I have seen on this trip so far. It was commissioned in 1375 and finished around 1382. It is about 100m long and has 70 scenes of the Apocolypse.

After class I exchanged my money at the Poste. While I was waiting for my number to be called I saw a baby sitting in it's stroller. We played peek-a-boo for a bit which made me happy. Then Lauren and I went to H&M and did a little bit of shopping.

The weather has been very hot for the past two days. According to my Motherly Weather Report, the weather in Angers is nothing compared to what it is at home, which I would believe. Mom is in summer mode, which means no make up, no jewelry, no nothin'. I am just grateful that is has not been raining buckets recently as it did when we first got here.

Tomorrow I have to be downstairs at 7:15, which means I have to get up tres early. So, I am going to do some reading for classes and then get to sleep early. Bisous !

Parc de Balzac

Pont over the Maine River.

From the top of a hill.

Pretty flower :)

There are dogs all over the place! I absolutely love it. This dog loved being in the water. It was a golden, and made me miss Hannah.

There was this huge trellis, and the dog in the bottom right-hand corner was simply adorable.

A bridge in a very marshy area.

Les Plaisirs Simple

For the past two weeks I have been with the same group of people at all times. That can be rather discouraging when you just need some personal space. That's when I step back, evaluate the fact that I am in FRANCE, and smile. Sometimes the culture gap feels a little discouraging, but I found some lyrics to help me out here:

The open water chills me to my bones
But it's the only place that I feel alive. - Thrice

Being in a country that doesn't speak my language can be like being in open water. You are constantly vulnerable. It's a bit intimidating. However, I love the culture and way of life so much that it is what makes me feel alive. It makes me happy. I haven't felt this good in so long.

When sometimes I miss home, or am feeling down, all I have to do is look around. Let me share some things with you:

Les enfants outside the musee. They sat in a circle by that bizaree piece of art playing duck duck goose. Have you ever heard a child speaking French? I find it intimidating, even more than asking an adult if they speak English (I loathe admiting a language defeat). Children though, man, I should have them teach me French.

Condom dispensers on the streets. Bienvenue a France!

Finding hidden doors and tiny waterfalls.

Lavendar. Take in a whiff of that and you are sure to feel a bit more serene at the very least.

Les chiens. And damn well trained ones, at that.

To be continued . . .

Beaux-Arts

Hi, my name is Becca and I have been Mono-free for two days. It's going okay, I just ravanged the last of my biscuits fourres, but I'm hoping to stay strong.

Yesterday we went to the Musee des Beaux-Arts. (I love field trips!) Here are some pictures....

La Ville DANGERS. Just kidding. It's the city of Angers, but whenever it says D'Angers it looks like Dangers and we get a good laugh at the city's expense.

This painting had a bunch of representation with the mask and the pommegranate, obviously it didn't have too much of an impact on me because I don't remember it. For the few seconds I read about it (IN FRENCH) it was cool.

The hot stud and I. (I'm sorry, this was so boring, I just started violating every piece of artwork.)

Love, love, love his shoes!!

She was pretty, she had a good floral arranger and owned a dog. She appears to be obsessed with luxury and rather vain. Rousseau says: fail. Let's move on.

Why, yes I do go to art museums and take pictures of the dogs!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
It's a butt.

COULD IT BE?!?!?!?!?

IS IT HE?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

SACRE BLEU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was only one Monet in the museum, but it was enough to get me through all the Italian and Baroque style, as well as modern paintings.

Monoprix Maddness

Today I take a stand: I WILL NOT GO TO THE MONOPRIX. I have a sufficient amount of food to last me for a few days. I will eat what I have before going to the Monoprix and buying more things (cookies... cough cough). In order to have something to do with the Monoprix, I decided to share with you some of my Mono-purchases.

These biscuits fourres are SO FREAKING GOOD. Now that I think about it, they remind me of Vanilla Fingers. But they really hit the crave spot. Mmmmmm. (P.s. This is package deux of these cookies. I forsee buying more of them later this week. And I shared the love, and now the other girls in the group love the biscuits fourres.) What caused this phenomenon? Oh yeah, they're only 89 euro centimes. What a steal!

When we first got here, I was pretty determined to find some cereal. I found some, but realized after purchasing it that it was Frosted Flakes sans sucre. Zut alors! I could not even try to choke it down, it was just disgusting. So I got the Monoprix brand cereal, petales de mais croustillants glaces au sucre. Merci!

When eating cereal, one would normally use a bowl, non? Well, usually yes. However, when trying to budget yourself on the euro, you eat cereal out of a plastic cup which you repeatidly rinse out after every use while eating the cereal with a coffee spoon.

You read that right, a coffee spoon. One smaller than the size of my hand.

This is tonight's dinner.... rice. Or riz. With tuna. Our professor for philosophy has been eating nothing but tuna or salmon for the past week and a half and has now influenced us. He uses tuna in his examples for a lot of things, and has threatened to open cans of tuna and throw them into our rooms if we don't get up for class. Not that has anything to do with the riz, which can be microwaved and edible in two minutes. I love quick and easy (and cheap!!) dinners.

La Residence

As promised, pictures of la residence:

Attatched to our set of keys is a little black thing. You hold
the black thingy up to the black circle (on the left) and the door opens. Voila!

This is my room! There is plenty of hself space, as you can see. And outside of my room there is a picnic bench where our class gathers from time to time.

Taken from the window. The bed has a cool little shelf thing behind it (I said there was plenty of shelf space) and two drawers beneath it. I always manage to slam my head into the shelf though, and you can't see the pillow but it is the freakishly thin pillow which feels like it's filled with those packing noodles.

The bathroom. My parent's walk-in closet is bigger than this space. See that curtain? That is the shower. And in order to shower, you have to be pressing on a button for the water to come out. Is it economically sound? Yes. Is it an adjustment? You bet.