A quick entry before I am off on my holiday adventures! I had some fun this weekend going on a boat ride with a group on sunday and some iceskating on saturday evening (no photos for that unfortunately:/). I did forget to mention last week that I went to the tallest building in Nantes and was able to take some pictures of the beautiful city that I am living in.

Here is the local cathedral at the right.

A little blurry, but the amazing sunrise that we had one morning a little while back. This photo does not do it justice, it was incredibly red!

Thanks to someone that came with us ( Yu chin on the far left), here is a picture of the whole group that came with us on the boating trip. 

The captain and first mate

The following is what happens when you pass around the camera to a group of college students...that are international. I should mention that the one with the jacket on his head is Tunisian....apparently people from Africa can't handle the sun:)

From the left: Karim, myself, Kristaps

Uldis

Kristaps again, with Karim being funny

Yu chin

Hanna

It was a perfect day to get in some sunshine while it is still hanging around! I am excited for my next adventures that are happening this upcoming week since I will be visiting Lille, Paris, and Versailles! Posts soon to come!

Castle and Chocolate

So I know that it has been awhile since I last posted and that's due to being lazy getting pictures off of my camera--and also relying on other for pictures...which I may have lost:/ I do have some exciting announcement though,which is that we will be taking a holiday (aka break) within the next couple of weeks! This means that I will be able to finally show you the place that I have has the pleasure of living for the last month and a half! How the time is flying!

Classes are going wonderfully and we have already finished around four of our classes for the semester, out of around 20! The classes have been keeping everyone busy, working on learning french (haven't gotten far unfortunately), having two group projects, and an always changing class schedule. 

As for the paperwork that is always a work in progress for studying in Nantes, it is slowly coming to a close and I am at the point of waiting on the French government to finish it up.  One thing that has developed because of the paperwork, is that I have received a French credit card or more accurately what we would call a debit card. This card will of course be completely useless at the end of my stay or even from the beginning, but as with any new traveling experience, it is fun to say that I now have a French credit card.  

Other miscellaneous  things that could be said for this week, is that I was able to make it to the local castle and I'm pretty sure that Latvian chocolate is the best I've ever had. So, lets start with the first one--the castle. 

The Latvian chocolate that is fantastic!

The castle is located in the center of Nantes and is very interesting with the museum of Nantes located inside, plus an exhibition which at the moment is on samurais.  Enjoy some of the pictures that I took below; unfortunately, there are none for the museums/exhibitions because there is a rumor floating around that says I can get free admission the first weekend of the month...so, I'm waiting for that.

Me standing on the wall. 

The view from the top of the wall. 

The inside of the castle and where the exhibition is being held (the building on the right where the line of people has formed). 

Me at the back of the castle over the mote.

I will get you more pictures of the castle and the museums that are located within soon!

This past weekend I had the pleasure to be invited to one of my fellow classmates houses that is located in the French country side near the town of Surgere. This trip was a classic girls weekend. It was only myself, Hana (Austrian), and Thomine (French and who's house we visited). We were able to fit in a multitude of different activities in the short time that we were in the country; they included kayaking, swimming, and being nicely kicked off of a castle's property because it's not open to the public. We, also, stayed a night at one of Thomine's friend's house and then had a French barbecue. I have begun to notice the effects that the French and their lifestyle is having on me--aka I am drinking so much more coffee than I ever have at home. The coffee seems to be traditionally served at the end of every meal, which seems to help offset the carb-heavy meals that almost always include bread and cheese.  

Thomine's house. It was built around the 14th century and on the far right is where an old flour mill used to be. 

The livingroom of Thomine's house, it also included a fireplace and note the stone flooring (so cool!). 

The river the flows behind Thomine's house and yes the river included waterlilies--just compare it to a Manet.

From the left to right: Hana, Myself, and Thomine kayaking 

The friend's house that we stayed at. According to Thomine, this is a classic house for people to live in. 

The kitchen of the friends house. Very classic european style. 

The house included the classic stuffed wild boar--apparently they include crowns. But this made me think of when the house was probably build, which I forgot to ask about, but is most likely around the 14th century.

It was a beautiful and exceptional weekend, where I was able to meet wonderful families and people. I am looking forward to the remaining time I have in France. 

soo, I admit that I have been doing pretty bad keeping up with telling everyone what has been going on here in France, but I am still working on getting everything figured out. Just this weekend, I finally found a grocery story (large=cheap) that is easy to get to, got electricity, and then found out that I have a test this Friday! Although, I do admit that it has not only been school that is keeping from making another post—it is also the other members of my class that have been wanting to squeeze as many activities as possibly into the limited amount of time that we have had. Besides learning about the local bar seen, we have also done some shopping, a birthday party, toured the local carnival, and took a trip to the local beach. At the beach, we were able to swim in the Atlantic ocean and blessed with warm and beautiful weather for the entire day. Getting to/on the beach was an adventure all on its own because we had planned to take a bus at around 10 am, but instead were forced to take one at around noon due to the bus breaking down. after getting back from the beach, our group was able to make a stop at the local carnival that has been going on for the last month—I shall tell you know that rides are not my thing. For those of you who are aware of the “sling shot” ride, which does exactly what the name entails, we had a couple excitedly go on that (Dylan and Emne seen below).

Half of our class made it to the beach!

The slingshot. 

The wait for the bus wore a few of us out. 

All in all, the group that I have been introduced to and will be studying with for the next six months is wonderful. They are as diverse as could be, with a group of 20 and 8 countries being represented. For curiosity sake the countries include: Austria, China, Taiwan, Tunisia, France, Latvia, Brazil, and of course the United States.  

As promised I have pictures! These are of my humble abode, which includes a kitchenette and personal bathroom--no sharing here! One of the things that I have had some fun with is the bus system. Ecole Superieure du Bois (ESB) has made the bus easy to use, only needing to take one to get to school and one to get to the center of town. So far, it has been a stressful week with lots of unexcited and unpleasant surprises. When thinking of doing study abroad you never think that you would be bombarded with document after document to the point that you feel as if you are signing away your soul. My colleague and I have in the past two days have opened a bank account, bought housing insurance (like renter's insurance), health insurance (this is not the one the school has provided us), gotten a monthly bus pass, and signed the housing contract. Unfortunately, this list does not include everything that we need to do--we still have to find phones, electricity for our housing (for some reason it is not included), apply for financial help for housing and health insurance, finish paperwork for the school, and set up an appointment with the French government for our long stay visas. The sad part about all of this is that it is all necessary, so the price is irrelevant and all out of the students pocket because we have to wait until the financial aide we will received is processed at the end of the month. Thankfully through all of this, ESB has provided us with a "tutor" who has been taking us around, translating everything for us, and helping us get everything set up.
         Overall I am excited to start the school year and begin the long days of class--which will mainly take place between 8 am 'till 6:30 pm. I look forward to showing you the beautiful school that I have been given the opportunity to study at.

It has been a long time in coming! I have finally arrived in France and am working on getting everything situated, which is a little more complicated than I was expecting. Arriving on the second of September was thought to be a good idea until I learned that the student that was to help me was a second year and had already started classes, so she is unable to help me for the majority of each day...the university also seems to not know what to do with me. I would like to say something about my travels to Nantes, France and how it wasn't as terrible or difficult as some had made it out to be. I met a multitude of people, a good portion of which were retired, and a host of well behaved children, none which cried for the entirety of the long flights. The language barrior doesn't seem to be all the bad, but then again it has only been two days. There are, in fact, a good number of individuals that I have met that do not speak French and whom I will be studying with--this makes me feel better. I have noticed that the French do not typically speak in the nice, slow, and understandable French that programs and classrooms expose you to; also, one of the biggest things that I have noticed is that they do not pronounce oui (yes) as "wee", but more like "way"--this may be an indication of difficulties to come.

I'm sorry that pictures are slow in coming, but as you can imagine life has been a bit crazy! I also apologize for any spelling or grammer mistakes within this post because I am temporarily working on a French computer--making this post a bit difficult. But I digress, I look forward to making new friends and exploring the city of Nantes.    

Already I am planning on skipping a couple of posts because I will be at a forestry event that will include around one hundred individuals from around the world. The International Forestry Student Symposium (link to the event below) will start in Vancouver, B.C., travel up to Fort St. James and them finish back in Vancouver. The event spans over nearly three weeks, starting from Aug. 6th to the 21st and during this time I will not be traveling with my computer for safety reasons. When I return, pictures galore and more information on what I have so far gone through for my study abroad adventure in France.

Again, I leave you with information on the program for the International Forestry Student Symposium 2014: http://www.ifss2014.ca/