Bonjour à tous !
Did you hear, did you hear ? L'Académie Française (The 40 ish dudes who oversee and guard the French language) have officially declared that the accent circonflex (âêîôû) no longer exists ! Also they've officially declared the change of spelling of some other words, for example "oignon" (onion) is now "ognon" (which is pronounced rather differently), just to make the language easier to learn for kids. Now, until today's kids are the rulers, both forms of spelling, with/without the circonflex, will be accepted.
So yay, that isn't confusing at all ! (sarcasm)
Anyway, that's not what I'm really hear to talk about today - I promised you pictures !
So this past week was my first week of my real classes, which I will have until May 20th. It went pretty well overall, despite the fact that I have 9 classes. Here in France, classes only meet once a week, so 9 classes isn't actually that big of a deal. I have two classes every day, except Friday when I only have one class (and it's an easy one :) ).
In France, they also approach homework differently. Instead of the pounds of history we get every night in the US, most professors give out less homework, but they expect students to be doing work on their own in order to better understand and explore the subject. I don't know if I like one method better, but I am glad to be able to experience both approaches.
Now, onto my little trip yesterday !
CIEE, my program provider, has 5 weekend trips programmed into our séjour here in Rennes, which, happily, are included in the original ticket price :)
Yesterday was our first weekend trip. We went to Dinan, then on to Mont St Michel. I love learning about history, and I love it even more when I can interact with history, so, as you can imagine, France -- Europe in general, is a wonderful place for me. While in Dinan we went on a tour of the city, which was a wonderful way to learn about the city quickly, as we were only there for a few hours yesterday morning. One of my favorite parts of the tour was when our guide showed us that from where we were standing on a road, you could see buildings that were built in the 13th century all the way to building that were built in the 20th century. How wonderful is it that you can interact with history every day. That you can walk down the street, turn a corner, and think, "Oh look, there's that building that's been here for 6 centuries, that one over there even longer." I wish we were able to do this in the US, but, unfortunately, we've done a number on Native American tribes and their history.
After our tour, we went to get lunch. We (myself, the majority of the other CIEE kids, and two of the monitrices [for those of you who don't know/remember, there are three French women studying for their Masters who met up with us in Paris, come with us when we travel, give us tips about Rennes, and are just generally wonderful]) found a restaurant that had everything from galettes, to pizza, to mussels, to crêpes. It was delicious, all the more so because we were all given 12 Euro for lunch.
Then we headed back to the bus which took us to Mont Saint Michel. Which, hot diggity, that is a sight to see. I'm not going to go much into the history of the abbey, because, which I learned about some of it, I am no expert. You can go to Google for that. I am going to say that it was beautiful, despite the extreme wind. Unfortunately, it is a tourist trap, so when you're in the lower levels it's all over-priced stores and tight roads full of too many people. Even with that, it was a wonderful experience.
Let's just go to the pictures.
Did you hear, did you hear ? L'Académie Française (The 40 ish dudes who oversee and guard the French language) have officially declared that the accent circonflex (âêîôû) no longer exists ! Also they've officially declared the change of spelling of some other words, for example "oignon" (onion) is now "ognon" (which is pronounced rather differently), just to make the language easier to learn for kids. Now, until today's kids are the rulers, both forms of spelling, with/without the circonflex, will be accepted.
So yay, that isn't confusing at all ! (sarcasm)
Anyway, that's not what I'm really hear to talk about today - I promised you pictures !
So this past week was my first week of my real classes, which I will have until May 20th. It went pretty well overall, despite the fact that I have 9 classes. Here in France, classes only meet once a week, so 9 classes isn't actually that big of a deal. I have two classes every day, except Friday when I only have one class (and it's an easy one :) ).
In France, they also approach homework differently. Instead of the pounds of history we get every night in the US, most professors give out less homework, but they expect students to be doing work on their own in order to better understand and explore the subject. I don't know if I like one method better, but I am glad to be able to experience both approaches.
Now, onto my little trip yesterday !
CIEE, my program provider, has 5 weekend trips programmed into our séjour here in Rennes, which, happily, are included in the original ticket price :)
Yesterday was our first weekend trip. We went to Dinan, then on to Mont St Michel. I love learning about history, and I love it even more when I can interact with history, so, as you can imagine, France -- Europe in general, is a wonderful place for me. While in Dinan we went on a tour of the city, which was a wonderful way to learn about the city quickly, as we were only there for a few hours yesterday morning. One of my favorite parts of the tour was when our guide showed us that from where we were standing on a road, you could see buildings that were built in the 13th century all the way to building that were built in the 20th century. How wonderful is it that you can interact with history every day. That you can walk down the street, turn a corner, and think, "Oh look, there's that building that's been here for 6 centuries, that one over there even longer." I wish we were able to do this in the US, but, unfortunately, we've done a number on Native American tribes and their history.
After our tour, we went to get lunch. We (myself, the majority of the other CIEE kids, and two of the monitrices [for those of you who don't know/remember, there are three French women studying for their Masters who met up with us in Paris, come with us when we travel, give us tips about Rennes, and are just generally wonderful]) found a restaurant that had everything from galettes, to pizza, to mussels, to crêpes. It was delicious, all the more so because we were all given 12 Euro for lunch.
Then we headed back to the bus which took us to Mont Saint Michel. Which, hot diggity, that is a sight to see. I'm not going to go much into the history of the abbey, because, which I learned about some of it, I am no expert. You can go to Google for that. I am going to say that it was beautiful, despite the extreme wind. Unfortunately, it is a tourist trap, so when you're in the lower levels it's all over-priced stores and tight roads full of too many people. Even with that, it was a wonderful experience.
Let's just go to the pictures.
Dinan
Mont Saint Michel
So, wow. Breathtaking.
It was such a wonderful day, despite the 60km/h winds. Which, hot diggity dog -- walking back from Mont Saint Michel it actually felt like I was going to fly away, and a few people almost lost their hats/scarves. It was kinda awesome. That's why this week's word is "le vent", or, "wind". That is certainly a word to know if you live near a coast.
Well, thanks for reading along, I hope you all are having/had wonderful weekends !
A bientôt !
Evelyn
It was such a wonderful day, despite the 60km/h winds. Which, hot diggity dog -- walking back from Mont Saint Michel it actually felt like I was going to fly away, and a few people almost lost their hats/scarves. It was kinda awesome. That's why this week's word is "le vent", or, "wind". That is certainly a word to know if you live near a coast.
Well, thanks for reading along, I hope you all are having/had wonderful weekends !
A bientôt !
Evelyn