Another week begins in Nantes...

Sorry I haven't been updating as often! This week and next week we have "Devoirs a la maison" due for every class which is basically a 4-5 page paper written in French on a topic of the professors choosing. They are a lot harder than I anticipated. But after a long week of hard work last week, the weekend was fun! Friday, a bunch of IES students went to the "Machines de L'ile" on the Island of Nantes across the Loire River. The machines were created by 2 artists who wanted to cross the imaginary world of Jules Verne (who was born in Nantes) and the mechanics of Leonardo de Vinci. The result is a bunch of really awesome mechanical elephants and sea monsters, etc that you can ride on.

The Mechanical Elephant- the most well known Machine de l'ile.  It blinked and sprayed real water out of it's trunk.

My second favorite, a sea monster. I don't know what about this attracted me so much but it did.

 

Saturday morning, there was a huge street carnival thing with tons of stores with booths out on the street selling things for really cheap. It was so much fun to look around and see everything and there were so many people! There were literally booths everywhere. For miles and miles and miles. Here is an example of just one street...

Street Carnival!

That afternoon me and 4 of my friends decided that we wanted to go to the coast of France for the day and get out of Nantes. So 10 Euros and an hours train ride later, we were in an adorable small town called Pornic. The town surrounded a little bay that led into the Atlantic ocean. After walking around the town for a little, we sat on the edge of some rocks and looked out over the water (I even waved to all of you back on the east coast! We were just an ocean away from each other...). 

Pornic. Yes, there was a chateau... just like in every other city in France.

Looking out over the water. Tons of Sailboats!

Well, that is about it for my weekend, now it is off to finish some more of my work before meeting my parents in Paris on thursday! yayy!!

A toute a l'heure!