Happy May Day! As I mentioned, today is a holiday in France. Only on le 1 mai, anybody is allowed to sell lily of the valley (le muguet) in the streets. It's supposed to bring happiness.

I spent today at my host family's country house, with a fire in the fireplace. While we were there, Arnaud showed me parts of the airplane he's in the process of building - all from scratch, including the electrical systems. He showed me some wing parts and the instrument panel, with a few instruments installed. This will be the second airplane he's built - pretty cool.

I also had the chance to read a few of the family's old comic strip books, including Astérix and Tintin, both of which are well known in France.

France has an interesting system of allocating university vacations. Unlike in the US, where universities each choose their own vacation dates, it is regulated by region in France. The regions have staggered vacations, so not everybody has off at the same time. Speaking of vacation time, I have a little bit coming up - May 1st is a holiday in France (férié as they say) as is May 8th (la victoire en Europe). Seeing as both of these days are on Thursday, everybody gets Friday off as well. (on fait le pont, meaning make a long weekend out of it)

Today was interesting... Since my ankle is now a little swollen, I was slowly making my way between the classroom building and the cafeteria at the Polytech', only to be caught in the middle of a sudden hail storm. (la grêle!) Very random, decent sized hail, and I couldn't have run if I wanted to. It was kind of hilarious.

Random French fact of the day: The French do not really celebrate Halloween. (but you probably knew that) Also, my host mother makes homemade bread every day, which is nothing less than amazing.

Bonus!: Moral of the day: Do not play around on random gymnastics equipment! I think I pulled a muscle or something in my ankle... Let's hope it doesn't interfere with the tons of walking I usually do around here.

The high school kids are, amusingly, still on strike. I passed a whole mob of them chanting in the street today. The chocolate chip cookies I made have all been eaten, which must mean I did something right. Art history classes are done!

Random French fact of the day: Apparently old forest green army vests are à la mode in the middle school. Also, the French have weird brown sugar. It is exactly the same texture as white sugar, only brown! (It wouldn't pack or clump)

Thank goodness tomorrow is the last Art History class. After that there's just the paper to go...

Added photos to Divers.

Well, at least this weekend had nice weather. That's really all I could ask for, since this is Tours. I swear, I have never been anywhere where it rained more.

Next week's forecast:


typical. at least we might get a break for the weekend...

You all know the blood mobile, right? Well I can top that. Today, I saw the Bibliobus. Literally, "library bus." I didn't have my camera... but apparently this thing drives around the countryside so people don't have to drive the distance to the library!

Ok, well as a couple people have pointed out, this is something that we have in the US too. But since I've never seen one, I thought it was cool anyway...

Bonjour à tous! It's been quite a while, I know, but I've had travels, work, and nice weather to distract me from this blog!

Since my last post, I have: been to London, seen Wicked, seen the Olympic torch, been through the Chunnel, seen a couple châteaux and other places in France, been to Venice, been to Rome, and been to the Vatican.

But before I get into that, let me just say that it really is true that the French go on strike ALL the time. In fact, as soon as I flew back into Paris, I passed a bunch of protestors... in the airport! Yup, must be France. Recently, all the high school kids have been on strike, walking around outside en masse, blocking major intersections, as seems popular with ceux qui font la grève... Imagine high school kids going on strike in the US! It just doesn't work that way...

London:
It was a bit of a change to be suddenly surrounded by English! I really enjoyed Wicked, seeing the Tower of London (in the snow!) was cool too. We also went to Greenwich where you could stand right on the Prime Meridian.

France:
Tours is an ideal city from which to visit châteaux, since it is right in the middle of the Loire River Valley. But there are seriously a ton of them, so you have to pick which ones you want to go see! This time around, my dad and I went to Chaumont-sur-Loire, Chambord, and Villandry. Chambord is perhaps the most well known - it is enormous, though François 1^e only built it as a hunting lodge. Chaumont-sur-Loire is smaller, but pretty cool looking. And Villandry, which is right next to Tours, has immense gardens.


Driving around France, we stopped at the Futuroscope a French "theme park" that is really not a theme park. It's a park of movie theaters, each one with a different technology, be it 3d, virtual reality, or seats that move. So that was cool.

We also visited the seaside town of La Rochelle, on the west coast of France. Formerly fortified, you can still see and climb up some of the town's old towers. After seeing some of the town, we took a boat out to some of the islands and Fort Boyard (which is apparently featured in a well-known French tv game show that I had never heard of) The view from the top of the Lantern Tower:



Venice:
Perhaps my favorite part of the vacation! Venice is such a unique city, in that to get around you either walk, or travel by boat on one of the many canals. You can't even ride a bike, since all the roads are twisty and full of steps to go over bridges. It's really really easy to get lost, too. (no this isn't just coming from me) I got lost a few times, even with a map. While I was there, I got to hang out with an Italian friend, which was fun. One day, I took a boat out to explore some of the island in the lagoon. The island of Torcello has an old bell tower you can climb up, that gives a pretty spectacular view:



Rome:
This is a huge city, with lots of stuff to do, though le métro est nul! Which means a lot of walking. But the ancient ruins were pretty cool, and the Vatican museums were pretty impressive. To bad the Pope was in the states. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, I've put the links of the left.


Things are starting to wrap up in Tours, and the weather is finally starting to get nice. I can only hope that Tours does not keep up its seeming trend of constant rain! If I can, I'll get in a few more updates before it's time to go.

Alors, à plus.