First week in Nantes is complete and it has been busy and exhilarating.
On Monday afternoon, I was called into Julie's office. As far as I can tell, Julie is essentially the dean of students here. Or maybe the academic dean. In any case, she's the IES Nantes staffer who deals with both our registration at university as well as emotional stability. She informed me that every semester, the staff chooses one student to make a short speech at the mairie (city hall?) when the mayor of Nantes greets the American students.
And this semester they chose me.
I have terrible stage fright. I'm not sure where it came from or when it started or why it only seems to apply to speaking and not to acting; I've done drama before, and I had to memorize pages and pages of dialogue and at city hall I only had to speak for a minute and I had the speech written out on a paper in my hand, but my heart nearly exploded. However, Wednesday rolled around and I did survive and several French host families came up to me after and told me that I spoke French very well, which is all I want to hear when I'm in France.
On Thursday we went out as a group to something called La Cantine, which is located on an island in Nantes. I can best describe it as a combination of a restaurant, a nightclub, a beach, and an airport. It's a restaurant because you can order food, it's a nightclub because there's thumping music and alcohol and a lot of good looking young people, and it's an airport because there are locations like "North Exit" and "Bar B2" versus "Bar B1" and signs with arrows and little symbols of exits and taxis and everything is in English and French. After loitering awkwardly with our backpacks (we hadn't been told it was such a "hip" location; the advertisement said we'd be tasting local foods) and watching the rest of our group down mojitos and Belgian beer, my friend Emily and I each ordered a glass of rosé wine and drank that on an empty stomach.
We soon found out that both of us are lightweights.
Dinner was a salad, tough steak, tasty potatoes, and a drink. I chose a tiny carafe of red wine, which likely wasn't the best idea, but Emily and I shared a fromage blanc with jam and a chocolate mousse for desserts and made it home safely. I take this to mean that I know the bus system here pretty well.
Friday meant registration (finally) and I found, to my delight that I had placed out of obligatory French courses and could essentially take any classes I wanted. Therefore, this semester will take the form of Les Miserables, an in-depth look on the EU, theatre class, history of Africa, a discussion of Palestine, and an Arabic translation course. All of these classes will be taught in French, including my Arabic course. While I am a little worried about the whole English to French to Arabic adventure, I'm also very excited.
Friday afternoon I had my first ballet class in Nantes. The studio has one, slick wooden floored room and a coed dressing room and I had to circle a building to find the little entrance. After sitting awkwardly in the foyer for half an hour, I finally approached a girl my age and after stumbling around my initial introduction of "excuse me, hello, can you help me, I am an American student and I would like to take a class here," I got a friendly smile, a gentle vocab correction, and the assurance that I could definitely take the class to try it out. I ended up being the only person in class wearing tights and a leotard with my hair in a bun and felt a little too formal, but I also picked up the combinations fairly quickly and laughed and talked with the other girls and had a good time, so I think I'll be going back weekly if possible.
Not a bad week, all in all.
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