Un week-end à Nantes

After a week of frozen Paris weather and deathly boring methodology classes at Sciences Po, I found myself looking forward to my weekend trip to Nantes with more enthusiasm than I would usually feel for a train trip.  I was up at 7am on Saturday to catch my 8:42am train, and after pacing around the apartment, I headed off to Montparnasse station, which is thankfully on the metro line closest to my apartment.

Two hours later, I arrived in Nantes, and it was like coming home--even more so than arriving in Washington DC.  The train station smelled like home and the wait at the warm and sunny bus stop and subsequent bumpy ride was familiar as anything.  I arrived at Dany's place and was warmly welcomed and invited to a concert that evening with her before I raced back off to catch the bus within the hour so my ticket was still valid.  Once I arrived at Place Graslin, I headed off to meet up with Sydney for brunch at Tabl'o Gourmand--the usual of a Chocolat Inca and all of the bread and butters and jams I can eat.  The rest of the afternoon consisted of hitting up all of the best Nantes stores--bookstores and paper stores and clothing stores and that bookseller who sells out of crates in his van outside of the cathedral.  We finished our wanderings at Sophie Bakery, where we both picked up pecan pies and I took a slice of chocolate devil's food cake to go.

"And your other host family?"  Sydney asked as we walked through Place du Bouffay.  "Did you ever make contact?"

My reply of no was just on the tip of my tongue when the door of the Lestang's apartment opened and  my high school host mother Pomme walked out.  I nearly sprinted away from Sydney and wove through the people on the sidewalk to suddenly surprise Pomme, who admittedly did not at first know what to say.  She greeted me and then called down my host father Jean-Philippe, who bought me a coffee and demanded I not only tell him what I had been doing for the past two years, but also why I hadn't emailed more.  I tried my best to describe Morocco, George Washington, and Nantes and now Paris.  Meije showed up and we were soon walking up to the flat.  I saw Raphael and met the two new cats and listened to a family friend sing opera while Jean-Philippe showed me pictures of the family's excursion in Morocco.  He informed me that Pomme was going to be playing viola at a concert and after some sleuthing, I found that it was the same concert that Dany had invited me to.

The concert was in a tiny cold church, where a local group performed Bach's Missa Brevis.  I walked back to Bouffay with Meije after to join the operatic soloists and some intrumentalists for galette des rois and clairette.  I made it back to Dany's apartment at 12:30 in the morning, exhausted and full of marzipan cake.

Sunday, I woke up and headed off to brunch with Sydney again, who had finally coaxed me away from Tabl'o Gourmand to Shefferville Cafe.  After a short wait, we were seated and I ordered the fixed brunch menu.

Brunch at Shefferville consists of two plates.  Sweet: fruit salad, two pancakes, and two slices of French bread dusted with powdered sugar.  Savory: two sausages, half a tomato, three slices of bacon, two eggs, a green salad, and two cheeses.  A bagel was served on the side, and the brunch came with coffee and orange juice.  I ate everything except one slice of French bread and one pancake, which I handed off to Sydney.

We walked after lunch to let our stomachs settle, and found a church and I was so happy to be in Nantes that I bought a candle for Mary and sat in the church for a few minutes.

Our visit ended at the Jardin des Plantes, where we walked slowly and found the petting zoo full of goats, where one of the goats made an enthusiastic effort to eat Sydney's dress.

I got on the TGV back to Paris with my huge suitcase, two bottles of local wine, and cakes from my favorite bakeries, a weekend well spent, and feeling rested in preparation for starting my classes at Sciences Po.

L'arrivée

I arrived in Paris two days ago at 7 in the morning, landing in Charles de Gaulle airport.  I've spent a lot of time in CDG, but I've never actually stepped out of the airport (it's always the connection hub for Nantes and Rabat), and the other three times I was in Paris, I arrived by train or car.  After explaining to the surprised program manager that my big suitcase was in Nantes and I was not going to be living out of a carry-on, I was tucked away on a shuttlebus and ferried through Paris morning traffic from the airport to the 13th.  After about an hour commute, I got to the apartment and was met by two American Comforts of Home workers, who kindly introduced me to the apartment.

I paid the extra deposit for a single and I ended up with one roommate, Kathy, and we also ended up with an apartment meant for four people.  Alongside two enormous bedrooms, we have a dining nook, a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room with too much extra space.  Since I showed up first, I got pick of the two bedrooms, and chose the dark one with the large closet.

I slipped downstairs after unpacking so that I could hop over to the tiny grocery store just to the side of our apartment building.  I bought the basics, namely tea and puff pastry, and then tried to get back into the building.  I got past the front door easily enough, but right when I'd arrived, the Comforts of Home staff had switched out the key I'd been given at the airport for one in a brown envelope.  It turned out to be the key to the old lock, and after struggling with the key for about twenty minutes, I finally called the staff.  Quite frankly, I'm glad I had this issue so early in the visit.  Also, Comforts of Home arrived almost immediately and helped me back in and were so sweet that I didn't even mind.

Our welcome program at Sciences Po started today, and instead of allowing us time to adjust to Paris and explore the city, they herded us into a lecture hall and managed to find thirty dozen different ways to say "we're so happy to have you here at Sciences Po" and spat business hours and email addresses at us without offering corresponding papers.  We finally made it through a frankly useless tour with a guide whose words barely left her mouth and sprinted off to Monoprix to stock up on supplies.  One electric kettle, a collection of green teas, a hairdryer, two laundry baskets, and a whole bunch of food later, we walked out and braved the metro.

With the mushrooms, ham bits, eggs, creme fraiche, and a sheet of puff pastry, I tossed together a little quiche in our new pie/cake pan and Kathy boiled up some ravioli and we felt especially grown up and plan on continuing our cooking adventures.

Paris so far has been limited to an odd tour and a lecture hall, but I know that after a few weekends I'll discover a few gems.