Best "I hate myself" deal: Four chocolate croissants for 2.40 euro. La Grande Cafe, conveniently placed right as you leave the tram at the Commerce stop.
Best cafe: Tabl'o Gourmand forever and ever amen. Go for the granola and the scrambled eggs for brunch, then the roasted duck with applesauce and goat cheese bagel for lunch, and then all of the baguette and crunchy nutella and spiced hot chocolate for a snack.
Best creperie: My host mom made the best savory crepes, hands down. They were stuffed with sausage and goat cheese and egg and I loved them. Second best, Grand-Mère Augustine in Bouffay with the creme-fraiche and smoked salmon special.
Rudest person I encountered: a man who told me how upset he was that I was a foreigner taking advantage of the French university system. I would have been more insulted, but he was speaking French through the thickest British accent I've ever heard while he was telling me this.
Best class at university: I would say the Law of the European Union, but its only fault was being at 8:30am and lasting for three hours, so I choose the Latin American history course, which was the first time I took a class on that region, and I had the good fortune to have an incredibly articulate, funny professor who demanded order and respect in his classroom.
Best bookstore: Librairie Franklin, two stores over from the bakery with the perfect lemon tart, was the cutest--a tiny, crowded vintage bookstore with books stacked in piles in the middle of the room because the shelves were stuffed. For actual navigation and selection of newer titles, Librairie Coiffard and its two stores across the street from each other takes the prize.
Best castle: The castle at Blois, because its tiled floors were so insane and made me extremely dizzy.
Best dinner out: Curry chicken pizza at a pizzeria across from the castle.
Best dinner in: Dany made quiche and galettes and scrambled eggs and sauteed mushrooms and everything was always fantastic, but the galettes were the best.
Best baguette: There was this one time that Jean-Luc brought a baguette from Trégastel, which is 3 hours to the north. It was very good. Also another time I followed a Carrefour employee who was carrying a crate of fresh baguettes into the store and I snagged one while it was still warm.
Best people-watching spot: The tram stop at the University/the steps outside the lecture hall at university. Everyone's just standing around smoking so it's easy to make up fake backstories or take style tips.
Best wine: Chinon Red 2013. Bake it into fudge cakes. Drink it. Make your friends drink it. Choose it over every other wine in a wine bar in Paris even though you know it already. Save the labels from every bottle you buy.
Best baked creation: Those fantastic golden-brown puffed up choux pastries that I was making like crazy before I discovered the magic of pre-made puff pastry sheets.
Best tourist attraction: Natural History Museum. Go in the middle of the day on a Friday for maximum "I'm alone in a museum full of dead things" factor.
Best Breakfast: Tabl'o Gourmand if we're talking in Nantes, but if we can extend to everywhere I went this semester, then the Swan at Shakespeare's Globe, because that's where I had my first full English, and I want another one.
Best Train: Most definitely the Orient Express, because it's the Orient Express with champagne and glossy compartments and welcoming, uniformed staff. Second place is the TER commuter train, because I had a ton more legroom than on the TGV.
Bonus Round--Firsts:
- First train that I can actually remember (vague memories of trains in Virginia and stories of learning to walk on a train in New Zealand do not count)
- First hostel experience--but to be fair, we got a room for two people so we didn't really have the authentic experience.
- First time in the United Kingdom
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