10-9-2011 (Saturday)
Absolutely a fabulous day. The weather was gorgeous and I spent almost the entire day walking around Angers and checking out all of the shops. The shopping here is so tempting. I feel like a pregnant lady with 10 gallons of ice cream staring at her in the face! No joke there is a shoe store on almost every single street that I have walked on. I have fallen in love with the fashion here; everything is so chic and trendy. I am also a bit surprised at how modest most of the women are. I haven't seen mini-skirts or overflowing cleavage at all, instead the women dress very feminine and flattering. My conclusion is that to them the clothes are more important to show off then the body parts. It has been very refreshing.
Saturday evening was quite an experience as well. Chandlor, Gabby, and I bought some food at the grocery store and made our very own dinner at Gabby's place. It was nice to have some down time with friends, and our dinner turned out to be delicious!
After dinner we had a proper going out experience. There is a street close to campus that has three bars that many of the international students drink at. Our favorite is K'lypso because the owner is super nice and always gives us free shots. Drinking in Angers is very different than drinking in Oregon. The mindset is so different; people do not go out to bars with the intention of "getting wasted" instead the focus is on seeing people you know and socially drinking. (Of course with the possibility of getting drunk at some point). Another interesting difference is that people tend to congregate in large groups in the streets between the bars. The "street" that I am talking about would actually be considered more of an alley way in the states because it is so small. This wouldn't be that unusual except that it magically turns into a musical. What I mean is that a song will come on and everyone at the exact same moment in time will start dancing a choreographed dance. Of course it is really not choreographed but it sure seems like it! Naturally, being the type of person that I am, I wanted to join in immediately...I succeeded in joining and failed miserably at the dance. They were going left when I was going right. Luckily I have a good sense of humor about these sorts of things that I get myself into and just laughed.
The bar owner at K'Lypso has an Oregon flag!!! Next time I go I get to sign it :-)
The gang
The gang with the bar owner
Haha
(There are tons more pictures on my facebook if you would like to see more)
11-9-2011 (Sunday)
I don't really like thinking about this day. Sunday was supposed to be a field trip/excursion day to Mt. Saint Michel and St. Malo.... Didn't happen for me. My alarm went off and I thought I hit the snooze button but it actually turned it off. When I woke up again my stomach felt like it fell to my feet with 1,000 lb. butterflies going crazy inside. I was sooooo upset and moped around for about four hours. Finally I decided that moping and pouting wasn't going to make it any better so I got dressed up and went into Angers. I ended up finding a really cool statue museum and saw a comedy puppet show. Not as great as it could have been but life goes on!!!
The streets of Angers are absolutely EMPTY on Sunday. All the shops are closed - grocery stores, clothing store, shoe stores, pharmacies...everything! The town literally shuts down on Sunday to rest. It was fabulous and very peaceful.
Museum
Comedy puppet show - really wished I could have understood more of what they were saying!
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