France

Wow! I'm sorry it has been such a long time since I have written anything.. but the past few weeks have been somewhat of a whirlwind of business! Where to start... classes are going well – we have midterms this week... so hopefully everything goes well with that. We were on Spring break this week, so I had the opportunity to travel around Italy with one of my friends from the program. Also, last weekend I took a trip to Lourdes, France located in the south in the Pyrenees Mountains – close to the border with Spain. It was a very beautiful and moving trip – walking in the steps of St. Bernadette (where she was baptized, where she was born, etc), seeing the grotto, seeing the basilica, etc. It was great, not to mention that the weather was fabulous! So I got back home on Sunday night around midnight.....unpacked my bags only to repack for Italy, and I had to leave again by 4:50 in the morning in order to get to the train station by 5:30 to meet my friend and catch our train to Paris for our flight. Needless to say, I was a bit exhausted! We started off in Venice, where we spent two nights. I LOVED it there – the only thing is that the weather wasn't ideal – a little foggy and cold, but still the city is so cool! When you arrive at the airport, you have to take a boat shuttle into the city, its just a very unique place. So we did some exploring there, saw the Piazza San Marco, Saint Marc's Basilica (which was so huge and amazingly decorated), and a few other things like where the palace of the Doge of Venice from back when Venice was its own separate entity. After that, it was on to Florence. I really liked it there, again the weather was cloudy but it was actually somewhat warm so that was nice. There is so much art and history there since it is the birthplace of the Renaissance. So, we saw Michaelangelo's David, the Duomo, and a few other things. All of our days were jam packed because we were trying to fit in as much as possible in the little time that we had. Not to mention all of the walking that we did... my legs are still feeling it. To climb up to the top of the Duomo in Florence, you need to walk up 470 flights of stairs!! The view, however, was very worth it. After two nights in Florence we finished up our trip in the Eternal City, Rome. Again, a great experience. The first day we saw the Colosseum which was remarkable and we also toured Palatine hill to see all of the Roman Ruins. It is crazy to think about how old everything is there!! The first night I was so lucky to get to see my friend Joe from home who was spending his spring break in Rome with a group from his school. We had a really nice time, and as always – it was very nice to see a familiar face, and difficult to say goodbye! On Saturday we went to the Vatican. WOW! That's all I can say. It was so cool, the museums, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peters Basilica, everything was just so ornate and gorgeous. The Sistine Chapel somewhat blew me away – and its so cool to think that in that very room, the cardinals gather to elect a new pope. St. Peter's Basilica is breathtaking, I have never seen anything like it.. its absolutely huge and contains beautiful art such as Michaelangelo's “Pieta.” Below the basilica, you can tour the Vatican Grotto which contains the tombs of many popes, including that of Pope John Paul II. It was very powerful! You can also view the tomb of St. Peter – however, you can not get as close to it as the others, unfortunately. We were exhausted by Saturday night so we just had a nice dinner out, walked around the city one last time to see the sights like the Trevi fountain at night. Very cool. Well, I think thats about it – I am writing this from the train station in Paris and our train is leaving in a little bit. I am looking forward to going back and seeing my host family, but I am NOT looking forward to midterms! :-( Oh well, life goes on! This Friday, the program is taking us on a day trip to Paris so that should be fun! Know that I am really missing all of you, and please keep up the emails, etc – I love hearing from everyone and knowing what is going on with you back at home!!! I hope to be able to update a little bit more, so I will definitely try and make a better effort! Talk to you soon!

Bonjour! Sorry I have not written in a while... last week was so busy that its all kind of a blur to me right now! I will try and make up for it though. Classes were good, but in addition to that I started my teaching internship... which took up a lot of time too. I was not supposed to start until today, however last Monday I got a call from the man who is coordinating my internship at the school and he said he desprately needed someone to come in and cover 4 english classes for him this week, because they had a teacher who had been sick and the subsititute had not yet shown up. Now, for this internship we are supposed to start of with a week of observing the teachers in the classroom, and then we go on to work with small groups of 10-12 students, not whole classes. However, since they were in need they threw me right into it, 5 full classes with anywhere from 15-25 students and from the ages of 15-19. I assumed that I would get some sort of guidance as to what exactly I was supposed to do with them..what level they were at, etc.. but I got nothing! So, it was kind of a challenge and since I only had a days notice I didn't have much time to prepare. Despite that, the classes on the first day went ok I usually ran out of things to do 20 minutes into the 55 minute class .. which was kind of a problem – but I just asked the students if they had questions about the US, English, etc which usually led to good discussion. The third period of the day though, was different. I finally felt prepared and I had instructions for an activity on the board and everything was ready to go when a young girl showed up at the door. I introduced myself and all that jazz – and then she told me that she was the only student who had come to class, and all of the others left because they talked to the students from the morning class and when they found out that I was simply a “stagere” (intern) they decided it wasn't necessary to come to class. I was sad! I got over it though, and I'm pretty sure those students received some sort of punishment... The Thursday classes were both made up of students who are a little bit older, making it even more difficult for me to exercise any sort of order or authority over them. So, we tried discussing the elections for a little bit (ps – I am so excited for Super Tuesday!! I wish I was at home to see it all happen in real time.) There were a few students who were interested in the topic and when I asked the class as a whole what they knew about the elections they all shouted “OBAMA” or “CLINTON.” No shock major here, but they know absolutely nothing about the Republican candidates. When I wrote the names “John McCain” and “Mitt Romney” on the board, they looked at me like I was crazy. I found it amusing. So, once that conversation died I resigned to playing hangman, which was fun. So that made for a full week in addition to my classes. This weekend though, I had the chance to go to London and visit my friend Kim from back home! It was soo much fun!! (Not to mention how nice it was to have a break and speak English for a few days!) Saturday we spent practically seven hours on foot seeing all the major sites such as: Big Ben, parliament, Buckingham Palace, the Tower Bridge, the Globe Theater, etc. It was so cool!! On top of that, I got to enjoy my first Mexican meal in a long while, since its practically unheard of in France. Soo..that was quite a delight. One thing that was not a delight though, was the exchange rate! UNBELIEVABLE! 5 pounds is the equivalent of 10 USD.. so literally every purchase I made, I doubled the amount in my head .. and it was scary! I think we dropped 45 USD on the mexican meal between the two of us, which only consisted of a burrito and a quesadilla. Crazy! But overall, it was a great experience. Today it was back to reality.. classes, homework, and the like. Its hard to come from such a big city like London to a much smaller city like Nantes. However, I'm sure that Nantes has certain charms that can not be found in London. I will talk to you all soon ... miss you lots, please continue to keep in touch!!

p.s- I have changed the website that I put my pictures up on because the other one was too slow... so I just added three albums this morning.... so if you would like to see them, please email me and I will forward them to you!! Cmurphy11@jcu.edu (or, my mom can...)

Bonjour!!

I hope that everything is going well with you back at home! I wanted to just give you a little update because our classes started this week! I had two classes yesterday, and just one this morning. So far, so good - of course its kind of hard to tell how difficult a class will be within the first few days! I will say though, unlike back home.. it is impossible to day dream a little bit..since the teachers speak strictly in french - I have to pay attention to their every word! I hope that they will be interesting though.. The classes I am taking are: Topics in French Language and Composition; France and the United States in the Middle East since 1945; Government and Politics in France since 1958; and Religion, Society, and the State in Modern France. All of those classes take place at the actual IES Center located in downtown Nantes ..with the other American students in my group. I am also taking a course at the university of nantes (l'universite de Nantes) in English-French French-English translation. So that will be more of a real french-classroom setting... which should be interesting! That class, however, does not start until next Monday. This weekend was also fun Friday night we went out and explored Nantes a little bit and then Saturday I spent the day at home.. watched a few movies, had lunch and dinner with my family, etc. Sunday I had the chance to go with my family to their daughter's (Mildrede) home located about 20 minutes outside of Nantes. The house was very quaint and located amongst miles and miles of pretty vineyards. Mildrede is married and is expecting a baby in April. We had lunch there and one of the things that I love the most about French culture is how sacredly they treat their meals. They do not full around! We got there at about noon and probably did not officially finish lunch until 2:30-3:00. It started out with an aperatif and appetizers in the family room, then into the dining room for an entree of salami and pickles, then the main plate of chicken and fresh vegetables, then dessert (which was the traditional desert for the month of January..again the "king cake,") then it was back into the living room to top it all off with a "cafe." So it was a very good meal... and we spent a couple more hours at the house, and they took me for a walk amongst the vineyards. We left around 6:30 only to come back home to...surprise...eat again! The temperature is nice here, however, its practically always cloudy (which can get depressing!)-- but some sun finally broke through today! A friend and I went for a walk just to get out and soak up the sun. I have had a few bouts of home sickness, but i know that it is only normal in adjusting to a completely new culture and language... I am sure that everything will get better with time! This weekend ... they are taking us to Mont St Michel (google image search: Mont St Michel if you are not sure what this is!!) I have been there before but it is a truly astounding place that I can not wait to go back to! So I will update you after that to tell you how it goes!! After that... its off to London next weekend to visit a friend from home and see the sights there.... can't wait! Miss you and love you all very much!!!

Au Revoir-

Colin (or as the french say "co-lean"..basically "clean" with an O between the c and the l!)

Hi again everyone!! I am writing to you from a very RAINY Nantes, France. We just learned yesterday that although there is hardly ever snow here.. it rains a lot. Which is ok because despite the rain, the temperature outside is still quite pleasant (at least compared to Cleveland!) This week has been jam packed with stuff to do because it is officially our first full week here in Nantes. Upon returning from Tours this Sunday night I was exhausted because we had spent so much time on the bus traveling from different chateaux, back to our hotel, etc. So it was nice to just get to one place and stay put! That still does not mean that it has not been a tiring week! We have lots of things to do such as registering for classes, getting our bus passes, buying our cell phones (which are required), etc. There have also been some pretty early mornings because it takes me about a half hour to get to school in the "Centre-ville" on the bus. The bus and tram systems are great here, so my bus stop is just a four minute walk from my house. Once we got to school this week we had session after session about security in Nantes, living in a host family, the classes that are offered, the classes we can take at the university, etc. All of this got pretty old.. pretty fast!! However, it was very important information. We also have three hours of intensive french classes: one hour of conversation, one hour of French language, and one hour of grammar exercices (and let me just say..... real french grammar worksheets are just a TAD bit more difficult than those used by schools back at home.) I am meeting some good people in my group, and I am hoping to find more people who are just as interested in traveling to other cities and countries in Europe as I am. I definitely want to spend some weekends here in Nantes getting to know the city, etc - but I also would like to do a fair amount of traveling considering I will only have this opportunity once in my life! Nantes is really good, and a much bigger city than I imagined it to be - which is great! There seems to be a lot going on. Things are going well with my family too, except it is taking my stomach some time to adjust to the small French portions! True - they eat a lot and they LOVE food, however, in small quantities For example, last night consisted of some bread and cold cuts of different kinds of meat. For desert we had the traditional desert of the month of January: a king cake. It can get a bit lonely after dinner at the house just because I do live kind of far from the city, and not many of the other students live close to me. Also - no internet! Therefore, I can only use the internet when I am at school. It would be a lot easier to keep in touch if I had it at home... but I'm sure I will live! I think thats about it for now... we are touring the "Universite de Nantes" today, where I am going to be taking a class in English-French/French-English translation. We are going to be eating in one of the university restaurants, too - which is sure to be an interesting experience! Tomorrow we are DONE with orientation, so I think we are going to have a dinner out in the city to celebrate! I will keep you posted...classes start Monday..woo hoo!! I love getting replies and emails from everyone.. so keep them coming! Miss you alll!!

Love,
Colin

ps- Here is a link to my webshots account, where I am going to be adding photos as I go along. Right now - there is only a photo album of the house Im living in.. enjoy!

http://community.webshots.com/user/colin12788?vhost=community

So... I am finally here! I will warn you in advance that the keyboards here are much different so I apologize in advance for typos! My trip here went off without a hitch -- i could not have asked for better travel. Seeing everyone off the day of my departure was of course hard, however-I am just staying positive!! By the time I finally arrived in Nantes after literally planes, trains, and automobiles I was exhausted! I had been awake for 24 hours straight. Once we got to the IES Center (my school) I met some of the other students and ,my host family. They are extremely nice and welcoming! The names of the mom and dad are: Anne and Patrick .. and they have a son who is 16 named Jean Baptiste. they also have 2 daughters who are both married and no longer live with them. My room is nice and quaint, and i have everything i need - even my own bathroom! No internet.. which is kind of a bummer but I am sure I will live! We had a lovely dinner together which consisted of wine, pasta, salmon, cookies, and of course a large selection of cheeses. They told me "Serve-toi comme chez-toi" meaning serve yourself as if it were your home. I crashed that night knowing that I had some long days ahead of me! Our group headed to Tours, France (which you can find on the map below) for an off site orientation. The theme of the 3 day trip was visiting some of the amazing castles in the loire valley region. We visited four in total: Chenonceaux, Cheverny, Chambord (my favorite) and Amboise. Each castle is different in its own way and the history behind each of them is just fascinating. I have a friend from JCU studying here in Tours, and both of us knew that we would be in the general area we never arranged to officially meet up. However, last night after dinner at the hotel some people from my group and I wandered into the town center where all of the main attractions of the city are located. Within minutes of getting there I hear somone yell "Colin!!" It was Megan!! (my friend from school). We basically lost it screaming in the town center! It was so nice to see such a familiar face and we had a great time together. Tomorrow we take our french placement tests and then head back to Nantes for another week of orientation, registration, etc - So i will keep you updated on how all of that goes! I miss you all very much but know that I am very safe and happy here.

A BIENTOT!! Talk to you soon.

here are some photos of my room and orientation ...

enjoy!! my deskmy bed chateau chambordchateau chambordchateau cheverny chateau chenonceaux