Shopping Weekend

Since there wasn't much else to do this weekend, I decided to do some shopping.

Headed to Atlantis yesterday to try and find a sports store that Ivan told me about. He said it had sweatshirts for 9 euros, and since the weather's beginning to change, I figured I should probably get some warmer clothes while they were cheap. Got some really nice fitted fleece pullovers, one blue, one black. The store had all sorts of great deals on clothes, so I'm sure I'll be making another trip there at some point.

Also went to IKEA to buy a new sheet set and a corkscrew. I love IKEA for its prices... less than 9 euros for the entire purchase. I also love IKEA because it starts celebrating Christmas even before they start in the States. Normally, the US waits until at least after Halloween before they start decorating the stores with snowflakes and Christmas music, but not IKEA. They had all sorts of christmasy decorations set up as you entered the store and throughout the store. No Christmas music, but still made me happy.



Speaking of... Christmas is just two months away to the day!! I'm enjoying my time in France for the most part, but I'm definitely looking forward to going back to the States and seeing my family and friends for the holidays.

Another interesting thing they had at Atlantis yesterday was a circus theme throughout the mall. They had a miniature display of a circus set up in the middle of the mall, and they also had various circus costumes set up throughout. Very elaborate and fun to see.






Today I headed back to Marche Talensac to see if I could find any other goodies. I planned to start looking for Christmas gifts (I was inspired yesterday), and while I found a few things that looked nice, I didn't buy anything today. I found some really pretty scarves, but my heart sank a bit when I saw the tags with "Made in India" attached to them. I don't know that I will find many that say "Made in France," but I'm at least going to shop around to check. There were some really cool pieces of jewelry, so I'm keeping those in mind as potential gifts as well.

After the markets, I walked around Nantes for about an hour. Stopped to take a picture of a church that I hadn't seen before. I swear the architecture of the churches here is just amazing to me. They're all so big and ornate and beautiful.



I also saw a fountain that was rather unique.



In Nantes, there's a place called Lieu Unique, which hosts different types of art and music exhibitions. Apparently it used to be a buscuit factory. Pretty cool looking building actually.



Final stop was a walk through the gardens near the train station. I've walked through several times, but today was the first time I noticed a glassed-in area with pretty little birds flying around in it. Got a couple good photos of them.




On my way home, I stopped at a gelato place called Amorino, as my friend Ivan told me that they have an amazingly rich, thick hot chocolate that I needed to try. He told me it was so thick that I really should use a spoon to "drink" it, and he was right. As most of you know, I'm a chocoholic, but this stuff was almost too rich for me. I sipped on it for a couple hours (it obviously wasn't hot by the end), but it definitely was some of the best hot chocolate I've ever had. I checked the web site, and they have shops in Paris and Strasbourg as well, so I'm going to make sure my mom and I get the hot chocolate again when she visits.

Tonight I'm going out to dinner with some of my classmates. Not sure where we're going yet, but I'm looking forward to a night out.

School work tomorrow... maybe?

Break Time!

After a not-so-grueling 6 weeks of classes, it's finally midterm week. Back at Fisher, those words probably would have made me a bit uneasy, but here in France, midterm week just refers to a week off at the halfway point of the semester. Not a bad deal.

When I was planning for my time abroad, I had assumed that I would be taking a trip to somewhere exotic this week, but that won't be the case. As much as I love to travel, it's not nearly as fun without people to go with or people to visit, so I decided I'm just going to save whatever money I would have spent on a trip now and really have a great time when my mom visits in December.

While there's not a big vacation in the works, a few of us from class are going to be visiting our classmate Xavier-Freddy's family home in Chaillevette, about 2.5 hours from here. While there, we will be visiting a very old lighthouse, possibly flying in a small plane to see some beautiful views of the area from up above, exploring a nearby forest, and enjoying plenty of local wine and food, including a very special oyster dish for which the area is famous. It will be a nice, relaxing break, and it will be a fantastic opportunity to spend some more time with my classmates without school weighing on our minds.

Speaking of school, I should probably update a bit about my classes. This semester I am taking a courseload of 7 classes, plus a few two-day seminars on topics such as intercultural management and negotiation skills built into the curriculum. Since the Audencia MBA is a one-year program and it only starts in September each year, I am taking many core classes that I took last year (Organizational Behavior, Managerial Economics, Global Business and Corporate Financial Accounting). They have a bit more of an international spin than the ones at Ohio State did, but it is a lot of repetition for me. There are a couple of new courses though, including HR management, international marketing, and business law.

Unlike Ohio State, we don't have a set weekly schedule. Instead, we have class when the professors are available to teach. We've only had 2 sessions of law, we haven't even started international marketing yet, but we're already done with accounting. It's kind of strange, but I'm used to it now. The nice thing about having three straight weeks of accounting is that we never had time to forget what we'd learned, so by the time we took the final on Wednesday, I think most of us felt very comfortable with the material. I know I finally understood the basics, which I certainly didn't after taking accounting last year. The prof here just had a very different teaching style, and it worked out better for me.

In general, the classes here aren't terribly stressful for me (though that may be because I've already had most of the subjects before). They're long sessions (3 hours each... sometimes with two sessions of one same class in the same day), and there is a lot of reading to do, but I find the class discussions fairly interesting, so the three hours usually passes pretty quickly. The professors are interested in hearing about how the subjects they're teaching us actually apply to our experiences, so that's refreshing as well.

In terms of grading, most of the classes are graded on two elements: continuous assessment and the final exam. The ratio is either 20%/80% or 50%/50%, just depends on the professor. I have two papers that are due at the end of the semester (each less than 8 pages), so I may actually write them next week. I'll probably get bored walking around the city for more than a couple hours at a time, so I might as well do something productive with my time.

Other than that, I'll probably just do some boutique shopping and try to find some gifts for my family and friends. I know France has a lot of good shopping, I just haven't found a lot of time to explore the little shops yet. No better time than now I guess!

Amazing market!

It's definitely starting to get cold here in France. It's probably close to 50 degrees, but when I've been used to 70+ degree weather, 50 feels like winter. Luckily, when I got home from Milan, I was able to find a space heater, and that's been keeping me pretty warm here.

When I woke up this morning, I was debating whether I really wanted to leave the apartment. Since I got here, though, I haven't made my way to a Sunday morning market, and I decided that's what I should do.

I thought there was supposed to be a market near Bouffay, which is across the tram tracks. When I got there, it was empty. Another one I had heard about was Talensac, but I wasn't entirely sure where it was... just that it was close to Tour Bretagne. I headed that way, and finally found some signs pointing toward Talensac. As I walked more and more, I started to see a lot of big vans and trucks, and a lot of traffic. This all led to the Marche Talensac, and it was huge.

On one side of the outside market, there are all sorts of vendors selling clothing, shoes, jewelry, a few with some home furnishings, and flowers. The other side had a huge farmers market with fruits and veggies, and then a long row of tents selling raw oysters.

Inside, there was every type of food imaginable, from butchers to cheesemakers to bakeries to fish vendors. I had never seen so many types of cheeses and meats in one place. It was crazy.






It was a little bit like the hartville market back home, but with much more variety in terms of food. While there, I found a woman selling crepes for .80 euros, so I had to get one. Delicious of course.

I didn't buy anything else, but I think I will go back if I decide to have a dinner party of some sort, as the food prices were pretty reasonable, and I'm sure the quality and freshness were unbeatable.

Haven't done much of anything else today. Will probably do some reading and maybe prepare a bit for classes this week. We have a full schedule, but after this week, we have a week-long break, so that will be nice. Probably won't be going on a major trip, but may head somewhere for a couple days. Just playing it by ear I guess.

Paris and Milan

After a stressful and frustrating few days at school, I was definitely ready for a mini-vacation this past weekend. During my internship at dunnhumby this summer, my manager and the HR team suggested that I visit the dunnhumbyFrance office in Paris.

I had planned to visit Celina, Margaret, Joe and Sarah in Milan, and since I had to fly out of Paris to get there, I asked Sandrine, the commercial director at dunnhumbyFrance, if I visit the Paris office before my flight to Milan, and we made plans for me to stay for a few hours.

I left Nantes at 9 a.m. on Thursday and arrived in Paris around 11:15. Got to the dunnhumby office with no problems, and Sandrine welcomed me with open arms. She gave me a quick tour of the office, and then we went across the street for lunch. I told her about the great projects I was able to be a part of this summer in Cincinnati, and she told me more about the business here in France. I also spoke with a woman named Maud who works closely with the French retailers, and learned about her role and got her perspective on the company. Just being there for a few hours reaffirmed that dunnhumby is the company I want to work for after I graduate. Now it's just a matter of waiting to see if I get an offer!

Headed to the airport after my visit to dunnhumby, and got to Milan with no problem. While I was on the flight, I had the option to buy the ticket for the bus that would take me from the airport to the central Milan train station, and I am glad I decided to do so. When I got to the bus, there was a long line of people waiting to get on, all with cash in hand. The driver told them that the bus was full, but when I showed him my ticket, he told me there was one spot left in the back of the bus. I hopped on, and we drove for about an hour into Milan.

Joe met me at the train station, and from there, we headed to a bar called Twelve for appertievo. Appertievo is a fantastic concept where you pay for a drink and get to eat all you want from a buffet. Granted, the drinks are 8 euros each, but the food more than makes up for it. I had several types of salad, as well as some bread, cheese and some other goodies. Celina, Margaret, and Sarah met us there with their friends Paige and Bart.



We stayed at appertievo until they closed the buffet, then headed to Paige's for the rest of the night.

We danced for several hours and just laughed a lot. I really like my classmates in France, but it was very comforting to be around my OSU classmates for a while too.

The next day, Celina took me to a great bakery type restaurant for brunch. I had a bagel with buffalo mozzarella, tomato and lettuce. Delicious! On our way home, I decided that a trip to Italy would not be complete without some gelato. Delicious!!

A while later, Joe had to do an interview on Skype, so the rest of us left the apartment and went to see the sights of Milan.



We saw the Duomo (really amazing architecture), and then walked around the Golden Rectangle, which is where all the fancy designer stores are. We did some window shopping, but didn't dare go into any of the stores except an outlet we found. At 600 euros for a jacket, it was the most expensive outlet I've ever visited. Needless to say, I didn't buy anything.

For dinner that night, we went to an area with a lot of canals that reminded me a lot of Venice.



I ordered a pesto pizza, and ate the entire thing. It was absolutely amazing. I've determined the only pizza really worth eating is Chicago-style deep dish or pizza in Italy. Nothing else compares. I also had some tiramisu for dessert, and it was probably the best I've had (again, it's one of those Italian foods you really need to eat in Italy).

Had a very laid back night since we were all pretty tired from the night before. We went back to the apartment and watched Stardust. Not my kind of movie, but again, it was just nice to be with my friends.

The next day, we all woke up late, so we didn't have a lot of time to do much. Some of us were craving Mexican food, so we tried to find a Mexican restaurant recommended by Bart. When we got there, it was closed. We ended up going to a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant that had the best Pad Thai I've ever eaten. Not what I would expect to find in Italy, but I'm ok with that.

We had a little bit more time before I needed to head to the airport, so we went to the big castle in Milan and walked around for a bit. Apparently Milan used to be a walled city, so it was kind of cool to see where the wall once stood (part of it is still there).



After that, I had one more gelato, and then it was back to the airport. Great trip, great friends, great food, great memories!

Indian Dinner

It's been a week since this actually took place, but thought I'd write a quick note about it anyway. Gairik invited the classmates over to his place for a traditional Indian dinner. Most of the guests brought a bottle of wine, so we had plenty to drink and shared a lot of laughs while we waited for the food.




Gairik and his friends made rice, a spicy chicken dish and some veggies. The chicken was a bit too spicy for me, but the rice and vegetables were great.




After dinner, we all headed to Hangar a Bananes to dance. They were playing some American songs, so that was a lot of fun for me to actually understand the words and be able to sing along. The girls took turns doing some Salsa dancing with Xavier-Freddy and Carlo. Good times.




Most of the classmates headed home around 2, but Abdel wanted to stay out a while longer, so I headed to another bar with him. It was pretty dead when we arrived, so we just went to the patio and talked a while. When we got ready to leave, the place had gotten a little more crowded, but I was tired and needed to go home.

There had been a lot of smoke at the bar, and I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep, so I woke up Sunday feeling a little under the weather and didn't feel too great when we started the school week on Monday. Had to get better before Milano though!

Long week

This week has been a little brutal. I'm taking 7 classes here at Audencia, and while they're not terribly difficult, it's still a lot. We have had 2 classes every day, 3 hours each. So essentially I've been here from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. every day, with a 2 hour lunch break. Yikes! I guess we're spoiled at Fisher having Fridays off.

On the plus side, classes are going pretty well overall. We started accounting, which I was absolutely dreading given that I had so many problems with it last year, but I finally understand it! Our professor has really taken the time to explain the accounting process step-by-step, and he really makes sure that we understand everything before he moves on. It's also been beneficial for us that we have had accounting class every day. We don't have the chance to forget anything that we've learned, and I think that was one of my biggest problems with it last year. Two times a week just didn't cut it.

I've given several presentations this week-- one in International Business, one in HR, one in Accounting and a mini-presentation in Economics today. For whatever reason, all the nerves that got the best of me during presentations last year have just disappeared. It's great! My HR presentation was about recruiting and managing Generation Y, and it was very well received by my classmates. It generated quite a bit of discussion, and the topic comes up quite often in other classes now as well.

In addition to my normal classes, I just found out that I placed into the intermediate french class, so that will start next week. Two nights a week for 1.5 hours each night. I do feel like my reading comprehension is improving dramatically-- especially when it comes to reading restaurant menus :) As our team-building professor told us, learning occurs most when a need is perceived. I need to know what kind of delicious food I will be ordering each night, so I've learned how to read menus. I still need to work on speaking and writing, but it will happen in time.

Speaking of restaurants, I went out to dinner with Ivan last night. We found a great Greek restaurant and I had moussaka. I also had nougat with pistachios for dessert. Both were fantastic. After dinner we went to a local Irish Pub and had a few beers. It was nice to hear a few people speaking English in American accents... it's rare around here. It started pouring after a while, and the funny thing was, no one seemed to care. They just moved under cover and continued the night. It made me smile.

No big plans this weekend. Will probably go out with Ivan and some of his classmates tonight, as they all graduate tomorrow. I'm also planning to attend the graduation ceremony, as Ivan is the speaker for the MBA class.

Only other plans might include IKEA, as Leslie finally moved the big bed out of the apartment and left me with a futon. It's not very comfortable, so I've asked her for a mattress pad to put on top. She also took the heavy comforter with her, and I need a new one. If I don't hear back from her tonight, I'm just going to go to IKEA tomorrow, get what I need, and take the cost out of next month's rent. The situation is a little annoying, but I'm just learning to adapt. C'est la vie ici.

Day Trip to Angers

I had one day left on my railpass this month, so I decided that yesterday would be a good day for a trip. I looked up the train schedules and tried to find any city within about an hour of travel that I could visit without having to pay a reservation fee for the train.

My options were Pornic, Angers and Rennes. I talked to my classmates, and they all recommended Pornic, which is a town right by the beach. I looked it up online, and it didn't seem like there was much to do there except walk along the coast. Another problem was that my schedule would have been very strict-- I had to leave at 11:40 and come back at 6:45. There were no later trains and no earlier trains, so if I got bored, I was stuck. My classmates didn't know much about Rennes, and my France guidebook didn't have a lot to say about it either, so I crossed that one off the list.

I ended up hopping on a train to Angers at 11:45 and got into Angers around 12:30. It was rather chilly when I got there (probably close to 50 degrees F), and also kinda gray. That made me very glad I chose not to go to the Pornic-- beaches on cold days aren't usually a lot of fun. My first destination was the Office of Tourism, as I needed a map and a few ideas of what I could do. My France book had some suggestions, but I figured the tourism office would know more. Everything in Angers is labeled really well with directional signs on almost every corner. On my way to the tourism office, I was surprised to see so many road barriers up in the middle of the street. Then, I realized that Angers is working on putting in a tramway system. Makes the area look really congested at the moment, but I'm sure it will be great for the city when it's all done.

Found the office and got a map and a city pass for 12 euros, which would get me into several different sites for free during the day. My first stop was the Chateau d'Angers. It's surrounded by 17 watchtowers and doesn't look terribly pretty from the outside.




Once you get in, though, there's a really nice garden, and then on the roof, there's actually a small vineyard that I assume actually produces wine during the season.




You can climb to the top of the watchtowers and just overlook the city, which was nice. There was a group of guys up on top of the tower at the same time I was there, and one of them offered to take my picture with the city in the background so that I'd actually have a photo of me in Angers. They left the tower for another part of the building, and when they spotted me still on top of the tower, they yelled and waved. Goofy guys.



There was also a "Chatelet" or gateway which I thought had beautiful architecture.



The chateau also has a museum of very old tapestries. They are held in a really dark room, so it's kind of difficult to see them well, but I assume it's to protect their coloring from light. Obviously couldn't take pictures there.

Last stop at the Chateau was the chapel. I expected some ornate architecture and stained glass, but it was actually rather simple.



After the chateau, I walked around for a while until I found the center of town. Once I got there, I felt like I was right back in Nantes. Very busy with restaurants and clothing stores and bars all along the street and people walking very quickly to get wherever they were going. While a lot of the buildings look similar to those seen in most of France, there was one that looked quite different. Ironically, it's also on the cover of the map/guidebook from the tourism office.



I stopped for a ham and cheese baguette, and then made my way to the Jardin du Mail. Nothing terribly exciting there, but it was nice to sit and rest near the fountain there for a while. I also saw a tiny little pony, and it was just too cute!




Next stop was the Natural Science Museum. When I walked in, the three people at the desk kind of gave me an odd look, and then their eyes lit up... thought that was kind of strange, but continued on. The first part of the museum should probably just be called the Taxidermy museum. They have rooms and rooms just dedicated to stuffed animals. I first walked past a stuffed lion, cheetah and various other wild cats. They also have a room full of stuffed birds, and I had to take a picture of the swan.



There was another room dedicated to explaining how the taxidermy process works (not exactly my cup of tea), and then there was a room full of insects. That was enough for me.

The next stage of the museum was the prehistoric period, which I thought would actually be really interesting. Instead it was a room full of cases containing rocks, fossils, sea shells and shark teeth. The guy from the front desk followed me in, and I asked him if it was a slow day. He just laughed and told me I was the first person to come in that day (it was the middle of the afternoon), and I assume I was probably the last as well. He told me that most people don't come to Angers to visit the Natural Science Museum... sadly, I can understand why.

I walked back through the main part of town and made my way to the Musee des Beaux-Arts. Wasn't entirely sure what to expect, and I'm not typically much of an art buff, but I had a couple hours to kill until my train back to Nantes, so I figured, why not? The special exhibition was an artist called Robert Malaval. I'd never heard of him, but it was actually a great collection. They separated his works into different periods of his career, starting with his work in paper mache and other sculptures. He also had a collection dedicated to the Rolling Stones...quite different. He moved from the Rolling Stones to a set of pieces that seemed like they were created to celebrate Easter, with all sorts of pastel pinks, blues, yellows and greens. Finally, there was a collection created with acrylic and sparkles. I really enjoyed those paintings... it's the type of art that I would actually decorate my house with someday.

I spent another 30 minutes wandering the other parts of the museum, and it was the typical religious and historical artwork that never does much for me. The last room I found, though, really made me smile. It was modern art, most of which was by an artist called Daniel Tremblay. Lots of sculpture type art, but some paintings. One that I really enjoyed was an outline of a man and woman kissing, but the outline was created by b'dazzler-type gems. On each end of the canvas, there was a crow biting one of the gems. It was goofy, and I don't know exactly where he was going with it, but it made me laugh. A huge piece in the middle of the room was called "Call of the Wild" by Bill Woodrow. Essentially it was a hood of a car bent into a strange form, and then a bear rug created out of plastic in the middle with microphones near the head. Again, just silly, but creative. This is a link to the guy's web site and then just search for "call of the wild" under sculptures if you want to see what I'm trying to describe. http://www.billwoodrow.com/dev/sculpture_by_letter.php?page=2&i=4&sel_letter=c

It was just about time for me to get back to my train, but I made a quick stop at the Cathedrale Saint-Maurice to get a picture. I'd seen it from the top of the Chateau, but wanted a better look.



Got back to the train station with about 10 minutes to go before the train departed, and then I was on my way home. It was a little strange to visit a city with no idea of what I would do for five hours, but all in all, it was a good day (minus the taxidermy).

Wine Tasting!

Yesterday we had the pleasure of visiting the Beilvert Vineyards in Bouaye. My classmate Jerome's family owns the vineyards, and they invited us to see the last day of "Vendange," which is the grape collecting season. We arrived and watched the grape-picking machine go through the rows of vineyards and collect all of the grapes.





We also got to taste the grapes, and while I expected them to be sour, they were incredibly sweet and delicious.



The grape picking machine dumps the grapes into a large container, which is then taken to the grape pressing machine which gets out all the juice.





From there, the juice is carried through a large tube to even larger containers, where it is mixed with sugar and then sits for a few days/weeks (never quite figured out the timing).




Part of the process requires the juice to boil, and this takes place underground. Here's a short video... the bubbling sound is fantastic!


Jerome's family wanted us to taste the wine early in its life and after it has had a chance to rest, and it tasted great either way. I was particularly fond of the red juice before it had a lot of alcohol in it. We all tasted the different types of wine his family makes, including the brand 2009 Muscadet (this is the varietal the Loire/Brittany region is famous for), and it all tasted fantastic. Needless to say, none of us objected to a second or third pour :)






After we finished tasting, we went to Jerome's parents house to meet his mom, sister and nephew. I don't know if his mother was expecting quite as many of us as there were, but she was such a fantastic hostess. Here's a picture of Jerome and his mommy :)




I had my first French appertif, which consisted of sugar cane syrup and rum. By itself, it was far too strong for me, so I added orange juice and it was much better. After visiting with his family for a while, we came back to Nantes and had dinner at a creperie. Delicious gallettes, crepes and cider were had by all. It's so nice to have the opportunity to go out with my classmates outside of school. Much more relaxed, and we are really starting to get to know each other well. We're growing closer each day, and I love it!