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?
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