Hier Soir

Rue Bressigny is the happening place in Angers. It is the main street near the Catho and leads directly into town, so it is always full of students. It is packed full of bars and French fast-food joints (i.e. kebabs), we've spent quite a few evenings wandering up and down this road. You won't find classy bars here, but you will find cheap drinks.



I have no idea what this is, but it was delicious. It was Valentine's Day Eve (ha) and so it came with free candy. Yum.

The younger set can usually be found on Rue Bressigny or in the park, where crowds gather to drink en plein air. To find a nicer place, you have to venture down into the centre ville. At night, the narrow streets echo as young revelers make their way between bars and restaurants.



We've definitely established ourselves as the loud Americans, but the French kids have been surprisingly friendly. They listen patiently as we forget to conjugate our verbs and match the gender of our adjectives, and so far no one has criticized our nationality.

Heading back up into town, I took this shot of St. Joseph's church, glowing in the streetlights.

Strolling through the Centre Ville

The weather was beautiful yesterday, with blue skies, a fresh breeze, and white clouds sailing past on the horizon. I didn't have class until 2:30, so I met my friend Shannon to walk around town.

We headed down Rue Bressigny, crossed Rue Foche and entered the centre ville. The shops, boulangeries, and cafes were all crowded with students on their lunch break.



Yes, that is a Claire's.

Our first stop (of course) was La Grignotine, where I got my usual pain au chocolat. As we ate, we wandered up to the cathedrale, where we met a couple other students from our program eating on the steps leading up the hill to the church. We went down to the bottom and sat by a fountain, finishing our lunch while gazing up the hill at the town.

Here I am in front of the steps:



Afterwards, we went up to the Monoprix and did some grocery shopping. I've been living off of avocados and pumpkin soup, so I picked up some salad and cocoa puffs to liven things up. I also got a box of milk. Yes, a box. The rest of my shopping I left for the Saturday market.

It was getting late by this point, so I headed back up to the Catho for my French slang class.

Diner Quebecois

Last weekend, sick and tired of kebabs, we decided to eat out a nice restaurant. We wandered the streets of the centre ville, peering into crowded cafes and down dark alleys.

You would think that for our first nice meal, we would eat something famous and French. Crepes, anyone? But instead...



Yes, that is a Quebec flag. Yes, it came out of this burger.



That, my friends, is a bison burger.

Where did we eat? A Quebecois restaurant, themed to look like a trapper cabin. Yes, our salt shakers were in little canoes. Yes, our napkins were folded into teepees. Yes, there was a papoose hanging on the wall. And yes, we had pancakes and maple syrup for dessert.

Let me defend our choice. We didn't specifically set out to eat hamburgers, but when you're living on bread and cheese, a time arrives when the only thing that will satisfy you is good, red meat. Bison meat.

As a side note, there were four of us at the table, and we all speak French fairly well. So when our waitress paused at our table and said something very clearly, and when we responded with nods and "oui's", you would have thought we knew what was going on. Honestly, we're just good a faking it.

Not a single one of us had understood what she said, but we all had different theories. She might have said that something was wrong in the kitchen, and our food was going to be late. She might have said the power was going to go out in five minutes, and to make up for it, we would get free drinks. Or she might just have said that she was bringing us cookies, gratuit.

None of these things happened, so I guess we'll never know what that waitress said. But it was a delicious meal on a cold night, and it felt like I was back in the northwest, sans the pine trees and anglophones.

The First Two Weeks

It's been just about two weeks since I arrived in Angers, and as I sit here, in my ice box of a room, gnawing on a baguette and sipping Spanish orange juice, I wonder how to sum this place up. Cold, beautiful, ancient, paradoxical. French.


Angers is very French - bien sur. My host family is also very French, and my host sister intimidatingly so. She is thin, quick, and beautiful, a grad student at the Catho (my school), and she is always clattering up and down the old wooden staircase that spirals up the center of our house. I assume she's going to soirees full of cool French kids like herself, but who knows.


The weather has been very cold, which has caused a little ill-feeling between me and the town, but I hope that spring will reconcile those differences. In the meantime, I console myself with pain au chocolat, the single greatest invention, ever.

Pain au chocolat, essentially a croissant filled with melted chocolate, can be bought almost anywhere, including in giant packages at the Monoprix (my mini Walmart, which has about three aisles each of wine, cheese, and bread). However, it is best when hot, fresh, and cheap from "La Grignotine," comme ca:


And now for a random list of things I've done, as I neglected to blog about them properly. In no particular order, I have:

• Clambered about the local chateau.
• Gone to Mass at one of the many cathedrals.
• Relearned the habit of saying "Pardon!" and "Merci!" at every opportunity.
• Carried a baguette under my arm.
• Drunk wine in a park.
• Wandered through the maze that constitutes the Saturday market.
• Filled my wallet with heavy gold coins.
• Booked a flight to Rome, planned a trip to Morocco, and set to see Mont St. Michel next weekend.
• Eaten a kebab. And another kebab. And another kebab. Ad infinitum.
• Attempted to speak and understand French.