Spring Séjour 1: blustery Dinard and beautiful Versailles (or an injured seagull and #housegoals)

Sorry this post is so late...going through all my Versailles photos took me ages!

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The latest from my travels, and the start of a new series (because it just sounds so much more professional and cool if it's a series) which Ellie and I have decided to call our 'Spring Séjour'. We have lots of exciting trips planned for our last few weeks in France (can't quite believe I'm saying that!!) and of course I feel myself compelled to blog about them. First up, a trip to the north Brittany coast. We intended to go to Dinan and Dinard in one day as they're not far from each other...

I'm such a helpful blog writer

...but unfortunately the French travel system was once again against us. Not to bore you too much with our issues, but we were meant to change trains which I didn't realise so we accidentally ended up in Saint Malo instead of Dinan. After much deliberation and asking around, we discovered there was a bus about to leave for Dinard...which we just missed, and had to wait another hour.

Having finally discovered where we're going

It was totally worth it though as Dinard was absolutely beautiful: it was a fairly cold day and the wind from the sea was pretty biting so the layers were definitely necessary, but it was so sunny and the sea was so blue! The fact that it was cold and windy reminded me of the beaches in Yorkshire where my Dad's family live, and we had lunch in a little café that was just the right amount of seaside tourism and cosiness, just like in Yorkshire. We also made friends with a seagull with an injured leg...who still flew away from us, despite his ailment.

At least it LOOKS like it was 30ºC

Me and our new friend

Nice, cute, inexpensive café for lunch...perfect

There were loads of beautiful views and harbours and castles to explore, and it felt so Breton! There was lots to look round - we had to bypass a castle-type building and an AQUARIUM - and we could have spent hours just wandering along by the sea, although I'm very glad it wasn't raining! It was just a really lovely town, and very stereotypically Breton.

Castle-type place

Me attempting to be arty in my photo-taking

Dinard town centre

Having wandered round the town for a bit - which was equally quaint - and visited a bookshop (of course), we went back to the bus stop as we still wanted to get to Dinan and neither of us could actually feel our faces. This is when we realised the bus to Dinan didn't run at weekends (don't ask me why, I don't know) so we would have to go back to Saint Malo and get the bus from there. Patting ourselves on the back for using our initiative and not letting the crazy French travel timetables get in our way, we happily set off back to St Malo, only to discover that the bus to Dinan from St Malo - which we knew ran on a Saturday - didn't run between 1:30 and 5:30pm, at which point it would be way too late to look round, and meant we had left Dinard early for no reason. And to add insult to injury, we still had to wait over an hour for our train back to Rennes, and buy another return ticket because we couldn't use our Dinan return from earlier and couldn't find an option to just buy a single journey. So we have yet to see Dinan! Barton and Watson...making mistakes so you don't have to (©Eleanor Barton).

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Now we come to potentially our most anticipated trip of all...we FINALLY made it to the Palace of Versailles!! We got the train there and the bus back to allow us plenty of time there but also cut costs, so after a very early start we made it to the château just before 10:30am. We both thought it would be kind of in the middle of nowhere, but in fact it's on the outside of a little town: it was weird to go round the corner and see this massive palace at the end of the road.

Normal road, then BAM, huge 17th Century château

Louis welcoming us to his home

After a slight argument with the admissions man who didn't believe we were European citizens because we hadn't brought our passports (the tourist office told us we could get in for free as we were in Europe for more than 6 months and students in France, but he wasn't having any of it) we came out into the ground floor corridor which had been converted into a sort-of timeline documenting the history of Versailles from when it was just a small hunting lodge in the time of Louis III, through the renovations and expansions of Louis XIV, XV and XVI and Marie Antoinette, the French Revolution and then up to present day.

Listening to our audioguides before they broke

A model of early Versailles before it was expanded

Paintings of the Versailles of old

We then followed the tour round the various rooms of the rest of the palace: I figured the most interesting way to tell you about this would be to just show you a selection of the photos I took, complete with (hopefully) correct captions telling you what room it is, which I have looked up in my trusty souvenir guidebook. The thing that struck me most about Versailles was the sheer size and grandeur of it all, and its beauty. I know it sounds obvious, but it really was absolutely massive and it was as if the old kings had a completely unlimited budget to spend: every tiny detail was incredible, even the things nobody would ever really see were done with no expense spared. Also, unlike a lot of other stately homes which are grand and expensive-looking but kind of dark and depressing, Versailles is light and airy and tastefully decorated: I would actually move in tomorrow and not change anything. Anyway, on with the photos!

A very grand staircase

The chapel

The Mercury Drawing Room

The War Drawing Room

Then we came to the château's pièce de résistance...the Galerie des Glaces, or Hall of Mirrors (although where the French title seems glamorous and sophisticated, I think the English translation makes it sound like a fairground attraction). This is a really long room with chandeliers all along it, and then windows along one side and mirrors on the other, making it seem really light and spacious. It was stunning!

Mirror selfie

Please let me decorate my house like this

Then a look round the rest of the main palace, back out into the marble court and out to the Mesdames' apartment, where the some of the daughters of Louis XV lived.

The Queen's apartment...so Cath Kidston

Me in the Marble Court

The Mesdames' apartment

Madame Victoire's apartment

At this point we had FINALLY finished going round the main palace, and headed out to the gardens. The grounds of Versailles are spread over 800 hectares and contain no less than 50 fountains (thanks Wikipedia), so safe to say they're pretty massive. The Grand Canal runs through the middle with different gardens sectioned off around it, all in different styles and with amazing features and fountains in each one. I especially wanted to see the famous Fountain of Apollo which I wrote about in an essay in my first year of uni...it was so nice to finally get to see it in real life!

The grounds as seen from the palace

Bassin d'Apollon

At this stage in the day we were rapidly running out of time, so we headed straight for the trianons and Marie Antoinette's hamlet, which we both really wanted to see. We didn't have time to look in the Grand Trianon, but this is what it looked like from the outside...

Where the royal family spent their summer holidays

The Petit Trianon as it is today was mostly designed by Marie Antoinette, who was given the house by Louis XVI to "escape the formality of court life" (lucky her), and as soon as we walked in I decided this was where I wanted to live out my life. It's still pretty big as houses go, but absolutely tiny compared to the main palace....sort of normal stately home size, and it has all the rooms you would need without them being disgustingly massive. And it was decorated completely to my taste, lots of light and white and gold with accents of colour here and there. I really don't know why they don't just let me have it, they have more than enough to go round without it. Also sorry for the rubbish photo quality, my camera was apparently not a fan of the lighting.

It's literally something out of Jane Austen

JUST LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS

See, it's really very moderately sized

The gorgeous Salon de Compagnie

Finally we visited Marie Antoinette's hamlet (I guess so she could see what it was like to be a 'poor person', but to be fair to her it did actually have a working farm and stuff) which was like a model village except not in miniature. It was actually like walking round a fairy tale, or a Disney film set: I had to keep reminding myself I wasn't actually a princess. It was sad.

The farm, which actually had real animals!

I kept expecting to see someone singing from the top of this

See, actual real chickens

So there we have it!! Sorry it's taken so long to upload, but as you can see there are a LOT of photos, and these are just a select few from the thousands that I took. If you're ever in the Ile-de-France region, I would 100% recommend visiting Versailles if you can, it's well worth a visit!

General life

So I realised a lot of my recent posts have been about exciting travels - let's be honest that's what you're all here for - but I thought I'd take some time to do a quick normal life update. I remember wishing there were more blogs about what day to day life on a year abroad is like before I started, so hopefully this will be useful for some of you! As with anything people's experiences of being abroad vary massively depending on country, personality, whether you're working/studying...so this is by no means a 'this is what your year will be like' because it may be nothing like mine. But this is what an average week in the life of me looks like in France.

I have around 6 hours of teaching per week, and although this is a similar amount to what I would expect in the UK, the biggest difference is in work outside of class. For a 1 hour culture seminar in Exeter I would expect to do a couple of hours of prep questions, possibly with required secondary reading, on top of reading 2 or 3 primary texts per module. Add to this the prep needed for my language classes and supposedly doing my own grammar and vocab practise (although if we're being honest this rarely happens at any time other than right before exams), and of course the dreaded assessment essays in the final weeks of term. In France, I rarely do much reading of the texts beyond what we cover in class, there is no such thing as seminar prep as the classes aren't discussion-based and although some teachers give out bibliographies they don't seem to expect many people to actually use them. Most of the hours I spend on work outside of classes is what I set myself: checking genders of nouns and irregular verbs for my notes, doing some independent research to supplement the lecture (especially if I feel like I missed some of it) and rereading texts we're given to be sure I understand them properly.

The other thing that makes the days less structured is the amount of time I spend on my own. I've always been a people person: I love spending lots of time with my friends and family in the evenings, chatting about our days or just all sitting together, doing our own thing. I went straight from doing that at home with my family after a day at college/work to doing the same thing with my friends at uni in halls and then in our student house, so this has been my first year of not having people to  properly 'come home to' at the end of a day. And also of not having a 'day' in the sense of being out 9-5pm and coming back tired but feeling like I've been busy and productive (well, at least one of those is usually true).

For me, this lack of structure has a few problems: I have way more free time than I'm used to and I'm rubbish at self-motivation, so I end up doing even less because I don't have a set routine of needing to work all day on campus like I do in Exeter. What does that mean on a day to day basis? A lot of procrastination and trying to motivate myself to get stuff done. And way more time on the internet than is healthy. Without deadlines to work to, things to look forward to and set plans to structure my days, I've discovered I lack any will-power whatsoever to stop my days spiralling into hours of procrastination. To try and deal with this, I've found planning evening activities really helps: for example I have a Zumba class once a week and church small group every fortnight, and Ellie and I try and do something like go out for dinner or to the cinema once a week or so too. And when I feel like I've done next to no work in ages I will take myself off to the library on campus and do an afternoon's work to catch up, or start the day with the easiest thing on my to-do list to guilt trip my brain into feeling it's being super efficient and would be ruining its productive streak if it stops now. This new routine has definitely taken some adjusting to, and although I feel like I have more of a routine now I will definitely be trying to reinstate that separation of work and home again next year!

So if that's my (ahem) 'working' week, what about the weekends? I've really tried to fill the weekends up with as much travelling as possible, not only so I can explore as much of France as I can whilst I'm here but also to give me goals for the week leading up to it. If I know I'm going to be busy at the weekend I usually get more done Monday-Friday, so it's a win-win situation. And whilst I do often get frustrated by the lack of routine the freedom of being able to do whatever I want is really nice, as is actually getting round to doing things I never had time for at uni, like reading the copious amounts of books I bought with my birthday money! And not many people can say their weekends are filled with visiting châteaux and amazing French cities (cheeky spoiler for the next few weeks there).

Anyway this may have been fairly rambly and potentially wholly uninteresting for some of you, but I hope it was somewhat insightful for any of you planning a YA! Next post will return to my tales of adventure, I promise.

A little trip to the far east (of France) and back to Paris

I've just come back from another amazingly refreshing week at home and in Exeter, but before I left I was planning trips for this final half term, and realised how few free weekends I have left in France, and how long my travel bucket list was...I did the maths and I need to do a fair bit of exploring to get it all done by the time I go home for good in April! So with that in mind, I ticked two of my travel ideas off in the last two weeks of last half term.

First off, I went to Metz to visit my friend from Exeter (who came to visit me just before Christmas) who is doing British Council there. Even though we're both in France, culturally our adoptive homes are completely different: where Rennes has more Breton and even British influences, Metz is much more Germanic as its so close to the border.

After a 5 hour journey, I eventually arrived and Ruth and I had a catch-up over tartiflette and wine in an authentic Lorraine restaurant...Ruth brilliantly described its decor as 'being in your Grandma's living room after a long day skiing'. We had a quick wander round the city at night too, and I took lots of pictures of the beautiful cathedral at night!

This is when I knew I had arrived in the Lorraine region

The incredible cathedral!

Saturday started with another look round Metz but in the daylight (Ruth laughed at me for stopping to take pictures of the same part of the river every time we crossed it, but I protested that it was a different angle so a photo was necessary). The architecture is so different to what I'm used to in Rennes, and the school where Ruth lived was separated from the city by the river, giving it what I thought was a slightly Venetian feel. We visited the market where I got a jar of genuinely the best honey I've ever tasted, and after having a bite of Ruth's I also bought myself not one but two pretzels. Going inside the cathedral gave me yet more amazing photo opportunities...it was massive and even grander inside!

Ruth's school is the buildings on the left

A church-type thing on a little island

Inside the cathedral

The insane stained glass

We spent the rest of the morning at the Centre Pompidou (kind of like the one in Paris but smaller) looking at weird art...the building itself was like a spaceship and very cool, but I feel most of the art was just too edgy and deep for me. Here are a few of my favourite bizarre pieces...

The building from the outside: so edgy

This was meant to represent thalidomide children playing piano:
the description said felt had 'great personal significance' in the artist's life... (what?)

This was inventively called 'Cigar Smoke to Match Clouds That Are Different'

'The Mind Expander'...it took up almost an entire room, and
came complete with various photos of people using it and even technical drawings

After this foray into the world of modern art, we hopped on a train to Nancy (about half an hour south of Metz...see the map above) because we were going to a language assistant party in the evening and wanted to have a look around first. However, it was absolutely tipping it down when we got there, so we ended up spending the afternoon in a café where we had lunch and then literally the cosiest pub I have ever been in (IT HAD ARMCHAIRS), with a quick stop off at the cathedral and the beautiful (if very wet and slippery) Place Stanislas. At least I got a lot of use out of my new yellow raincoat!

I wish all teabags had little leaves like this

Cathedral number 2

A very wet and little me

Place Stanislas...which I'm sure would be even more beautiful in the sun

Ruth in Nancy's version of the Firehouse in Exeter

The rest of the day consisted of drinking tea and mulled wine, before heading to the language assistant party. It was amazing that even though I had never met any of these people before, we had so much to talk about and so much in common just because we were all going through this mad year abroad journey, and it was lovely to meet Ruth's friends and be the resident expert on the French university system! Sunday was a fairly quiet day of watching French films and chilling at Ruth's as it was still very rainy, and then getting the train back to Brittany! And that was my adventure in the far east done...a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, thanks Ruth!

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The following weekend I found myself back on a train, but this time to Paris to visit my friend Katie who is working there this semester. My train was crazy expensive, but this actually turned out to be one of my favourite days of my YA so far! I had a few hours to myself which was amazing as I could do exactly what I wanted, and I had a lovely afternoon exploring!

The Brioche Dorée where I set up a makeshift planning station

First stop on my list was Place de la République: I stayed there with my family when we came to Paris a few years ago and wanted to reminisce, and as I was in Paris for the November shootings I also wanted to visit the memorial. It was actually strangely therapeutic to see the candles and messages people had laid there in a place I was so familiar with, and gave me some sort of closure about everything that happened last time I was in this amazing city. Definitely worth the journey! 

The memorial

After managing to go the wrong way on the metro and then realising I actually didn't have as much time as I thought I did, I decided to head to my top priority for the day: the English-language bookshop Shakespeare and Company. I first heard about this place on YouTube and ever since I've been desperate to visit it so it's fair to say I was pretty excited, but NOTHING prepared me for its literal incredible-ness. It was hands down the most beautiful shop and one of the most Katie-ish places I've ever seen. It was like someone had made a note of everything I love and made this shop specifically for me.

Basically my soul's home

Firstly, it's on this gorgeous little street set slightly back from the pavement and separated by little trees - which made it feel kind of like a model village - and has an amazing view of the Notre Dame.

Stupid road sign ruining my photo

I almost squeaked when came round the corner and saw it, but I settled for taking hundreds of photos of the outside instead. I collected myself and went in...and was immediately greeted not only by the sound of English being spoken, but English being spoken by people with British accents. It was like being in Waterstones, with people queuing at the till and the shop assistants politely asking 'is anyone waiting to pay?'. I don't have any photos of the shop itself as cameras aren't allowed inside, but it's basically the layout of an old second-hand bookshop with little corners and books piled up to the ceiling, but full of beautiful new books, half of which were on my Christmas list this year. Every inch of space was used, and in the tiny corners were mini bookshelves with the works of one author or genre on, like all the Arthur Conan Doyle books piled under the stairs. And there were little notes dotted round on the shelves and the walls, which was just too cute. I was somewhere between crying and beaming the whole time I was there. I agonised over what to buy (I mean I had to get SOMETHING) but eventually decided on a couple of books for my Jane Austen collection (yes, I have a Jane Austen collection) which they stamped with the Shakespeare and Company stamp, and then put in a cute bag with an Oscar Wilde quote on along with two Shakespeare and Company bookmarks. I walked out a very happy little person, swinging my paper bag joyfully as I skipped along. Best. Place. Ever.

Bye Shakespeare and Company: you hold a pretty big piece of my heart

After finally dragging myself away from Shakespeare and Company, I started walking down towards the Musée de l'Orangerie, thinking it didn't look too far on the map and I could easily walk it. It took me ages. But on the plus side, it was a lovely walk in the sunshine!

Just casually strolling along the Seine, don't mind me

Once I FINALLY reached the museum, I headed straight for Monet's waterlilies: I mean why else does anyone go there? They were stunning and I'm so glad I got to see them in the flesh...they're displayed in a set of circular rooms so you can see them all as soon as you enter the room, and the result is truly beautiful. It was weird because as I was walking round I would look at one painting close up and think 'OK this one's alright, but that one over there looks much better', but then when I got to the next one it didn't look as good...then I realised that's kind of the point of impressionism.

Stunning!

This is what one of the waterlilies looked like close up...

...And what it looked like from further away!

Finally, I went to the Eiffel Tower because...well why not. I was in Paris, and it looks really pretty in pictures.

Classic Eiffel Tower shot

And one from a few steps further back...

Then it was time to go and meet Katie...we went to a park just a few minutes from the city centre which was crazy as it was so quiet and peaceful, but you could still see the Eiffel Tower! We walked and sat and chatted for hours, which was wonderful as we had so much to catch up on having not seen each other for almost a year! Even though we've been doing completely different things, so much of our YAs were the same and it was so nice to be able to tell all my anecdotes in detail knowing she could relate to them, and to hear hers! We went for dinner near Montparnasse so I didn't have to run for my train, and actually managed to find this gorgeous restaurant with insanely good food and friendly service, and we were eating within 15 minutes!

Me looking very happy at the prospect of my dinner

And that was that! All in all, a fantastic day.

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I then spent a week at home during the February reading week, which was simply wonderful. Nothing particularly dramatic or newsworthy happened...just a little student enjoying spending time with her family and bestest friends again. OH, except all 8 of my housemates from last year were in the same room (well, corridor) for the first time since May, as both me and Jamie who is studying in Italy happened to be back in Exeter together for a few days. It was insane and I'm not ashamed to say I almost cried.