Nantes

I have had another busy couple of weeks, doing things which obviously did not include updating my blog...

As a finale for Integration week, we all headed to Delicatessen which is a club in the centre of Rennes. The building it is in is a former prison so it is a pretty cool place to go, but it was PACKED since Thursday night is the big student night in the city. Also, French clubs are really, really expensive to buy drinks, so we stuck to dancing for most of the night. A lot of the people there were other Sciences-Po students so we did a bit of school-spirit type singing, along the lines of "Sciences-Po Rennes, allez! allez! allez!".



On Sunday, with another day of great weather forecast, we decided to go a roadtrip, this time to Nantes. We have finally got the hang of staying in a convoy of cars (which I'm sure the local drivers must hate) so managed to arrive in Nantes without losing any people along the way. First stop, the Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne. The chateau is a proper castle, complete with huge walls, drawbridges, portcullis and moat (which was well stocked with fish and turtles). Inside the walls is a huge courtyard and several buildings, one of which houses the museum of the history of Nantes.

The museum is crammed with stuff all about the history of Nantes, Bretagne and the chateau but there wasn't much opportunity to see the castle as it would have been when people lived in it. There was also some truly bizarre multimedia type displays. After visiting the museum we went up onto the castle walls and had a look at the various things swimming in the moat below.


By the time we had had enough of the chateau, lunch was top of the list so we headed into the old town to find something to eat. We ended up in a kebab/falafel place which is maybe not the most French option available but was good and cheap. There are a lot of kebab and couscous restaurants here but we always end up in a creperie so it was nice to have something different.

After lunch, we headed up to the Cathedral which is also in the old town area. When we got there, there were huge tv screens set up outside broadcasting the service going on inside and a good number of people standing or sitting outside the cathedral who weren't able to get inside. Some nice French people explained that it was a special ceremony because they were changing over the bishop and that was why it was packed out. Apparently, the outgoing bishop was very popular and so lots of people had turned up to thank him (and maybe for their chance to get on tv, there was a camera crew outside interviewing people about what was going on!).

With the sun still shining and not a cloud in the sky, some of us decided to head to the beach. The only problem was, we didn't have a map with us and no-one really knew where the nearest beach was so we decided to just drive in what we thought was the right direction. Bit of a dodgy strategy but after 30 mins of driving we passed a sign for La Baule and Oli assured us there was a beach there so that's where we headed. It turns out La Baule has a very large, sandy beach perfect for a sunny Sunday afternoon. I braved the cold Atlantic along with Julios (Germany) and Oli (England) and went for a swim. Paolo (Mexico) and Priscilla (USA) chickened out and stayed on the shore. We played a bit of frisbee before heading back to Rennes to join some other Germans to watch the German election results, with some cider of course!