Wed June 11th - A few of our favorite things

Mary Grove chats with students on our way home

Austin Cooper & Katie Burger share their favorites...

Anna Plastina's favorite moments.

Tue June 10th - Versaille, Musee D'Orsey, and a walk about town

The morning at Versaille, but it’s on strike!

Michelle Monpetit’s view on the gardens.

On the RER to Musee d’Orsey.

At the Musee D’Orsey with Joe Johnston.

Matt Makanski at St. Germain des Pres.

A true European experience –a peaceful protest!

Walking along Champs-Elysees.

The Joey vs. Ally stare off...

Mon June 9th - A view from the top

Janie Goehrke takes us to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

At the base of the Eiffel Tower.

Walking up to the second level.

The view from top.

A relaxing boat ride on Seine.

The interior of Notre Dame.

Sun June 8th - On a mission to see the Mona Lisa

Morgan Lang takes us through the Louvre.

Alex Nordin at the Mona Lisa.

Sun June 8th - On our way to Paris!

Michelle Monpetit captures the thoughts of CA students on the way on the Paris.

Michelle Wang & Rachel Blondy on the bus ride...

At a rest stop on the way to Paris.

Sat June 7th - The end of our time in Tours

The end of the exchange party as seen by Elizabeth Sheffield.

Anna Plastina at the end of exchange party.

End of the exchange party.

Evan Mann, Emerson Mann & Janie Goehrke.

A French sunset at the end of the experience!

Sat June 7th

Since we are leaving for Paris in the morning and internet access will be limited, the blog will not be updated until we arrive back in the United States.

June 3: Gaining Perspective

Gaining Perspective

June 3, 2008

Patrick Vander Bee

OH MY GOODNESS, another chateau! VILLANDRY?? NO WAY!!! Today we visited Villandry, and as there was not much chateau-ing there was no lack of gardening.

There are four gardens at Villandry, the ornamental gardens, the water garden, the herb garden and the kitchen garden. Yes, the kitchen gets its own garden. Here we experienced how the people of the Renaissance displayed their skills of creating perspective* with plants.

*per·spec·tive <http://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.png> [per-spek-tiv]
-noun
1. a technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface. Compare aerial perspective <http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=aerial perspective>, linear perspective <http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=linear perspective>.
2. a picture employing this technique, esp. one in which it is prominent: an architect's perspective of a house.
3. a visible scene, esp. one extending to a distance; vista: a perspective on the main axis of an estate.
4. the state of existing in space before the eye: The elevations look all right, but the building's composition is a failure in perspective.

The ornamental gardens were a collection of four gardens that were composed of geometric patterns that were cute shapes like hearts or the ever popular triangles and squares. The water garden had water, the herb garden was really long and the kitchen gardens were very pretty but didn’t seem to have any connection with kitchens.

Afterwards we were herded back and funneled back onto the buses to eat lunch at school. As always in France the food was great. Upon leaving, people kindly exchanged a few water balloons with the wily seniors.

Three hours later we trickled into the doors of a professional kitchen at a cooking school. After being split into groups, each designated to make a different part of the meal, I found myself standing in front of a stainless steel counter where there were fresh vegetables and fowl awaiting. The chef explained to us in Frenglish that we were to chop and boil the veggies, sauté the chicken in honey, bake it, and then wrap it in cellophane. Once our creations had been finished we all sat outside in the dining room where people discussed how they thought they made the dish incorrectly. After awaiting our Russian roulette of food, the chefs called in the groups to serve the dishes at the appropriate time. The first dish was a soup consisting of shrimp and goat cheese, next was the chickenesque fowl baked with assorted veggies, all to be finished off by French toast with pineapple (sprinkled with coconut) and sherbet. All of it was great. At 9:30 local time we all shuffled to the cars of our host families full and tired, all in all having had a great day.

June 6th - Chenonceau

Sarah Higgs guides us through Chenonceau.

The gardens of Chenonceau.

Attack of the killer ducks (I, Ms. Downing, can vouch that this is not just Evan, Mary, Sarah, Anna & Janie being silly, but they truly were afraid of the ducks!)

The last day at Sainte Ursule...

June 5th - How Do You Make Silk?

Today we toured a Silk Manufacturer. View what Alex Nordin saw as we visited.

An overview of the buildings with the ancient looms.

A view of the Loire as we walked back to Sainte Ursule for lunch.

June 4th - Oradour & Bernardaud

A day of reflection and a family run business with Katie Burger.

An outside look of the museum and ruins of Oradour sur Glane.

On the bus leaving Oradour sur Glane.

The drying room at Bernardaud (porcelain manufacturer in Limoge).

Enameling the porcelain.

June 3rd - The Gardens

Ian Dohm shares his videoography skills at the Chateau Villandry.

A brief overview of the gardens and chateau.

Will Austin Cooper make it out of the maze?!?!

The end of another day at Sainte Ursule.

Mary Grove, Jane Goehrke, Sarah Higgs, and Anna Plastina share their favorite parts of the garden. (again would make more sense after the maze, but I can't move the video clips)

June 4: The Dark and the Light

The Dark and the Light

June 4, 2008

Maya Land

Today started off quite early, especially for me since I live so far away from Tours. As usual, I spent an incredibly long time working on the alarm clock to make sure that I woke up at 5:45, but in all my efforts, it did not even go off and my host mother ended up waking me a bit past 6. Once safely on the bus in Tours (as always, my and Leah's car ride are a bit of a NASCAR race), we started our three hour bus ride to Oradour Sur Glane, a town south of Tours. I took a much needed nap on the bus, along with just about everyone else and was wide awake a ready for the day once we arrived.

Knowing nothing about where we were headed, the French history teacher who had joined us for our field trip explained to us a bit about where we were going before we arrived. Oradur Sur Glane was a town that in 1944, the Nazis brutally massacred 642 men, women and children. The Nazis decided to attack this village because they thought that many resistance fighters were hiding there, but it turned out the resistance was not there as the Nazis had thought. Unlike many other towns that were simply demolished and rebuilt, France decided to not reconstruct this village and leave the wreckage as a testimony to the atrocities that the Nazis inflicted on the French people.

We started in the museum with a guide who told us all about the events leading up to the massacre - in French, of course. Everything was in French, English and German, so I attempted everything in French first but usually fell back to good old English. Having a guide, a French history teacher, and Mr. Coven with us; we were treated to a complete history of just about the entirety of WWII in France. After the museum visit, we headed to the actual destroyed village. We have all studied the Holocaust and World War II in depth, but from afar. No actual fighting took place in the US, so to actually be walking where the SS officers walked and to see the burned out cars and huge church where the women and children were burned alive was very moving. What amazed me the most was seeing a single sewing machine that had survived that stood alone in the wreckage of what was once a house, some 60 years later.

After our heavy visit to Oradur Sur Glane, we headed to a much happier venue - Limoges, a town with a large porcelain factory. We took a tour of the factory and learned about all types of porcelain and how the molds are made. Interesting fact - the molds can only be used 48 times, because afterwards they become water resistant, meaning that they must go through hundreds of molds a day because there was sure a lot of china. There was one oven that was 35 meters long. We all then spent a long time trying to decide what piece of china we wanted to buy. It was amazing the price range - some tiny little saucers were 40 euro while big plates were only 18. It all depended on if it had color, gold trim, extra firing, etc... After we had all at last made our purchases, we headed back on the bus for our 3 hour ride home. This time no one really slept as we usually do on bus rides, but Bryan and I did come up with a large list of what our 10 top ultimate movies of all time were. We put down about 40, so we have a lot of cutting down to do to make it to 10. Good thing it’s another 3 hour ride to Paris on Saturday.

June 2nd - Dancing and History

Rachel Blondy shares her day at Sainte Ursule.

CA Students taking part in a music and dancing class!

After our history lecture...

The end of the school day...

June 1 - A Weekend in Tours

Kelly Andejko shares her weekend…

The day in Tours at a farmer’s market.

CA students and Sainte Ursule students enjoying an evening together.

After Indiana Jones on Sunday.

May 31 - Futuroscope

Evan & Emerson Mann enjoy a part of their weekend at Futuroscope.


A look at the Nile River…



Evan explaining the video and theater…



CA students at Futuroscope enjoying lunch…

An introduction to Futuroscope (Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to move it to the beginning of the post where it would make more sense!).

Clarification on Weekend Photos

As the students are engaged with family activities on the weekends, my photographs for those days will not necessarily correspond with the subject matter of the students' blogs.

Robert Coven

June 1: A Family Day

A Family Day

June 1, 2008

Ally Mentock

Today was the `profession de foi' or the profession of faith, for many of the little brothers and sisters of our exchange students. My morning started with waking up around 830 and eating a quick breakfast of hot chocolate and baguette with Nutella. We went over to the church where there were many other kids in their white gowns and wooden crosses. The mass was the same as any other Christian mass but at one point in the mass the kids declared their faith in front of the whole church. Towards the end of the mass when everyone had been standing for quite some time, one of the girls who were participating in the profession fainted and fell into the aisle of the church and everyone rushed over to help her. It was very scary but there were many parents and doctors helping to revive the girl and the mass went on (she was completely fine; it was just very hot in the church). After the mass, the whole family (cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents included) went to the park and took pictures with Lisa (the sister of my correspondent who had the `profession de foi').

We left the park and went home where even more family members were waiting for lunch. I was greeted with a million cheek kisses and curious family members who wanted to know if I supported Hillary or Obama in the upcoming election. We ate in the courtyard and had lots of little snacks like: red pepper mousse, fois grois and crackers, and different types of crab dips. After a bunch of talking among the adults, we sat down and ate a delicious lunch of couscous, chicken, green olives, and pine nuts, and then a spread of different types of cheeses and a huge `cake' of chocolate and vanilla pudding profiteroles and a violin on top (Lisa plays the violin) made of caramel and nuts – it was amazing.

My correspondent (Manon) and I then took the next bus to the city to meet up with other exchange students and their correspondents. We went shopping a little on the main street and then it began to pour, it was terribly wet and cold, when just earlier that morning it was gorgeous. So we all waited in an indoor shopping mall for 15 minutes and then it was time for Manon and me to leave for the bus. We took the bus home and changed into warmer clothes and had tea/baguette, and played some wii sports. I don't think that any of the wii sports are really my calling since I lost terribly in every category. We watched Matilda on T.V. after, and then all of Manon's uncles and aunts left. After her family left we decided to play a game called blockus, which I also lost in, and Lisa decided to practice her English on me by saying random phrases like: 'I love bananas', 'Your eyes are blue', 'I know how speak good English'. For dinner we had cantaloupe, salad, omelet, and for dessert: leftover profiteroles (and fruit)! All in all it was a very exhausting, but fun day.

May 30th - A Day at School

Justin Williams takes us through a day at Sainte Ursule




CA students and Sainte Ursule students in class…

Michelle Wang explaining recreation.

CA students enjoying and explaining a Sainte Ursule lunch.

May 31: France on 5,000 Calories per Day

France on 5,000 Calories per Day

May 31, 2008

Leah Korbin

Disclaimer: The author of this entry does not, in any way, wish for her readers to profit from her story. All creative rights belong to her audience so they might possibly be able to use their imagination in order to make her day seem more interesting.

This morning I made sure to set my alarm to prevent waking up at 2:30 pm again. Thankfully my host family is extremely forgiving and so when I forget to me reve, they point and laugh at me instead of tossing me out the front door.

Around 10:30 I was summoned upstairs for breakfast with heavily-accented French, "LEAAHHH!" I walked upstairs to find myself standing in front of what seemed to be 5000 calories staring me in the face. Then I indulged in some pain au chocolat, pain au almonds et chocolat, pain au even more chocolat than that last one had, and possibly the best coffee I've ever drank in my life.

After I was fattened up, we drove (or rollercoastered) to a French market outside of Civray. Why go to an amusement park when you could get in a car with a French person, stick half your body out the window, and yell, "Look ma! No hands!" Am I right?

The market was intense and I couldn't stop to take many good pictures because I was afraid I'd lose my host family in the crowd. Whatever food I managed to take a picture of, though, my host mom decided to buy for me. Perhaps I should've taken pictures of food that looked more appetizing...

We rollercoastered back home where I began two of my journals that I forgot to do the days beforehand. Once again, I was summoned to be fattened up for lunch. I tried pork pate or summat...I'm hoping that's correct. We ate that on some type of French bread that's apparently in some sort of American cereal (I missed that part of the conversation). I was basically full by then, but no...there was more! We ate a roasted chicken that was probably the only really yummy food item that I had taken a picture of at the market and some potatoes. Then we ate two different kinds of goat cheese (one that was white and really squishy and another that crumbled a lot...err). They both tasted a smidge funky but I sucked it up and ate them anyway. Oh mon dieu my stomach is hurting just thinking about this meal. Okay. Lastly they busted out some crazy gorgeous French pastries (at this point my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I had to eat some). Good lord French food is good.

Now it's raining and I don't know whether we're going out for the rest of the day because we were out really late yesterday at a roserie.
Au revoir mes lovelies.

May 30: Back to School

Back to School

May 30, 2008

Emerson Mann

Today started off differently than usual. Louis took the early train so he could get to his class on time, while I slept in and took the train a half hour later. (So I could be at school at 8:15) The train stopped about 100 yards away from the station in Tours (my stop), and we had to sit there for a good 15 or 20 minutes because of traffic. But I eventually made it to the station and started walking to school. It was about 8:00 at this time, so I couldn't stop for the usual pain au chocolat at the bakery on the way to school. I arrived at school at 8:30, thinking we could be at school later than our correspondent, but I was told by Ms. Downing and Ms. Walden that was not the case. So they sent me to a French class, where the students were writing a play. They had the whole class to work on it. After the French class, I was supposed to go to a history class, but there was a bit of confusion with the scheduling, so I went to a geometry class. It was very interesting because all of the students had this program for geometry that allowed you to explore the different shapes and lines in 3-D. Most of the material that they were learning seemed familiar to me.

After Math class, I met back up with Louis and we got ready for gym class. For the class, you have to take a bus across Le Loire River to an area with a big soccer field. When we got there, the teacher made us run two laps around the field for warm-up. Then we split into two groups; one for soccer and one for ultimate Frisbee. I wanted to play soccer, as did most of the American guys. The game was quite intense; the blue team (my team) was pounding on the other team 6-2. I had a goal and an assist. But the score doesn't reflect the effort put in by either team. Everyone was playing their heart out. After the game, we headed back to school and got ready for lunch. They were serving beef, with sides of corn, watermelon, bread (of course), and pineapples. After lunch, we got ready for the scavenger hunt!

We split up into three groups, my leader was Ms. Downing and we were determined knock all of the other teams out of the water. We traveled to various locations around Tours. The drive for victory died out at the end, but competition spurred right back up when we were split into groups of three and told to finish a quiz about all of the locations we visited. Different groups were seeking the help from random French students at the school. The first to finish was the group of Maya Land, Veronica Clark, and Sarah Higgs. In second was Michelle Wang's group (I can't remember all of the members of her group). And in third were Rachael Blondy, Michelle and Renee Montpetit. Then, we were all dismissed for the weekend!

Louis and I went to meet up with some of his friends for dinner. We went to a place for crepes, and they were outstanding. I ordered the Strasbourgousie, which had eggs, sausage, and cheese. For desert, I ordered a crepe aux pommes, which had warm caramel apples, applesauce, and sugar. I felt like I was going to burst. Then we all decided to go out to see the new Indiana Jones movie. We sat down to watch the movie for about an hour, when the screen went blank. The projector was having some technical difficulties, so we were offered to watch the movie FROM THE BEGINNING in another theater, or get a free movie pass. Louis and I took the free movie pass, and headed home. It was a hectic day, but exciting nonetheless.

May 29: A Little Place in the Country

A Little Place in the Country

May 29, 2008

Jordan Bowles

In the morning everyone arrived and got on the bus at 9 am. The bus took us to the Chateau royal de Blois. It was a large chateau but a lot of it had already been destroyed. There was a stone courtyard at the entrance that was the center of the remains of the chateau. The group was given free time to roam the inside. The architecture was incredible because of the detail, such as animals like porcupines and fish that were carved in stone. We took pictures and walked through the tour. The tour was on several levels of the chateau and displayed artifacts such as paintings of famous people of that time and pieces of the chateau that had been destroyed. There was also a bed, urns, and fireplaces.

After the tour of Blois, we walked practically right next door to a magic museum. The whole group watched a show of a man and a woman doing magic tricks on a stage. They hid themselves! We had a little extra time so we were able to walk around the rest of the museum looking at magic mirrors, illusion pictures, and many other things. After the magic museum we ate lunch in front of the chateau. There was a big open square in front of the entrance to Blois where horse-pulled carriage rides were conducted, little shops sold crepes, and where I ate lunch on a bench. There was also a small garden to the side of the square with benches that was pretty. The weather then was very sunny and nice.

We boarded the bus after everyone finished lunch and drove to the Chateau de Chambord. The landscape was stunning and great for picture taking. Chambord had a moat in front of it and a large green lawn. The back of it was a very large lawn and a path of a half circle with trees on each side. Everything at that chateau was grand and pretty. It was my favorite chateau of the two we saw. After walking around the grounds for almost a half an hour we got back on the bus and went back to school. We were lucky because we had good weather while we toured the chateaus and then it started raining just as we were driving back to school. Once we got to school we waited for our correspondents to finish class to go home for the day.

May 29th - Chateau & Chateau

Come with Dara Schwartz on a tour of the Chateau de Blois and Chateau Chambord.



A brief look at the couryard of the Chateua de Blois...

The outside view of Chateau Chambord...

A few fun facts about Chambord from Katie Burger, David Sierra, & Michelle Montpetit!

May 28--Bread and Chocolate

Bread and Chocolate

May 28, 2008

Abby Andrews

After a long day on Tuesday, we were all ready to spend a nice quiet day in Tours. We all arrived with our exchange students between 8 and 9am. From there we split up into two groups - sophomores and juniors - and were off for the day. The juniors started off at a boulangerie first thing in the morning. We learned about the old fashion way of making bread and we were shown how all the different machines work. The most interesting part was the oven - it was around 70 years old and had never been turned off. If turned off, though, it would take two weeks to completely cool down. We then got to try some of the bread and taste an award winning type of bread that was very delicious!

After eating, we continued our day by walking across town to la Musee de Compagnonnage. Here we learned about the different practices that students can pick up. There is basically a job that children around the age of 14 or 15 can begin where they do an apprenticeship of a job that they might prefer doing when they are old enough. They have to go through an extensive process to be accepted into these guilds. The final part of this process includes creating a masterpiece for their specialty, so they can be accepted. This museum displays these specialties which were quite amazing.

After an hour spent at the museum, we returned to the school for a two our lunch and some free time of playing volleyball and basketball and relaxing in the courtyard area. After lunch we were off to our last two stops for the day. The juniors began at la Musee de Beaux Arts, which contained many different popular art pieces. We then, walked across town to arrive at a candy store. Here we got to watch them make chocolate, hard candies, and stuffed prunes - trying all of them. They were delicious!! After we all made our purchases of the sweets, we headed back to the school to leave with our exchange students! The day is over! Au revoir.

A day to learn about bread, masters, candy, & art

David Sierra takes us on a tour of our excursions for Wednesday May 28th.

A little bit about the Musee de Compagnonnage...

A close look at the work of master craftsman...

Karena trying her hand at candy making...

Our wonderful and energetic guide at Musee des Beaux Arts...

10th grade students enjoying the breads of Vieux Four...

May 27--To the Sea in Ships

To the Sea in Ships

May 27, 2008

Bryan Abadie

Day 3 started off early! We all arrived at school at 7:30. (an hour and a half earlier than when school starts; why can't we start at 9) We took a three hour bus ride to La Rochelle, a huge harbor in the west of France. We took pictures from the stairs of the castle overlooking the water before splitting up in our groups to explore the city. We had about an hour to go where we pleased, but most of the time was spent eating our huge lunches. Today, our host parents packed us a bag lunch. Everyone had more food then they could handle. I personally had four sandwiches, two apples, a huge bag of chips, lots of cherry tomatoes, and two Twix Bars. At 12:30, we all met back at this fantastic ice cream shop before getting on the bus to go to our next destination.

Next, we went to see a large 18th century style boat under construction named L'Hermione. French carpenters have been working on this boat for years, and in all, they expect it to be finished in 2011. It will take them over ten years to build this boat, the same boat that took only 6 months to build in 1700s. The builders plan to sail the boat around the world when they finish.

After leaving the boat, we had some time to look at different pastry shops before heading back to Tours.