Fortress and the Machines

So I went and saw some pretty cool things this weekend. Oh, and today is also Valentine's Day so HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY AMERICA!!!

Saturday I experienced "Les Machines de l'Ile". That directly translates to "The Machines of the Island". Now, the Machines are located on a little island in the middle of Nantes, the 6th biggest city in France. Nantes is very well known for its ship building and biscuit industry. Ever heard of LU cookies? Well, they're pretty much the most popular brand of ANY food item in France. The LU company makes all kinds of biscuits too...buttery biscuits, chocolaty biscuits, waffle-esque biscuits, pocky-like biscuits... Anyways, they singlehandedly own the French biscuit/cookie market and their factory is in Nantes. It is my goal to go visit it and eat some biscuits fresh from the corporate oven of France. (The cupboards here at my house are already full of their products though)

The Machines of the Island were dreamed up by two French dudes with tons of money and nothing better to do with their lives. (At least I think that's what the tour guide said...) These machines shaped in many different kinds of animals are powered by people and by electricity. The most impressive machine by far is the towering mechanical elephant that is about the size of a three story building and was walking around the industrial park when I first arrived at the Gallery of the Machines. This huge elephant is made of metal, wood, and leather. It's ears flap around, it's trunk moves and sprays the bystanders with steams. The huge glass eyes look around and wink at people... there is also a stereo that yells some very authentic elephant noises to further enhance the effect. One thing that I thought was even more impressive was that this megalith of a machine wasn't behind a fence or anything. It was just walking around right next to the people who looked like toys in comparison to it. In America I'm sure this creation would be behind bars for fear of some idiot running out under it's feet... I'm happy that the French have faith in their own idiots to not do something like that.

The Machines were fantastic and Noe, my host brother, was especially happy that we went to see them because our original plan was to go to Mont Saint Michel that day instead and he really didn't want to go there. In fact, while we were all sitting around eating lunch we were keeping a tally of how many times Noe said "I don't want to go there", or in French, "Je n'ai pas envie d'y aller!!!" I'm pretty sure he said it about 8 times while we were sitting down eating a meal of curried chicken over rice...
Nevertheless, Sunday we made it to Mont Saint Michel after a two and half hour drive through the extremely beautiful and peaceful countryside of Normandy. It was also foggy, raining, and cold but that's besides the point. A little note here, in France a two and a half hour drive is considered a very long drive to get anywhere. To put this in perspective, to get from the northern tip of France to the southern tip of France takes around 8 hours of driving. France is about the size of California if you cut CA in half and put the two pieces side by side. In other words, France is small and the people don't like driving. Anything more than an hour is a really long drive and should be avoided at all costs... but I am here now so long drives are necessary to show me all of the cool things within a four hour radius of where I live.

Mont Saint Michel is a fortress built on a huge slab of granite that resisted the erosion of the constant battering from the tides of the English Channel. The commune on this island is a real medieval town. The streets are so narrow that only 6 people standing shoulder to shoulder could walk through them at some points. There is a moat, and slits in the wall for people to shoot arrows through. There is also a draw bridge and huge metal doors to close as a last ditch effort to fight back the invading Roast Beef (The French name for the English, American's are yankees). In fact, a lot of English own homes in Normandy for retirement or vacationing during the summer, and my host father told me that on the first day of summer all of the French line the streets of Normandy holding little rocks for throwing at the vacationers. He said it was a sort of festival marking the beginning of summer. Haha, funny Antoine and his funny jokes...

LE MONT SAINT MICHEL!!! GLORIOUS EVEN IN 30 DEGREE WEATHER!

Arrow Slits for Protection

DRAW BRIDGE

Total Medieval Town, especially with the japanese writing on the sign. Oh those tourists!

Look, I'm so historic!

The Cathedral

At Mont Saint Michel there were more Japanese people than French people. In fact, all of the signs were written in English, French, and Japanese. I saw more Japanese people crammed in those narrow streets than any other place in my life. They were everywhere, taking 'kawaii' pictures, being adorable in general, speaking Japanese... Antoine cracked a joke that the Airbus from Tokyo had just dropped its load off at Mont Saint Michel. Funny Antoine and his funny jokes... This is all besides the point. What the point is? I don't know. Mont Saint Michel was really awesome and I thought about a million times "ancient lords and knights have walked where I am walking with my beaten up old converse... coooooool...." There's the teenage brain for you. I feel like I've already written a thousand words so I'm going to just show some pictures to make up for the next few thousand.

Valentine's Day in France... If I was in Paris I'm sure it would have been a lot more obvious, but the only way one could tell that it was Valentine's Day was the fact that while I was sitting out in front of the Supermarket I counted ten guys in twenty minutes who walked out holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and some form of alcohol in the other. Why I was sitting in front of a supermarket? Camille and Brittany needed to buy chocolate and we celebrated the day by sitting on a bench and eating next to all of it. Tonight I made my host family old-fashioned banana bread. They loved it... I guess American food is good enough for the spoiled French taste buds! Woohoo! A little interesting tid bit... while I was at a local book store I stumbled upon this book full of recipes from "all around the world". The recipes from America were things like Meatloaf, cornbread, and Banana Bread. Random...
Here's an iffy picture of my French family. Not a single picture turned out with everyone looking the same direction, forgive me, but at least you guys can all get an idea of the awesome people I'm staying with.

One last thing before I go... I was at school the other day waiting for my turn in the girl's bathroom. I waited about five minutes in front of the door, clearly marked with a person in a dress, when suddenly two guys walked out and brought a strong smell of pot with them. I went in a few moments after, registering the fact that two dudes just smoked pot in the girl's bathroom of a French high school. I had to brush little pieces of pot off of the sink and the pot stink was heavy in the bathroom. This is France, not Arcata!!