Author Archives: Ryan George

J’amie France, I like France

First I want to apologize for not posting in two weeks but I did not have access to psu sites because of the hack on the college of engineering. I did keep a small journal to track my day to day activities but even that was hard to maintain because we did so many things, that I had little to no free time.

Meeting my host family:

I was nervous about meeting my host family and had no idea what they looked like. They said they would pick me up from the train station so when I got there I saw them holding up a sign with my name on it. They were really nice and spoke english which was a relief. My french isn’t the most understandable…

Its so hard to decide what to write and what to leave out because so much has happened in these two weeks.

Let me start by get accustomed to life in Nantes. What surprised me the most was that we got two hours for lunch. So we had plenty of time to eat our meals slowly and still have time to talk afterwards.

Luckily, each of us got paired up with a student from Ecole Centrale so that they could show us how students live in Nantes. The students became some of our best friends by the end of the two weeks. We did everything with them.

The students gave us a tour of Nantes, we took a french cooking class, we ate lunch in a park and we lived traditional french lives for two weeks.

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It is very hard for me to put into words the impact studying abroad has left on me. It has changed my view of the world and widen my view on different cultures. The friends I have made and the experiences that came from this trip, makes me want to keep exploring and learn by travelling.

Nantes is definitely a place I will visit again.IMG_7545-1

Dr. Seuss puts it best…”Don’t cry because its over, smile because it happened”.

PRE-Europe

I just finished speaking to my parents on FaceTime and they seem to be more confident than I am about me leaving for study abroad. I’m nervous-excited for the next three weeks, I cannot wait to experience what it’ll be like to live with a french family and interact with a language barrier.

I’ve been outside the country before but never to Europe. All those those french classes I took in high school and college will hopefully have paid off. I do expect quite a few blank stares from people trying to figure out my broken french. I exchanged my Dollars for Euros today. This is one of the best times to travel to Europe because the Euro is almost on par with the dollar. In my mind all that means is more croissants and macarons to devour.

I’m almost all packed and ready to head out the door. I have the feeling that I’ve overpacked, you can never be too cautious about this stuff. The next couple days will be hoping on and off cabs, planes and trains.

Bon Voyage!