Laura's in France

The year in Rennes, France

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More pictures from our museum day

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Today was my very own Culture Sunday, or "Dimanche des Découverts" as I like to call it. On the first Sunday of the month, museums are free. So I went to the Musée des Beaux Arts and the Champs Libres. What a treat! I can't believe it has taken me this long to visit these tourist spots in Rennes. I loved it all! The Champs Libres had a live symphony playing classical music and even that was free! Le Champs Libres is basically a cultural center that features lots of different exhibits, a Bretagne museum, and a planetarium. Such a nice and cultural day with good friends!

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I FINALLY DID SCORPION!!!! This is such a big moment in my yoga career and handstand life. So so happy!!! Finally some progress!! I will handstand in 2014!

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Our presentation! Some officials from CODOFIL, the Louisiana education department, ESPE Bretagne, and other important people were coming to Rennes for important Escadrille meetings. Valerie, our liaison at ESPE, asked us to give a little presentation about our experience here. Short and short of it, Renee and I basically took the lead on preparing a PowerPoint presentation and doled out who talks about what. We ended up going kind of above and beyond for several reasons. Number 1, we know how lucky we are to be here. We have been paid to come here and have the most amazing experience in our lives. Yes, it's incredible so we need to properly thank these people and show them how much it means to us. Number 2, ever since Vicky dropped out the program everyone has been freaking out. Especially Valerie. The directors think it is their fault and they are so sad and disappointed. Not only that, it is shameful for us that Vicky was so ungrateful. We wanted to show them we are not like Vicky. And by the way, she left because she squandered her time here. She skyped her boyfriend everyday and didn't make any effort to get involved in other aspects of living in France. I really think she brought the whole downfall on herself. Life is tough. Anyway, the presentation went phenomenally!! They were completely blown away. Success!! And hopefully we will all get good jobs! Afterwards we felt the need to celebrate. Yep, we headed to Centre Ville for drinks and photos. We were all dressed nicely, after all.

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Indian dinner!! We have made friends with a group of business students from India and boy was this the best decision ever! You know what I'm talking about-- they cook us Indian food!!! So delicious. And Indians are not afraid of spice or flavor. I feel so lucky to experience authentic Indian food like this. Our yoga class is coming soon. Seriously, I need to get to India.

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Leah's birthday party was a huge success! We invited friends from absolutely anywhere and everywhere. In fact, we realized we represented SIX continents total!!! That's every continent except Antarctica. Americans from North America; Europeans from France, The Netherlands, Lithuania, Belgium (and probs more); South Americans from Colombia; Asians from India; an African from Senegal; and an Aussie from Australia. We are so international!!! I also have to mention we set aside some colored paper and markers so people could make Leah birthday cards if they wanted. This turned out to be so fantastic-- by the end of the night we had dozens of cards in all different kinds of languages! Even Chinese and Japanese!! (Yea, what). My favorite card: "Leah, I just met you tonight but WOW." Overall Leah had a wonderful bday and the beer pong and flip cup games were enjoyed by all. Especially the Americans because we miss college life.

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Throwing a party for Leah tonight. We're gonna teach some foreign friends how to play beer pong. Oh yes.

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Getting stronger in yoga all the time! My goal: I will handstand in 2014!

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Fun day at the beach in Agadir

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HENNA

The beach guys brought over a woman to do henna for us. We may have gone henna crazy…. but what can I say, it seemed like a great idea at the time! She even gave us a henna tat on our feet. Don’t worry mom, it scrubs off in the shower :)

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AGADIR We took the bus to Agadir for a day trip to the beach. Words cannot describe how much we have missed the sunshine!!! Shame on dreary Bretagne and it's rainy days. Agadir was lovely! We found an enclosed area where you pay about 2€ to have an umbrella, chairs, a wind block, and attractive young men at your beck and call. Really full service-- they literally got us anythingggg we could have possibly needed! Tanning oil, beer, snacks, henna... The list goes on. Obviously we wore our djellabas to the beach! 👌

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The top photo is indigo and other powders used for painting. Morocco has so many cool doors. I love the Islamic keyhole shape.

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Here is Hassan. He works the door of the apartment building. One day he invited us for a chicken tagine. So sweet! So the next day we come down to the door and he asks us where we are going. "We're not going anywhere, we're here for the tagine." Then he says "The tagine comes to you!" Oh okay, so we are hosting an impromptu luncheon party?? Quickly we ran to the store to buy some water bottles (can't drink tap water, you know) and snacks for an aperitif. We are literally running around like mad women trying to clean the apartment. Sure enough, up comes Hassan with the piping hot and glorious chicken tagine. But his hospitality didn't end there-- he proceeded to teach us the proper Moroccan way to eat a tagine: First off, everyone eats from the same dish. Then you grab a piece of bread (thank god we bought some at the store!) and somehow press veggies and chicken on there and eat the whole thing. Moroccans apparently eat a lot of bread. This technique is not so easy.... Forks are friends of mine! Other rules we learned: you don't get up from the table, you don't pause when eating because you won't get any food, and you definitely don't use your left hand. Life is so hard for left handers! Many thanks to Hassan for giving us a real Moroccan tagine experience.

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Jellabar with Samira Lots of dancing = lots of fun

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Mint tea on a rooftop overlooking the souks. Samira is the best.

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Samira and her fiancé took us around the souks, aka the shopping market. Obviously all the venders tried to jack up the prices for us tourists, but Samira is like the Al Pacino of the souks (as Renee likes to say). She consistently got us great prices by telling the vendors their products are shit. Wonderful strategy! Best shopping buddy ever. To get our attention, the shop vendors called us dozens of different names. It wasn't uncommon to hear "Hey Lady Gaga!" or "Hey Spice Girls!" My favorite was when they called us Shakira. They also called us weird things like Gazelle or they offered us 1000 camels. Photos: spices and spices and herbs

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Tourist-ing around Marrakech

Visiting the grave of Yves Saint Laurent, gardens, playing with monkeys at the square Jamaa El Fna…