Rennes

Before I talk about Rennes, I want to mention something else first. Since I try and use English with the girls, even though they have no idea what it means, they have picked up on a few things. When they want my attention they will say, "Annalise, come on please." They will say it until they have my attention. Since Annalise and please rhyme, they love starting with my name and ending with please.

Today Brooke and I ventured around Rennes, and I loved it! We spent all day Saturday just walking around the main part of the city. We started at the marché, AKA farmers' market. It was very crowded, busy, and totally awesome! Unfortunately I only have pictures from just a small corner of the flower section, but I guess it will give you a small glimpse of the marché. One great thing about the marché were the street performers! There were a few guys who played the accordion and it made the air sound like France. I wanted to say I bought something from the marché so I ended up buying one peach. The guy was trying to see if I wanted anything else because people don't usually buy only one peach. I had no idea what he said. So I just gave him a confused look and said uhhhhhh.

After the marché, we continued to walk around the shops and stores. I wanted to go inside every shoe store, but luckily, I was able to resist. I did buy a watch, hat, and some other things. One of my purchases was my ticket back to St Malo. We happened to walk buy a train ticket store, and walked in. At first we didn't know if it was actually for buying tickets or if we would be able to buy a ticket using what little French we knew. But we walked up to one of the desks and tried asking if they spoke English. Either the man knew no English, or he just wanted to see how crappy our French was, but he made us use French. I was very surprised and proud to use only French to buy my ticket. I could barely understand his questions and I remembered vocabulary I learned in high school about tickets. Brooke and I walked away giggling with satisfaction at our successful purchase.

Later, we went to a big green, flowery, beautiful park. On the way, we past a breathtaking church! I don't know if I will ever stop being amazed at the beautiful architecture in Europe. And I don't understand why America didn't think about making buildings as beautiful as in Europe. Also, I wish we had more churches with stained glass like the cathedrals here. I could sit all day staring at the all the colors in the windows. Anyway so at this park, we stopped at a little ice cream stand. We did know how to pronounce the items on the menu, but luckily there were pictures we could point at while saying, "I would like that." Behind us, there were two French guys that started to laugh and mimic us. Of course we started laughing because we knew we sounded silly with our bad pronunciation and accents (it's weird to think that I have an accent). We tried talking to them for about five minutes, but it eventually got to a point where we didn't understand each other so we just walked away. The park was massive and we didn't really know where to go, so we ended up wandering aimlessly down the paths, eating our ice cream. In time, we got tired of walking and decided to sit down on the grass.

Brooke and I really wanted to eat lunch and dinner at restaurants. The closer it go to lunch time, the more nervous I got. We tried studying my French phrase book from the food section, but there were so many things to remember... And we didn't know if we were supposed to seat ourselves or wait for someone to seat us. I guess we are supposed to seat ourselves and they waiter/waitress will come to us. Anyway, we were totally lost. The menus were in French of course and we only knew what a few of the items were. We had a dictionary, but honestly, I did not want to be 'those' people who were totally ignorant. Even though we kinda were... Lucky for us, we happened to be sitting next to two Americans from New York! They explained the menu and how to ask for food and such. Our next problem was pronunciation. Of course we ordered a crepe that had a billion ingredients in the title. Brooke ended up pointing and saying what translated to I would like here. Our waitress understood and since Brooke ordered first, and we were ordering the same thing, I only had to say, "la même chose," meaning, the same thing. For dinner, Brooke wanted to go to a crêperie she went to with her host family because they had English menus. When we got there, we weren't exactly sure if it was open or not, we saw people sitting down, but they looked like customers not owners. We asked if they knew English and sure enough, one of them did! We still had to ask if they worked there, if they were open, and if we were supposed to seat ourselves. All of which he answered yes. Oh I just love how out of the loop we are. It is quite comical, but mostly frustrating. I loved this crêperie. I ordered a dinner crêpe that had smoked salmon, chives, and crème fraîche. It was superb. But the absolute best part of dinner was the dessert. I got something that had a ball of vanilla ice cream coated in finely chopped almonds and toffee with a small meringue center. Then it was drizzled in the most magnificent salty caramel I have ever tasted. If I can't have that stuff in heaven, then I don't want to go. Ha kidding. But really I wish I could buy the caramel in a jar and sit in my room all day eating it by the spoonful. Brooke laughed at me because I was eating slowly (I'm a fast eater. In a big family, you had to eat fast if you wanted to have seconds.) and on my first bite I could stop my mmm mmm good sound of satisfaction. After she tried the caramel, she couldn't blame me. I definitely have to go back to that crêperie each time I go to Rennes...