The Nantes Trip

This past Saturday I went to Nantes with six other girls. I was excited, since there was a chateau and an old church to visit, and it was going to be my first excursion specifically to experience a little more of French history and culture. Four of the girls were from my school: Andrea (another American and the organizer of the trip), Fiona, Rachel, and Lisa (all British). The other two, Julie, a Canadian, and Nicky, a Scot, attend one of the grandes-écoles on the UCO campus for business. Well, we all set off on the 30 minute train ride, and I quickly discovered that our purpose in Nantes was not of a historical nature, but that of a consumer. In other words, we were going to go shopping. Internally I whined Why? We can shop in Angers. I held my tongue, not wanting to put a damper on the trip. Besides, I hadn't purchased any souvenirs for the good people back home who deserved them, and I was sure Nantes would have some quaint stores with a good selection of French memorabilia.

When we got off the train it began to rain, not good sight-seeing weather, and I immediately spotted the chateau and a pink tower that had been recommended by some students who had visited Nantes previously, plus there was a gorgeous park right across from the train station. When I pointed them out, the other members of the said no, they wanted to find the shopping district. We took a left. Into the ghetto. Made all the creepier by the overcast skies and the lack of people to be seen on the streets. Only Andrea had a map (of the tram routes, not particularly helpful, but it worked), and I learned that I was one of two who was able to find my cardinal directions. I took the map. I felt like I was back at camp, leading my cabin of 13-year-old girls on a hiking trip. We even had The Whiner in the group, who shall remain nameless, but by golly I wanted to give her a good smack. Plus, you'll probably figure out who it was by the end of the post.

We found the center of town, I coached them across the tram tracks (The Whiner reminded us constantly that trams have no brakes. But the light was green, there was no tram in sight…GO, woman!), and I announced that I was hungry and wanted to find someplace to eat. The majority of the group agreed with me. So I stopped us and asked whether we wanted to eat then find the shopping district, or find the shopping district then search for a café nearby. They wanted to find the shopping district first. However, we came across a small square with about six brasseries, some Kebab stands (not shish kebabs), and a couple more cafés.

Brasserie: A pub that serves food. The menu is limited, and usually one orders from a "formule," which basically states that for a fixed price one can order an appetizer and an entrée, or and entrée and a dessert. Your drinks are on your own. Part of the fun of ordering from places such as these is that I never actually know what I'm ordering (same as a French person probably wouldn't understand "Oriental Mandarin Gilled Chicken Salad" or "Iced Vente Half-Caf Skim Mocha Frappuccino"). It always tastes good, though, so I was eager to tuck into some French food. My party wandered around the square, squinting at the menus the brasseries had sitting out on the sidewalk. They wanted to eat someplace inexpensive (fine with me), have a fairly large lunch to tide them over until after our 6:37 train ride home (even better), and sit inside so that we wouldn't get rained upon (fantastic). Almost everybody complained that they couldn't understand the menus, or that there weren't enough choices. I reminded them that the point of a brasserie was not to provide an overwhelming array of food choices for the customer, but to serve a small selection of well-cooked food and an overwhelming array of alcohol (and believe me, even at 12:30 a stunning selection of alcohol was starting to sound appealing, if not necessary). We walked around and around. until finally I cried, "WHERE are we eating?!" The answer: McDonald's.

McDonald's? Mickey D's? Macdo? We're eating where? My outward response was, "Wait, are you guys serious?" They laughed: oh, Laurel, you're so funny. I smiled and pretended I was famished for a vanilla shake and fries (which did taste good, I admit). When we finished eating we went back into the square and passed a large Fnac, an electronics store. "Does anyone want to stop here?" asked one of the girls. I laughed, because who would want to stop at a store we already had in Angers?

Thirty minutes later we were still in Fnac, waiting for Rachel to get a French SIM card installed in her phone. Admittedly, they did give her the run-around, but I was already tired of standing and it was only the first store in which we had stopped. and in the back of my mind, a mean little voice whispered Now, why couldn't she have done that in Angers? The SIM card was acquired and we set off for the shopping district. I was starting to loose any illusions I may have had about the purchase of souvenirs, even more so as we went into clothing store after clothing store, often with products from American companies like Vans and Quicksilver. We went jewelry store with Claire's-type jewelry (if you don't know what I'm talking about, think: cheap, gaudy, easily broken), we went into a Sephora (a perfume shop. We have TWO of them in Angers), and a cosmetics shop (a novelty, I'm sure).

I did enjoy talking to the two girls from the other school, and in Sephora I convinced one of them, Nicky, to try a "Lip Injection" lip-plumper gloss, which worked in a terrifying manner. She complained that it was hurting, and her lips were turning red and looked swollen. I theorized that the gloss somehow broke capillaries, which is what caused the pain she felt and the swelling. We immediately set out to get the other girls to try it, and found Rachel and Lisa perusing a selection of lip glosses.
"Hey," I said, "you guys should try the lip injection stuff. Nicky did."
"It worked, too," Nicky added. Julie voiced her agreement.
"I had been wanting to try it," said Lisa, pulling a tube of the marked "Tester" off a shelf nearby.
"Do it," I said. We giggled as Lisa and Rachel liberally applied the gloss.
Not a minute later Rachel and Lisa both were rubbing their lips and complaining that it felt as if they were being poked with thousands of tiny needles. Julie, Nicky and I laughed out heads off. See, that's what happens when I get bored shopping and am surrounded by complainers.

I digress. We had decided to give ourselves an hour to find the train station and get on the train for Angers, and if we missed it we could catch the very last train to Angers for the day, which left about and hour and twenty minutes later (basically, at eight pm). The Whiner kept saying "I just have to find the H&M," which is apparently a big clothing store, and since I was walking at the back of the group I felt free to roll my eyes in a most liberal fashion. I had a raging headache, was hungry again, tired, and really prefered to find a café, have some coffee, and find the quickest route back to the train station. At about 4:45 we found the H&M. It was packed, and and body heat was almost visible. Yuck. Nicky, Julie and I decided to find a café and have that coffee I wanted so badly, and told Andrea that if they finished before we returned, that she should send one of us a text message.

We walked around the corner and immediatly found a nice little brasserie. I ordered Chocolat Viennoise, which is like deluxe hot chocolate with a sprinkling of extra goodness on top. Libreral whipped cream, made with real cocoa, and slight skin on the milk—it was perfect, and took the edge of my hunger and headache. We all three admitted to being a little disappointed with the outcome of the trip, and that we wanted to come back on a sunny day when we could see more of the historical sites around the town. It was obvious that none of us wanted to be the one to say, "This has been a complete waste of a day," but we did talk about what we should be doing on days like this: reading, drinking hot tea, watching TV, snuggling up in a fleece blanket, etc. At 5:40 we decided that it was time to return to H&M with the rest of the group, who would undoubtedly be ready to leave. Nicky mentioned that she wished she could run back to the cosmetics store (also around a corner, but a different one than the café) and get a mirror she had seen. I encouraged her to go, and told her that since it was on our way to the train station we could swing by and pick her up. Off she went. We had 50 minutes to get to our train.

When Julie and I got back to H&M, Rachel and Lisa were sitting outside on a stone bench. They informed us that the other two were still inside, probably just getting out of the dressing rooms. Rachel decided to go look for an ATM, so I told her to find Nicky at the cosmetics shop when she was done and we would meet the both of them. About 20 minutes after Julie and I walked back to the department store, The Whiner came out and started complaining about how Andrea was still in the store, and had at least eleven things to try on, and how we were surely going to be late because of her, and how The Whiner hoped Andrea certainly had decided not to buy anything, since that would definitely make us miss our train, and on and on. I sat through five minutes of this before sending Andrea a text message to ask where she was. She gave Lisa a call to let her know that she was in line for the cash register. Ten minutes later The Whiner was still going on about how she was hungry and tired and didn't want to sit down and get her trousers wet, and how she hoped that Andrea was buying a lot of clothes to make it worth the three-quarters of an hour she'd waited, because she'd kill her if Andrea had just gotten a scarf or something. I declared that I was going to go find Andrea, get the map of the tram lines, and figure out our quickest route back to the train station. I resisted the urge to shake The Whiner and yell, "YOU were the one who HAD to find the H&M! You brought this on your own head! And you haven't been waiting for 45 minutes, the rest of us have, and for a good part of it we were waiting on you!" then maybe shove her and her trousers into a puddle.

It took me two minutes to find Andrea, who was just beginning her transaction with the cashier. She was quick to remind me that I had taken the map (oops), and asked the cashier how to get back to the train station. The cashier pointed out the line and told us the direction in which we were to take it, then I went back outside to inform the others/get out of the sweltering heat. Nicky came back right before Andrea exited the store. I assumed that since Rachel and Nicky were not together that Rachel was still looking for an ATM. We waited for a while longer, The Whiner now blaming Rachel for what was surely going to be a missed train ride and a delayed return home. I asked Lisa to call Rachel, who then informed us all that Rachel's cell phone was dead. The Whiner said surely she could still turn it on long enough to recieve calls, right? How in the world was Rachel just going to know that we were calling her, and turn on her phone?, I wondered. I said I would go get her, since she was probably waiting for us down at the cosmetics shop. Andrea came with me. Before I left, I suggested that we prepare ourselves for missing the train, since we only had about thirty minutes to find the station and buy tickets. Andrea said that we should still try to find the station anyway, just in case we could make the train. We all agreed, and Andrea and I set off to find Rachel.

Rachel had just started walking back to find us, so within two minutes we were back with the group and hurrying back to find the area where we had seen all the trams earlier. The Whiner wanted to stop and find food, since we were probably going to miss the train since Andrea and Rachel had made us so late. Honestly, now. Rather than give her the swift kick in the pants she deserved, I told her that we needed to find the train first, just in case, and if we missed it we could find a resaurant nearby. It would do us no good to stop, try to fit a three-hour French dinner into one hour, then attempt to find the train station and get on the very last train to Angers within thirty minutes. Again. Lisa recalled seeing a café in the train station itself, and recommended eating there if we missed the train. Besides, we could buy snacks on the train itself if we made it in time. The Whiner grumbled, but acquiesced.

Back to the tram tracks. Again, "the trams don't have breaks!" "should we cross now?" Me: "the trams are stopped. Come on guys, people are still boarding them, let's go now." Them: "Laurel, do you have a death wish?" "Do those people realize that trams don't have breaks?" "When can we cross without getting run over?" Me and Andrea: "Now. Come on, we just missed a tram to the station." The Whiner: "We're probably going to miss the train. I'm starving."

By the time we got to the train station, we had ten minutes to get on the train. I was the last person of our group in line to get my ticket, and by that time we only had five minutes left, and we didn't know our way around the station. It was small, though, so Lisa and Rachel said they would hurry and look for it, then call back to me (I was standing in the open door to the platforms) when they found it. I sent Andrea and Julie in the direction of the other two, then asked where the other two girls were. Julie told me that [The Whiner] had decided that she needed to buy a pastry, and Nicky said that if [The Whiner] was going to, she would, too. I rolled my eyes and shooed the girls on, saying I would watch where they went and lead Nicky and The Whiner to them.

Right as the final two girls finished buying their pastries and started toward me, I saw Andrea and Julie start running. "Dépêchez-vous!" I yelled at the remaining two. "Hurry, come on, the others are running!" I started jogging. The Whiner groaned as she and Nicky followed suit. We hopped on the train, found seats, and not a minute later the doors closed. We breathed sighs of relief. The Whiner commented, "I don't see why we had to run." I smiled, clenched my teeth, and sat on my hands. Was it wrong of me to be relieved when she said she was going home rather than coming out to eat with us?

To top off the experience, yesterday I saw The Whiner, who asked me what I thought of Nantes. I hesitated and she laughed. I told her that I would like to return someday when it was nicer and see the historical sites. Her response? I paraphrase (I have to leave out the curse words).

"Yeah, I was disappointed that we didn't get around to that. I didn't think much of the city, but my boyfriend said it is really pretty when the sun's out. I want to go back and see some museum-y stuff."

I do not paraphrase "museum-y." That was her word of choice. I murmured something agreeable in response, and she went on to complain about the students who talk in class (a common occurence in continental Europe, which I had been warned about at Westminster. Thank you, Dr. Schaneman), and went on about how the Germans were the worst, not even bothering to lower their voices. There was no tactful way to tell her that the student sitting next to me was German (or spoke it, at least), and could understand English better than either The Whiner and I could understand French. I was tempted to take her by the arm and walk her away from the area, and then give her a concussion to remind her not to be so pig-headed. But I let her ramble on, laughing at all the appropriate times, trying to shoot apologetic glances at the German girl who kept looking at us from the corner of her eye.

Here's my souvenir from that long day: A picture of the creepy church beside the Camaieu (another store we have in Angers) where the group stopped. This is what I brought back with me from Nantes. That and the resolution that never again will I go on a trip with The Whiner, and I will always make sure that whoever is coming along has the same purpose as I. I made a mental checklist of people with whom I did not want to associate much in the future, and The Whiner's name is at the top of that list. Well, she and the guy who was peeing in the park. To God be the glory for giving me patience and the self-restraint to overcome my violent urges. Amen. Selah