Brit Hotel Les Alizes Pornic

... were fab...really nice day walking around. Jason decided to watch villa on the internet instead of going to local french soccer game. they lost 2-1, maybe its better if he doesn't watch as they seemed to do better the last few games when he wasn't watching. Had a really good dinner tonight, regional specialty (crepes again) with apple cider.

heading south again tomorrow, and we'll see how far we get and where we end up.

Ok, so we arrived in Nantes....bit of a nightmare to park, but all good. Found a very centrally located budget hotel (1 star) - cheap and cheerful. We had booked the small room, but as that turned out to be on the fifth floor, we opted for the luxury room (an additional 4 euros a night) on the first floor. Is quite big, with ensuite bathroom. Well, actually, its more like the room is ensuite to the bathroom as when u open the door to the room u walk right into the ...

... and monsters on display. They all have the style of a Jules Verne story (he came from Nantes). The craftmanship is wonderful and the detail is incredible. We will return in 2014 as they are building an enormous tree with plants and a ride on mechanical herons. Much better than Disney.

We are going south tomorrow to La Rochelle.

... up at 8am and drive 5hrs to Bordeaux for our 2pm tour of Château Mouton Phillippe Rothschild. Since this will be a 4hr drive there, 2-3hr tour and 4hr drive back we decide to cancel the trip. Now we can sleep in the next day and get up and chill for the day.

That is basically all we do in Nantes get some decent food and see a movie. Off to Mount Saint Michael tomorrow and we are kind of excited to see if it lives up to the photographs we have seen.

... to her. We also got to meet the pastor; he's a really nice guy. Then we kind of joined into a conversation Malinda was having with some guy and another guy came up to us because he heard English. His name was Mike and he was living with others from his Christian school in a house about 5 minutes away from the church. They have a big lunch every Sunday and we got invited to this one. It was so nice. There were tons of people there. Plus they had really good food. It was entirely an English ...

... me the whole way to their house (in English) and he's really nice. He'd be the type of French guy I'd fall in love with. Haha He's a chef who works on Fire Island in New York. He only works from May to October and the other part of the year he's in France with his family. Julie and the 3 kids (Emma, Aidan (another on of my students), and Winnie) go over to the States during summer break to spend time with their dad. I met Julie and she's really nice too. Emma looks ...

... I of course didn't even smile until way later. J After my two classes there, I went to my third school. At this school I don't teach anything. I just sit and observe one class and then I help with another. It's very pointless and stupid but whatever. The class that I observed though is amazing. The kids are well behaved and quiet and I never wanted to leave them. This is one of the classes my tutor teaches. I'm supposed to use what she does in my own classes. I don't ...

... mall where there is a Carrefour (the French equivalent of a Wal-Mart). There we got toilet paper and some stuff for dinner and for breakfast the next day. Then she just kind of left me at the mall to find my way home. I told her I would be fine, but I really had no idea where I was going. I had to ask someone. It turns out I am so close to the mall. It's literally about 10 minutes away walking. It's awesome. So I walked home, ate some food and watched Father of the Bride while ...

... sandwich) with a pineapple on top is really, really incredibly delicious. Bravo to the Cafe Moliere...that's some French cuisine I can make myself at home in 2 minutes. The Muscadet (the white wine made in this area, which is very good and actually very inexpensive) we had with it is probably harder to get at home, though. Moreover, French grammar review class is the devil. It's not hard, just incredibly, incredibly boring.

... lucht is prachtig blauw en als we bij de Baai van Morbihan aankomen staat er een aardige puist wind. Zodra we onder een hoek varen met de wind, gaat het 3x gereefde grootzeil omhoog en voordat we het weten scheren we door de Baai van Morbihan met enkele forse knopen stroom extra mee. Het is wel voor korte duur, omdat de belangrijkste richting Zuid West tegen is. Het laatste stuk is pittig, herhaaldelijk hebben we een snelheid van 9.1 knoop, maar door de tegenwind bevinden we ons af ...