La Forêt D’Ecouvres and other things

by Clare Lauer on October 20, 2014

10/19/14

Why hello there!

Although this is my first blog post for Admissions, I’m currently studying abroad in Nantes, France living a constant stream of new, blog-worthy experiences so I’m just going to dive right in! During the school week here, I have classes and homework, and somewhat normal school-related things to do (all of my classes are taught in French, which is why I hesitate to say completely normal). But on the weekends, the program I’m attending (IES Nantes) offers several trips to different towns in the area. I just got back from an amazing trip to see four different châteaux in nearby regions! For reference, Nantes is located in (and is the capitol of) the Pay-de-la-Loire Valley, and Brittany is the region right above. However, last weekend there weren’t any trips planned, so my friends and I ended up going camping in a forest next to a town named Alençon in Lower Normandy (ou en français, Basse-Normandie). It was the first trip I took just with a small group of friends from my program, and we planned the whole thing in about two weeks!

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My beautiful friend Clare Munger (haha same first name, I know!) and I strolling through the forest.

 In fact, that camping trip has been the best weekend I’ve had in France so far. I think there were a lot of elements that went into making the experience feel so magical. For starters, throwing together a camping trip with six other college students from all across the US would have been crazy in and of itself. However, not only was that the case, we also had become a group of good friends, and were planning this camping trip to a forest in the northern part of France. I realize this blog post is pretty heavy on the italicized font, but I use italics as a means of emphasizing how surreal something is – and let me just tell you, I’m still getting over how surreal that weekend felt. Even the aspects of a camping trip that are normally mundane were jolted with enthusiasm.

Once everyone had purchased their train tickets, we had a little less than a week to figure out the logistics of the trip. For example, where would we sleep on this trip and what would we eat? In a mad dash to throw everything together, somehow every detail worked out. We had a huge, three roomed tent lent to us by Lindsey’s host family. After buying groceries the day before leaving, we managed to purchase everything and were under budget. And, although my friend Taylor and I realized that we had been standing in the wrong ticket line at the train station and then had only had 10 minutes to receive our tickets before our train left, we still managed to find a sympathetic woman who took us aside to quickly print our tickets – allowing us to make our train! Then the experience of being surrounded by your camping gear as the French country side whizzes by your window, followed by a moment of luck I will never be able to explain where two French mothers insisted on driving all six of my friends and I to our campsite in a 10 minute car ride which would have taken us 2 hours walking along the side of the road to reach.

That was all before we even started camping! The next two days were full of hours and hours of hiking through lush, breathtaking forests, sloshing through rainy marshes, completing a children’s parkour course in the middle of the forest, having several dear conversations with French locals, coercing French horses to let us pet them for nearly 30 minutes, and eating every ounce of oatmeal and pasta we brought with us!

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From left: Clare Munger, Taylor Watts, me, Lindsey Morgan, and Amara Andrus fawning over our new friend.

Absolutely every memory I have from last weekend is one I am so thankful to hold – even the ones where I was huffing and puffing my way up steep hills, and shivering in water-soaked socks – because every time I recall them, I remember the beautiful people I was walking next to, how privileged we were to be having every experience, and how truly whole-heartedly I was living. I was so full it felt surreal. Though what’s even more surreal – I know that it all happened.

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