Weekend Excursion (For Real This Time)

Last Saturday I went on an all-day excursion to Mont Saint-Michel and Saint-Malo.

Here's a map of my travels so far in France:

As you can see, I started out in Paris and then took a bus to Tours, where I'll be living for a while. This weekend I went to the locations marked in green and blue (markings are approximate, not exact).

Mont Saint-Michel is a huge bump out in the middle of nowhere.

The main feature is a monastery, but there are other people who work and live there, too. There's one road and only one road, and there are no cars. 

The monastery is really pretty.

You can see pretty far from up on the top of the mountain. Watch out for the quicksand. No, really. There's quicksand. 

Of course the inside is pretty as well.

We saw a man propose to his fiancee in here:

And there were plenty of opportunities for artistic photos.

I look adventurous in this photo.

Sometimes the French are not creative...

...but if the boot fits...

Don't look down!

This angel is kicking butt.

It was extremely windy and I couldn't keep my hair out of my face. I got creative with my scarf.

And now off to Saint-Malo, which is a walled city on the coast. You know that saying-- some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue?

A view of the city's walls and ramparts:

The beach! It was nowhere near warm enough to swim, but we could walk barefoot on the beach without freezing to death.

The fort.

There's me without my shoes.

And there's me being adventurous again.

Gotta represent.

A view from up on the walls.

Some people going out to the island. I hope they got back before the tide came in...

This statue was kinda cool.

And there's my weekend excursion in a nutshell! 

Today I Leave The Country

Ladies and gentlebloggers, this is a very big day. I write this from the airport as I await the plane which will take me to Miami. Then I'll sit in that airport and await an airplane that will take me to Paris.

That's right. I'm going to France.

I'll be in France for about a month as part of a study abroad program, and then I'll go straight to Ireland for about another month. I'll be blogging my experiences in the two awesome countries! I also brought my Wacom tablet, so maybe I'll be able to whip up a few fun cartoons for you guys.

The toughest part of this trip so far has been applying for the trip and filling out the paperwork (reference the Studying Abroad haiku/cartoon). The second toughest part has been packing everything I'll need for two months abroad in a suitcase and a backpack. The third toughest part, which runs a close race with Tough Thing #2, was saying goodbye to my family. I've been mentally preparing for it, but it was still pretty tough. It wasn't like going to college for the first time- my parents were only two and a half hours away. This is different- there's an ocean between is and I won't be coming home for two months. We won't even be awake at the same times (actually, that's not that different from how it normally is). So... Yeah. Pretty tough.

Now that I've got all the hard stuff out of the way, it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the trip!