A Giant Elephant and a Match de Foot

 If you google image search Nantes France one of the first things to come up is a picture of a giant mechanical elephant. Last week I got the opportunity to see said elephant and a bunch of other mechanical animals at the Machines de L'Ile. It was kind of a strange place but it was very cool to see. Everywhere you look there is some kind of moving machine whether it be an octopus or a bird or a chair that will raise you up to the ceiling of the big warehouse. The workers take volunteers from the audience and strap them into the machines so everyone can see how they work. Sounds like fun right? Well not all of these machines are great for volunteers. One of the girls from IES got picked to be part of a demonstration for a mechanical boat along with another woman and 2 little kids. The second the worker asked them to put on yellow raincoats everyone knew this was no ordinary demonstration. They sat down in the boat and it began to rock back and forth as if going over waves. Then the worker said something to the effect of "now the waves are going to get bigger because a storm is headed their way." At this point the boat really started rocking and water began to spray at them from all directions for a solid 5 minutes along with a bunch of wind coming from a giant fan. It was hilarious to see this from the crowd but I am extremely grateful to not have been chosen. After seeing all the machines we walked around on this giant tree-like structure that wraps around the front of the building, took pictures, and hit the gift shop.

The Famous Elephant

A Treacherous Voyage

After the Machines de L'Ile a friend from IES came over to help me attempt to make chocolate chip cookies. This was quite the experience. My first thought was to make monster cookies since I already had a giant jar of peanut butter from home, however after searching three different grocery stores for plain m&ms (I only found peanut m&ms), the equivalent of heath bars, and the right oatmeal without any luck we decided chocolate chip would be easier. Chocolate chips are surprisingly expensive so we just chopped up a few chocolate bars instead. We also had to use something called vanilla sugar instead of vanilla extract since the store was completely out. After converting the recipe and seeing how different brown sugar is here I wasn't so sure that these cookies were going to turn out to be edible but we gave it a shot. They actually turned out really good! My host family said they were the best cookies any of their students have ever made and I was glad to be able to make something for them that they actually liked!

That weekend we also went to this place called Lieu Unique (literally unique place) to see one of my host brothers dj. It was really fun and kind of cool to know the dj who was playing the music haha

Last night I went to my first european soccer game. It was crazy but so fun. To get in they separate the girls and the guys so they can pat everybody down and look through everyones bags and for the first time in the history of the world the girls line was shorter than the guys line! We made it through really quickly, much to the dismay of the male "football" fans trying to rush into the game. After waiting for the guys in our group we got into the stadium and there were already a ton of people screaming and cheering for Nantes. Here are the main things you need to know at a Nantes soccer game so you can yell with the crowd

"qui ne saute pas, n'est pas nantais!" He who doesn't jump isn't from Nantes. You scream this while jumping around

"allez les jaunes" go yellow (Nantes is yellow and green)

You also need to know how to run down through the seats without tripping whenever Nantes scores.

You need to know when to flip people off, however this happened A LOT so I'm sure whenever you decided to flip off the other teams players, the ref, or the other fans it would be acceptable.

There are a lot more chants but they are super dirty so I'll refrain from writing them here. Let's just say the Nantais could give the madison kids who yell "fuck you" "eat shit" a run for their money.

I think the game might have been a big rivalry game. When the other team scored their second goal to take the lead about half of their players came over to the Nantes section and gloated and did sort of a victory dance which the crowd was NOT happy about. It was super bitchy. Half the Nantes fans rushed down toward the field and started yelling and flipping off the players. After that a fight broke out in the stands and a guy got kicked out. It was crazy. The game ended in a tie which was disappointing but overall it was a super fun night!

You can't see it very well in the picture but everyone is running toward the field after we scored!

Well that's all for now. Happy Saint Patricks Day everyone!