La Rochelle- "Paris is not France"

This weekend I went to La Rochelle, a seaport town on the Atlantic coast

I also lost the Olin Challenge when I saw some random guy on the street wearing an Olin sweatshirt! 





No actually, this was planned, of course. It’s Jeremy Colombel! He was an exchange student at Olin last semester. 

It was weird however going around the school (EIGSI, see picture above), and meeting people who actually knew about Olin (since our schools have an exchange program).
I had no plan when I got to La Rochelle. Just relax, and see what happens!

Beaches

Just think. On the other side of the ocean, is Boston!

Rugby

I learned a thing or two about rugby. It’s really fun to play rugby on the beach

Old port

La Rochelle has an interesting history of being English 2 times, and French 3 times. It’s a strategic location on the sea. And what that means for us is... we have a cool juxtaposition of new and old:

The old port, which guards the entrance of the city to the sea

French people can’t cook badly

Jeremy would like to share this story:

He really thought he messed up a dinner Monday night (forgot to defrost his fish!). So he overfried everything in an attempt to defrost-while-cooking

But actually... the dish turned out to be delicious. Which goes to show: French can’t cook badly. Even if they try.

On the other hand, I cooked...

Lasagna!


Of course, we could’ve eaten out too. Kebabs, paninis, and...

Americans?

Paris is not France

I’ve had many French friends tell me that Paris is not France. Just like NY is not the U.S. (but Boston is!).

I got that impression here. Life is much slower here. And dare I say, people were nicer? (though students in general everywhere are nice). Nice relaxing break for the journey ahead*

Thanks for hosting me, Jeremy!



*I’m traveling around Western Europe for a month. More on that later.