Nantes and OFII

In order to finish out the visa/immigration process we had to travel to Nantes to get a medical examination and finish out the paper work for our visas. We decided to make a day trip out of it. This was the first time we had left Angers since we got here in January! We had a blast and are now even more excited for the trips we have coming up in the next month or two.

Just off the train our first stop was the Jardin de Plantes. We almost just walked around the outside because we mostly just wanted to find the tourist office. The park was well worth the visit!

 There were lots of pretty flowers.. Unfortunately I dont have Callie's photography skills or photoshop skills, so.. this is the best I could do. :)

this duck was nice.

Nantes Cathedral

At Le Château des ducs de Bretagne. Nantes' Castle. :) (not as cool as the Chateau d'Angers!) 

 

However it does have a moat. Which is cool.

the back/courtyard

 Based out of Nantes is a company called La Machine. They basically build big mechanical animals/whatever they want. There is actually an island in the middle of Nantes (kind of like in Paris) and that is where their workshop/showroom is. Their main attraction is this elephant. It is very big, and you can ride on it. (30 people at a time!) Its legs, head, trunk, and ears move and it sprays water out of its trunk! Pretty cool. During a video we were filming its right front leg kinda broke.. poor thing.

again.. sorry that the video is sideways but I sure dont know how to fix it.. 

The showroom was only open for like 3 hours each day so we had to go see the rest of the sights and come back after our appointment with the immigration office. (look for more pictures below (because its too hard to change the order of all the pics I've already uploaded))

This is part of the Naval Museum in Nantes. We didnt have time to visit but the ship was pretty cool.

Art rings. They light them up at night. They are kind of random.

                    They used to build a lot of ships in Nantes. This is the big crane they used.

beware the giant spiders.. using tram lines as theirs webs to catch humans..

Vandalism at its best! haha

We took a break from walking in the cemetary close to the OFII office. (Office francais de l'immigration et de l'integration)

At our meeting we had to wait. a lot. and then have a little interview with the doctors assistant. (vision check, weight, height and disease history) Then wait again. Then we each got a chest X-ray. Then finally we got to see the doctor. (blood pressure check, and X-ray review. Then we had to present our passport, lease agreement and the "stamp" saying that we had payed the visa tax. (Almost $500 between the two of us! Grr...)

It all went pretty smoothly and everyone was very nice. The last lady I talked to was not very pleased that I hadn't printed off the "stamp" before coming. Apparently it is absolutely required to have that.. However, on the sticker they put on our passports proving that we had completed all of the necessary paperwork, she had mixed up the order of my names. So, since I accepted to messed up sticker, she helped me out by printing off a copy of my "stamp" for me. Which apparently isn't legal for some reason.. Oh well. She was very nice.

Now, back to the fun stuff! Here is a picture of them building the elephant. They had a video playing showing all of the steps that went into it's construction. I was impressed! The show room was really fun. Each of the creatures is a little ride/puppet thing. They have a control box to turn them on and they move and do different thing. We saw one in action and it was way cool!

This is a model of what they are building outside/around the showroom/restaurant/workshop. They only have a few branches up now.

The seat for this one is inside the tentacles!

..random old picture of the shipyard after they had launched a boat they had just built.

It even has eyelashes!!

Up on the "tree limbs" outside

Le Lieu Unique. "The Unique Place" This is where they used to make the famous cookies from Bretagne. I didn't get much  more information than that, but its a cool building anyway.

So, that was our trip to Nante. We walke a lot! and were both exhausted when we got home. Im sure it had to have been 80 degrees most of the day. Kennan's head got a little sunburned. We'll get some more pictures up of spring in Angers soon! I've got finals next week, so we'll have plenty of time after that!

(P.S. I made some of the pictures kinda small because I had a lot of them. If you click on them they open in a new window and get bigger. :) )

Castle Quest

The bus map has little castle icons on it, but no description of the castles. Ever since we moved here we have wanted to go see what they were like, so finally we bought an all day bus pass and went questing! Most of the castles are owned privately.. I just did a report on this as a matter of fact. Out of tth 6450 "Chateaux" enrolled as historical monuments in France 5550 are owned privately. Some of the owners get a stipend from the government to help maintain their chateau because they are considered historically and culturally significant. Anyway.. Here's what we saw.

This is the first one we saw. There is obviously someone living in it.. but it was still fun to see. Its right in the middle of a big park with a couple ponds surrounding it.

 There was a dad and his little boy there feeding bread to the ducks

This one won!

There were also these wierd.. turky vulture duck.. looking things. Kinda scary. 

A box elder bug that isnt! Just like the reverse ladybug, some things we think are familiar are actually not..

Castle #2. This one is now the club house/conference center/snack place of a golf course. The golf course is pretty big, but definitely not as pretty as Logan River.  

 This is the part of the golf course directly in front of the castle

 side view. I loved the stairs!! and hated those darn blue umberellas.

This was in the parking area behind the castle. I thought it was nice. 

 Self portraits are difficult.. you can almost see what we're trying to capture behind us.. just to the side of my head..

Attempt two.. success! This is a really old mill. Kinda cool..

The country side is beautiful. This is only like 3 blocks away from the mainstreet and about the same distance from the golf course. The picture doesnt do it justice.

This is about as well as you could see the third castle. It is also being used as a house, and there is a huge grove of trees and a walking park around it. You can only catch a small glimpse of the castle here and there. It was a pretty place to walk anyway.

Spring is here!

And as we cut through the running park on our way home we came across a huge peacock!