NO YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS ONE YET EITHER:

So I've been doing a bit of touristing in my last few weeks in France..

This is one of the rings from the monument to slaves that was featured in an earlier post (just not lit up).

I went to visit an exhibition about the limits of reality and arrived just in time for this film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AUFMGAck6A (you think the trailer is weird and arty -it was so much more weird and arty in real life, bits in Spanish with French subtitles!). It was definitely a worthwhile exhibition, though, and so much fun being able to spontaneously stay at an art gallery until 7 to watch a movie -oh the joys of eating late!

This mechanical elephant is probably the most well-known and best-loved thing in Nantes (other than me of course ;) so even though it's undergoing renovations at the moment I put this in as a tribute to my inner tourist (and for you Mum). In Summer it walks around and takes people for rides, along with a whole lot of other machines, although if you watch the video, some of them are downright creepy... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTyhkPNutmw

This is my street.

It's not incredibly exciting, but like I said to the Brousses (my host family), I'd rather they have a gorgeous house (which they do) and an average quartier (area) because it's Winter and we spend all our time indoors anyway.

These babies are the creme de la creme of macaroons, but since I struggled as it was trying to get a picture of them under the nose of the attendant in this moderately-well-known department store (think French Kirkcaldie and Stains), I can't even begin to describe the range of flavours there were. I do recall caramel au beurre salle (I've actually tried that flavour) and pistachio, apricot and cinammon and a Christmas special of Pain d'epice (gingerbread) being some of the parfums (becuase saying flavours just ruins the effect)

Ms Collard, this one's for you, because as anyone who's travelled beyond the world's most well known monuments (cue the leaning tower of Pisa and especially the Eiffel tower) will know, it's impossible to capture the essence of a city, and especially what it's like to be a foreigner in one, with just one photo (especially with my photography skills!), so the rest of you, you'll just have to imagine :)

Touristing by myself, or with others has been an altogether pleasant experience (but Paula if you're reading this -I do miss you!) In fact the times when I've been by myself I've been pleasantly surprised a lot that my level of French allows me to actually move around like a normal person!