Discovering Rennes

One of my favorite French movies from the early 2000s is called L’auberge espagnol.  It’s the story of a young French student named Xavier who leaves his home in Paris to spend a year studying abroad in Barcelona.  As the film shows him discovering his new city, you hear a voiceover of his future self saying..

When you first arrive in a new city, nothing makes sense; everything is unknown. After you've lived here, walked these streets, you'll know them inside out. You'll know these people. Once you've lived here, crossed this street 10, 20, 1000 times... it'll belong to you because you've lived there. That was about to happen to me, but I didn't know it yet.

That quote ran through my mind on Tuesday as our wonderful CIEE guide, Malika, led us on a walking tour through our new city.  Together we discovered the best places to find food for lunch (la Place Sainte-Anne), the best places to shop for clothes and souvenirs (le centre commercial La Visitation), and a huge park for picnics and playing (le parc Thabor).   We also discovered the city’s historic buildings like la Maison Ti Koz, the oldest building in Rennes which dates back to the year 1505!

It was a gray and rainy day, but without the rain we would have missed the highlight of the tour - a pigeon!   A pigeon landed on top of the umbrella of one of our students and made itself quite comfortable.   This led to a fun and lively game of “Passe le pigeon” as students passed the pigeon from umbrella to umbrella!  We are all looking forward to sunny days of getting to know Rennes better, and maybe, if we’re very lucky, another round of “passe le pigeon.”