Jean Monnet House

Last Friday, we took another field trip, this time to the Jean Monnet house. When I told my host mom where I'd be going, she said, "Who, the painter? That's Claude Monet."

Not a lot of people know who this guy is. More or less, he is the "Father of Europe." He was one of the two Frenchmen who first worked for European unity. They had turned his house out in the country into a museum.
We took a bus from Paris, and reached the house a little over an hour later. It was adorable. I can see why he retired here. This is pretty much the French country house that everyone in the world would want to live in.

It even had a thatched roof.

First, we all sat outside in the garden for a picnic. I had packed some of the food that my host mom had tried to force on me the night before. It was still so much that I shared some with those who had forgotten to pack a lunch.

After we were done eating, we sat through a lecture from a very enthusiastic historian. We learned about his life and all the stuff he did during WWII (he almost succeeded in making France and Britain become one country). After that, we toured the inside of his house.












The house tour over, we watched a short film on his life, then had a Q and A session with the historian. He seemed excited that we were enthusiastic (we were probably different from the other student groups he usually spoke to.)

Around 4pm, we got back on the bus. On the way back, I explained to some French students how it was different growing up in the Midwest than, say, in New York City. They asked me if I owned any guns. I was like, "We have some guns that my dad uses for hunting." They were like, "People actually hunt?"

I am definitely not in the Midwest anymore.