Weekend 4: Metz and Nancy, France

This weekend we decided to stick around Metz and recover from the taxing life of traveling and school. For those of you that laugh when I say taxing (as if study abroad can be exhausting) -- let me tell you it is! We started out our weekend with a BBQ with our friends that we met in Barcelona Brent and Thomas. And then we watched Mean Girls! Gotta love that movie -- it was a wonderfully relaxing Friday night which was a pleasant change from our usual Friday activity of of getting to trains, finding hostels, etc. 

Saturday afternoon Mary Margaret, Kristen, and I took an trip to Nancy which is town about 40 minutes south (via train). They have a beautiful park and a free zoo that we decided to enjoy! Nancy has a beautiful square with gorgeous gold decorations and the National Opera of Lorraine (the region of France I'm currently living in). 

The square

Fountain with beautiful gold embellishments

National Opera of Lorraine

The zoo had a ton of peacocks. Turns out they make a really funny noise -- sounds exactly like the noise Kevin the bird makes in the movie Up! Also, we got to see them all display their feathers -- must be mating season. They would display their feathers and then rotate slowly. I'm looking into whether or not the feather display is also a form of claiming territory. They did not seem happy with each other that's for sure! We also found an albino peacock! It was beautiful!

 Peacock

 We found that peacocks do this thing when they display their feathers where they sort of rattle. I think it's a method to scare off predators. In this picture, the predator was an oh so scary pigeon...

 Albino peacock rattling at the pigeon

After the zoo we sat in the park and ate some ice cream before heading on a train back to Metz. It was delicious and sitting in the park was fantastic and relaxing!

Park in Nancy

After returning from Nancy we found a really cool African drum and dance concert in the Place de Republique in Metz. It was so cool to hear!

African drum/dance concert

Beautiful sunset in Metz :)

On Sunday, Mary Margaret and I went to a wine tasting in downtown Metz. It was 2 euros for a glass and you got to carry your glass around and sample different things. It was lots of fun and we talked to a bunch of the people that own or work in the vineyard.  It was lots of fun and a great cultural experience during our relaxing weekend!

Cathedral in Metz

Wine tasting!