Seattle comes from a big family. With 21 sister cities spread across 5 continents, it can be tricky to keep track of all of them. One of those cities is Nantes, France.

The Seattle-Nantes Sister City Association met May 14 on campus in Thomson Hall. Though the meeting included a presentation (in French) on the happenings of the association, the event was an opportunity for students going to Nantes this autumn quarter to mingle with students who had already completed the program.

The students also had the chance to learn a bit about the city. One important tip covered was the location of the largest nightclub on France’s west coast, which is also the sixth largest nightclub in all of Europe.

The Seattle-Nantes Sister City Association works hard to cultivate the cities’ relationship. The association offers two scholarships for students studying French, and it is working to arrange “jumelages,” or pairings, between high schools in Seattle and Nantes.

The group is also sponsoring a film at the Seattle International Film Festival this month and next. It will also help plan a celebration of Bastille Day at Seattle Center in July.

Nantes may not be the largest of Seattle’s sisters, but the connection may be one of the most active, due in part to the yearly study abroad program through the UW.

Study abroad programs have had a rough year at the UW. Inquiries into the summer program in Ghana and UW student Amanda Knox’s imprisononment in Perugia, Italy, (another sister city of Seattle) have brought negative press to the UW. Now, an earthquake has rocked UW programs in China.

The Nantes study abroad program hasn’t yet had a crises, though.

“Blissfully, we haven’t had any catastrophic situations,” said Hélène V. Collins, the director of the UW’s French and Italian studies program and the Nantes program.

In the seven years Collins has directed the program, she said she can remember one purse snatching and one medical operation.

“The Amanda Knox situation is not typical,” Collins said. Seattle and the UW have wonderful reputations in Nantes, and a significant part of the success of both the study abroad program and the bond between the two cities comes from the quality of the students who go abroad, she said.

One of those students is Amanda Buck, a third-year anthropology major. She studied abroad in autumn of 2007 with Brittany Rogers, a junior in the French department.

Though much of Wednesday’s presentation was devoted to the resemblances between Seattle and Nantes, Buck said the main similarity is the weather.

“People are more reserved there, but I had a really good experience,” she said.

Rogers said she, too, had a fantastic time studying abroad, but living in Nantes made her really appreciate Seattle.

“The UW is way, way prettier,” she said.