Daily Grind?

The past few days have gone by fairly quickly, mostly in a haze of classes and gradually getting well again. On Sunday morning, after I had taken the magic medicine Jacqueline gave me, my fever was gone and I just had a sore throat and cough to worry about. That day, I mostly just stayed in bed and willed the sick away.

Monday I was pretty productive. I don't have class until late, but before then I went to the train station and got tickets for my trip to London during break. I'm really excited! I get to stay with a friend of Aunt Roxy's who lives there now, and Grant's coming for part of the time. Grant and Valeria had come with me, and after we went to the station we got sandwiches and sat on a bench to eat them. We had time to kill, so we went into a Hallmark that we saw, kind of out of curiosity. We quickly discovered, thanks to the rack of sexual gag gift stuff right next to the door, that Hallmark in France is very different than in the US. It was pretty funny, actually. After spending a while in there, I realised I had to get to class, so I walked up Rue National to the Tanneurs building for Greek. While waiting for the classroom to open up, I started talking to a nice guy named Giovanni, who's from a tiny French-owned island near Madagascar (I never really caught the name). That class was actually pretty brutal; they move along really quickly in French classes, and you have to keep up or be lost. We were starting Greek declensions, which are really complicated and difficult, and I'm going to have to review a bunch before next week. Giovanni and I exchanged phone numbers after class, so I'm looking forward to having a friend in that class.

Tuesday is, again, my off day. So I slept, did some of the little homework I had, and didn't do much. I'm really starting to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere here.

Yesterday was Wednesday, when I make up for Tuesday. I had to get up early to go to my translation class. At one point, it was looking like everyone here except for Sierra was going to have to take that class, but the other two girls decided to wait and see, so they didn't come. Also, Grant was feeling sick, so Aaron and Joel and I were the only ones going. We finished the English-French article we were translating and started one for French-English, and the professor was really depending on the British and American students to help her. I'm a little worried, if we keep having class at this slow pace. After class, I bought a sandwich on Rue National, on my way to Actualités. We didn't do much in that class, either; we mostly just debated about the roles of women and men and something to do with soccer teams in Africa, and then read an article about CD copyright issues. My French Sciences class added a couple people- one of them from Colorado, which is cool. We talked a little bit about how to write a summary of a scientific article (the French have really strict rules about how to write specific things, so there's formatting and word choice and different stuff like that to learn). Then we learned some vocab in preparation for watching a video called "From Conception to Birth". It was basically the same video everyone watches in 7th grade sex ed classes, complete with the moment where they show the actual birth itself and everyone looks away in horror. I really didn't think it was necessary for my French education to have that experience in French, but oh, well. On the way back home after class, I went into the Simply (which is a grocery store by Rue Bordeaux) and got some snacks for my room, since I assumed that we would once again wait for everyone to get back from classes and choir before eating dinner. That turned out to be incorrect; those few of us who were here at 7:30 ate then, and the rest just ate when they got home. It was a delicious dinner, though; breaded calamari with roasted potatoes and some mayonnaise sauce with lemon in it. I was very pleased.

Last night I also started planning out my London trip, with all the stuff I want to go and see and do. I got as far as making a list, booking a tour of Stonehenge, and figuring out all the information on the Globe before I got bored, and went to bed. This morning I got up late and went down for breakfast. I don't have class until 2, but since it's my Italian class and still pretty up in the air, we'll see what happens.