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.

Silly Sammy Slick Sipped Six Sodas and got Sick, Sick, Sick

Going all the way back to Friday, I had to get up really early to walk all the way over to Fromont for my 9am French Writing class. It was sort of drizzly and wet when I stepped out the door, but I didn't have time to run back upstairs for my umbrella so I just figured I'd tough it out. The walk to Fromont, in case I haven't mentioned it, takes about a half hour. I got there just in time to run into Christina, who is Kate's friend, and find out where the class was being held. We went in and sat down. The teacher is Beatrix (She told us to call her that. She said she hates being called "Madame" and refuses to get married for that reason. ;P), who is the same teacher as my Actualités class. There were eight of us; two Americans, two Canadians, two Germans, an Australian and an Englishwoman. Only one guy in the group, but I get the feeling that's pretty common when it comes to studying languages (at least in North America). Beatrix is amazing. She moves like a stalking heron, is very friendly and approachable, and is the only French person I've met so far who actively and bitingly criticizes France and French culture, which makes for really engaging discussions. My French Oral class was scheduled right after Writing, with a half-hour break in between; but since pretty much everyone taking the oral class was in the writing class (we added one more girl to our number); we decided that in the future we'll just go straight from one to the next and have a short break or two when we need it. I don't know necessarily how much I learned in those four hours - Beatrix has a tendency to go on tangents really easily - but it was a lot of fun and we were speaking and learning French!

After class, I headed back home through the rain, which had only gotten a little bit stronger. It seemed to be coming and going in spurts. I went to Rue Bordeaux and got a kebab-frites panini (A panini with lamb and french fries. It's probably the best of the ones you can get at the Grignotine) to eat on the way, which was yummy. When I got back to the house, I was coughing a little, but I drank some juice and felt better. After a while the others woke up and went out for lunch, and I took a shower enjoyed not being outside.

That night, Jacqueline had invited a bunch of Géraldine Dhommée's friends to have a soirée and meet us all, since we're the last group to be in Le Nonante. We found out about an hour beforehand that we were supposed to be sort of dressed up, so we all scrambled to find outfits. The evening itself was pretty fun, if a little awkward at points. We met a bunch of older French people, and spoke a lot of French. There was sangria and amuse-bouches (little hors d'oeurves thingies) and we all introduced ourselves several times and said what we were studying and what our intended careers were. For dinner we had several different quiches, salad, cheese and bread, and this scalloped potatoes salad/seafood thing that was really good. I haven't been a fan of quiche since I had it in Paris when I was little and didn't like it, but these quiches have changed my mind! There was a seafood quiche with mussels and shrimp that won me over times a million, and I also tried one with vegetables. I also had Roquefort cheese for (what I thought was) the first time, and recognised the taste; apparently I must've had it before and didn't know. I ended up talking a lot with one of the women named Edvige (I have no idea if that's how it's spelled; it's not a name I'd ever heard before). She smoked, so a couple times I went out with her in the garden while we were talking. She explained to us how to properly taste and pour wine, and another time she told me about the basic principles of the Social Security system in France, and we had a discussion about how in the US people don't want to pay the government so that everyone can go to the doctor and get help when they need it (/my socialist rant). Overall, I had a lot of fun, although throughout the night I could feel a building sinus headache, which I'm sure wasn't helped by the dehydrating effects of the wine. I also asked Edvige and her husband if they knew where I would be able to find the champagne Veuve Clicquot, which Aunt Roxy introduced me to in Seattle and is really amazing. She told me about a liquor store on Rue Nationale that should have it, but they also told me that if I'm looking for good champagnes, Bollinger is supposed to be very good. There were some others they mentioned, but I don't remember them because they were listing them off too quickly. (Aunt Rox, I hope you're paying attention, because I asked for you! :P)

The entire evening lasted about 5 1/2 hours, and we were all ready to drop by the time everyone finally left. We basically came upstairs and fell into bed. This morning, I woke up and felt awful. I had no voice, the sinus pressure had moved down into my throat, and every time I coughed or sneezed my head reeled. I've spent most of today sitting in bed, drinking liquids and taking the occasional headache reliever/fever reducer. For brunch we had the leftover quiche (I tried one with bacon and had another piece of the fantastic seafood one), which was good, although I tried not to touch too much stuff or move too quickly. Dinner was some kind of shredded vegetable in the same slightly acidic sauce she usually uses for cucumbers, then little meatballs and ratatouille, and dessert was a big cake cut in half along the middle with Chantilly crème filling the center. It was all really good, and worth leaving my bed for. I made myself some fruity tea and put in lemon juice to help my throat, which felt really good. I'm sad that I had to get sick right now, though; everyone's going out tonight with the French boys again. Sierra said Ted came back to Tours this weekend to see me, which makes me feel horrible that I can't go. Oh, well; there will be other nights! For tonight, I'm going to take the medicine Jacqueline gave me and sleep!

(Oh, and bonus points to anyone who can guess the origin of my title without looking it up on Google. :D)

Finally Accomplishing My Reason For Being Here

This week has been interesting; it's the first week since I got here that I have an actual (mostly) stable, normal class schedule. Monday morning I slept in, since I didn't have class until late evening. I went out with the others to buy sandwiches for a late lunch, and then we found a little art supply store where we found folders and paper for classes. The artistes (Valeria and Mamie) needed sketchbooks and pencils for their drawing class, so they found those and everyone went back. I, however, had class to go to.

My new Ancient Greek class goes from 5-7pm, so I made my way up to Rue des Tanneurs and found the classroom. I made sure to ask the professor what class it was, to verify that it was definitely for beginning beginners and not halfway through. I had missed the first class period, but it turned out that several other people had too, so at least I wasn't alone. He briefly went over what he'd talked about last time and gave us the book list, the Greek alphabet, and a couple of worksheets. I quickly discovered that he is extremely fond of photocopies; I left the class with 8 or 10 pages of worksheets and other random things. After getting briefly lost in the Tanneurs building (they apparently close stuff down by 7pm, and it was hard to figure out where to go) I headed back to Le Nonante. Since it was the first time I'd had to walk around the city at night by myself, I was a little paranoid. I ended up taking the longer way around down the larger streets, rather than going through the little tiny old ones.

When I got home, everyone was just finishing with dinner. Jacqueline had saved some for me, though, and I was ravenous. I had to hurry, since we had planned on going to the Café des Langues again. We went with Luzé and her friend Sarah again and managed to get there before it was crowded with people. The group basically got split in two, and our end became the "English" table. I talked to some nice Swedish and Danish girls, who were in Tours doing mission work, and some creepy French guys who seemed to be there to try and pick up Americans; one of them kept trying to say that he knew Sierra, when obviously he didn't. After a while we left and came back to the house.

On Tuesdays I don't have any classes at all, but everyone else does. So I slept in, relaxed, and did my Translation homework for Wednesday. It was really nice to have a chill, solo time. I did go out briefly for some shopping and to get a brioche, though. Yay, brioche! That evening, Mamie and Aaron found out from some German girls that there was an event planned for exchange students, so they went to check it out. Apparently we were all supposed to go; they had our named on lists along with our French buddies, and they had sign-up sheets for the various school events throughout the semester. We hadn't heard anything about it, which was a little frustrating, but we didn't really know if there was a reason why we were left out.

Wednesdays, in contrast, are my intense days. I had a meeting at 9am over at the Fromont building to sign up for my CUEFEE classes, so I hurried through breakfast and made the half-hour walk in record time. Kate and I both needed to sign up, so it was cool to see her. We finished early enough that I came back to the house before Translation and walked to class with the boys. It was a fun enough class; we mostly finished the article we were translating from French to English and have one going the opposite direction for next week. Pelletier talked to us after class about not going to the event Tuesday night; we explained that we hadn't heard about it and got that taken care of. Now we should hear about things when they happen!

Then Grant and I walked down Rue Nationale on our way to Fromont, for my first CUEFEE class, and got delicious "complete ham sandwiches" on our way (the complete part is the mayo, and tomatoes, and lettuce, and stuff). It turns out that the little sandwich stall is La Grignotine, the same business as on Rue Bordeaux. I like them a lot. The CUEFEE class was called "Actualités," which means Current Events. It seemed like it'd be a pretty easy class, although it'll require more work. Kate and her friend Christina are in the class, as well as a Swedish girl that Grant knows from choir, so we even have people to talk to! We had a brief discussion about the metric system and conversions, as well as how cold it gets at Concordia. Don't we Cobbers love our school; we complain about the location constantly! ;-P

After class, Grant had to hurry home to check his email (RA stuff, apparently. He had ants in his pants all class about it.) so I waited the half hour for my second CUEFEE class: French Sciences. I ran into Sierra, who had a different class at that time. The Sciences class turned out to have less than 10 students, and most of them were older. There was a British girl named Natasha there who's also in my Translation class, so we talked a bit. The topic of the period was global warming; apparently the first unit will focus on the environment. I kind of felt like I was back in 9th grade, it was so easy, but whatever. I'm really only taking it because it fits my schedule. We're also doing some work on constructing a scientifically well-composed written argument, so that should help me improve my writing skills. When I got back to the house after dinner everything was weirdly quiet; most everyone had either class or choir, so they were all gone. I was starving after all my day's walking, so dinnertime seemed to be forever away. In the future, I think I might have to buy snacks at the store and come up with things to do on Wednesday nights.

Today I was pretty tired, since I'd stayed up really late. That was okay, though, since I didn't have class until 2pm. I dragged myself out to Tanneurs for Italian, which we thought would be the actual class we would take. It turns out, however, that the session we wanted is also really full and there wasn't space. Grant and I stayed anyway, figuring that the extra exposure to the language would be good, especially if we're going to have to transfer to a different group. Now we have to email one professor to see if she has space, and if not there's one last group we can hope for. Still, that'll be next week's concern, and at least the different groups are at the same time so our schedule won't change, just the classroom. He and I went and took care of some other administrative stuff we still needed to do, and bought sandwiches on our way back to the house (ham pizza panini om nom nom!).

Dinner tonight was chicken and some cooked vegetables that were really delicious. It was a little awkward, though; Xavier decided that the topic for the dinner conversation would be gender equality, in his continuing efforts to get people to speak up in French. No-one wanted to say anything, though. Valeria and Luzé and I spoke some, but a lot of people didn't say anything. I'm not sure if it was the topic or Xavier's intimidating insistence that kept them quiet. After dinner and dishes we came back upstairs. Everyone else went out, since they don't have classes on Friday and their weekend is already started. Since I tested into a higher level on the CUEFEE test, though, my written and oral classes are bright and early at 9am over at Fromont. I'm not looking forward to it.

Bonne nuit, tout le monde. Dormez-vous bien!

New Places, New People

Thursday night was cool; we did end up going out and met up with Kate, who's another American girl from the CUEFEE, and with Romain and Alban and their friends. The other girls left first; Sierra and Mamie have now gone out with their two boys a few times, so they were planning on finding them. Aaron and Joel and I met up with them at our favourite bar: Le Puits Sait Tous (The Well Knows All). We didn't stay very long, though, before coming home.

Friday we pretty much just hung around the house, since none of us had anything planned. By the evening we had decided that we should go somewhere this weekend, so we made plans to go to the Château d'Amboise, which is just a brief train ride away.

We woke up early and managed to get out of the house by 10:25, on our way to the train station. In addition to buying my ticket, I went ahead and bought a "Carte 12-25," which is basically a train card you can get if you're between 12 and 25 years old. If you have one, you get huge discounts on most train tickets. With the card, I only paid 4 Euro for the tickets to Amboise, which would otherwise cost 7 Euro. On larger trips, like to Paris, you can save almost half the cost of a ticket.

After about 20 minutes on the train, we got to Amboise. It's a larger town, so we had to work our way through it to find the castle. We had planned to find somewhere to eat, since the castle is closed over lunch. When we crossed the bridge we found a little pizzeria called "Le Salamandre" (which is the emblem of the King François I). We all split little pizzas; mine had artichokes and green peppers and little sausages and was really good. Then for dessert I had strawberry ice cream. We kind of had a hard time figuring out how to pay, since we couldn't get the attention of the waitress, but we finally just put the money on the table and left.

When we crossed the other side of the bridge, we realised that we didn't really know how to get to the castle. It's basically just stuck in the middle of the city, with houses literally crowded up and around it. Fortunately it's France, so there were handy-dandy signs pointing out "Château" and we just followed those. We were walking along through the beautiful little streets and came to an open space where there were lots of little tourist-trap shops selling souvenir stuff. Then we looked to our left, and lo and behold, a château! There was a big long ramp leading up to a gate, but it looked closed, so we walked around the walls trying to find the entrance. We also found a bathroom, which was good for Mamie and I who hadn't gone at the restaurant. It was kind of sketch, though, and several of the stalls didn't have any toilet paper. Finally, we came across a sign that said "Entrance" and was pointing back the way we had come. We, obviously, felt brilliant.

We went back and went up the steps to the gate, but it was still closed. The sign said we had 20 minutes before they opened again, so we hung out and waited. Valeria had brought a huge blue umbrella in case it rained the way it did at Chenonceau, but it was just grey, not raining. So we took a bunch of pictures throughout the day with the umbrella, in order to not have wasted the effort. Eventually, they came back and opened the gate, so we could go in and buy our tickets.

The first thing we did was walk over to the wall overlooking the city and take lots of pictures. We went over to the little chapel, which is where Leonardo di Vinci is buried, and took more pictures there. It was really pretty, both inside and outside, and I became enamoured with the gargoyles. Then we went over to a little lookout point and ran into a couple of girls (we thought they were Italian) who took some group pictures for us. Finally we went over to the actual castle part, which is actually the royal apartments. It was really beautiful, and had a lot of cool stuff inside. I once again was a complete heraldry geek, so the room where *everything* was covered with fleur-de-lis and ermines made me very happy. We also got to go up the tower and see the entire city from on high. Then we went out and walked through the beautiful gardens and took even more pictures. We ran into the "Italian" girls again, and they took a couple more pictures of our group. It turns out that they're from Argentina; we talked to them a little bit. Then we finished wandering through the rest of the castle (I found more gargoyles) and the gift shop, where everything was super expensive.

After we left, we still had a couple hours before our train would leave. We wandered around looking for a little coffee shop or boulangerie where we could hang out for a bit, and ended up going into a bar. Unfortunately they weren't serving food anymore, since it was the afternoon, so we just got Cokes and Oranginas and stayed there for a while. Mamie told us a scary story about a girl who went missing in Mexico and then later her friends saw her sitting in the back of a car and called the police. It turns out she'd been killed and they were trying to use her body to transport drugs across the border. We were all really freaked out, and we've resolved never to let anyone go missing ever (not that we would have anyway, but still). Finally we headed back to the train station and waited a bit longer for our train, and came back to Tours.

That night we had some kind of beef wrapped in something else for dinner, with little potatoes and rice. I don't really know what it was, but it was delicious. Xavier's friend Daniel came to dinner again, and they talked politics for a while. None of us knew what they were talking about, which was a little awkward. After dinner, we girls decided to go out again. Romain and Alban were bringing some friends, so there would be more people to talk to and Valeria and I wouldn't be left out. Sierra did my eyeshadow and Valeria did my hair, so it looked completely different and really cute. We went to a couple bars but they were really crowded, and finally we found a spot in the back of one, called L'épée royale (The Royal Sword). We hung out for a bit, waiting for the boys, and finally when the bar closed we waited in Place Plumereau. Finally they showed up, and I met Aurélien and Théodore (who goes by Ted). We went to a bar where there's a dancing floor in the back and had a really good time. We didn't come back until 5:30am, and were unfortunately really loud outside before we came back in. Jacqueline poked her head out to tell us to come inside, and we were ridiculously embarrassed. We thought about not going to brunch, since we were so worried about what she'd say.

This morning I slept like a rock; Valeria woke me up when she came in to ask if I was coming to brunch, so I had to hurry and put on clothes and brush my hair. We had some kind of baked egg thing, which was kind of strangely spiced but good. Sierra, Aaron, and Grant went to Chenonceau since they'd missed it, and the rest of us just basically lounged around and talked to Luzé for a while. I'm super hungry, so now we're just waiting for dinner. I hope it's soon!

Classes and Frustrations

So yesterday, like I said, we had our meeting for registration. The meeting was at 11, but Fréderic (who works with Caroline, and was supposed to talk to us on the first day, but he was ill) had sent an email saying that they had found the little books of offered courses that we needed to look at to choose what we were going to take. So we went to that office to look at the little books again, which wasn't really all that helpful. I think I'm the only one who found one of the classes I wanted, and only after Caroline showed me. Then we had to find the office where we were having the meeting, with another woman named Carine Berberi. We ended up in the wrong place, but fortunately the people in that office called her and we got set up in her office. She tried to go through and figure out what each person was taking, but there were a lot of problems.

First off, there are apparently two institutions where we can take classes. There's the actual Université de François Rabelais, which is where we'd take regular college classes on any subject, but taught in French with actual French students. And then there's also the CUEFEE, which stands for the Centre Universitaire d'Enseignement du Français aux Etudiants Etrangers (the University Center for the Teaching of French to Foreign Students) and that is where we would take classes in learning French itself, depending on our level. They pronounce it Kwehf, and it's apparently what Dr. Rawson told us was the Franco-American Institute. We can take classes at either, but there are certain qualifiers involved in studying at the CUEFEE, like the 40 Euro fee that no-one told us about. Also the CUEFEE doesn't start until after we take the placement test next week, so we can't even think about what classes we'd theoretically take.

Carine works for the Université, so she was only giving us information about those specific classes. But, at this point those aren't even all figured out. Valeria and Mamie were told they could take specific art classes, but we found out that those are apparently not usually offered to exchange students and no-one has yet figured out where, when, or if that's going to be possible. Grant got a bunch of classes, but doesn't really know if he's going to take them, and Joel is apparently taking some of the same classes, but I have no idea. Aaron and Sierra seem fine, which is lucky for them. They had emailed their department people and apparently done this already. I managed to get three classes at the Université: beginning Greek, beginning Italian, and a French-English translation course. Hopefully I'll also take two classes at the CUEFEE (if you take any classes there at all, they require two obligatory ones, so that's the plan). I have absolutely no idea whether I'll be able to transfer all five of those home, due to credit hour issues, but we'll see.

After we talked to Carine, everyone was ridiculously frustrated, to the point where we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We had to go back to talk to Frédéric about the CUEFEE stuff (like when the test was, and where the test was, and when the classes start) because apparently he's in charge of that. Who knew? But they were on lunch break or something, because we couldn't get in the office. So we decided to go and get our own lunch, and calm down a bit.

The other girls had found a nice little restaurant where you could get a big sandwich, a plateful of fries, and a drink for 4.5 Euro. We went there, and they ended up having to seat us in the back, which was a kind of little gaming room. It was a lot nicer after the people playing pool and fuzzball left; before that I was getting really annoyed at the girl who kept hitting the back of my chair. The food was really good, though, and it was worth the bit of a walk. Rejuvenated and calmed, we went to talk to Frédéric and got the information we needed. (Unfortunately, the test is at the same time as my first Italian class, which is something I'm going to have to figure out.)

Then we went back to the house and hung out for the evening. Dinner was sort of strange; cucumbers in a slightly acidic creamy sauce and what was apparently shepherd's pie. It seemed more like a cream sauce with bits of ham and what might have been potatoes, I wasn't really sure. After dinner, we had decided we needed to get out of the house and have fun, or the stupid Université would drive us crazy. So we all got ready and went to a bar in the Place Plumereau. It was one of the same places we'd gone the other night, since we'd really liked it. While we were there, we met some cute French guys named Roman, Alban, and Thomas. We wanted to go dancing with them, since they knew where there were some discothèques in the area. The boys decided to stay, instead, so the four of us girls went.

Unfortunately the club was really ridiculously crowded, and kind of expensive. It was 10 Euro just to get in, and wall-to-wall packed. They played a lot of techno, which I didn't really mind, but it could've been more fun. Thomas didn't dance at all, and Sierra and Mamie ended up dancing with the other two. Valeria and I quickly got tired of dancing by ourselves and weren't really enjoying the club, so we walked home. We stayed up just to make sure that everyone got home alright, and then went to bed.

This morning, we slept in really late. A couple hours ago Valeria and Mamie and I got up and went to Rue Bordeaux for paninis and something to drink. We've been trying to get in touch with Dr. Rawson about our problems with classes and stuff, so hopefully that'll happen today.

OMG New Phone!!

So yesterday morning we were supposed to get up early, since we had errands to accomplish and wanted to still be back by 2pm when Sierra's suitcase was supposed to be delivered. It was lost by her airline, so she's had to deal with being here without any clothes or most of the things she packed. We all woke up early to shower, but then her suitcase arrived anyway, so we didn't have to worry! We took our time eating breakfast, and headed out!

First we went down the Boulevard Heurteloup, which is one of the main arteries in Tours, and visited La Poste (the post office). We all had some immigration paperwork to mail in to the government, and then Valeria and I had post cards to mail as well. It was a lot cheaper than we thought, though; we were worried that it'd be a whole Euro to mail each post card and it was only about half that. Then we walked up the Rue Nationale to the Orange phone store.

Apparently Orange is the best company to go with in France, at least if you only want to do a pay-as-you-go temporary thing. The poor guy must've felt a little overwhelmed when 6 of us descended upon him, all wanting new phones. We explained what we wanted and got phones for fairly cheap; they were only 29 Euro. I was pretty ridiculously excited to get the phone; I finally will be able to tell the time when I'm out and about! We went home and spent a while exchanging our numbers and playing with the new toys, trying to figure them out. The one thing that is strange about doing pay-as-you-go in France is that they never give you your remaining phone time in minutes; they give it in Euros. I imagine that's because you can use that credit for surfing the web and sending texts as well as actual phone conversations, but it makes it really hard to know how much you have left.

After we spent a while playing, we got ready to go back outside to get lunch, shop and hang out. We ended up at Rue Bordeaux again; it's kind of becoming our default place to go. We got delicious panini sandwiches for lunch. Mine was tomato and mozzarella, and it was really good and hot! We then wandered around a bit. We went in Sephora, which is a perfume and make-up store that I'm pretty sure we have in the US. Sierra wanted to look at perfume, but she didn't end up finding anything she liked. The rest of us wandered around and tried all the testers. Then we went down the street farther, and into a little store called Dress Code's. They had clothes and shoes, and I found an adorable pair of boots that were on sale for 9 Euro! I was really excited; the only shoes I brought with me are ballet flats and my high-heel boots, which are cold and heels respectively. Now I have warmer feet! I also went to a tabac (which is a place where they sell drinks and cigarettes and lotto tickets and other little things- they're everywhere in France) and bought some more minutes for my phone.

After a brief stop at a little grocery store to get snacks to have back in our rooms, we went home again. I tried to figure out how to reload my phone, and I think I did it right. We hung out and tried to find classes on the Université website, which has proved to be almost impossible. Apparently you pretty much have to just email the head of the department and they can send you the classes you're interested in. Dinner last night was a little strange; first lentils in some kind of slightly acidic sauce with a bit of lettuce, and then endives wrapped in ham with hard-boiled eggs. It was okay, but strange; I couldn't identify a lot of it myself. For dessert we had chocolate pudding, which was good.

After dinner Luzé had said she would take us to a café in town where they have a sort of cultural exchange evening thing. Basically a lot of students (especially exchange students) will come, and people will speak lots of different languages at different tables. You're supposed to just go and join in a conversation somewhere, so you can meet new people and talk. It apparently fills up really quickly, though; we left the house at about 9pm and it was way too packed when we got there. We ended up having to sit downstairs since there wasn't any room, and so we mostly just talked to each other. It was fun though; I got the first actual Diabolo grenadine I've had since July 2006, and it made me ridiculously happy. (A Diabolo's basically a combination of limonade and grenadine syrup, kind of like a Shirley Temple. My host mother in the south introduced me to them, and they're fantastic.)

Luzé introduced us to her friend Sarah, who is on an exchange from a little school in New York. She'd been here since September, which was cool. We also met another friend of Luzé's named Charlotte, who is from Belgium. She had only been here for about a week, like we have. I think she kind of struggled with the fact that we were speaking English, but she seemed pretty nice. It was really fun to meet new people and just hang out for an evening. When we walked back I was really tired, and ended up falling asleep.

This morning Valeria, Mamie, and Sierra went out because they wanted to go shopping and find somewhere to get identification photos taken. In France you apparently need passport photos for practically every single piece of official paperwork you do. I brought a few extras with me (I have seven; that should last me at least the first couple weeks of school!) so I decided to sleep in instead of joining them. I didn't wake up until 10; it's one of the few times so far I've been able to actually sleep for more than 6 hours at a time. I took a shower and ate breakfast downstairs, and now I'm waiting until 2ish, when we're going to the Université again to figure out our classes finally. Wish me luck!

Finally Warming Up

I feel bad complaining about how cold it is, since it's really only, like, 20 degrees. But after walking around outside for 2 hours, my feet were so cold it was painful!

Anyway, recaps. Yesterday we didn't really do much of anything. We were waiting for Sierra and Aaron to show up, and they were supposed to get here around noonish. So we thought that once they came, we could go out and look for cell phones and see the town and stuff. After waiting most of the day, though, we got bored and went for a short walk. Then we came back... and waited even longer. By evening we thought to look up their flights, and it said they wouldn't be arriving until today. So it was quite a surprise when suddenly they were here that evening! Like our original trio, they showed up just in time for dinner and then we hung around a little and went to bed.

This morning, we had to get up early because we had a meeting. The people from the Université wanted us to come by to get paperwork in order, so we had breakfast and left around 10ish. I knew where we were going, after Jacqueline's mini-tour yesterday, so I led the way. When we got there (after having to ask for directions at one point) they took us to a little meeting room and we had to fill out some paperwork. We have another meeting next Tuesday at 3pm, and by then we need to have mostly decided what classes we want to take. We've received all kinds of different reports about when classes actually start; right now our understanding is that regular classes start the 18th of January and the classes for French learners start the 25th. Since we'll be taking both kinds of classes, we need to know both dates.

Caroline was the woman who was helping us, and after everything was filled out she took us on another tour of Tours. We saw mostly just the same stuff as on Jacqueline's tour, but Caroline pointed out some stuff that she knew about that's specifically helpful for students. She left us in front of the Cathedral, and then we went back to the Prefecture to take care of our immigration paperwork. The office didn't open until 1, though, leaving us 20 minutes to stand outside the closed gate. We got sandwiches at a nearby patisserie (where they apparently sell the largest pastries in Tours) while we waited, and then talked to the lady for two seconds. She basically just said we had to mail the papers in to the office.

By the time we got home, my feet were so cold they'd gone past being numb and had started hurting. So I got into bed and have been sitting here for a while warming up. Now I'm not sure what (if anything) is planned for the rest of the day; there's been talk of watching a movie tonight, and we might go out tomorrow night now that everyone's here.

I miss you all (Hello, homesickness. I wondered where you were.) and I hope things are going well back home. <3

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Last night after we went shopping we pretty much just hung out in our room. Valeria, Joel, and I napped, and then in the evening we went downstairs and hung out and talked to people in the salon. There's another girl here named Flabiola, who's from Peru, and right before dinner Lucé returned from Belgium. Lucé is Canadian, but born in Mexico, and she'd already been staying here. Mathias did his puzzle that Valeria had brought, and we watched some of Charmed, which was really strange because it was dubbed into French.

Then we had dinner, which was interesting with everyone at the table. I'm not really sure how we're going to fit twelve people in that dining room, but I'm sure we'll manage. Xavier had made a chocolate cake for dessert, which was fantastic. Everyone was talking about the fact that it was supposed to snow last night, and they were all freaking out. It reminded me of Seattle, where the possibility of snow was the top headline on the news. We helped clean up, and went back upstairs. Mamie and Grant were supposed to come in last night, but their plane was delayed, so we didn't know when they would be here. I finally got to take a shower (yay, buying shampoo!), and even caught Gramma on the phone and talked to her briefly. Around midnight, Joel came to our room and we just kind of talked about internet fads and things.

I had a really hard time going to sleep, for some reason. I think it was because I'd napped longer than I intended. I finally got to sleep around 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, but I woke up completely at 4:30, and then woke up a couple other times through the night. This morning I woke up around 9:00, but Valeria and I were both really tired. We were getting dressed and thinking about going downstairs, when the doorbell rang! Valeria and I both looked at each other in confusion for a second, and then she burst out with "Grant and Mamie!" and ran downstairs. I followed after, and sure enough it was them, arrived bright and early in the morning. With them had also come the snow; there was thin blanket of white over everything; maybe an inch, probably not even that much.

Poor Jacqueline and Mathias must have thought we were crazy; they came after us a bit later, still dressed in their pajamas. That was good, though, because neither of us knew where the new arrivals were supposed to go. Turns out Grant and Aaron are sleeping on the third floor as well, and Mamie is on the second. All of the bedrooms have specific names, which is adorable. Valeria and I are in Les Marguerites, Grant and Aaron are in Les Pigeonniers, and Mamie and Sierra are in La petite Marie. Joel's by himself, so his room doesn't have a name that I know of. Flabiola is also on the third floor, on the other side of the water closet. I have no idea where Lucé's room is.

After Grant and Mamie had gotten settled a little bit, and we had talked and shared stories, we all went downstairs for breakfast. Mathias didn't have school today (apparently French kids don't on Wednesdays) and Jacqueline was home from work, so she told us that she could take us on a little tour of Tours. We finished, cleared the table, got ready, and headed out into winter!

She took us a different way than we had gone yesterday, through the little streets and older parts of Tours. We went by the Musée des Beaux Arts, and the Cathédral de Tours, and then went through what is apparently the antiques district to get to the Théâtre Municipale, or the City Theatre. After that we headed more towards the Rue Nationale, which is full of stores and boutiques, and that led us straight to the Loire river. That whole part of the city was bombarded during WWII, so it's all been rebuilt and is fairly modern. Tours is apparently a city in three parts, divided by the Cher river and the Loire. Le Nonante and everything we've seen so far is in Tours-Centre, the middle part of the city. We took some pictures, and Jacqueline took a picture of the four of us, where I look pretty much translucent.

After the river, we turned and went through another older district, built in the 13th century (or something like that; I didn't quite catch what Jacqueline told me). It was amazing; I think I could spend entire days just taking pictures of the architecture in this city. We found a Monoprix, which is a supermarché where I was able to buy some slippers to wear inside the house. The staircase is old and kind of slippery; Joel fell down most of the bottom flight yesterday, so we've all been treading with trepidation since then. Hopefully with the slippers it won't be so treacherous.

We walked back to the house, and Jacqueline was helping me orient myself. I think I pretty much understand Tours-Centre, at least, and with a map I shouldn't have any problems at all. I might restrict more ranging to when it's not so wet out, though; my socks and the bottoms of my pants are soaked, and my feet were half-frozen by the time we got back to the house.

Since then, we've been hanging out still. We can hear Mathias playing in the house; he is so ridiculously adorable. Mamie gave him a little hamster toy that scoots around, and we can hear him playing with it. I really kind of want a nap, but I know it'll just make me tired again tomorrow. Such a conundrum. :P