Week Two

C'est la deuxième semaine et c'est plus facile..

This week is much easier than last because not only do I have some more friends, I can understand my teachers better.

My atelier class, my second class, joined with another class so now the class is twelve people as opposed to five. I was really disappointed that we got so many new people because we had a debate and all the new people were much more fluent than we were. However, there are two swiss boys in our class that do no pay attention at all and sit on their phones the whole time. This irritates me because you should be here to want to learn but their school was paying for the program for them because it is necessary they learn French.

Monday it was one of our group member's, Stephanie, birthday. We were going to go to the wine tasting in town so we headed that way just to find out it wasn't wine tasting and it wasn't free. It was just a place to hang out and talk with other CAVILAM students while drinking wine. We headed towards the train station to get a birthday beer for her and then ran into Madame Bauge. After that, we all went down to the Tahiti Bar, right across the street from my apartment, because Madame Bauge wanted to buy her a drink. She ended up buying everybody's drinks which was extremely generous of her. We soon went home because we all had dinner to go to but my host mom was out late that night so I worked on homework until she got home.

So far all the meals have been really good. Nothing too extravagant like the other students, but still good. She has been cooking a lot of Italien food lately for me.

Tuesday I had a lot of homework so after our NAU meeting after school, I went home and did homework and hung out with my family. We ended up playing a game that is like scattegories but in French. Somebody has to say the alphabet in their head, another person tells them to stop, and a letter is chosen. Then there are categories where you must find something that fits with the first letter being the same as the chosen letter. It was hard for me, but good to get my mind thinking. I obviously lost the game.

Wednesday was a half-day excursion to Puy-de-Dome. It is a dormant dome volcano from the volcano chain in Clermont Ferrand. It was quite a hike, and Robert and I were the only ones that made it to the top from our group. Allie and Jessalyn did not. The view from the top was beautiful and everything was so green. We even saw a bunch of paragliders with their backpacks setting up to take off from the mountain. We sat down by them for a while to take pictures and watch them take off. It was way awesome.

Thursday, today, I went to the dégustation, or the food tasting outing. It was right down the street from school at a place called "Club du Monde." If our teacher was not there, we would not have found it because it was downstairs in a weird-looking place.  We tried all kinds of saucissons/sausage, fromages/cheese, and tapenades. It was yummy! However, after trying wine twice here, I'm 100% positive that I will never like it. If I don't like French wine, I'm doomed. 

Sunday June 9th

Today was interesting. Robert and Siobhan and I met at the park to do homework and of course I didn't get any homework. We started wandering around town because we had to buy a few things and then I had to pee so bad it was miserable. I used a "water closet" yesterday and I thought I knew where it was but we could not find it anywhere. Eventually we just went to Monoprix, a store kind of like Target because they have clothes and school supplies and home stuff and a grocery store upstairs. However, they did not have any bathrooms either. I was so miserable and I had to pee so bad and of course it started raining right when we started our search. Somebody told us the only bathrooms were at the mall, way down the street. We walked all the way down there and finally found a bathroom and when we left, it was sunny and hot out. It was rather ridiculous. To reward myself, I bought a couple shirts that were on sale at the mall and we all got ice cream at a little stand. We then went to Monoprix so Siobhan could buy some groceries. As we were leaving, we heard a band so we crossed the street to go watch. It was a symphonie group playing in the park.

Last night I went to another symphonie that my sister had a small part in. It was really good and I had a lot of fun because they played some American songs.

Lesson learned: do not drink anything before wandering around Vichy because nobody has public bathrooms and the only water closet we found was closed off with red tape.

La Première Vendredi

La semaine est finie finalement! Les premières deux jours étaient très difficiles pour moi parce que mes parents et mon petit ami me manquent beaucoup. J'ai mangé le dîner avec ma mère et sœur d'accueil chaque nuit et mercredi je suis allées au chateau de Ravel, le chateau où les Choristes étaient filmé...

The week is finally done! The first two days were really difficult because I missed everyone so much but it is definitely better now. This week I ate dinner with my host family each night, even though one day we just had McDonalds because we were out at her friends house.

Wednesday I went to Chateau de Ravel where my favorite French film ever, Les Choristes, was filmed. We got to see where they played, where their classroom was, etc etc. It was really really awesome! The countryside was so pretty, too. Thursday after school I went home and decided to skip the Dégustation, or the food tasting, to go to my sister's jazz dance show. I took lots of pictures and a video for her.

Today after school Allie and I went to the parc and walked around for a few hours and went to "Vichy Beach" which is about a 30 foot long beach on the river bank. We ended up walking back to town to go to a patisserie to buy macarons and tarts. We don't eat dinner until about 9 o'clock and we eat lunch around noon so I'm always hungry and waiting to eat. Tonight, the group wanted to go to the discotecque but I think we are going to go to a little riverside bar instead, right in the park by my apartment.

I am in the B1+ level which is basically like 300 level classes at NAU and my first class is going much better now. My second class which was a culture class, or "civilisation" was a little too hard so I switched to an oral class so I can get more comfortable with talking. So far we have been talking about animals and pets to at least get us talking. I have had homework every night so far and on Monday I have to present about my favorite book.

I'm talking more with my host mom but I still don't have too much to say. I'm just not that comfortable speaking it.

The only problem I have had today was with a girl from Botswana. She is so nice and is in two of my classes but she does not understand much that either teacher says so she always asks me and distracts me and it is really annoying for me. She also took my notebook to copy something, which really bothers me when people do that. If she does it again next week I'm going to try and sit across from her instead of next to her.

The First Day of School

Hier j’ai rencontré ma famille et ma mère, Cathie, est venue me chercher à la gare. Elle à une fille de douze ans qui aime la danse beaucoup. C’est un peu maladroit et difficile de communiquer mais c’est mieux aujourd’hui. Aujourd’hui a été mon premièr jour de classe à CAVILAM et j’ai pris un examen pour me placer dans une groupe..

Yesterday I met my family and host-mom Cathie who came to get my from the train station. Her daughter is 12 and really likes dance. We even played "Just Dance 4"on the Wii. It's a little awkward and hard to communicate (especially yesterday) but it's better today. Yesterday we went for a walk in the park across the street and played ping pong with her daughter and her daughters friends and then went back and I took a nap. Whenever I felt awkward I would just come over to the couch because her cat just had four babies and they are so cute. They break the ice a lot. 

Today was my first day of class at CAVILAM and I had to take a placement test this morning. After the placement test we went to our first class and I don't even know what level I'm in. We had to talk to a bunch of different people in groups and I was extremely nervous at first but when we kept switching groups it was better. Then we had a lunch break so I met the other people in my group in the lobby and we found a place for lunch. After lunch we went back to school because we had our "ateliers" or extra curricular type class. I chose a culture class and we had to read about sites protected by UNESCO, which was interesting, but my teacher called on my first to talk about what I thought and I didn't know what to say and probably said something that didn't make any sense. Everybody in that class had already been taking it for a while so they all know each other and understand each other and the teacher perfectly so I was really embarrassed. I finally got wi-fi today, I thought she didn't have any but I just asked and she actually did have it. 

After school we went for a walk around Vichy with the cultural director and saw a bunch of historical plaques and statues. This town was home to Napoleon III and was where the French Regime was located during World War II so it is interesting. There's also a natural mineral water spring that we got to drink out of today. It's so pretty and was like drinking Perrier out of a well, but not as bubbly. I really like the kids in my group, they are all so nice and funny.

I'm nervous about tomorrow because we will have our morning class for three hours instead of one but hopefully it will be okay. 

In addition, I really miss Michael and my family and cat but these kitties make me feel so much better. :)

Les premiers deux jours de voyage

Hier après-midi je suis partie pour la France. J’ai eu trois vols avec peu de temps entre eux. J’ai voyagé avec deux autres filles dans le program alors il était plus facile de trouver les terminaux, les portes et les bus. Notre premier vol a été retardé alors quand nous avons arrivés à notre porte pour notre deuxième vol, tout le monde a été sur l’avion déjà! Mais nous avons pu monter dans l’avion. L’aéroport à London est très, très grande et nous avons eu moins de temps de trouvé l’autre terminal mais nous avons arrivés à la porte quand nos sièges ont été appelés. Quand nous avons arrivés à Lyon, nous avons eu des difficultés à trouver le tram mais nous l’avons trouvé et après, nôtre hôtel.

Yesterday afternoon I began my France trip. I had three flights with little time in between them. I flew with two other girls from the program, making it easier to find the terminals, gates, and busses. Our first flight was a little late so when we arrived at the gate for our second flight, everybody was already on the plane ! However we were still able to board. The airport at London is extremely large and we had even less time to connect flights and when we arrived at the terminal for our last flight, the agents were just calling our seat numbers. When we arrived in Lyon, we had other difficulties finding the tram but we eventually found it and our hotel.

My advice and lesson learned is to make sure there is at least two hours in between flights because an hour and a half was not nearly enough to get to the connecting flights comfortably. I am staying with the other girls at the Campanile Hotel right outside the Gare Part Dieu in Lyon, right across the street from the train station, so when we got dinner (un sandwich avec jambon, parmesan et pesto mm) we were able to check out the machines that we will have to use tomorrow to check in for our train ride to Vichy. 

I didn't sleep that much on the plane and it's finally 8 o'clock pm and I can't keep my eyes open so hopefully I'll get a good nights sleep. :)