Jan 7, 2011

I have been here almost a week and it feels a whole lot longer than that. I kind of wish that I were surrounded by French as much as I was by Kriolu in Cape Verde but its difficult to do when many people want to speak English with you. Maybe I will tell them to only speak French to me. I really want to learn the language. Will living with two other Americans hold me back from it? I know that having my own space will also be good but I don't know.

The past few days have been exhausting. Last night was the first night I went to sleep before one o'clock and I slept in until 10:30. Way better than the night before where the girl we are staying with had a party until 4 am followed by an 8:30 am French class. I can't function on 3 hours of sleep. Especially in a foreign language. The welcome group from the school has been wonderful but there is definitely a difference in age and stages in their lives. All of them around 21 yrs old and want to party every night. I don't know if this is a cultural thing or an age thing but I can't handle long nights and early mornings 7 days a week. They have been really great in helping us set up bank accounts, get phones, and find apartments. I'm going to be living in an apartment, or a flat as they call it, with two other people from my program.

We started classes and have had two so far. The schedule looks very useful and focuses not only on learning French but learning French to work in a business environment. Our textbook, which in France is given to you—no trips to the bookstore to buy lots of books, references businesses and even the introductory lessons have pictures of business cards, or cartes de visite. Our first class was on culture and civilization, where we learned the geography of France and looked at post cards from all over the country. I now know how to say that Lyon is to the east of Clermont-Ferrand, Nice is to the south, and Lille is in the north. Awesome.