I Go Back

C'est genial!: It's great!

So this time I have lots to talk about because it was such a busy weekend! So to start with Friday:

Friday evening, I went out with Dimitri and Manon to walk around because from Thursday until this last Sunday there was the Festival de Loire. It's a really big festival because thousands of people from all different cities within the Département come to Orléans. There were plenty of things to see, and listen to, and watch. Each night there was something different. Friday night, they had an acrobatic show that was suspended in the air and people were dangling playing music while the acrobats were doing tricks, it was really amazing. Afterwards, we went back to Dimitri's house to watch a movie and after it was finished [at nearly 3 am] I stayed the night at this house and went off to bed. The next day..

Saturday morning was spent watching the French rugby team play in the Rugby World Cup. Then I did lots of smelling because Manon and her mom was preparing lunch for later. After they were finished, the three of us went to the train station to pick up some friends of Manon's mom. Then, we came back to the house and ate lunch and, for the first time - like most things here, I watched Lord of the Rings in French! C'etait genial! [pronounced: set-ay gen-ee-al]. Later that night, Dimitri came and picked me up and we drove out to his Uncle's house. We had dinner there and this was the first time I got to meet everyone, apart from Enzo who I had met at an earlier time. Afterwards, we watched a little TV before Dimitri and I went to his friend's birthday party. Now, of course, it was a normal birthday party..you know..music, people, talking, and all the above - just as there are anywhere in the world, oh yeah, except the fact that this birthday party was in a Chateau. We pulled up and all the lights shining on the chateau - it was beautiful. Dimitri introduced me to everyone and of course being the American made for an easy conversation. Some people were more than happy to show off their English, asking me plenty of questions and then was I was finished talking with one person, another person was ready to poke there head in my vision and start up a new conversation. My favorite was probably between Christian and I and started out something like this..Christian: "Hey where are you from?" Me: "Me? France, of course. You?" Christian: "But wait, you speak perfect English?" Me: "Oh yeah, that's cause I'm not from France." After meeting a few people, Dimitri showed me around the chateau. It was all wonderful, and too hard to imagine that I was there to just have fun.

Finally, we headed back to his Uncle's house around 3am [at this point, we're both dragging] and fell asleep the moment we hit our beds. Then we got a very warming wake up call from his cousin, Justine, bright and early the next morning...

On Sunday. We woke up around 8am and ate a quick breakfast because on this day, we were taking some vintage cars out for a whole day of driving. We met up with Dimitri's aunt and uncle where they had their old-school Buick parked. Then slowly but surely 8 other vintage cars with something like 20 people started showing up. Once everyone had arrived I was introduced and we all gathered for a group photo and then Dimitri's uncle gave each car a little game of fun trivia questions to play and then at the end of the day we would see who got the most right. Dimitri, Enzo, and I rode with Jean-Luc in a convertible Oldsmobile. Everyone drove to a small little town where we stopped to grab a drink

After the short rest, I switched cars and rode with Eric, Dimitri's dad, in the Fiat. That was a lot of fun because it is so small of a car! But at this point the weather was so beautiful so it was an amazing drive. Not too long after that, we arrived at our destination which was a nice little restaurant in Sologne.

 Enzo, Dimitri, Me, Justine

After eating, we jumped back in the cars and drove to Jean-Luc's family home where we spent the rest of the afternoon. There, we tallied up the points from the game. I believe that Team California came in 4th, so close! But there was a tie between two teams for 1st place, so they added a bonus question to decide the winner. After some hours there, everyone headed back towards town. On the way, I was fighting to stay awake - but I definitely did not want to miss anything so I resisted the urge. Finally, I made it back home and unpacked my things and crashed on my bed. So to say nonetheless, it was an awesome weekend and tons of talking, learning, listening, and having tons of fun.

All at Once

J'ai...: I have...

After having passed the first week of school - alive for that matter- everything has finally come into place. All my professors were wonderful which always makes it a little bit easier to learn. Probably the most funniest part of the day was when I was in my oral comprehension class and a couple of mothers in the class were saying: J'ai deux enfants [jay-duz-enfants which means: I have two kids] but in French, if a word ends in a consonant and the next words begins in a vowel you connect those two words. so the way they were saying it sounded like they were saying I have twelve kids! [because what they sounded like was: J'ai douze enfants. It is quite difficult to understand but nonetheless] so it got to my turn to introduce myself so I said: My name is Grant, I'm 20 years old, and I do not have 12 kids!" So the professor asks how many kids I do have, so of course I say 0, but of course me being me, everyone was quiet after laughing at the first joke, I took the opportunity to say "atleast, I think.." then everyone started to die laughing - including the professor so that was really funny! Other than that - I decided to change my elective to learn about French culture rather than the business class. Unfortunetly, the class is just one step too much above my level. But that's ok! There's always next semester!

After school ended today, I went and deposited my first money into my "french" bank account, and I received my bank card as well! This is really good news because you can not do anything in France without a Bank Card. So I picked that up, then I ran over to the phone company, SFR, and finally bought my cell phone. This was even better news because this meant that I don't have to sit infront of the computer anymore to figure out my plans and then leave and hope everything falls into place. So this week has turned out to be really good!

The lake in the middle of my school

Dream

I had a dream that I thought was worth noting. I wanted a delicious sandwich so bad that I bought a plane ticket to go back to Bakersfield just to pick up a Ceasar's Deli Sandwich and say hello to some people. So I ate the sandwich so slowly I could actually taste it in my dream, and then I drove back to LA to catch the next flight home. The funny part is sandwiches aren't even what I'm missing!

Feeling Good

Merci beaucoup!: Thank you very much!

So yesterday I found out my results from the placement test. There are four groups: DPF, DEF, DAF, DSF which the first group is for students who have almost never studied French before and DSF being for kids who are pretty much fluent. I was put into DAF, which I was happy about because this is where I wanted to be, especially because I am here for the year so there is no hurry to be in the top group. DAF stands for Diplôme Approfondi de Français. Most of the Americans are in this class so it makes it nice because there's always that little comfort zone when someone speaks the same language as you. Afterwards, I made my way to the book store otherwise known as the Librairie [there is a difference in French culture between the Library and a Bookstore. The "Library" is known as the Bibliothèque.] but unfortunately they didn't have my book yet so I have to wait until next week.

For the semester, I will be taking Grammar, Geography, Oral Practice, Writing Practice, History, Civilization, and I think that I'm going to take a French Business class as well for my elective. Monday's are the hardest because I go to school until 7:30pm but the rest of the days are quite easy as far as scheduling goes. But there's no lying that the classes will be challenging. So far I've met a couple people from around the world obviously starting in the US, and France, but I've also met person from Poland and then recently from Wales. So of course, I love meeting people from all different parts of the world and learning how different things are between the places.

But so far - so good. I really enjoy staying with the family that I'm living with. They are very nice, and truly make me apart of the family.

My Host Parents: Antoine and Virginie

My Host Brothers: Axel, Pierrot, Adrian

I also have a host sister, Mathilde, but I don't have a picture with her yet!

The Best Is Yet To Come

Bon chance!: Good luck!

The first day of school is coming soon, next week actually, but for the last week we have been going to meetings to get paperwork all sorted out. I've bought my tram pass, and I'll be opening a bank account tomorrow and hopefully buy a phone this week as well. So it's been a pretty productive week and I think I'm finally starting to feel like I live here! I took my placement exam today, I feel like I did well enough. To study for it, I have been doing some exercises out of my book, and then I had my host brothers help by quizzing me with conjugating verbs [which I ended up not even having to do]. It was stressful but it helped me remember a lot and really helped prepare me! So now..je commence mon année a l’université.

Pictures of People Taking Pictures

Je suis ici!: I am here!

Finally I have arrived in Orleans! After a week full of traveling and seeing a lot of different things, I made my way to my home city on Friday! Because I arrived a little early than I was supposed to, I had to live with a temporary host family. I can say that..the experience was a learning one. I didn't know what to expect, or how I would feel, or anything.  So I made my way to the house and buzzed the door and a lady opens it and we exchange "hello" and make our way upstairs to her place. I was surprised to find out that she lived in a one bedroom apartment. This meant that I slept in a bed/couch next to the front door. As I said, this was a learning experience lol. So after a while, we talked a little about the rules: I learned that I could never open any door in the house because all of her neighbors were "crazy" in her words. I was only able to leave when she was home, so if she left and I chose not to leave as well, I would have to wait for her to return. Then if I went out and she left, if she was not home by the time I got back I would have to wait. But all this was okay, I can deal with this, no big deal. However, she didn't have wifi. So I had to walk about 2 miles [total] each day to McDo for the free wifi. 

Thankfully, the next day on Saturday, my friend Manon and her mom and brother, invited me to go with them to Blois to visit their family. The funny part was, when I was coming to Orleans, I passed through Blois and saw that it looked like a really nice city so I was going to take the train back there because I didn't have any plans. So, without hesitation, I took the invitation and we traveled about an hour to Blois. We got to her grand-parent's home [which was absolutely and incredibly beautiful] and everyone introduced them self since I was the "new face in the crowd". We sat down for some apéritif [pronounced: app-air-eeteef] which was nice because I really hadn't eaten for a week during my travels because I was trying not to spend money. So the appetizers come coming and coming and I continued to listen and listen to everyone speak. Later we went for a walk around town so they could show me everything that Blois had to offer - which also included the several clothes stores that Manon and her mom had to stop and look at [of course leaving Thomas and I to stand and laugh and talk about "masculine" things] and, like I thought, it was a truly beautiful, small town. We headed back home after a while and I was lucky enough to be there when Manon's cousin announced that they she was now engaged! So this added even more to the get-together and we all sat down for a wonderfully cooked meal and dessert. The dinner resulted in a lot of talking and asking me questions and becoming completely embarrassed and my face turning red! It also resulted in a lot of quietness because when I would begin talking, everyone would stop talking so they could hear me and then naturally I would just look around and start whispering because I had no clue what I was saying [of course I knew what I was saying, but I never know if I am going to say something wrong lol!]. Finally, after dinner we went for a walk to a little festival where they were playing music and we got to watch some old ladies dance their little feet away!

The next morning I woke up and ate some breakfast, but at this point I was so full from last nightI wasn't sure how much I was going to eat, but not even a second after my plate was empty, Manon's grandma was quick to make sure that I had some more food on my plate [this was also how it was at dinner time, and for the appetizers] and of course even if I had 3 plates of food, there was still more to be eaten and all Manon could do was just laugh and I say "oh oh, oui, ok" with a very big smile because I couldn't help but laugh myself. For lunch we headed to Manon's cousin's house where we had a BBQ [oh how quickly I had missed the smell of this] so Manon's cousin showed me around the house [which, again, was absolutely beautiful] and we waited for lunch to finish cooking. In the mean time, I was teaching them some things that sound alike that is hard to say fast - so I taught them "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood..." and just 1 of the few I learned was "Si mon tonton tond ton tonton, ton tonton sera tondu" and it sounds just the way it's written but when you say it fast, it's super difficult! Then after eating some tri-tip for lunch, we played Cranium in french which was super fun and then Monopoly in french [of course I lost at both haha].

Overall it was a wonderful weekend, and I am very thankful for the opportunity to spend time with such a lovely family.

Merci beaucoup tout le monde!