pictures because we know that's what people like to see

This is one of our many "cultural experiences", we are most certainly at and Irish Pub...in France.

Sherylann, me and Elea -- bottom's up..."chin-chin!"(cheers!)

We gave up on taking pictures of Matt and I (see below) so Will and I had a fun little photo shoot instead!

We can't take a serious picture apparently

(enter Matt's storyline) Apparently France thought we would be safest behind bars...

Lara was released from prison for a photo shoot in downtown Aix...

While I was released from prison to be part of a photo shoot at the Château des Baux de Provence. Rough terms of release, huh?

...but really we were just having a fun night out in downtown Aix! And Matt was posing on a cliff-wall thing that was about a 100ft drop.

C'est tout pour maintenant!

When in France

It was nine o'clock on Wednesday night and unfortunately I had a significant amount of homework. I had to write about a page and a half of information for my Cours de Langue course the next morning at 9am. I began working on the homework and found it really slow going (that is the story of my life....slow) and very quickly became jealous of the fact that Lara didn't have any classes the next day. While she was fooling around in her room I was obligated to try to come up with a set amount of lines in response to a text that the professor provided. My brain was thinking "it isn' fair" (which I learned the next day in french is "Ce n'est pas juste," from our host Father, who agreed with that sentiment), but thankfully I was able to enlist the help of our homestay children for a little while, which sped up the process considerably. It did make me somewhat sad that I was reduced to get the help of a ten year old with homework, but a lesson in humility is always good, right?

Well, I worked on the projet until twelve and then turned in for the night. I set my alarm for six the next morning and jumped out of bed the minute it sounded. Well...it might have been more of a rolling action than a jumping action.....and it might not have been the minute it sounded. Nevertheless, I was eventually up and at it again and, with a little bit more help from the children, I had completed my first assignment. We will see what type of grade I get....But really, the important part was that I got it done.

On the way to school I reviewed some other homework questions and like the assignment asked, tried to think of a little story to go along with my answer. I came up with some stories right before I arrived and then took my seat at one of the booths in Labo 1. We had to listen to our teacher read something in french and then try to transcribe what she said....I ended up making up a lot of words, which was fun, but challenging. Making up words in french is more difficult than you might think. You have to be careful not to add too many vowels and accents, and you must not be overly zealous in your use of consonants either. It's a fine line to walk, but when in France...(this phrase has become a common refrain of Lara, I believe it is derived from the phrase "when in Rome," but I'm not entirely certain).

Well, Lab ended and we then went to a different classroom for another two hours of french class. We all told our stories that we had prepared and I ended up singing in Chinese for the whole class, something I had not prepared for, but when in France, right? (Lara often uses this phrase at times that don't entirely make sense, I think I just sucessfully did the same thing, but...when in France). I have to thank Jessica Chen for teaching me that song, it saved me in a moment of peril, thanks Jess!

Thankfully, the rest of the day did not requrie me to speak in any language other than French. However, I am realizing more and more that I was looking forward to becoming fluent in a language, but I wasn't prepared for the work. I often hope that one day I'll wake up and just be fluent in french. That would be incredible! But until that day happens it's french classes and french homework for me. Well, I hope that you are all doing well and you can incorporate the phrase "when in France" into your everyday speech at some point this week. Peace!

variety is the spice of life

So classes were good today! Im starting to figure out means of stress relief and more importantly figuring out why this transition is so overwhelming - allow me to share:

first: the core french courses are no less than 3 hours each, 2 hours for the electives. I don't care who you are - that's a long stinkin class.

second: you can't just zone out, because its a different language! it's not like 3 hour classes in the US where you tune out but you're still mostly keeping up with the context and the flow of the lecture...it's like you zone out aint no way you're gettin back in that immediate train of thought, you have to wait for a break in the lesson to recap what you missed and everything else that flowed from the part you missed. whew!

third: (at least in my class) there are mostly asian students from China, Japan, and Korea -- now this has two points 1- a japanese person speaking french sounds unbelieveably different than an american speaking french; so talk about straining your ears! but 2 - having so many asians is way cool because their first langauge is chinese or japanese etc, so there's no resorting back to english for common ground - FRENCH is our common ground! if you dont know a word you 1)act it out or 2) find synonyms until you get your point across in french.

Anyway, needless to say - it's a hard adjustment, I'm guessing it will be like this for a while and progressively get easier to transition to and from english; or i might just forget how to speak english all together. I know my professor can tell I'm desperately trying to take it all in because she called me out on my big eyes, she said for the whole class to look over at how big my eyes were - it was a tad embarrassing, but then they all started looking at the colors of all the Americans' eyes and it was good.

Matt and I are having a ball with the kids in our french family. In fact I think Eve is helping Matt with his college-level homework right now! It is not uncommon for Charles to be following us around the house with his latest card trick (which by the way totally fooled me with a beginner slide of hand behind the back trick!) or he will come in the room and stand until I ask him whats up and he scampers off saying "rien!" (nothing). Eve is always looking to giggle or ask us questions, or even just sit in the room while matt and i struggle to put together conversation in french - all in all it's everything i could want in a homestay.

anyway, c'est tout pour maintenant (that's all for now), let us know if you have any questions, mom the virtual route to school is coming!

Lara

oh and picture 1. matt and i with some friends posing outside the city of sorgues or gordes -- i cant remember now
2. same place, but i just want to point out that this is an actual representation of matt and i's friendship...

les classes commencent

ok, so I'll get on this whole blog wagon. theres so much to say and this french keyboard doesnt help me get it done any easier. so ignore the poor grammer and occasion mishaps of the a's and q's and m's and ,'s. c'est trés difficile!

now that my disclaimer is out...france is awesome!! our family is wonderful!! and the town is everything i thought a small french town would be. today i actually witnessed a dramatic opening of the shutters overlooking the rue and smiling at the weather- love it! Even though that was a fun sight, don't let that make you think we're having good weather - it's stinkin cold! You can ask Matt, any room that i'm in you are SURE to find me sitting up against the radiator -- I'm not from Maine! Georgia is cold to me! France is freezing...so I'm layering my socks and wearing long johns to help, I can't wait for the good weather!

ok, classes started yesterday for me and today for Matt. Let's just say i just finished my second pop quiz of the semester (I made a 13/20 on the first one so I might be failing out soon -- désole M. Neiles!). Ill keep you updated - not sure I want to go into detail just yet...Im having a hard time thinking in english, and I can't quite say what i want in french, so overall communication is a little rough for me right now.

a little rough? scratch that -- really rough -- I'm blanking all together on words so I'll sign out for now...à bientôt!

France, first findings...

Well, Lara told me (Matthew) that we should jointly work on a blog, that way it will be more likely to get done. So far a week has past and I believe this is the first blog...That doesn't bode well. So, enjoy this post because it might be the only post you get for awhile.

The real reason I am blogging right now is becuase my mother told me that she is reading the blog of someone she doesn't even know. So Mom this post is for you, I won't make any promises about the future, but we'll see.

When I first arrived at the Marseille airport and stepped out onto the damp runway pavement, I was slightly sleep deprived and excited beyond belief. Not even five shots of espresso could've made me that euphoric...Ok, maybe that is an exxageration, but I think you get the picture. Well, as I made my way to the inside of the airport I said aloud "Vive La France!" I think I got a few funny looks, but I covered very nicely by beginning to hum the French national anthem. Unfortunately I only know the first five seconds of the piece, which sort of blew that cover. Thankfully, I arrived at the airport baggage claim to anxiously await my bag. I was a bit nervous that it might have dissapeared, or that I would get an empty bag. But, after a few minutes of waiting, I saw my bag and after retrieving it from the convevyor belt I found that it still had all of my belongings.

Well, a couple of other CEA students and I made our way to the airport exit, wondering what to expect in the airport lobby for our "airport pickoup." It turned out to be a very nice Lady named Karen (I'm pretty sure that was her name) and a student who had been there last semester and was continuing their studies again this semester. All the CEA students, minus Lara, who had missed her connecting flight,loaded our stuff into an old bus and began our trip to our homestays. The bus driver was very french, and kept trying to tell Karen which way to go, though Karen had been doing this job for over 7 years. This led to some frustration, but, after some arguments, all of us made it to our homestays. When the bus arrived at mine I was a bit nervous. I had to walk down a dirt road, to a house that was out of sight. It was a little sketchy, but I nerved myself and started another leg of my french journey.

When the home finally came into view, I was very pleasantly surprised. It was a beautiful french home, that looked like it came from the pages of a fairytale. Well, I knocked on the door and was greeted by the father of the family, Christian. He was very kind and introduced me to his daughter Manon, who was home for lunch from school. Christian went back to work, he has a little study just off of the laundry room and so I talked to Manon while she ate her food. We talked in a mixture of french and english, until she finished her food. She then got all of her stuff together, said goodbye and booked it out of the door. Well I was left alone for awhile, so I showered and wrote in my journal a bit. Christian then came up to my room (which has a poster of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and the Simpsons in it)and asked if I was hungry. I replied that I could eat something, trying to hide the fact that I was starving.

I think that either Christian saw through my politeness, or he has a lot of experience with students who have flow, becuase he made up a little feast. We had fried eggs, shredded carrots with olive oil and balsanic vinegrette, smoked ham and red wine. It was fantastic! We then had some tea and some biscuits, which were equally amazing. Christian then returned to work and I returned to my room, where I very promptly fell asleep. I awoke in time to get ready for the "happy hour" at a local café. Christian very kindly offered to drive me there and when we arrived I ordered a pastis, which is a local drink that tastes very much like black licorish (in other words it wasn't exactly my thing).

Well, I mingled with the other CEA students, though most of us were pretty tired from the jet lag phenomenon. Lara arrived there around eight pm, and I was very glad to see a familiar face. She had been traveling for over 24 hours, and understandably was not really up for visiting. We left the café and made our way back to the house. We had our first dinner with the family, which consisted of chicken, roasted potatoes, salad and wine. It was absolutely fantastic...Though, the longer I am here the more I realize all their food is amazing (that will pobably be proved wrong at some point, I'll make sure to let you know when that happens). Well, we visited for awhile after dinner, and then Lara was shown her room, while I made my way to my room. I feel asleep very quickly and slept soundly, though my mind wondered what the co,ing week would hold....