One Egg is Un Oeuf: La Vie Touraine

Hello Dear Readers,

Today was a great day. We had class for three hours which went by SO QUICKLY and I actually did really well. The first hour was just pronunciation and speaking and my classroom legitimately looked like a mini-Versailles (even my teacher told us - ) with a chandelier, paintings on the ceilings, floor length windows, super ornate. Yeah def makes one wanna speak French. Then we had two hours of writing which was mostly speaking anyways. There are 8 people in my oral class, and then 16 for the rest of the day. It's a perfect size.

Then Katherine and I went and got sandwiches and went to this BEAUTIFUL JARDIN that's right next to my house and sat for a few hours in the sun.

Then I had this orientation thing for school. I'm in Paris 3 at the Sorbonne which specializes in PolySci, International Relations etc. It was boring, but it was all in French and I understood 80% and it was nice because the lady told us to not worry AT ALL about school because you basically cannot do badly and she also made a point about that this is a year to just experience Paris and travel and see everything and live your life and she's like "don't worry about a bad grade, it really doesn't matter, just have fun". C'EST EXCELLENT!!!!!

So then we (Amara, Katherine, Natasha, Jarrett, Rebecca, John) went and got crepes. It was my first crepe (avec nutella!!!! omnomnom) and it was delicious and the guy that made them was singing these french songs and was super nice and funny. And we said we would be back tomorrow and he said to "come on Wednesday, there's a flower market right here, all day"...... Crepes. Singing Man. Flower Market. All Day. THIS IS MY LIFE. It doesn't get any better. Then we walked across the river and explored the other side a bit and walked back.

I was feeling bad because I spoke a lot of English with the other students this afternoon but dinner was soooo good! I understood probably 95% of what she was saying and we had this really excellent conversation for an hour about Paris and nutrition and prostitution and security and windows and green beans and everything imaginable and I didn't feel as self-conscious as I usually do and it was just really fun. And the food was delicious!

French dinners are quite the experience. This is what we eat:

1. Les apertifs- usually these meat slice things with some sort of fruit and bread (j'adore France because they treat butter like it's cheese... as in they cut slices of it to put on bread. it's awesome and the best butter I've ever had)

2. The main course - tonight it was something similar to hamburger and green beans (I explained to my host mom how they are called green beans in the US, I still don't really know what they're called here, and she thought it was really funny)

3. Cheese and salad (just lettuce with dressing - ma favorite!) and more bread with butter.

4. Dessert - there is always dessert, which is very different for me.

This takes at least an hour, but it's really nice and we have a lot to talk about. Then we go downstairs with all the dishes but it's bad manners to do our own dishes or help clean up too much. Though we always ask if she needs help and she always insists that she doesn't. Basically I adore my host mom - she is just so sweet and I will miss her after these two weeks.

Here are some pictures from le chateau (castle) we went to this weekend. It is in a town called Ambroise where Leonardo Davinci lived for the last three years of his life and finished the Mona Lisa. Basically the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Tomorrow we are going to visit another chauteau (Chenonceau) which is supposed to be even more beautiful - C'est possible??????? (fyi click on the pictures to see a larger version, I'll also post way more on facebook eventually)