Un, Deux, Trois, Soliel!

So today I found out that my obligatory “Option” class is actually a drama class. We spent most of the two hours trying to make surprised, angry, happy, and sad faces. Which can be really hard to do without context. Also, we played “Red Light, Green Light,” which I haven’t played since elementary school. I was much better at it then. The Law of Inertia is no longer my friend when trying to come to a quick stop. I fell down twice, so my knees are a bit sore.

My afternoon class was kind of cancelled. We were supposed to go outside and talk to French students. Today was a day of “Sports and Culture” on campus, which meant there was a few people playing rugby and handball, and a dozen people dancing to rap music. I did witness the French version of the Macarena and Ultimate Frisbee. But I really didn’t feel like interviewing any of the students who were around today.

I ran over to Leclerc to get myself some dinner, and while I was there, I picked up another French CD. This one actually was a metal band, and there’s one song on the disc which I am very addicted to right now. The name of the band is Tagada Jones, which doesn’t sound very French, but trust me they are. And I’m very excited to finally have some francophone metal on my computer. It’s pretty hard to find.

We had another movie night tonight, and watched Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe. Emily has a major crush on Russell Crowe, and I watched the movie with Stephanie and her. At one point, I had to turn to them and exclaim “Wow, you two really are a couple of girls!” because they cheered the kiss at the end of the movie.

Looking ahead

Day two of full-time classes was difficult, but I only had 6 hours instead of 9 hours today. So in the afternoon, I went with a bunch of other USAC students to the train station to get tickets to Toulouse on Saturday. Our Art History teacher has offered to be our tour guide to the city for a day, so he’s going to show us around to the cathedral and other monuments in the city. I think I have also finalized a plan to head to Carcassonne and Avignon the next weekend, and I’m looking into heading to England for the Battle of Hastings re-enactment the weekend after.

Of course, all of this depends on how much it will cost. I’ve heard some good news: we now get .75€ per dollar instead of the .63€ per dollar that I got when I arrived in France. So that’s good news. On the other hand, I’ve been hearing that Bank of America is in imminent danger of collapse, so that can’t bode well for the American economy.

This weekend, I’m also considering going to a monster truck rally here in Pau. Not because I particularly enjoy monster truck rallies, but because I would love to hear what they sound like in French. For example, instead of “Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!” it’ll be “Dimanche, Dimanche, DIMANCHE!” Which sounds kind of entertaining. I think it’s worth considering. Otherwise, it’ll likely be another boring Sunday in Pau.

Le Sigh...

Today was the first day of our intensive language courses. What a freaking awful day. I went to class at 11, had a break from 1-3, then was in class until almost 8. And it’s all in French with new teachers who I don’t yet understand. And also, I turned in a hurried, crappy assignment last week because I’d rather turn in something on-time and get a crappy grade than turn it in late and get a crappy grade. And I didn’t even do much worse than the rest of the class, but the teacher has thrown me under the bus twice now in front of class for not doing great work. I was prepared for teachers being much more blunt about work, but really woman, I know how to write complete sentences, so shut your mouth.

It's Your F@&#ing Nightmare

School’s about to get very difficult. My schedule looks something like this… every day I have classes from about 10:00 to about 19:00. That’s a heavy load. I mean, that’s a hell of a lot of French. And I still can’t do better than a good franglais. Seriously, it’s hard to remember some of these words. And it’s the simple words that I have the most problems with: prepositions, then, during, since, and other words that are indispensible in conversations. But other words, you know the kind I pretty much never need to use, are the ones that stick. So it’ll be a hell of a challenge to get through the rest of this week. But hey, it could be worse… after all, I am still in France.

Who does homework, anyway?

Today I slept in until 11:30, then continued lying in bed until about 1:00. Then I sat around and played some video games until about 3:30, at which point I got some fast food for a late lunch. I went online for about 2 hours, then came home. Now, I’m sitting in my room with Stephanie and writing this blog update instead of doing the very same homework that I’m half helping, half distracting her from doing. Tomorrow we have a breakfast with all of the other exchange students and then I have at least two classes, possibly more. So we’ll see what happens. It’s always exciting here, because I don’t know what I have to do until the day I have to do it. But, now I’m going to say good night. So good night.

Heading Back to Home

I woke up today with stiffness in my leg, but not really any pain. After breakfast I went with the group to the aquarium in San Sébastian. We ended up walking there instead of taking the bus, and while I couldn’t walk as fast as I usually would, it didn’t really hurt. We spent a couple of hours in the aquarium, and it was nicer than I expected, but I guess I’ve been spoiled by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They did have a cool tank which included a tunnel through which we could walk through the middle. There were some large bull sharks, several rays, a sea turtle, and a scuba-guy cleaning up with a vacuum.

Turtles are awesome

 When I exited the aquarium, I sat and rested for a few minutes. Most of the group had moved on to spend the two free hours we had roaming about the city. I went into a souvenir shop where I met back up with Stephanie. We walked up to a viewing platform for a good view of the bay and then made our way into the Old Quarter of the town. We got some gelato (we had planned on getting some the night before, but it closed before we got there), and saw the Eglise Santa María, which was an 18^th century Baroque cathedral. I don’t have a picture of it because my camera was low on batteries.

Old European cities are awesome.

 We walked back to the hotel and got on board the bus back to France and St.-Jean-de-Luz, a small beach resort village. This village included the home in which Louis XIV was raised and the church in which he was married. But ultimately, this stop on the tour was about kicking back and relaxing. I walked around for a while with Emily and our USAC advisor Ryan. We ended up just sitting at the harbor and talking for about an hour. It was a bit of a relief to be back in France, where I could more successfully communicate with people.

This was moments before we got kicked out so a wedding party could use the church.

I’m starting to get good pictures of many of my USAC friends, so I’ll start posting them here so you can put a face to the names I keep mentioning.

Me with Stephanie.

Elizabeth.

Matt and Rico.