c'est charmant

la vie français c'est fantastique, non?

SALUT! JE SUIS EN FRANCE!! okay, back to english for all yall americans.

I'm happily sitting in my room at my host families now, getting ready for the first day of orientation tomorrow. I think I'm adjusting well to la vie francais, if you ask me, it's not that hard to get used to the life! So far, everyone (well...almost everyone, back to that later) has been extraordinarily kind and warm to me, including my host family. Elisabeth & Axel are the parents and there are 3 girls, just like my mom and her sisters, who are 19, 16, and 14. Very cute, each has a different personality.

I've been busy busy since arriving yesterday afternoon after an interesting trip. As much as I love to travel, I have to say that sometimes I get stressed while doing it, as calm as I try to be. After a tearful (and I mean tearful) goodbye to my sweet sweet parents, I stood in line for a while for sa-cur-ity (yes, like bon qui qui would say it!) and then headed to my gate at the end of the terminal. After careful consideration, I chose to dine solo in Tuscany since I would probably only have a petit meal on the plane, which is what it turned out to be. After a seafood bisque and caprese salad, I was good to go. It's actually kind of fun eating at a restaurant alone! Well, then things took a (short) sour turn. My goal here with the blog is to be honest & describe all my experiences, right? Well, to be honest, I was quite annoyed at an airline employee/ the airline itself, because the bag which I had so carefully packed to be my carryon luggage was too large and too heavy for their regulations. The reason this upset me is because I have used this very same bag many a time on other airlines as my carryon, but alas, it was not to be I guess. After searching through for my bag to transfer my most important items to my already jammed purse, I was invited to the front of the line to board, which I guess sort of made up for it. Anyways, my flight was just fine, watched some "You've Got Mail" and read bits of a couple books to will myself to sleep, but I guess the 2 hours sleep only helped me fall asleep faster the next night!

When I arrived I met another student in my program, Jamie, who had just as much luggage as myself and was very nice. My family was there to meet me & then we were on our way to Aix. Let me just say, being here and seeing all these people that are lucky enough to live here, to me it's just a dream! Once we got to my host family's house, my host mom, the youngest daughter and I went on a walk through the village looking at the shops, ect. We spent some time in one as Orléan (sp?) was in need of a bathing suit, so we dug through the sales til we found the perfect one for her :) Later, we had a delicious soup provençal full of veggies and Activia yogurt as dessert--those close to me/Denison friends will know that this made me happy because Activia is awesome!! I love the taste of it, and the fact that it's ridiculed so much, it's funny. Anyways, safe to say I'm well adjusted to the time and fully rested after a 12 hour sleep last night...I amaze myself sometimes, you know?

Today we went to a family friends' house for a birthday party/gathering, it was really fun! I had just read yesterday the section on dinner parties in my "French or Foe" book (shout out to Mme Armstrong for the helpful hints it gave me!), but this group was much more relaxed than the parties described in the book, but that's mostly a region difference, I believe. We were there for probably 6 or 7 hours this afternoon, it was really fun, and delicious food (duh). Not surprisingly, everyone of all ages does the "embrasse" or French-kiss-greeting, as its probably know, in this sort of social setting, even to me, the new one! We ate foie gras (pas mal de tout!), shrimp (served in and out of shell/body), ratatouille aka delicious veggies & a great movie, and more! I met a girl from the other family who is 22 and kindly invited to take myself or friends, too, to Marseille for a dinner out or to some of the beach parties while it's still warm! By the way, I get the feeling it's going to stay summer-like here for a while. Awesome.

After the big meal, we came home and had a smaller meal later of a rice/mozerella/corn/tomato/tuna mix and salad. I've been hanging out and skyping with some sweet, sweet Denison friends aka Christina, Mary, Emily, Stephanie, Jen, Liza and Kelly, who all were around, it was so nice! You girls are a riot.

Tomorrow starts orientation & in a week classes! Ahh, it's going to be a tough semester...not! I can't wait to explore this city more--I'll start taking pics and have them up on the blog asap!

Hope everyone had a great weekend & pass along any fun stories, I love getting US updates!

XOXO, c

PS--Fun fact of the day: the reason why the streets in Europe are so narrow is because back in the day they didn't want lots of sunlight reaching the streets since it's so hot, so the buildings block it well. I am not sure if I knew this before (and you may have, too, but when my host mom told me yesterday it was a refresher for me.

Bon nuit!