i love, love, love speaking french.

Hi everyone!

It's been a couple days since I last posted, sorry, I'm being all immersed in the culture here. Lots has happened and I'm still loving it all like crazy. It's been absolutely beautiful here (well, of course, right? I might have to stop saying that to avoid repeating myself...) and I've continued to take advantage of all Aix has to offer.

Wednesday and Thursday we were in class all day doing the same stuff as Tuesday: 3 hours of vocab/grammar/language classes each day and 3 hours of lecture or class with our program director, Lilli, who did a big overview on all sorts of logistical things we need to know. She really knows what she's doing and certainly is an inspiration speaker (in her French way!)

One of the things we did with her was assure that we were all prepared to dedicate ourselves to our immersion in French culture. We each wrote ourselves a promise to keep us close to our goal, mine which is that I will not surf the web in English (including blogging) for more than an hour and a half per day. My promise for this will be hard some days (like today, I'm just hanging out) but other days I don't even think about what's going on on Facebook, ect. It's all about balance, right?

Honestly, I have faith that I can use the internet as I wish and still benefit from my immersion in French. I've had no trouble not speaking English (except on skype!) and enjoying learning new words and observing other people speak. My host sisters are so fun to watch–every night at dinner time, the three of them come to the table ready to share what's going on with their day–a little different than the typical unenthusiastic way in which American teens talk about what's going on at school, eh? They're really fun & my whole host family has been so great to welcome me.

Yesterday was a fun day. We had a class on "Savoir Vivre" (knowing how to properly behave in French culture) taught by a very poised American woman who formerly worked at The Ritz Paris and Time Magazine. AWESOME! She works at AUCP so I look forward to speaking with her about her experiences. We spent a good half hour learning about and practicing "faire la bise," or the French kissy greeting as it's probably more easily known as by Americans. It was pretty funny going around practicing it with everyone else, trying to teach ourselves not to be awkward when meeting people! Basically, the rule is whenever you meet people for the first time in a familiar environment, usually through friends or family, you'll faire la bise. I think it's one of those things that Americans are severely afraid of, but really, it comes pretty naturally once you've done it once–and– I haven't had any "close calls" so all's good ;)

In the afternoon we had a couple hours to ourselves so I went back home to go for a run. At 3, we had a tour of Aix's architecture by a professor who will teach that course at AUCP. It was really interesting to see and learn some of the fun facts about the city's history. Sort of like our fun facts from the boat tour, right Liza?
Here is my favorite tidbit:
Aix and the south of France was an area where the dinosaurs were way back in the day. How cool is that? They are continuing to discover different dinosaur eggs in the area, maybe of Velosaraptor (sp?) Newman, anyone? I'm, of course, refering to one of the best movies of all time, Jurassic Park, and one of the charcters played by Wayne Knight, the infamous "Seinfeld" character of Newman. Ahh, good times.

But that's not all! Wednesday and Thursday I went out with my friends from AUCP with some French guys who we know through the language partner program. On Wednesday we went for Audrey and a couple other people's birthdays (there were 13 of us!) to an Irish pub and later an outdoor cafe. Thursday we hung out with the guys at their appt/suite in the dorms for their school and then went out dancing. It's nice that we have the language partner program because otherwise it would be much more difficult/sketchy meeting guys. Our friends are cool so no worries there.

Speaking of language partners: I have officially met mine! François is his name and he's actually much older than the other guys--26--most are our age or a bit older (not bad, eh?) François is "un homme d'affaires," as an accountant but also takes night classes, busy busy! We met last night at the big match-up event where we, the Americans, had to walk around the garden searching for the French guy (or girl) who had our name--hah! Unfair, I thought. Anyway, after the highly-anticipated match up, a group of my friends & our language partners went out to dinner at the first place we could find a table large enough to seat 10 of us. Ali and I, my date for the night ;), went all-out and share "Le Big Hamburger," it was just as good as they are back at home. Sometimes on a Friday night you just want to eat your favorite foods, right?

After dinner we walked home and I joined my host family at the table as they had a family over for dinner. It was perfect timing because I got to put in to practice some of my newly-learned French manners skills. Not that it's much different from the US, but I'm getting there.

Today I slept in and have just been lounging around because I'm a little tired after the first week.

Food recap:
Monsieur Croque-Monsieur: The owner of a little "snack" shop near our school is AWESOME and his croque monsieur is even better. I went back a second time, bringing a dozen other students with, great success.
Cafe du Palais: After the tiring 2 hour walking tour yesterday, Ali and I went over to a nice outdoor cafe in search of some delish ice cream and we found 4 other friends who had the same idea. I love everyone in my program!
Yesterday I had a quick make-your-own-salad and yogurt in a modern, cheap-eat shop.
At home, food has been awesome. Today for lunch I tried eggplant and we also had delish tomatoes, ham, and fromage après. Last night I tried a slice of apple pie when I got back and I liked it a lot!
We had some homemade tomato pizza, quasi quiches with spinach and goat cheese, and an herbed peach dessert. I forget what we had the night before that, but I'll bet ya it was good..

Tonight I'm going out with the Denison girls in Aix, looking forward to our little reunion of sorts, and tomorrow there's a big club/non profit fair I'm going to with Morgane, my oldest host sister, so I can choose an activity to join. Did I mention they're awesome? I've spent some time chatting with the middle one, Alix, about the night scene after going out (she's my kind of girl!) and Auriane always make me smile with her friendliness.

In the next post I'll put my fave photos!

Thank you AGAIN everyone for all your support, my mom says I've got a good following, I really appreciate it! Feel free to comment or send me an email if you want more details...as much as it may seem that I have told, I could really write a whole book with everything wonderful about this place!

Bisous, C