First Day of School

I awoke at 8am to get ready for school, ate an apple (for the record, produce is generally much smaller here...but what the hell, everything is smaller here!) on the way to the Center, and had my first experience in a French classroom. First was my history class, "La grande mutation francaise," meaning the great French change. It's French history post WWII. So far, pretty interesting stuff. The teacher is this sort of youngish guy, and might I add veerrryy cute, and he seems nice but clearly takes his subject very seriously. We're studying all the political, economic, and social factors of the post WWII period, so yes, it's intense.

My class was from 9-11, and afterwards I got on the Internet for awhile and then a group of us ventured out for lunch. We had intended to go buy bread, cheese, and fruit at Les Halles (the indoor market) but apparently it is closed on Mondays. Dommage. So instead we grabbed some paninis from a place nearby. Mine was tomato and mozzarella, so I was definitely a happy camper. A few of the students went to the supermarket, but my friend Emily and I returned to the Center to eat. And after lunch and a healthy dose of exchanging Youtube videos with everyone, it was time for my other class, French phonetics. This was a lot more fun than the other class, partly because the subject matter isn't as depressing and the instructor is a tall, graceful actress who clearly has a passion for the language. So it's a lot of imitating her and getting the right sounds to come out of our mouths, with the right intonation, the right nuances, etc. It's tough work! But rewarding and informative...and it's quite funny to have everyone in the class spitting away as we try to make the French R sound, which is in the back of the throat like the Hebrew word "chutzpah."

After that I spent a few minutes talking with all the students, and then headed home. I got here around 5:30 and took a quick nap, then got up to make dinner with Corine. Our usual fare: soup, salad, bread, fruit, and fromage blanc, but tonight the main dish was something I'd never tried before: rabbit. Yup, I ate it. It was slightly gamier than chicken, but pretty mild. She mad a spicy, savory sauce from "soy cream," which I think is a little like soy milk but thicker and used in making sauces and broths over here. Apparently it's better for you. But we ate our dinner in front of the TV tonight (as we did last night, when we watched Sister Act 2), which is par for the course when it's so windy out. When it's nice we eat out on the patio. But tonight's show was a French-dubbed episode of "Murder She Wrote." Very cute. And after watching it and absorbing at least some of what was going on, I did my usual chore of washing the dishes, and now here I am.

I'm really beginning to love this town. It's very easy to walk around in, and somehow just about any road will lead you somewhere familiar. It's so small you could probably explore every single street in just a day, and cross it in only 20 minutes. And it's very picturesque. And pretty quiet, at the moment. All that will change in July when the theatre festival begins--then there will be something going on every hour of every day!

Tomorrow I don't have class till 11am, so I'm going to "faire la grosse matinee" a little, which means to sleep in. Looking forward to it!

Love and miss you all,
Natalie