Orléans

I would like to explain some things about France and alcohol. People drink a lot of wine, I'm sure most people knew that. The legal age to buy alcohol is 18, and I haven't been carded. You can also drink in public. For example: Dee was drinking with her host-sister and some friends on the lawn behind in the Eiffel Tower. You just can't be 'drunk' in public.

But back to me. Wednesday was a little slow at first. In the afternoon Dee and I went up to the centre commercial. Somehow it seems three shirts from H&M jumped into a bag which snaked its way onto my arm. Oops! At least two of them I do need because they're long-sleeve. The third is just a really nice purple tank top. Later on the three of us went on a little tour of Orléans, and of course there are photos. For facebook people, look there, and sorry about the great number of pics of the Cathèdrale St. Croix, I just love cathedrals. That evening we met up at Chez Michigan, which is actually just Michigan's room. He has internet and a TV though; so we like to call it that. I had two glasses of of champagne, the entire bottle was only 2,50€. Oh that's the other thing about alcohol in France...it's cheap. Some things like whiskey, gin, vodka and rum are about the same. but you can get a bottle of wine or champagne for 2€. of course the really good stuff is pricier.

Now Thursday ( 6 septembre for you date freaks) was a funny day. We had gone to campus to talk to someone at the SRI, and it turned out that we had a meeting! This was actually quite an important meeting too, where we filled out forms and got a lot of info. It was from 9h to about 17h (5pm), with a lunch break. I have to admit, lunch that day was a little scary, and a lot like high school. We needed up sitting across from this French kid who was so cute. For awhile he wouldn't look up, though we could tell he was listening and wanted to talk. Eventually he did.

Thursday is also when I found out that I don't need to buy French health insurance (192€), and that I couldn't finish registering because my birth certificate doesn't have my parents names on it. Oh fun! And my dad was on vacation with no way to contact him...stress city.

Thursday night we tried to meet some people in our building, but it didn't really work. We lit some candles and brought drinks and music down in to the courtyard. It was fun. We almost went to the club, but decided against it. We found out the next day that Thursday nights at this club there are like go go dancers and stripteases, so I'm kinda glad we didn't.

Friday we had to go back to campus for some more information and to get our class placements and schedules. There are four levels here French: prepq-DEF, DEF, DAF, and DSF. These stand for diplome elementaire/approfondi/supérior français. So DSF is the highest, and has only 10 students. I got into DSF...yay me! I'm not sure how exactly because I thought my French was about the same level as Dee's and Kay's, and they are both in DAF. But I'm somewhat proud of myself. My schedule isn't bad either. I have an hour less of grammaire, and an hour less of pratique oral, but I have to take two 2hour optional classes, they have to take only one.

Blah blah, that was the boring part of the day. Around 8h we decided to hit up the Havana Café because it has wifi grauit. But...it didn't work. We also brought a guy from our residence with us. While Dee and I were waiting for Kay, he asked us if we knew a bar with a tv so he could watch the rugby match. As it happened, the Havana Café has TVs. They don't have food though. So we left him and went across the street for food. That place also had a tv so we saw the first 25 minutes of the match, which was actually the Rugby World Cup between France and Argentina (France lost). For dinner I had a cordon bleu grinder. Have I mentioned that I love France?

After dinner we returned chez nous. That night we were going to the discothèque, KA. They dressed me up and id m hair because, let's face it, I'm a dork. Then we drank and attempted to play a drinking game. The game: one person finds a word in the French dictionary, says it, spells it, gives its part of speech and uses it in a sentence. The other two have to guess the definition, and if they don't guess correctly; they drink. This was not as easy as we thought. We left a little after midnight because KA is open 11-5, and people don't really show up until 12h30 - 1h30. It turned out to be kinda crazy and a lot of fun.

Saturday we didn't leave the residence. I personally spent most of the day being slow and cautious to avoid the worst part of a hangover: puking. I was successful, go me. My hives came back with a vengeance, I had fourteen different ones by the time I went to bed...or rather passed out after taking two benadryls. Saturday night we did watch a movie: The Motorcycle Diaries. One of our neighbors watched it with us. For the comprehension of all, we set this movie (originally in Spanish) to French and put on English subtitles. Despite this is was a good movie.

Sunday I was a little out of it, after sleeping 10 hours thanks to the benadryl. I almost spent the day inside again, but in the afternoon we realized we needed food so we went out. This didn't work, pas de tout. It was Sunday. On Sunday in France, stores close, all stores. I believe only cafés and restaurants can open, if they choose. The trams also only run every 20 minutes instead of every seven. However, le Place de Martroi, and a lot of rue de la republique were closed off this day for Fete de Rentrée...street festival! Kinda. There were tents wit ha ton of different organisations (Kay was in heaven when she spotted the flag of GAGL). They also had demonstrations of things like karate and gymnastics that kids can do here. And a crepe stand. Deeeelicious. The crepe was, no joke, about 18"-21" across, the put nutella on it, and fold it until it's about the size of a pizza slice. Crepe heaven.

Afterwards we got lazy (and we had no food) so we ordered Dominos...for delivery. They had me order because I'm in DSF. I think I did quite well actually, but they still screwed up our orders. It was good, but the cheese is different. How can I describe it...oh! It's real cheese. We also watched Erin Brockevich (sp?), dubbed in French on tv at Chez Michigans. by the way, there were three or four commercial breaks; about four minutes long each, during the entire thing. I was also online; which means facebook (and pics), and emails...I've missed the internet so much.