Pas d’Internet!!

Our Internet is out right now! Sad day. :-( Really hoping that gets fixed soon…but it was out last night through this morning…and it’s France…so I can’t really count on it. Well, the good news is, if I’m posting this blog entry, the Internet has finally returned!

Anywho, Thursday…my English Lit class should be fine. Seems like Madame Bray is a good teacher. It was funny thought because most of the kids in the class are French kids that are English majors and we were asked to brainstorm about what a “thriller” entails. The first thing I said was “fast paced” and when I went to write it down, I wrote “fact passed.” Right…I speak English as my maternal language… I got lunch from one of the dining halls (sandwich, drink, and dessert >3€!) and then came back to Notre Dame for some Skype calls. I actually had my semi-first taste of gaufre (waffle), too. For my dessert with my lunch I got a packaged gaufre that had like…marzipan filling and one side covered in chocolate…yum! I still want a real gaufre, but this was not a bad start. At 4 we had our French placement test and we took the bus to school, so we learned how that system works. Super easy and convenient for when I’m feeling lazy. I really don’t mind the walk except for when I’m cold. The test was…harder than I expected. I feel like I royally screwed up the listening comprehension. It wasn’t what I’m used to, so I found it really difficult. Basically, it was some French guy spewing off random facts about vacations French people take really really rapidly and we had to answer questions about what he said. I think if it had been slower I would have been okay, but alas. I kind of made some stuff up...or rather guessed, but oh well. There was a list of idiomatic phrases we had to define from the listening too, but I think I actually got all of those! I was proud. The rest of the test was better, although I’m sure I still did some things wrong. Honestly though, I would have been screwed had it not been for M. Taylor’s grammar class. Everything I knew about how to fill-in those blanks came from him! After the test, Angela, Tom, and I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some things to make dinner and then ate. It was fun observing all of the frenchies in the kitchen. :-)

Yesterday…well, we weren’t sure if we had our Geography class or not because we hadn’t written down the dates…so we resolved to be good students and wake up in time to check the board and go to class. Ughh…we got there and realized, sure enough…no class. So…we decided to go to the bank so Angela and I could get our paperwork in for our accounts and Mandi and Tom could hopefully pick up theirs. Tom’s was the only one that was ready though. The banker was SUPER nice. He even recognized Tom! We got that all set up, came back to the res and relaxed for a while/took naps. Around 1, Mandi, Angela, and I decided to go get lunch and we had our first taste of Kebab.

Holy delicious! There’s even a place that’s really close to our res, so that’s nice. It was literally the best thing I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. Still on the list of things to eat: (1) a real gaufre and (2) moules (mussles), which are a regional specialty. We came back and lazed around again for a while, and eventually went out for pizza with the NC State kids and a ton of the Canadian kids. It was really fun! We hung out for a bit afterwards and just chatted at Foyer (the international dorm), and then took the metro home. I should probably get ready for the day though…it’s already 11:14! A tout a l’heure!

PS: Internet fixed! :-)