Guys. I did it. I'm in France. Well I'm in France again. I like it.
Okay so, heads up people of the world, and by people of the world I mean the six people who will actually read this, this is probably gonna be long since I've already been here for 3 days. But, uh, here we go.
So. I left the U.S. of America the first of January. The family (bless them) dropped me off at the Omaha Aeroport that morning at 8 where I met Kassandra and Madeline, both girls from UNL going to the same program. We like them. Oh, I guess I should speak about the program too... My program is through the University of Minnesota and I'm studying in Montpellier, France at the Université Paul Valéry. There. So, Sandra, Madeline, and I flew to Detroit where we had a fairly uneventful eight-hour layover However, when we went to board our flight to Paris, I found out that I had been upgraded to premium seating. Baby. Oh. Baby. That meant I got a bigger seat with a leg rest, champagne with dinner, a free fanny pack-like thing, and a bigger blanket. Even better the girl next me that I met was in the same program. How neat. The rest of the trip went off without a hitch. We landed in Paris, ran to our last connection to Montpellier and took off. When we landed, we got our bags and made our way outside where we saw a French man holding a sign looking for University of Minnesota students. Hot damn.
Right. So now it's the second of January if you didn't catch that. Now we're taken to a hotel in the center of the city where we'll stay for a day until our host families pick us up. There aren't many guys in the program. Actually only six. And only five were at the hotel so I only had to share my room with this boy Sam. Sam is pretty neat, guys. So we get settled in and go hit the town. Let me tell you guys. This place. Man, this place. It's pretty darn neat and gorgeous. Let me see if I can put a picture in with this button. Well that's stupid. Blogging is hard than you think. Just creep my various social medias for pictures I guess. Anyway, Sam, Kassandra, Madeline, Paige, Beth, Kate, John, and I went out for dinner before bed. We stopped at this rather neat Kebab place and got us some taco-like burrito sandwich things. They were pretty neat. Also. So Europe is old, right. So all the streets of the cities, which are also old, are smaller than normal. Not usually fit for a car. While we're ordering food this man in a van comes rumbling down the street and just kind of hits this lady sitting in a chair. Seems like a pretty scary deal, right? No one cared. At all. God love the French. Someone yelled at the man to stop, the lady got out of the way, they kind of both mumbled under their breath and it was over. Pretty cool, yeah? So after dinner we continued our littler tour of the downtown area. Saw some neat stores, lots of cafés, some bars, and about 12 lingerie shops. Those Frenchies. Jetlag was starting to settle in so we went back to the hotel and readied ourselves for the next day.
January 3rd. Here it is. Rough morning. I set Sam and I's alarm an hour late so we had only 30 minutes to ready ourselves. Oops. Sorry Sam. Otherwise things went fine. Today was orientation at the school. Around 9h (this is how you write time in french, i.e. 14h56 = 2:56pm) we left for the office a little ways from the downtown. Here we got the laydown of the rules, the city, and the school. We listened to people talk about things, walked to campus, and looked at a list of classes to choose from. Almost all the kids in the program are pretty cool. Almost. So I tried to make a lot of friends, too. Tried. After all that junk we headed back to the hotel to meet our host families. Cool. I really like my host familiy, guys. The de Boutrays. I live with Valerie, Pierre, et Thibault (Tee-Bo). Thibault is 17 years old, and an amazing host brother. After we got home, we had chatted for a bit, had an authentic 6 or 7 course meal, I can't remember, and then I hung out with host brother for a bit. That night he gave me his old iPhone3 and helped me order a SIM card online so I can talk to all my friends that I don't have yet in France. Ain't he great! That night jetlag again kicked my butt. Up at 5h for two hours before a bit more sleep.
Saturday the 4th. Host father Pierre took me to town today via tram. He's an engineer, funny, and good at explaining public transport. We had to go downtown so I could register for classes. I signed up for Comparative Constitutional Rights and also International Crises and Equilibrium of Power. Why. Why. Whyyyyyyyyyyyy. It shouldn't be too bad. I hope. Then we went home for dinner and afte,r host brother Thibault brought me back downtown via autobus to meet up with my friends, Sam, Kassandra, Madeline, and Paige. I think we're going to be a reoccuring bunch, plus Ben, another boy from UNL who is not here yet because of the stupid VISA. I like all of us together. So that's good. Anyway, helpful Thibault got us all tram passes and helped the others buy phones and set up planes. There were only a few comical mishaps but I'm tired and this blog is long so you won't hear of them. Afterwards Thibault went off to hang out with some friends and we continued about the city. This entailed going grocery shopping at three different stores, getting lost, being super tired, lots and lots of walking, some sitting and complaining, pastries, and then meeting back up with Thibault. At this point friends said goodbye since jetlag and a long day were killing us, but Thibault wanted to get a drink so it wasn't very late so we met more friends, Kate, Beth, and James and had a beer downtown which was great fun you can only imagine because I'm still tired of typing. Much fun later, we returned home, and I went to bed only to be interrupted by more jetlag at 6h this time.
Star date: January 5 2014. I keep forgetting its 2014.
Today was a super fun day. My host parents were out having dinner with the Bishop from Nice so I spent the morning with Thibault. This kid is hilarious guys. And sings and plays like 6 different instruments. Kill 'em dude. So Thibault and I went for a bike ride around our surburan area place. DON'T RIDE BIKES IN FRANCE GUYS. They go really fast and really far and its mostly uphill and the wind blows hard against you the whole time and I hadn't ridden a bike in a very, very long time and that's how I almost died today. It was fun, though, and we're going to make it a regular weekend thing. Afterwords we returned home for dinner and host brother cook chicken in a sauce made from coconut milk and ginger and rice for dinner. It was super delicious guys. Then I headed au centre (downtown) to meet Samuel, Paige, and Madeline. We are so much fun, guys. You should be jealous. We had a fun day exploring the town and finding Montpellier's version of the Arc de Triomphe and a really pretty park with some awesome old buidlings, statues, and an aquaduct. We finished the afternoon with pastries and café and returned to our respective homes. Dinner was unnoteworthy but super fun and delicious and that's all you need to know. The bike ride wore me out so after I proofread this stupid blog its bedtime.
A couple notes
A, F, C#, D♭.
I'm sorry that wasn't' funny.
1. The weather here is awesome and it sucks to live in the U.S. It almost never snows there and the temperature stays between 40 and 60 degrees. Its kind of funny because we all take light jackets and stuff out and everyone we see has on winter coats and hats and scarves because its their winter. They don't know cold.
2. I'm not going to blog everyday out like I did in this blog. I have better things to do. But I will blog about the fun things that happens to me. Also the not fun things.
C. Enjoy my blog. Or at least enjoy mocking it. Bonne nuit mes amis!
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