Mardi

Hello! Well today was pretty uneventful, but I'm just glad I'm getting into a routine. I didn't have class until 12:30, so by the time I was done with a class, I discussed a trip to Lyon with a friend for a while, and then I started back on the tram for dinner. I had to warm up my dinner since Nathalie went out with a friend. I had au gratin potatoes though and they were amazing. They come from this region...this is straight from the internet:
Here is a very yummy potato gratin called "gratin dauphinois", very famous in the Grenoble region where it comes from (an hour east of Lyon, at the foot of the Alps).

Today's class was challening but good. We spent most of the time discussing what "le bonheur" (happiness) is, and read some philosopher's view on what happiness is... Tomorrow for class we are going to the Musee Dauphinois which is a museum about archeology, history, and some decorative arts. I think its tucked up in the mountain so I will get a good walk in. I've heard a lot of good things about that museum.

Tonight I'm going to do my homework which should take me a while and do some research into getting my family train tickets to and from Paris when they come!

Heres a picture of my room

Hello from Grenoble!

Grenoble, and la telepherique



Well today was a really good day! I went to school this morning and had a good class. I got back two of the short papers I had written and got pretty good grades on them so that made me very happy! For homework I have to correct them and rewrite them. Then I went to sign up for the CUEF (my school) trip to Nice and to go snowshoeing in the mountains. I am very excited, the Nice trip will be during the Carnival. We will be staying in Nice then having excursions to the musee Picasso in Antibes, the oceanography museum in Monaco (its right on the Mediterranean Sea) and to Cannes and maybe other places. I am also going alone, nobody from my AIFS group is going. I think that will be good though I will be able to meet others from the school and that will make me talk in French more, because students are international so that will be our common language.

I also had to go to the media room and watch a movie for class. "Le Bonheur", not bad, very artistic, but really weird story. It was good that I watched it though and I was happy because I could really understad it!

Also, it was a very nice day and a girl from my program's birthday so we went to the cafe, I ate a gauffre with Nutella and bananas (waffle with nutella and banana) SOOOOO goood. Then we walked around the river while the sun came down, it was really pretty. Tonight, I think we're going out to a cafe for her birthday as well.



I'm going in reverse order, yesterday i went to the Museum of Grenoble. It was good although it took me a long time because it was huuugge. I saw works from Monet (which was my favorite), Vangogh, Matisse, Andy Warhol, and some good other stuff. They had a lot of old stuff, and they had a lot of modern pop art stuff-which I do not like at all. I could have done most of it myself...thats just my opinion though.

Le musee de Grenoble
Have to go eat dinner now, bon soir!

Weekend

Well yesterday was a busy day... I was extremely tired from the week, but got up to go ice skating with the family. It was fun, but there were SOOOO many kids. It was David (the boyfriend's) 2 kids, her friend's kid, and Maxime and his friend. Plus the 200 other kids on the rink since it was the morning kids were allowed to push these little chairs around to help them. Also, it rained yesterday so was extremely busy because the people couldn't go skiing. After that we went to a Chinese buffet restaurant. It was really good-I liked that it was a buffet because I wouldn't have known what to get. I don't really like Chinese but it was basically just everything fried so it tasted good. Then we went to Sherlock Holmes, in French. I enjoyed it but was sooo tired and sometimes I forgot to think about listening. I didn't understand every word but I got the sense of it. I just stayed home and took it easy last night. I was beat after this long week. I researched some places to visit and went to bed early.

One of my friends from class told me that today the museum of Grenoble is free, so I think thats where I'm going to go for today. Apparantly its the next best art museum outside of Paris? I think I'm venturing out alone so hopefully I'll be able to follow, we always had guided tours in Paris.

I think thats all I've got, not too much happens here on Sundays. Most everything is shut down. The soldes (sales) are all finished now though so thats kind of sad...

Au revoir!

Friday

Well today I am very tired! It has been a lot to take on in a week.

Today after class I went to a presentation (required for class) about the French maker Agnes Verda and her film, Le bonheur. This is an older movie but is showing right now because of a film festival that is going on that only happens once every two years. It was semi interesting, and then after class everybody went to watch the movie in a movie theater type place. I could not go to this though because I had a group meeting to go to La Bastille at the top of the mountain. However, it was pouring rain all day and we wouldn't have been able to see anything. So instead we went to a museum. It was a museum that that was built around some ruins 20 years ago that were found when they were digging for the trams. So it had the original wall and some other things that were found as well as some pictures that came from Grenoble a long time ago. Kind of interesting- a lot of rocks. Afterwards of course we went to a cafe-as the French do- and sat around for a couple hours talking.

Since I missed the movie, on Monday I will have to watch it in the media room at school. Its a nice school, although it doens't have the nicest buildings or anything. What is interesting to me though is that almost every classroom I've been in has a SMARTboard. They are up on their technology here.

Tomorrow I'm going ice skating with my host family, and then we are going to the movie Sherlock Holmes. I want to see that movie-but its in French so we'll see how it goes.

Monday I am going to sign up for a trip to snowshoe in a little mountain town-I'm very excited about that. I'm also going to sign up for a trip to Nice which is February 14-18. Hopefully there will be enough room. I will have to miss three days of class, but I'm in Europe and want to travel. Nice is a city in the south, and it has beaches and many people vacation there, but maybe not during the winter as much because its cold!

Tonight I may be going to a kareoke pub so we'll see how that goes!

French day

Today I had a pretty French day. I slept in late and then I went for a jog around where I live just to see what was around here because I really hadn't explored it yet. On my way back I picked up a sandwich and I saw an outdoor market. Thats when I felt like I was really in France. They were selling meat and cheese and bread and vegetables and clothing and candles just outside my house! It was really cool I just walked through it.

After class I took the tram to the center of town and went shopping. I bought a pair of boots (everybody wears them here and I needed some). There are mandatory sales right now at all stores here- it goes for about 6 weeks and this is the last week so I had to take advantage. I found some for ten euros- so I bought a pair in brown and black!

I just got back not too long ago so I don't have anything else to say, I probably won't do much tonight. A friend from the program messaged me and said they were going to a movie in an hour, but it would take me 50 minutes to get there probably and my host mom just started making dinner and I'm hungry. So I'm not going to go. I live in a really nice suburb and I like my house- but sometimes thats too bad.

Tomorrow we only have 2 hours of class because there is a presentation on the life of a film maker and then a showing of the movie, "Le Bonheur". I'm going to the presentation but cannot go to the movie because we have a group meeting at "La Bastille" where we will take the telepherique to the top of the mountain- google it its cool!

Thats all I have for now a bientot!

Well, yesterday for some reason I didn't have internet, so I will have to make up for it.

Yesterday was my first day of class, it was good and seems to be the right level. There is only one other American from Boston in my class-the rest are chinese, japonese, spanish, italian, and brazilian. Our common language is French so its all French! We have four hours of class that are separated by a language lab-we wear headphones and microphones and repeat things and do dictees, then we can go back and hear what we said and work on pronounciation and rewind to listen to things better. Its really great and I think it will really help me but it takes a little getting used to since I have never done anything like that before.

Since I got done with class at 4:30 yesterday, nobody was around. I decided just to take the train back home. However, the train station near school is much bigger with many more trains than I am used to. I was very confused and didn't know where I needed to be or what train I needed to get on. I asked someone, but they said that train wasn't coming for a while, so I just decided to take the tram and figure the train out some other time when I was with someone who knew. Today, actually, I had to take the bus because the trains were on strike (greve) for the day. They use their right to protest and strike very often. The tram ride yesterday was quite long, but I got to see the sun setting over the mountains which was very pretty. No matter where you are or what direction you look here, you can see the mountians. They are surrounding the city, although Grenoble is the flattest city in France.

Yesterday was La chandeleur, a Catholic holiday that the French celebrate by making crepes! So thats what we had for dinner and they were delicious. After dinner, with Nathalie's friend, we sang a little bit of kareoke-mostly in French although there were some English songs.

Today was a good day in class, and after some friends from the program and I went to this delicious sandwhich shop called Natural Deli, which was very good and will probably become my favorite place to go for lunch. Right in the doorway they also have a crepe stand, which we went back to later to eat crepes after sitting in a cafe for a while, walking around in the nice weather, and sitting in a park for a while.

All in all it was a very good day! Tonight we will have lasagna for dinner and then I have homework ; )

2nd and 3rd day in Grenoble

Yesterday was pretty uneventful, there is not much to do here on Sundays. Today I took my placement exam at the school. It was pretty easy to get there by tram and train and I made it alright. I took the exam and checked the results online tonight- I'm in class B1+ whatever that means. I'll find out tomorrow. I don't have to be at school until 12:30 pm tomorrow-it will be nice to sleep in. I will either have school from 8:30-12:30 or 12:30-4:30 during the week.

So far the food I've had here has been good. The first night we had pasta, then last night we had "la raclette" which is this device that melts pieces of cheese for each person and then you pour the cheese on potatoes and eat it with meat. It's a regional meal for people from the mountains after a day of skiing, because it is warm and it fills you up. It was really good. Tonight we had couscous which I didn't know if I would like but it was really good!

Today I met some other peope from the AIFS program, and we took the tram to a cafe and sat around for the afternoon. They planned a trip that they will be taking to Italy since they are in a different program and will get a spring break-I am jealous! I will have to get used to going to class and then hanging around and doing nothing for hours. In America everything is much more rushed and there is a lot to do. It is much more relaxed here and there is much more time to do nothing. Something that shouldn't be hard, but I will have to get used to it.

Tonight we also played on the Wii- Just Dance was the game, and my host family loves it. I was actually pretty good and it was fun, you just dance to the songs- they were all American songs. It was fun!