...Oops?

Ack! I am so sorry it's taken me so long to post, but I've only had the internet for a couple of days. Until recently, my only options were to use an internet cafe (which is expensive, and I'm cheap) or to walk to the Centre de Jeunesse, which is a half-hour away on foot. I've settled in nicely. My dorm is starting to look more like I live in it, and less like it's somewhere I crash. I've made friends among the other international students, and I've done some exploring.

My first weekend was a bit rough, because I didn't know anyone, and couldn't get ahold of my parraine (speaking partner) because he was on vacation. But by my first Monday here, I'd met my parraine, Fab, who's really nice and speaks English very well. The next day, I met some other students with the ISEP program, who both happened to be from Kentucky, studying at UK. As it happens, there are four of us from Kentucky studying here at St. Etienne, which is kinda mind-blowing, when you think on it.

St. Etienne is gorgeous. I really love the city. It's small, and I can walk just about anywhere I need to go. Everyone is really friendly here, and they go out of their way to help me understand things when they speak. The stephanoise accent is difficult to understand sometimes, and they speak so rapidly that I can't always catch everything the first time around. If they speak slowly, and use simple ideas, I can usually figure out what's going on. There are only two things I don't like about the city. 1) People don't clean up after their dogs. There is poo all on the sidewalks, so you really have to pay attention to where you step. 2) My dorm is at the top of a large hill/small mountain. Walking up it with groceries is very much not fun.

Speaking of my dorm, it's really quite cozy. Once I got over the shock of how very tiny it was, I started liking it. As long as I keep my stuff picked up, I have enough room. I have a teeny tiny shower/bathroom thinger. It's about the size of a closet, maybe a bit smaller, and has a toilet, shower stall, and sink shoved in. Jan, on of the ISEP students, joked that we can brush our teeth, take a shower, and use the toilet simultaniously. He's very nearly right!

I haven't started up regular classes yet, the past two weeks have been intensive French courses. It's just review, really. All we've studied is Passe Compose, Imparfait, Conditionnel, and pronouns. There are two absolutely hilarious older British ladies in the class. Today, to help them with pronoun order, I taught them the "me te nous vous" song that Keebee and Shannon taught me. They kept making me sing it over and over! They thought it was brilliant.

I spend a lot of time with the other ISEP students, we've started the new tradition of group dinners once a week. We all chip in for food costs, take over one of the kitchens, and make a dinner together, and share the clean-up. It's loads of fun, and saves us money on meals. We can usually have a very satisfying meal for under 3 euro. I've also gone to a few bars with the ISEP kids, and have met native French speakers to practice with. Alcohol is really cheap here, you can get a beer for as little as 1 euro, probably cheaper at some places.

Last weekend, a group of us took a train to Lyon, which is about an hour to the northeast of St Etienne. The city is muuuch larger that St Etienne, and much older. St Etienne has buildings dating back to the 15th or 16th century, Lyon has Roman ruins. The ruins are amazing. I spent a happy hour or so climbing on them with my fellow tourists, and they have a really spectacular Gallo-Roman museum. I took some great pictures before a nice museum worker told me that it wasn't allowed. I also ate real French cuisine while I was there. I had lamb with a mixture of potatoes and carrots, a salad, and some water. Wine was really expensive at that restaurant. Because we tend to share everything around, I also tried some beef tartare (it's practically raw! Gross yet tasty all the same) and some rabbit. Rabbit has an odd flavour. It's not unpleasant.

Now that the important details are out of the way, I'll go ahead and sign off, and post again soon with more trivial things, and pictures, once I figure out how. Thanks for reading!