Quelle journee!

What a day.

Today was the official orientation for the USAC kids. We took a placement test, which went okay, which included grammar, writing, and an oral part. I received a compliment from a professeur (pardon mon francais), which completely made my day. I told her that I didn't really like to speak french yet because I felt that I wasn't very proficient, and she told me I was the best speaker she'd had so far... And then she added en confiance.. As in don't tell anyone. And here I am posting it to the broad space of the interweb. C'est la vie.

Anyway, after orientation and a walking tour of the tiny, little campus that is l'universite de pau, we took a bus downtown. The downtown area is amazing. I mean this whole city is amazing. Soon I'll post some pictures of the houses because they're amazingly beautiful and completely different from the cookie cutter houses I'm used to in the States. Did I mention there are palm trees scattered about the city? C'est tres bizarre.

The bus system is extremely confusing for me, but then again I still struggle with the buses at U of I so what do I know. Still directionally challenged, truly. A couple of friends and I dispersed from the main group and went a cafe cleverly titled "french cafe" or something like that. Ironic, yes?

After the cafe, we attempted to find where my friend's house was, and on the way there we were stopped by a friendly-looking older french woman. She asked us if we knew french, which we modestly answered with a "oui, un peu," and she then proceeded to offer us a job running errands for her. Weird. We told her we were just students and we'd only be here for about 9 weeks.

We found my friend's house successfully and then we commenced to my own house. We got lost (surprise, surprise). Two older men sitting on a bench noticed I was lost and tried to steer me in the right direction but they didn't understand where I was going, and they thought I needed to find the university. So, we were still lost. We stopped at a bakery, and the woman there was super nice and helped us out. I found my way home! Yay! My friend and I stopped at another bakery on the way home because I wanted to get a baguette (they're AMAZING here). She needed a 5 cent euro for her purchase, and we could not figure out what the woman wanted from us. I eventually just opened my wallet and gestured for her to show us. Luckily I had what she was looking for.

After the bakery I found my house and struggled with both locks. There's a gated entrance to the house and a lock on the door as well. My host mom has an alarm system because someone tried to rob her in April. I attempted to disarm the alarm with no success, and fairly quickly the super obnoxiously loud alarm went off. A french guy from the company called and spoke super fast french while I racked my brain to say "je suis etudiante americaine. Est-ce que vous parliez plus doucement pour moi s'il vous plait?" Clearly the man doesn't understand french because I'm fairly certain he spoke faster after I said that... Anyway my host mom had told me that code previously and order was restored. But then.. as I went up the stairs the alarm went off AGAIN. Apparently previously stated french man didn't understand my incompetence with the alarm system. I figured he would turn off all of the alarms.

I was told to make my own dinner tonight because my host mom worked fairly late this evening, but after I told my host mom everything that had happened she offered me some dinner. I think she felt bad for me.

Tomorrow I start classes, and I'm super excited! My french is improving so much already, and it's only the second day.