![\"Pic](\"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/sla2016\/files\/2016\/07\/Pic-2.jpg\")
<\/a>That dear friends, is the ocean<\/p><\/div>\n
First things first, the weather in Brittany is absolutely gorgeous. It\u2019s been a sunny 70 degrees since I\u2019ve arrived, and I even wear pants instead of shorts most days (except when hiking of course). In short (*bad dum tss*), it\u2019s a rather welcome change from the ridiculousness of 100 degrees, 100% humidity back home in Virginia. Not to mention that my\u00a0school is a stone’s throw away from the Atlantic Ocean,\u00a0so\u00a0I’ve been experiencing a great nautical view each day.<\/p>\n
As for my host family, I\u2019m living in the quaint suburb of Le Relecq-Kerhuon <\/em>with a family of five (the two parents, three girls), so it\u2019s a full house if you will. And from when they first welcomed me into their home, I learned that they\u2019re some of the nicest people. I\u2019ll be honest, I had some fears of entering a situation where the family didn\u2019t like me (or more importantly my humor), but that doesn\u2019t seem to be the case as far as I can tell. Instead, they happily made sure I had everything I needed from lamps, extra pillows, etc, kept me extremely full with big meals plus snacks, and even laughed at my numerous puns\/jokes; there\u2019s not much more that I could want.<\/p>\n On a less excitable note, I realized from the get-go that my oral communication was not at its best. I thought I was in the clear coming home from the rail station with my host mom, as I was answering her various small-talk questions with authority.<\/p>\n Where you from? Boom, Washington D.C. metropolitan area in the state of Virginia.<\/p>\n How was your train ride? Bam, just fine thank you, a tad warm because there was no AC, keep em coming.<\/p>\n And so it went the car ride home.\u00a0I thought, \u00e0 la George Lopez, \u201cI got this !!\u201d<\/p>\n Then the reality of my\u00a0situation became apparent at the dinner table. I discovered then how lucidly and more importantly, how slowly my professors at ND had spoken in class. We sat at the table, then suddenly Jesus Mary Joseph! everyone\u2019s zooming by at a bazillion miles, excuse me kilometers, per hour in French. Meanwhile, I\u2019m left there, mouth agape, looking like a fool, and desperately trying to follow any line of conversation. In an instant I became\u00a0the uncouth American abroad, clumsily trying to express my thoughts in a foreign tongue.\u00a0This wasn\u2019t all bad by the way, as it left plenty of time to eat all their delicious food. Nonetheless, it was very humbling, as I could only really talk sporadically, or when they addressed me. It has gotten enormously better since then (to be fair I started with a low bar), but with my relatively poor hearing and the rapidity of native Frenchmen in conversation, I have to be completely focused to maintain comprehension.<\/p>\n The entrance to my school, C.I.E.L. Bretagne<\/p><\/div>\n Given my struggling debut at home, I thought that I might experience a similar stumble out of the gates at school.\u00a0 Thankfully, I discovered that I was a bit more comfortable in the classroom. At C.I.E.L. Bretagne, they place students enrolled in the intensive course (20 hrs\/week) based on their level, no matter how long you\u2019re there or where your from. I for example, am\u00a0in a class with six other\u00a0Americans, an Englishman, one Swiss man, and a Spaniard. Thus, you learn similar things but you may not move up as much in difficulty depending on the length of your stay, as you increase after each week (with my stay\u00a0being longer than most, this meant I would progress further than some of the folks I started with). Happily, I found the format of the class to be much like the one I just took at ND (props to Mme Escoda-Risto), so I was ready to learn. To summarize the week, we solidified and expanded upon my rhetorical foundation in French (almost exclusively the more difficult stuff I had just learned), but I also was learning many new things, most especially in the realm of \u00a0vocabulary and pronunciation. To conclude, its been a gradual process overall thus far, but I expected as much with the culture shock, the rust with my French (I haven\u2019t used it much since I left ND) and heading back to school after being on break. Once I am back in the swing of things, I fully expect my difficulties to diminish, and my growth in French to thrive.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s all I have to say about that. One Week down, six more to go, the time is just flying by! Tune in next week to hear about a local and culturally important holiday, oh la la.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hey everybody! Thanks for joining me. My name is Kyle So, and this is the end of my first week in Brest, France studying at C.I.E.L. Bretagne. How\u2019s it going you ask? Well… First things first, the weather in Brittany … Continue reading <\/a>