I arrived in Paris on Sunday morning and somehow managed to get to the Tours train station without missing either of the trains, considering how jet-lagged I was. I had some minor technology disasters in that my phone company neglected to tell me my cell wouldn\u2019t work at all abroad, so I\u2019m extremely glad that the language barrier turned out not to be too much of a problem in the first few hours. I knew there were plenty of English-speakers at the airport, but I managed to find my way around by asking for directions only in French! Personal goal fulfilled. All those exercises where we had to pretend to order food from each other in French class finally paid off. And so did those horrible, ridiculously fast listening exercises, since that was pretty much how the announcements sounded on the train.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m staying with a host family. My host mom\u2019s name is France (which one could choose to view in a metaphorical way) and she takes in a lot of travelers trying to improve their French. There\u2019s a Brazilian woman who barely even speaks a word of French, a guy I haven\u2019t really interacted with much yet (besides some awkward clashes over using the bathroom first in the morning), and my host mom\u2019s kids. I interact the most with my host mom, carrying on most of the conversation when she and the Brazilian woman and I have dinner together. She lent me a bike so I can get around Tours a little faster, so I feel like a real French person when I ride it to school.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m liking the Institut de Touraine so far, although I think they may have put me in a class that\u2019s a little too easy. The language experience I want to gain is in articulating myself more clearly in arguments, discussions, etc., and so far I\u2019ve barely gotten a chance to do that between reviews of grammar I already know. I\u2019m planning on requesting to move up next week\u2014although next week is going to be a little weird, because it\u2019s technically a \u201cvacation.\u201d This week has been a little weird too, since I arrived during the last week of a class cycle and since because of various absences I\u2019ve had a different teacher almost every day. Next week there should be some other students who are on a stranger schedule like me who will be taking some oral classes, and I\u2019m hoping things will settle into place after that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I arrived in Paris on Sunday morning and somehow managed to get to the Tours train station without missing either of the trains, considering how jet-lagged I was. I had some minor technology disasters in that my phone company neglected … Continue reading