The Beginning: Part III or Yay for Les Soldes!

Today I only had one class-- Provencal History and Civilization. I think it's going to be a wonderful course. In it, we will be studying the history of Provence (obviously) beginning with the Gauls and Romans and ending with present day. One of my favorite things about the course is that we'll get to go on a quite a few field trips to places such as nearby Roman ruins, medieval cathedrals and Marseille. We'll study art, architecture, customs, everything. In fact, our textbook is basically a travel guide to the area. It should be incredibly fascinating. Also, our professor is great. He's very young, very French, and is trying very hard to make this class the best ever. Which he may do. I think this course will be right up there with my course about France during the Occupation and may even end up being better. Although I'm not a huge fan of the 30 minute presentation I'll have to do at the end of the semester... entirely in French. Eek!

After class, I went out with my shopping buddy, Lauren and made my first real purchases in France. Clothing, of course. During January, France has all of its wonderful sales. You can get 20-60% off of pretty much anything (clothing, electronics, housewares, etc) with the exception of brand new items. So today I bought a dress and two shirts from these really adorable and incredibly French boutiques. The clothing at these stores are amazing and I wish I could just redo my entire wardrobe here. And it's been a really nice experience because instead of getting frustrated with our not so perfect French, the owners/workers of these stores have been very polite, kind, and understanding-- not at all what I was expecting.

After shopping for clothing, I headed to the grocery store to buy some lunch supplies with a girl named Phalyn. She's pretty neat, too. I got my ham, cheese, lettuce and bread for sandwiches and some granola bars for snacks. It was amazing how much American food, or I suppose brands, they had at the grocery store. There was Dannon yogurt, Coco Puffs, Special K cereal, etc. But their selections in cheese were obviously WAY better. The cheese and bread here are so good. And I had my first crepe with Nutella today and it was delicious.

I didn't do much tonight other than read for my Contemporary French Novel course. Madame Rosso got stuck in major traffic on the way home and then had to run to her daughter's house to babysit her grandson for a bit. She had asked before she left if I was going out and as of then I hadn't heard of any good plans so I said no. I talked to Caitlin, though, at 9:30 and she said that a bunch of people were going out and that I should join them, but I didn't think it was a good idea because Madame Rosso might get worried about me not being here when she got home. But we plan on going out this weekend.

Also this weekend, we have quite a few things to do. Friday I have one final class to begin (my French language course) and then the entire program is going bowling in the afternoon. On Saturday, we're going to check out the large market in town, do a scavenger hunt put together by the program, then grab dinner and go out since Saturday is our day to fend for ourselves. On Sunday, we're goin to have a picnic lunch at the beach at Cassis. And if I can judge Sunday by the weather today, it's going to be a beautiful, sunny day. I left this morning and was quite cold so I threw on my scarf and jacket. But by my walk home at 2:30ish, it was so incredibly hot that I had to take both off. I believe it may have gotten up into the upper 50s/lower 60s today. Or at least, that's what it felt like. Hopefully Sunday will be a beautiful day as well so we can enjoy the beach. Although that reminds me, I seem to have forgotten my swimsuit at home... Not that I think it would be a good day to swim. Not yet. But I should look into getting mine from home/getting one here so that I'm prepared when it does become the perfect beach weather. :)