Bonjour!

Today was the first day of classes! It was a tad early of a wake up call at 8am, and then Erin and I went to the breakfast they have for the summer students. It was pretty funny though because it was definitely nothing like we are used to in America. The French small breakfast buffet consisted of croissants, bread, cereal, milk, orange juice, coffee, and the occasional slice of ham lunchmeat. Definitely different but I am getting used to the idea of drinking coffee which is exciting...I feel like an adult. :) Our first class was just getting to know the teachers. They told us some of the do's and do not's of Paris and where to travel and the usual "don't miss class, try hard" talk. It went well. Then we had lunch and Austin joined us. We mozied on over to the cafeteria and ate some food before having to take the French test at 1:30! I must say I was stresed! Finally, at 1:30 it was time to take the test so they could place us by level. The only problem was I got to class at 1:25 to be on time and seeing that it was the usual nonchalant lifestyle of the French, the teachers did not arrive until around 1:45. The test was not too bad but there were some parts I did not get right. I was placed in the Intermediate Advanced class so that was exciting! :)

After class, Erin, Austin, and I met up with a big group of the students and an intern and we all went to the Bibliotheque (library) in Paris. It was humongous!! It was four gigantic buildings filled with what had to be trillions of books; and there was a little forest in the middle of the buildings. It was definitely cool to see. After that we sight see'd a little more and saw the Bastille monument and Austin informed Erin and I what the Bastille was all about since we were kind of clueless. Finally, we set out to head to the Eiffel Tower with the group. It was really great and we got awesome pictures! It was the day of the Sweden vs. France soccer match so there was a huge screen set up on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower to watch the game. However....we don't really care for soccervery much so Erin, Austin and I went to dinner at a little cafe nearby. The food was awesome and the wine was delicious. I had the lamb chops and we all shared the assorted plate of cheese (my avorite part of dinner by far!). It started to rain though and we were sitting outside so it was quite a fiasco trying not to get rained on while finishing dinner! We finally finished dinner and dodged enough of the rain, so when it cleared up, we went to get chocolate an banana crepes for dessert. YUM!! Then we headed home, except it kind of took three hours to get home because the metro system is a tad ridiculous with connections and breaking down and such but I suppose it is all a part of th experience of going with the flow like the French do. :)

We are planning on going to Versailles tomorrow and have a second day of classes so it should be exciting to see how it all goes!! :)

Au Revoir!

Tori