Bonjour!

Today was a tad bit of a late start because I am terrible at waking up to alarms! It was okay though because Austin is amazing and called me at 7:30 my time to make sure I was up. It made the morning much happier getting woken up by him instead of my blaring alarm clock! I am writing the first half of this blog post as I am getting ready to head to Paris for the river cruise with the group! I cannot wait and I hope it is going to be really fun. Class today was taught by our own Virginia Tech professor, Mr. Kennedy. It was a really interesting class based around entrepreneurship and I especially liked it because I plan on being an entrepreneur in my business endeavors one day hopefully. We got to go around the class and hear about each person's country and what entrepreneurship is like in their country - whether it is accepted or not, whether it is widely seen or not, and how their culture may affect entrepreneurship in their country. I really like these management classes especially because they are smaller than the first group classes during the first week. Our management class is about twenty people in a small classroom as opposed to the big lecture hall with about one hundred students like it was the first week when we learned about the formation of the European Union and Europe in general. I really like studying abroad classes because of how international the students are. I have never been in a class with so many cultures and languages and accents and it is such a cool experience. There are students from America, Australia, Barbados, Russia, Croatia, Hong Kong, India, and Singapore. It really makes me realize how intense these classes must be for some of the students because some of them do not speak English as a first language which must make the fast, English speaking professors difficult for them to understand. I wonder if they feel like I felt in the advanced French class - a tad lost but able to understand about every other word. It is quite impressive to me that those students can learn about business in a different language! I have a new respect for people in the United States who do not speak English very well because being confused when someone is speaking in a different language can be very frustrating when you can understand most of the words but don't understand just a few of the words that make a sentence make sense. After class, it was a lovely French inspired lunch again with all of my friends and then off to French class. I love being in the other French class now because I feel like I am learning more and spending less time being lost.

Now, I am finishing throwing last minute things in my purse like my keys and wallet and I am headed to meet up with everyone for the river cruise! So, I will finish this post later tonight when I get back from Paris after finishing my final exam online for my other BIT class I am taking right now through Virginia Tech! What a whirlwind of a day it is going to be. J

Until then, have a great day in America for those of you reading this! Be back from Paris in a few hours!

À Bientôt (which means see you soon in French!)

-Tori

Okay, I'm back! :)

Okay I'm back!

The river cruise was so awesome! We ended up not going on the cruise that had dinner and champagne unfortunately though - probably because we were with such a big group. So, I think Erin and I will have to have champagne tomorrow night instead when we go to Paris with everyone for fun. Our excuse is that we are in Paris...so, a little champagne and shopping sounds great to us for tomorrow! I think we are going to sing karaoke tomorrow night too at a karaoke bar with the group and I am personally so excited! I love singing and haven't been able to sing in awhile so going to a karaoke bar with all of my friends will be such a fun night. J Anyway though, the river cruise was great and we took so many pictures. I am starting to wonder if I have enough memory on my memory card for my camera (even though it is brand new) because I have been the most touristy tourist there ever was. I have taken so many pictures, I probably have the paparazzi beat.

After the river cruise, we all headed back to Evry and just hung out after walking back from the metro. It was a little more of an exciting ride home on the metro though, because Kyrie, Erin, Danielle, and myself made a music video. HAHA! It was so fun and pretty hilarious. People were staring at us wondering what in the world we were doing, but I think they were secretly just hoping they would be in the background of our music video and become famous. It was the best metro ride home so far…and don't worry, we will be posting the music video soon!

I'm about to take my BIT final exam online for my summer class I am taking, so that is all for today! Check back tomorrow if you want to hear about Erin and me singing karaoke in Paris with everyone! J I can't wait.

Au Revoir!

Tori "Warming up my vocal chords for my duet with Erin!" Marshall