These past few days in Tours have been amazing in a way that screams "This just can't be real life!"
Let me start at the beginning: after wandering around Charles de Gaulle airport for 40 minutes on Sunday morning, I finally found Katherine near the train station. After hugs of relief, we ate our first French breakfast! I chose a tarte aux pommes (basically a croissant filled with cinnamon apples).
While waiting for our train, we discovered a few other fellow Holy Cross students in the station, and it was a mini reunion! Katherine and I were taking an earlier train, though, so we had to leave soon after.
Predictably, the train to Tours was a nightmare.
First of all, my luggage isn't a light load. Dragging it up the steps of the train required a strength that I only had due to a fear of the train departing before we were on board. Since the little luggage compartment of the train was too full, Katherine and I had to drag our huge suitcases and duffel bags through the aisle of the train, bumping the armrest of every single person who had the misfortune of being in the way of our bulky bags ("Pardon, Monsieur! Je suis desolee, Madame!"), and praying that we would have a place to put them during the nearly two-hour ride.
Luckily, everyone in our train car was so sweet. There was one man in particular who helped us lift our heavy suitcases onto a luggage rack between some seats, and he easily tossed our duffels onto the rack above our heads.
After that, it was a relatively easy ride to Tours! That is, until we had to struggle our way off the train...
...and onto another one--a 5 minute ride to the real Tours station--where we met our host mothers!
It was well past noon by the time I arrived at my host family's home. I met everyone (my host family: Madame, Monsieur, and their son, Eddie, who I'm guessing is around 25 years old. I was immediately given a tour of their beautiful home (it's so colorful and inviting. My favorite room is the dining room, which has a wall-to-wall glass window that looks out onto a lush green forest of flowering trees and bushes--not the backyard I was expecting in a city!).
I unpacked quickly, then I was called down to lunch, which was a grand affair. Eddie's two friends joined us as well, so there were six of us. My host mother served a delicious egg-parsley-cheese-mushroom dish in a tomato sauce, followed by bread with goats cheese, and finally, a little bit of ice cream.
(Side note: of the other dishes that I have eaten this week--all of which have been great--my favorites have been the homemade carbonara that my Italian host sister made, the spinach-mushroom-cheese-tomato quiche, and the rice with roasted vegetables and chicken that we ate tonight. But everything has been so good!)
The rest of Sunday flew by, and before I knew it, my first day of classes had dawned!
I walked the 25 minutes to the Institute with my two sweet "host sisters" (and fellow students) -- Ardiana from Switzerland, and Francesca from Italy.
I've decided that the Institute is a really cool place. Everyone is international--I have people from Italy, Japan, Spain, Russia, Australia, Canada, and Korea in my class--and we have all come here to ameliorate our French. The ages vary as well: in my class, I am one of the youngest, but I have met 16-year old students, and I have met 30-year old students. Katherine said that her host family is also hosting a retired Japanese man who occasionally takes a class as well.
The classes flew by (with a two-hour break for lunch--that is definitely something the French do right!) and after class, Bridget, Julianne, Katherine, and I decided to be spontaneous. We popped into the nearest Carrefour grocery and bought a bottle of wine, some bread, and some cheese for an impromptu picnic! Amazingly, bottles of wine only cost 2-5 euros here! I even saw a bottle that cost only 1.80 euros! We actually splurged and bought a 3.60 euro bottle that had a hint of raspberry juice in it as well, then we wandered down to the banks of the Loire River for our very French after-class feast.
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| The wine may just be cheaper than water here |
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| On our way up Rue National |
After dinner on Monday, I went out with Francesca and met up with a few of her Italian friends, along with Marissa, my fellow American Holy Cross classmate who had been invited by her Italian host-sister. The group of us went to Place Plumereau for a drink (I just had soda) and to chat (although the language of conversation was mostly Italian, understandably, so I mostly just listened).
It seems to be very normal to go out every night of the week here. My host mother is always asking at dinner what time I am leaving to go out with my friends. She even asked me on Sunday night (the first night I spent in Tours) what time I was going out, and she seemed a little confused when I said that I had no plans.
Anyway, by the end of Monday, it was hard to imagine that I had only arrived in Tours the day before!
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| On my way home from class |
Classes on Tuesday didn't fly by as fast as they had on Monday (the "everything is so new" feeling had faded a little), but Tuesday evening, I went out to La Gangette after dinner with Julianne and Bridget. La Gangette is a huge outside bar and restaurant on the banks of the Loire, decked out with lights that hang from the huge willow trees, and it's extremely popular. Apparently they have live bands and dancing some nights.
Since it was just the three of us, we left early to explore a little more, and we ran into our Australian friend Lucy and a few others at another bar, and the group of us hopped around from bar to café for the rest of the night; it was a lot of fun.
Wednesday was particularly notable because since classes at the Institute finish at noon on Wednesdays, Holy Cross had signed us up for an excursion run by the Institute.
So on Wednesday afternoon, we discovered the gorgeous Chateau de Chenonceau! It was such a beautiful day for strolling through the gardens and visiting the castle, and although the tour guide was difficult to hear (and the words I did manage to catch were out-of-context French words) I still learned a bit.
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| Chenonceau avec mes amies! |
After about two hours at Chenonceau, we were all herded back to our bus by our eager tour guide, and we were taken to what was basically a giant wine cellar. A tour guide walked us through part of the 3.1 km of underground caves where they story thousands if not millions of bottles of wine. After the dark, chilly tour, our group was given a tasting of three different white wines.
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| Another Chenonceau picture, because I liked it so much |
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| Bakery close to my house. Yum, little cakes |
Unfortunately, Friday is a testing day--at least it is for my class. The first part went terribly, since we were given a writing prompt to create a letter. The only word--literally the ONLY word--in the instructions that I didn't understand was the very adjective that we were meant to convince the mayor about. Since I didn't know what that all-important word signified, I made something up (which I later learned was completely wrong), but hey, I tried. Luckily, the second part of the test went quite well, I think.
Friday afternoon, my class somehow managed to convince our teacher to watch a movie (to say that it had to be a French film is obvious), which is why I so encourage everyone to see Intouchables (in English: The Intouchables). It was such a great movie--hilarious and touching at the same time!
And that wraps up my first week of classes--and most of my first week spent in Tours! I'm truly loving it here.
For now, though, that is all. This post is long enough, so I will stop here.
However, I will write soon enough about yesterday's trip to Mont-Saint-Michel, with lots of pictures included, bien sur!
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