last free days

school starts tomorrow and i'm not sure how much i'm looking forward to that. mostly because i am still completely afraid of taking all of my classes in french. but i am excited to get started and hopefully improve my french a lot more.
so this was my last weekend of freedom, and it was pretty fun.

i stayed in friday night because i was super tired after paris. but it was nice to have a break. saturday i hung out with kirstin - as usual - before heading home thinking i was going to eat dinner with the french fambam and maybe lay low again. turns out there were different plans in store for me. i got home, and five minutes later i was heading out again because my host mom told me marc-philippe was head over to manu's (both of whom are my host brothers) and asked if i wanted to come. so i figured hey, why not, that sounds like fun. we went to a bar first and met up with manu, my friend chloe, and eventually a couple other people showed up. the exciting part of this part of the evening being that i found a beer that i like (because i was following mom's instructions to keep drinking of course)! its called kriek, and if you've never heard of it, it basically tastes like cherry soda with a little bit of a beer aftertaste. after the bar we all headed back to manu's place. and i got to rent one of the velos (bikes) finally! (i used them last time i was in france, but it was the first time since i've been here this time - so i was super excited). oh. and since i hadn't had dinner, due to the leaving as soon as i got home business. chloe and i went to eat at mcdonalds. shameful. i know. and the chicken nuggets were ridiculously tiny. so then we had a little party. it was pretty fun. oh. here's a picture of me with my host brothers!

omgosh. then sunday for lunch. the food was sooo good. i feel like i have been forgetting to continue mentioning how amazing the food is here. but anyways. yesterday my host dad made this spanish dish called paella (i don't think i spelled that right). it was super good. and once again i got to see shrimp with faces! and i got to meet my host grandma? i guess.
after lunch, kirstin and i dragged chloe and christina up to forviere (the church and place with the amazing view, for those of you who have already forgotten). we couldn't believe neither of them had been up there yet! we were going to take them to le parc de la tete d'or too, but we were all tired. i couldn't believe it when i found out they hadn't been there yet either! kirstin and i were starting to wonder what they've been doing with themselves that past couple weeks. but we'll drag them there another day.
today. well today kirstin and i got some stuff done. we started out by meeting with chris (one of the directors of the eap program) to discuss the classes we were going to take and what we want to accomplish while we're here. kirstin realized she need to pick some new classes, but in general she was prepared. i learned that hopefully the classes i picked are going to work for me, but i need to take things one step at a time.
next, we headed to this cute little shop next to bellecour that has scarves and jewelry and bags and such. so i bought a scarf! the french love their scarves, and i just wanted to fit in. plus i think i might go back later this week or next and buy a bag.

for lunch we decided to eat american food. i know i know, im in france, i shouldn't eat american food. but i was handed a magazine this morning that mentioned this place called 'best i ever had', so we figured we would check it out and decide if one, it was really like american food, and two, if it would be the best i ever had. plus kirstin pointed out that "as citizens of the world, it is our duty to try and critique american food to help them out". so basically, we didn't have a choice. i got a cheeseburger and fries, and i must say, it was not the best i ever had. it was alright, but not amazing. the fries were ok, but really should have been crispier. and there were no pickles on the burger! what's that about? but in general, a good experiment. i do think i will be sticking to french food while i am here though.

oh! i forgot to mention last night's dinner! (and part of tonight's dinner for me too since there were some left overs). but we had tomato farcie (not sure i spelled this right either). basically it was a tomato with a meatball stuffed inside it. and rice. it was sooo good! oh and there was flan for dessert. yummy :)
and finally. seeing as classes start tomorrow, kirstin and i figured it would be a good idea to find our classrooms. there are multiple campuses. so far i have had the language intensive program (ILP) at lumiere 2 (or the quais campus). and i am going to have my SLM class there too (don't really remember what that stands for, but its a class all eap students have to take). but the restttt of my classes are going to be at porte des alps (also known as bron), and i had never been there before. luckily this campus is actually closer to my house.. so that's nice and convenient for me. though it still involves a bus and a tram. but we got there, and man was it hard to find one of my classrooms. i didn't even really end up looking for the others. but i know my first one is close to the tram, sooo i figure i'll just show up early tomorrow and find it. but tomorrow i have three classes. each of which is an hour and forty-five min. two psych classes i believe, and a history of lyon class. then five other classes later this week. i don't remember if i mentioned already that this week we just have to attend a bunch of classes. and we'll figure out after which ones we will actually end up enrolled in later. i kind of miss being enrolled in the correct classes ahead of time. but this is france. and things are different. they keep telling us to forget california, because it's just going to mess us up. plus it doesn't help that all the french students basically have set classes they have to take - so really we are kind of messing with the system taking different classes in different departments.
but anyways. wish me luck tomorrow! i'm going to need it.