Biarritz!

      Today was my first full day in France! We have orientation until September 8th in the city of Biarritz, which is on the Atlantic coast in the southwest of the country. I kind of just assumed it was a cute little town that Hamilton randomly picked for orientation, but apparently it's a huge attraction for surfers. My host mom drove us through the town yesterday and there were surfer dudes everywhere. I also assumed they'd all be American, but it turns out surfing is a pretty big deal in Europe. It's weird to see kids who look like they belong in California walk by speaking perfect French...
     My host family here is awesome - I live with a retired couple in town. They have a gorgeous house with a backyard and everything! I also have a roommate from the Hamilton program - her name is Sarah and she goes to Colby College in Maine, but she's from Denver. Fortunately she's been to France before (she lived here for her first semester of college, two years ago), so she's basically fluent. That came in handy when I got here yesterday and was too exhausted to stand up, much less speak a foreign language. We had dinner with just my host dad (my host mom had to go out) and he chatted with us a lot, but mostly he was speaking to Sarah because it was obvious that i was struggling a bit. When I talk to my host mom she understands me very well (I suspect that she secretly speaks fluent English, because sometimes when I ask her what a word means she just blurts out the English word out of nowhere. I'm onto her). My host dad put it plainly though; clearly impressed, he told Sarah that she speaks very good French! Then he turned to me and said, your French isn't so good. He said it in French though, and I understood completely, so I beg to differ.
    He's a really funny guy in general though, he's been teaching Sarah and me all the important things in life; it turns out the two most important things are: 1. appreciate and enjoy life! 2. ALWAYS eat good food - and drink lots of wine. He's been lavishly serving us wine at dinner, and explaining the finer points of it to us. Yesterday we had fish for dinner (I'm not sure what kind - I was a little nervous to ask after he had already informed me that I speak like an American... not sure what else he expected, but it was funny), and it was served with a bottle of rosé. For anyone who's dying to know (and I have to admit, I fall into this category), rosé is always served with fish, NEVER red wine. And you can tell it's a good rosé if it's a very light pink color. The lighter the pink, the better, and he says that if it's practically red it's the absolute worst thing in the world (in my experience so far, the French are at least as dramatic as Americans, albeit about different things). Then of course we had to try some cheese, which was delicious, and for dessert we had black cherry pie. Turns out dessert can be served with rosé, red, or white wine... from the sounds of it it may even be preferable to drink all three? Tonight we had some sort of beef stew cooked in red wine, served with an extra bottle on the side. It's a specialty of Provence, which is where my host dad is from. Red meat always goes with beef, and wine is only good on the first day it's open so you have to drink the whole bottle the same day. It's a rough life, but somebody has to live it.
    Lest you think I'm just eating and getting tipsy off delicious wine, we've also been exploring the beach and we have a few hours of classes pretty much every day during orientation. I somehow got thrown in the group with the most advanced French speakers (which includes several who are basically fluent, including my roommate, yay), so I have a small book to read. Nothing too strenuous though, don't worry!
   Time for bed, I'll try to post again soon! We still haven't gone swimming though, and one of my friends has a host dad who owns a bar, so I'm sure I'll have some more interesting stories soon...
 

Bienvenue!

Hi guys!
    So since I will be spending the next 9 months living in France, I thought starting a blog would be the easiest way to keep everyone updated on my life (that is, assuming ya'll care in the first place - although I hope studying abroad will make my stories at least a little more interesting for everyone). I will try to post as often as I can, and I'll put up plenty of pictures so you can see what I'm talking about! The flight to France leaves next Monday at 7 pm - à bientot!