Deuxième.

I might “accidently” miss my flight home…

I told you I tried to take a picture of the Eiffel Tower from the plane when we were landing, here she is, see if you can find her.

So, funny story. I couldn’t sleep last night because 2 am here is only 8 pm as far as my body is concerned [thus the creation of this blog in the first place, what else do you do at 2 in the morning?] I finally got to sleep around 5:30, my alarm was set for 6:30 with the good intention of waking up and taking a shower before leisurely making my way to breakfast, the orientation meeting, and my placement examen. Great plan, except I woke up at 8:50, missing breakfast, most of the orientation, and I had 40 minutes to get my butt up, ready, out the door, two blocks to campus, and in a seat for my exam. My life. So I’m like running down Rue Rebelais, make my way to the ampitheatre 5 minutes before the end of orientation and slip in, less discretely than I would have liked. We had a 5 minute break after before the exams were to be taken so I ran up to the professor who had given the orientation to apologize and get the papers I’d missed. Lucky me, he couldn’t have been sweeter about it and told me in French, “Don’t worry, the whole thing was in French and about half of their faces were completely blank, they don’t know any more than you do.” I didn’t miss much I guess.

Afterwards we took the placement exams, and may I take a moment to thank Madame Wood, Emilie Massias, and Professor Golembeski for all of the oral comprehension work we’ve done in class. We find out the results of our exams tomorrow morning, the classes range levels 1-8 [1 being “I know nothing.” 8 being “I’m French.”] I’m not too concerned about it, I’m guessing I’ll be somewhere around 4 or 5, regardless, it will be where I need to be.

Post exam was lunchtime, and let me tell you, lunch is a big deal here. I sat with one of the Irish guys (Harry) and we made some new friends, one from Georgia, one from ..another southern place in the U.S. that now escapes my memory.. and one from Australia. Lovely, lovely people. The girl from Georgia (Lauren) and I plan to go to one of the mass services at the big cathedral here, I’m pumped.

I went back to my dorm for a second to grab a few things after lunch and on the way was stopped by a French woman who asked me for directions to a street. I can’t wait until I can actually tell people where things are, but for now I’m just pumped that she thought I was from here and knew where things are! Yay for not looking like a tourist! But I'm going to let my camera give you the rest of the details about today.

This is Angers. 

 Btdubs, that little red thing is a fire hydrant. Note the excessive amounts of hatchbacks and adorable little shops. Too cute.

 And this is my school.

 Café anyone? These machines are all over the place, and the coffee they produce is to die for. Oh, France.

And these are a few beautiful places in town. Le Chateau du Roi René along with some other lovely things and touristy attractions. We took a little tour, but once we got to the tourist section I was a little busy window shopping to take any pictures, still:

So is this place gorgeous, or is this place gorgeous? And these are not just places that we visited once and now we're done, these are the things I walk by every day on the way to the university, on the way to my friends' dorms. It's the perfect mix of old world charm and modern living. I'm in love. Like I said, I might "accidentally" "forget" to come home.

Tonight everyone with the CIDEF program went out to get to know each other. The French students that are acting as assistant teachers came with us and handed out little pieces of paper when we walked in the bar. They had characters on them and we were supposed to find our match, they wanted to force us to get to know new people. I was Ken, this was my Barbie.

 So now it's 1:30 am, and I find out what level I'm in at 8:30. Wish me luck! Night night.

A few side notes: 1. Pray for Lauren (Georgia). They lost her luggage somewhere in London and she’s thing-less.

2. I incorrectly told you about people from Missouri, they’re from Mississippi. My bad. Not that it really makes that huge of a difference to all of you who don’t know them, but still, I felt the need to correct myself.

3. Ann Elizabeth, the girl from the south, of where exactly I have forgotten, might as well be Ellen Page, I'll be sure to get a picture with her tomorrow so you can all be equally amazed. Ellen, if you're out there, she looks like you, sounds like you, and uses your vocabulary, watch out.

That is all. Au revoir.