Bienvenue en France

Welcome to blog post numero uno! I'm not sure how much I'm going to write in this, but it seems like a better way to keep people who are interested in my activities up-to-date then sending out huge, annoying mass emails. So here you have it. I left Brattleboro last Thursday morning, and after a fairly stressful airport visit (heightened security, huge group of students and their parents AND their luggage, etc.), we boarded the plane and made the long journey over the Atlantic. I was sitting next to my soon-to-be best new friend, Jake, and we did a lot of talking about music and movies and books, and did a crossword puzzle or two, and tried not to offend the crazy ambiguously European lady sitting next to us who kept standing up on her seat and calling to her man-friend who was sitting in the row behind us. Once we landed, we got directly onto a bus to Tours, our orientation city, with a brief stop outside Orléans for lunch, then onward to our destination.


Since then, we've settled in with our host families and started classes at the Institut de Touraine, both of which are going very well. My host parents are wonderful; one of their top priorities for our stay with them is that we get a good sampling of French cuisine, and they have yet to make anything that isn't absolutely delicious. My host dad, Patrick, is quite the card, and spends a lot of time telling us how wonderful France is and how we're never going to want to leave (probably true) and praising unpasturised cheese and boxed Bordeaux, while my host mom, Ann-Marie, spends most of her time trying to shut him up so that she can tell us about some cultural attraction in the area.
Sample exchange:
A: "Have you seen the art museum in the city center? It's really beauti-"
P: "It's right next to this great bar called the Academy of Beer!"
A: "I'm trying to tell them about something cultural, and all you want to talk about is beer!"
P: "What? Beer is cultural! There's beer from France, Belgium... they have all of Europe in there!"
Etc., etc. They're great. They also have a 20-year-old son, Pierre, who we didn't see for the first few days, but who has proved to be an excellent guide in the world of la jeunesse de Tours. The past couple of nights, the other American staying in my house, Kim, and I have gone out with him and his friends, which has been a lot of fun. They're all interesting and friendly and a little crazy -- not unlike my friends in the States.

Classes are classes -- a lot of grammar and a conversation class where, today, we talked about whether or not neighbors should be alerted if a pedophile moves into a neighborhood. They're not incredible, but they're not terrible either. We've also been going on cultural excursions in the afternoon -- yesterday, the first really nice day since we've been here, I went on a boat tour of the Loire, which was very pretty and kind of boring. We were, however, with about 50 French senior citizens, who would get really excited when the tourguide started talking about how the people who live in these houses built into cliffs -- they're called maisons troglodytique-- use dehumidifiers a lot. We also learned the entire life (and death) story of St. Martin. It was a little dry, but oh well.

This Saturday, our whole group is going to look at some chateaux, and then on Sunday my family is taking us to Amboise, just down the river, to visit the market and Leonardo da Vinci's house, so I'm sure there will be more stories and pictures then. For now, I'm going to sign off and go wander around the park near my house. I hope you enjoyed my first foray into the travelblog-o-sphere, and I'll try to keep 'em coming every few days or so.
Bisoux!