Back to School!

Yes, it is halfway through October, and I have just gotten back from my first day of classes! Today from 13-15 (1-3 for all of you who don’t function on military time) I had my “Comprehension Orale” (Oral comprehension) class with M. Dugois. He seems really nice and very outgoing. He spent most of the class joking with us and trying to break the ice. It’s prohibited in CIEF to have any native French speakers (except for the Professors) in any class so all of the students are English speaking—there is a group from Colby there! I had no idea there were this many Anglophones in Dijon at all much less ones my age! After class we went to what I think might be my favorite spot in Dij—Miss Cookies. It’s such a cute little café not too far from my house with great coffee, espresso, and little munchies like cookies and muffins. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to a Starbucks here and I actually could not be happier.  

I have to finish my reading for my civ class tomorrow, do some laundry, and start packing for my weekend in LONDON! Not an exciting post I know, but my life can't always be exciting.

PARENTS COME HOME

love you all

Caro

iiii'm baaaackkk!!!!

 I know I'm the worst and I haven't posted in SO long, but between our final week in Paris, coming back to Dijon where there has been no internet in my little house, and in general being so busy/exhausted I haven't even had the energy (or sometimes the means) to post, but I'll make this quick and concise to catch everyone up on my life!

Our week in Paris was absolutely amazing. I have once again fallen in love with the city and everything about it! The structure of our stay in Paris was completely different than that of our other excursions, we were simply given a list of 20 monuments/museums/gardens/landmarks that were obligatory to visit and able to make our own agenda! It was also my friends 21st birthday so it was fun to celebrate that in Paris--with a bottle of champagne by the Eiffel Tower! We saw all the major sights and even got to spend a day at Versailles. For more details of my trip PLEASE visit my friend Ellen's blog: www.elleninfrance.blogspot.com (I'm also following her blog if you can't find it!)


Paris was not only physically exhausting, but emotionally exhausting too. We've been here for almost 2 months (our half way point is coming up on Oct 15th!) and although it has been so nice to see this country, it of course has been hard on my relationships with my loved ones! My parents and sister have been in South America for a wedding for the past two weeks, and unfortunately I was hit with homesickness during the one period of time I can't talk to them. I was so lucky however to have my aunt--my other mother, there to help me through everything and her presence is something I am forever grateful for, and I've truly become so close with the girls on my trip and I cannot explain how happy I am to have such a strong support system here!


Coming back to Dijon was of course a little bit of a let down after being in the city of lights; my friend Brittany took a class on going abroad and said that we all are hitting the "disenchanted" phase of our journey (just after the "honeymoon" phase) where we fall out of love with Dijon until we get truly comfortable and find out niche here. With all the traveling we've been doing, I havent even spent a straight weekend here, but now since we're starting our university classes on Monday, we'll be here all during the week, until we go home!


Speaking of University....we took our placement test with CIEF (Conseil International d'Etudes Francophones) and got to see everyone in our program--the overwhelming majority of which are asians (go figure!) Most of the people in the university have just arrived here so they had to go to orientation to Dijon and things like the bus system (which luckily I got to skip). The placement test, which was four parts, was to assess our abilities in the language and place us into appropriate levels (1-5) for our language class. The class is split up into 5 classes: Oral Comprehension, Technique of Expression, Written Comprehension, Oral Expression, and Grammar which are five separate classes that I will take once a week in addition to my civilization course and art history (which are both with just Wake kids). Much to my surprise, I placed into level 5 for my language abilities, so we'll have to see how hard that is!


I think that is quite enough for today...it's totally bizarre that I haven't even started my uni classes, and I'm already half was done with my stay here! Hope all is well in the states, and I cannot wait to talk to my parents again!!


Love you all, and I'll be sure to update again soon!
Caro