l'arrivé à france.

bonjour de nancy! after a stressful and exhausting, but thankfully rather uneventful, 24 hours of traveling, i have arrived at my host family's home and the town of nancy. my host dad is very nice and explained everything to me. they have this complicated entry with a gate that is all operated electronically with these little plastic keys you touch to a pad to open it. i have my own room which is basically a studio apartment with a seperate entrance. the kids are great. lauther, 1, has huge blue eyes, chubby cheeks, and lots of blond curls, all he does is laugh. cyriaque, 2, is similar only more mobile. he loves to do laps around the kitchen table. vivianne, 7, was grilling me about harry potter. luckily, i knew enough to pass his test. i hope now he thinks i'm cool enough to hang out with. nathan, 9, is autistic. he doesn't talk much but is a sweetheart. sybil, 10, is very mature for her age. and melodie, 12, is the calmest of the bunch and the easiest to understand. she even tried out some of her english on me. the mom is more timid and reserved (very french) but still helpful. their dog is named touley and is some sort of bull dog, i think. they have a cat that i think is persian, with the grey and white fuzzy long fur, and is named tipsy. there are fish but i haven't been introduced to them yet. i arrived in nancy 6 pm wednesday night and got settled in then had dinner later. the french typically eat dinner at 8 or 9 pm, something i'll have to get used to. all the kids take baths and put on pajamas before dinner, then during dinner the mom puts them to bed by age rank, starting with the youngest. they're all pretty well behaved and fairly regimented but still silly at times. near the end of dinner when just the two eldest girls remained, they decided to try out some riddles on me. this was slightly evil of them because they were chattering away in french so it was already hard to follow and then i was expected to answer the riddles which i'm horrible at in english.
after my host parents helped make my bed and such, my host mom asked me if i needed a 'serviette.' i didn't understand her at first and then thought she was asking about a napkin which is the same word. i figured she must have been asking about a washcloth so in my jetlagged state i said no. then later i realized she had actually asked if i needed a towel for the shower, which i did, so after dinner i had to explain to my host dad that i hadn't understood and did in fact need a towel.
classes at the university start the first week of october. until then we are having some orientation meetings, we had lunch at our director ron's house today and then filled out forms to register for classes. (ron and his wife bethany who works with the students in strassborg are very nice and energetic and from new york). we're also doing things like setting up a bank account and getting aquainted with the town. we go to paris next weekend. and we are taking some remedial type classes.
some things seem very expensive, like a postcard for 90 euros (about $1.50) and others seem really cheap like a brand new large paper back book for 3 euros (less than $6). i'm frustrated by some of the other students because 4 of the girls have taken french 321 (a whole year ahead of me and max, the only boy on the trip, though we're all juniors) yet they speak english constantly. whereas, max and i who have only been through 202 are trying our best to speak in french all the time. the town itself is rather quaint but still has a decent sized center with shops, restaurants, and more importantly, bars. i've already had the customary afternoon coffee and cigarette on the rattan chairs of a sidewalk cafe.
p.s. i'm assuming blogger recognizes my new IP address as located in france, and has accordingly become entirely in french, including the spell check. because of this, and my obtuse use of french over the next few months, my spelling will probably become rather poor.
p.p.s. i will most likely be deleting my facebook in the next several days, because 1) i despise it and 2)they are opening the site up so that search engines like google will be able to find names and profiles and the last thing i need is a future employer/professor/young child i have looked after to google my name and find hundreds of drunken and not so drunken photos of me. so, au revoir facebook.
p.p.p.s. my apologies for the long post, there's just been a lot going on in the past 48 hours. future posts will probably be shorter. or maybe not.
p.p.p.p.s. the view from my bedroom window: