Updates from the Western Front

So, a week later and I'm starting classes at Paul Valery. I've settled in with my host family, dinners continue to be good, conversations slow, but everyone is patient with me.

This past sunday the program went on our last sunday excursion to Avignon. It's a beautiful city, but we didn't get to spend much time there. Most of our visit was filled with a tour through le Palais de Papes (at one point back in the 13th and 14th centuries there were two popes). It was cool, but actually not much to see...kind of boring to be perfectly honest. After Avignon, we hauled our sorry butts back onto the bus and cruised on over to a vineyard to learn all about wine making. It was surreal standing in a vast field full of grapes under the hot mediterranean sun, and eating small dark grapes right off the vine. They are pretty good....oh and we tasted some more wine.
I think I'll be following Johnny Depp's example and tattooing "Wino Forever" on my arm. Just kidding mom and dad.

As for as going to university in france:

The campus feels like a mix between run down 60s architecture and a prison...hard to explain. There's a lot of graffiti everywhere and the fountains are overflowing with algae and other lovely things. Although the number of people smoking on a normal Montpellier street is slightly higher than in the U.S, it seems as though 2/3s of the population on campus is smoking....I guess college life is stressful.

Most of my classes are still with Americans, which is fine since I like the americans, but frustrating in the sense that I don't have the language skills to take some abscure course with actual french students. My best bet, believe it or not is the English Lit course I'm taking to get credit for my major back home. Lecture in english was wonderful, if a bit of a cop-out. Hehe, hey! I need credit for my English major!

Otherwise all is well, starting to look at transportation for future trips.

Until later,
Becca