Class!

Snow from the first week (just outside my bedroom window)

Hey everybody, I'm really sorry it's been so long since my last post. I've been pretty busy with school, friends, family, etc. Not to mention the occasional laziness... But anyway, life here has far surpassed any of my expectations and I'm already thinking that 6 months in Europe just isn't quite long enough! I enjoy my class so far, it's from 8:30-12:30 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and 12:30-4:30 Tuesday and Thursday. The class is set up so that we spend an hour every day in lab where we do listening activities and the rest of the time learning grammar, writing, speaking, and culture from lectures, discussions with partners, and class discussions. Our professor's name is Kristoff and he's probably one of the best language professors I've ever had. He's very helpful and full of energy, but unfortunately he left the second week for a two week vacation. Our substitute is okay, but I can't wait for Kristoff's return next week! Our class is very diverse with about 15 students. There are just over 15 students and from the top of my head there are 4 americans, 2 brazilians, 1 columbian, 2 koreans, 1 spaniard,  1 columbian, 1 afghani, and 1 iranian. The other few are from Asia and the Middle East. I'm now really starting to get to know some of the non-american students. Surprisingly I'm also starting to get a lot of practice with my Spanish. Just yesterday I did a English, Spanish language exchange with Catalina, the columbian student in my class. The concept of a language exchange is new to me, but it basically meant that we spoke 30 minutes in English and 30 minutes in Spanish while giving each other advice and corrections. It's a really great way to learn and meet people and I even went as far as going onto www.mylanguageexchange.com to do it some more with French people. I've already planned to meet two different Grenoble locals through it and we're doing an exchange next week! I'm now trying to find Germans on it to learn about Germany and of course see if I can start learning the language now. This is a lot of information, but more to come tomorrow. I have a lot to talk about my host family, my sightseeing, and upcoming plans!

This is a candid shot I took in class. Apparently February 2nd is the French holiday Chandeleur, a.k.a. national crêpe day. Lucky for us Kristoff brought a mountain of crêpes for the class (and lots of nutella and jam!). Later that night I enjoyed a crêpe dinner with my host family, again with plenty of nutella