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I thought this was so fun.

I rode the bus yesterday to school and back (abt. 45 minutes each way) and on the way back, this older man sat with me. His wife sat in front of us, and by and by this older man started talking to me (also, he asked if I was English, which I usually say yes to, and if I was Swedish. Really? Swedish?) Anyway, his son is in New York right now and he and his wife got really excited when I was American and when they found out that I lived right near them, took the same stop as a matter of fact. They insisted that I come to their house, but I had class and couldn't, so they wrote down their address and phone number and showed me where the house was. Second street, second house on the right, I think. So cute.

While we're talking about the bus and I mentioned being British, here's a story. I got on the bus last week and talked to the bus driver as I got my ticket out. He asked me "English?" to which I responded yes, because of course, clearly, I speak English. However; he then proceeded to tell me that his wife was from England too. I didn't correct him, but I hadn't used a British accent or anything and I figured he would realize that. He said the town his wife was from, and I asked him to repeat it. He did, and I asked him where it was. He told me, but I said I wasn't familiar with that area. He then asked me where I was from. I just got the Birmingham out, didn't even get to Alabama, when he burst out "You're from Birmingham and you don't know where lkqfjmlqkjf is? That's right in the same region!! How do you not know where that is?!?" Apparently he hadn't noticed my lack of accent and apparently his wife is from the same region as Birmingham, England and now I look like the fool because I didn't know a small village in the same region that I'm presumably from. But I shrugged it off, adopted an accent, and we chatted it up for the 20 minute ride into centre ville.

The French people have a bad rap, but I tell you, everyone I've met has been incredibly friendly. Really, it almost borders on ridiculous that I've had 3 people I have just met give me their numbers in case I needed anything (no guys, in case anyone was wondering...) They're so kind!
Welcome to France!!

Bonjour!

Well, today I'm going to give some more information about Pau. Pau is a much bigger town than I anticipated, I actually live in a suburb called Lons. We bike 2.5 miles to school every day. It's kind of a pain to be so far, but it's fine. The family is very sweet, and I'm getting a good workout!

The first picture is some signs around campus. It means "Knowledge is not merchandise, university is not an enterprise." Our french professor said yesterday that "Striking is a national sport." The French love to demonstrate, and this is some of the student's form of expression. I'll come back to this.

The second picture is a picturesque part of Pau. The Pyrenees aren't far, so they built this beautiful boulevard where you can see the mountains in the distance and there are flowers... all of Pau doesn't look like this, I assure you, but this is the pretty part.

The third picture is of the Faculte de Lettres, and the second is my room in the house. The campus of Pau is very interesting; like most of France they don't care that things are old and need repair. The whole campus reminds me of Haley: it's just older and dingy and needs to be renovated. But this is the whole campus and they don't care about making it look new and shiny. The French don't mind things being old, where we would say repaint and reshingle and renovate, they just use what they have. Also, French universities are very cheap for French citizens, about 500 Euros for the year, and still French students demonstrate all the time about lowering costs. So, you get what you pay for, in a sense. Where we pay exorbitant amounts, we expect nice buildings. The French don't pay enough to care about keeping up their things. It's just a different mindset.

The next picture is my room in the house (for you, Annie, so you can visualize where I am). I share a bathroom with the 2 kids in the house, but the room is all for me! It's great to be able to be with the family and learn their way of life. We've watched this really funny French teledrama "Plus belle la vie" most every evening, and yesterday we watched an hour of Grey's Anatomy in French. So funny! I can't understand much at all, so it's a great mental workout!

A few cultural differences, just so you know. Not better or worse than ours, just differences:
1). I was confused about wearing shoes, as I noted last post. I asked Caroline (my host sister) and she said that they wear shoes downstairs, but not necessarily upstairs. just kind of different.
2). There's no shower curtain. I'm not the only one, there are several students living with host families that don't have shower curtains. There are also several students that don't have showers, only baths.
3). Most of us don't have top sheets. There's a bottom fitted sheet on the bed, but then it's just the comforter. What about when you wash the sheets?
4). It's not necessarily true that the French take forever to eat. My family eats super fast, always cleans their plates, and I'm the last one, struggling to finish all that they put on my plate. I think they hear alot about how Americans eat so much more so they're putting more on my plate, but I don't eat a lot in one sitting. Oh well. It's a struggle, but somebody's got to do it! (:

I did spend one morning/ early afternoon in town and that was fun. I went to church on Sunday: didn't get much. But, we did read some passages I was familiar with. We read Ezekiel 37, the dry bones chapter, and that was a good reminder. Especially in France, where religion is so dead, it was good to read these strong promises: "Prophesy to these bones... and they will live, and become a great army." Anything can happen, even with things that seem completely lifeless. God didn't give up His power post-cross, He makes dry, dead, empty things full and whole and alive. Very good reminder as I sit in a church of maybe 40 people.
Also, we read The beginning of Ezra, with bits of Nehemiah. The beginning of Ezra is so cool, because it is King Cyrus, king of Persia, says that the Lord of Israel has given him so much, so he commissions the rebuilding of the temple. That a pagan king should not only allow, but pay for the return of a people brought into his country as slaves to rebuild a temple to a God he doesn't believe in... if God can work that much in Cyrus's heart, then the people I know can see Him too. I trust Him to good in me here, through me and in me. He can work in my heart to burden me for these people. Whatever He does, it will be good. Of that I am sure.

So, that's us. We're going on an excursion to Spain tomorrow, so I'm super excited! I'll let you know how it goes!

Bonjour a tous!!

Well, I should really keep up with this better because I have a TON to write! This next post should be about Paris, but I don't have my pictures on this computer, so I'm just doing a brief update. This is post-Paris, I am in Pau, met my family 2 days ago, and I just took my first test. That's right: we've been here 2 days and we have a test already. (: It was really just a placement test, so no big deal, but still a test.

My family is wonderful. The dad is from Spain (!!) and is so Spanish. Talks all the time, very warm, very friendly, love love. The mom is an excellent cook: the first night we had a tartlette of tomatoes, ham, onions, and cheese: so good!! And of course, bread, salad, and we started off with cantoulope. Last night we had some huge (like, well over a foot long) zucchini or something from her garden. She split it in half, stuffed it with some meat, cheese, herb mixture and baked it for an hour or so. Again, really good!
They have 2 kids at home: twin 17 year olds, a boy Paul and a girl Caroline. Both absolutely beautiful. Here's a fun I'm-definitely-living-in-your-midst story: I took a shower last night before dinner, and I really agonized over whether I should wear shoes down to dinner or do they care? Really agonized. I didn't want to offend them, but I really didn't want to wear shoes either. Well, I put on my flip flops and went down to dinner. And don't worry, Paul showed up without a shirt on. All I could think of was Aunt Bea from Andy Griffith: "Opie! You can't show up to the table like a naked savage!! Go put a shirt on!" I think I don't have to wear shoes anymore. (:

This morning was an adventure. It's about 3 miles from my house to campus, but I live next door to another USAC student. Today, we used their bikes to get to class. Well, like I said, it's pretty far, and we have to go through about 5 roudabouts. I haven't ridden a bike in probably 3 years, so I was a tiny bit wobbly. We almost died about 3 times because there are no bikes lanes in the roundabouts and the cars don't stay in their lines... I just yelped a few times... anyway, we made it, but I really got the blood flowing, that's for sure!

Well, I'm waiting to go take a phonetics evaluation. Sitting in a room alone with a French person who is evaluating every word you say for pronunciation and grammar: that's not at all intimidating... (: Wish me luck!

Anyway, love to all! I'll wtire again soon!

Italy!! Beautiful country and coast, but the beach has got nothing on Florida. It's a rock beach. Weird, right? We were in the Cinque Terre, which is a national park and 5 little coastal villages that have kept their small town size while still greatly catering to every tourist within 96 miles. Anyway, I added a lot of pictures because it was beautiful.

But, the landscape was absolutely stunning. We walked some of the trails connecting the coastal villages, and through hot and sweaty, the views from the peaks into these little streets was well worth it. Really, you have to see it to feel how quaint it is.(Read: stucco falling off of buildings, laundry drying above the streets and neighbors yelling to each other out their doors.)

It needs to be said, though, that Italy needs Jesus. There is absolutely no moral compass. Women on the beach without all their swimsuit, little kids running around without all their clothes, and lots of PDA. Italy just needs Jesus. And it makes me wonder: the personality of their culture is amazingly similiar to Spain's. So, did the ultra-conservative/ restrictive Franco regime actually prevent the morality of the Spanish culture from collapsing altogether? And in 15, 25, 35 years, are they going to look just like Italy? Once you go there, once these things are so prevelant, there is no going back. Pandora's box does not close.

<--- one of the towns, Manarola, maybe?

Specifics: we stayed in Vernazza, which is really touristy but adorable. Our B&B was in a back street, with a babbling brook out our window and some really noisy ducks. (: It was peaceful and very refreshing. It was really nice to be able to leave the window ajar and not be awakened by street noise at 5am. I had lots of amazing pizza, and gelato every day, of course. We hiked the trails part of one day, and swam in the Mediterranean and then took the boat back from Monterosso to Vernazza, very short, but very relaxing and scenic. I'll let the pictures do their work to show you what it looked like.

<-- I think you can actually see three of the towns if you look closely.

<--This was the lady who let us into our hotel. Her daughter actually runs it, but she was out of town, so the mama fixed us up. No English. Nice lady, though.

We also did the Chateau de Chillon in Montreux, Switz before leaving. This was probably one of my favorite things we did, because the castle is in such good shape. It's about 900 years old, has always been maintained, and it's really cool. It's on Lake Geneva with the French Alps in the background.

All these wonderful things being said, I was not entirely at ease in Italy, to put it mildly. Perhaps it’s not fair to put this down, but 80% of the Italians we met were unkind. Maybe it’s because we were in the tourist part, and they all hate their jobs, which is probable, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt. We met a few nice people, but it was surprising how brusque most of them were. So many people I know who have been there have gushed over the friendliness and warmth of the Italians, so it must be there, but we didn't see much of that. So, at any rate, Switzerland was a huge contrast to Italy, between the pristine, on time, silent Swiss trains and the late, dirty, loud Italian trains, there was a lot to compare. For me, Switzerland won every time. But I'm so glad we went. And if you ever have the chance to visit Italy, you should definitely go.

My dad wanted me to clarify some things: a). they were only running to their second flight because their first was late (you're cleared, Dad). b). I absolutely loved Switzerland. It was wonderful. The day after it rained, the Children's adventure trail day, was perfect. Perfect weather, perfect scenery in Murren and Gimmelwald, and everyone we met was friendly.

It was so wonderful in fact, that, after Spain, Switzerland is the #2 country I would move to. It's orderly but not dictating, friendly but not out of control- they've got it going on. I set my watch by the trains. Speaking of which, I don't sleep on planes at all, I only sleep in cars if I'm exhausted, but put me on a Swiss train and I am out. They're silent, smooth, and gently swaying... wishing yet? yeah, me too...

And since my next blog will be on Italy, here's some stories that happened from Switzerland to Italy. On the train from Martigny, Switz. to Milan we had assigned seats, and the fourth in our booth was a great Swiss man from Geneva. Alex is 35, a pediatric surgeon, and sweet sweet sweet. As God would have it, he had lived in South Africa for 3 years, goes back every year, and loves it. My dad lived in South Africa for 2 years before he met my mom. Needless to say, they had quite a lot to talk about. Also, he had been to Cinque Terre the weekend before and gave us a lot of good information, which was great.

But there's more. I need to insert a bit about luggage here: I have a 54 lb. bag lovingly referred to as "Helga" (aka Hel on wheels). She's a bit wieldy. Anyway, this particular train didn't have a luggage rack, so my dad strapped her to the handrail in the entrance/ exit area of the train. So he has to leave every so often to check on her and make sure that no one has stolen her (as if they could pick her up). Right in front of the doorway is a group of individuals who popped their first bottle of wine at 9:15am. Every time Dad passed, they would talk to him in French. Dad doesn't speak French, so he would just shrug and laugh. By 9:45, they'd had 3 bottles of wine, and Dad was cracking jokes with a word in Italian, a word in French... and Alex was chuckling because he, of course, speaks German, French, English and some Italian. Figures.

Anyway, it goes downhill from here, because Dad is talking to Alex, and all of a sudden he goes "Wait, I saved this to show someone...." I had no idea what he was talking about. He crawls over Alex to get to his bag and whips out a file folder. Still no idea. He then proceeds to pull out family photos. Oh yes, Alex is treated to a small family history in pictures, with one picture that was taken when I was probably 11. I was ready to claim a twin sister who was absent at the moment... So, we went through that, and Alex was an angel, and helped Mom and I with our bags when we got to Milan.
That was Switzerland. Good stories.

Hope you like! I know I'm really behind on posting... sorry. I'll catch up soon. (:
Love to al-
WAR EAGLE!! Tomorrow is first gameday!