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!