Normandy and the evil cat...

MICEFA organized a trip to Normandy. Great. I've been there twice already and I was planning to take my mom there, but, whatever, it's required for one of my classes. So Sarah and I go on this bus trip. Basically, we drive 3 hours, get dropped off at Arromanches, without any explanation and are told to be back at the bus in an hour. Lame. Sarah and I walked around and took a few pics.

We had brought our lunch, so we ate that, but it was a little chilly and most of the stuff was closed. What were we supposed to do? Everyone was relieved to be back on the bus...except a few girls who were late and we had to wait around for them.

Then we headed to the American Cemetery, where we had a guide. It made it a little more interesting, I think. There was some sort of veteran's ceremony going on at the time, so we all stopped for the Star-Spangled Banner and TAPS. Sarah also thought of a name for a new ale. Taps. Always have it on tap at the VFW.


Then, we loaded back on the bus and headed for Omaha beach. Did you know that the Americans named the beaches so that if there were a spy or if they found their plans at all, things like "Omaha Beach" meant nothing, because there was nothing named that. Only certain people could actually know what was defined as Omaha Beach. Interesting.



But in the end, it was very tiring and we learned very little, except for that most people in our program suck.

the beginning...

Alright, so I arrived in Heidelberg, Germany around 7:30 pm, 2 hours late, without luggage....wandered about for a while because I couldn't find Liz...because she was waiting for me inside. Germany was fun but relatively uneventful. It was cool to be there, but strange to be in a place where I didn't know the language.
Arriving by train on Thursday evening, I took the 7 from Gare de l'Est and schlepped my luggage to the hotel.
As a group, we didn't have to meet until Friday, but I started to meet some people in my program right away, the first of which being my roommate, Christie. She, her friend, Catherine, and I went to the MICEFA office before our meeting to start our housing search. It ended up that Catherine and I really hit it off and started looking for apartments together.
We found a super cute one in the 13th, but in the time we waited for Catherine to talk to her parents about it, another pair of girls in MICEFA had already taken it.
As we continued to look for housing, Catherine came to the realization that she hated it here. She loved Paris during the day, but was emotional, upset and sick in the evenings. She went home already.
Crazy.
Our French class started Tuesday and we've actually been given a ridic amount of homework, especially considering that most of us are moving this weekend. I move into my house tomorrow. I was placed in Intermediate II (there's beginner, int I, int II and advanced)
While we do a lot of other stuff in class, Mme DuParc will just follow anything that comes up in class and give us a vocab lesson. It's actually super helpful. For example, since we all were looking for housing, she asked us what questions we should ask our potential landlord. Extremely helpful vocab review/lesson. Also, she gave us a lot of dos and donts about french université.
I changed my mind and will now be attending Paris 8 where I can take euro studies, FLE and other international studies courses. I think we'll have about a week between this french class and when classes start...maybe I'll plan a trip?
Everything is such a whirlwind but things are really starting to settle down now, with my housing, etc. I'm getting adjusted very well. Also, I introduced my roommate to falafels (real ones, not Harrison ones) and she loves them, so I'll always have someone to share this with haha.

Some pics:
first off, I'm a total nerd
second, this fountain is frozen