Has it only been four days? It feels like a month at least! I've already noticed improvment day-to-day in speaking and comprehension. I carry a small purple notebook with me so that I can ask people to spell words and write them down phonetically to look up later, since I've realized that I'm much more visual when it comes to building vocabulary. My host family is kind enough to tell people we meet that I'm good at French, but I think that sets the expectation a little higher than I would like- I still very much appreciated when people speak slowly. I never realized how intuitive language is to native speakers until I wasn't one; I was discussing the difference between 'bon' and 'bien' with my host sister (bien is an adverb, not a adjective, but that's harder to remember while conversing), and the way she explained it was: "When there's something 'bon', you say it's 'bon' and when there's something 'bien', you say it's 'bien' " ...oh thanks, I'll just keep that in mind.
But it's really wonderful to be here; there was certainly a surreal moment when I was walking down the cobblestone street filled with medieval buildings, well preserved and now hosting chic boutiques, listening to my host sister and her friends chattering in French (and joining in, as I could) and I thought, 'wait- this is normal now?!'. The teenagers I've met, my host sister's friends, have all been really friendly and fairly easy to talk to. The town of Bourges, which is easy to reach by bus, from Saint-Doulchard is very historic, with Gallo-Roman ramparts or Renaissance-era mansions at every turn. In fact, the downtown area is mostly contained within the ancient forifications of the original Roman town, but, fascinatingly, you can seen how the town grew over time because the Gothic architecture, of which the local cathedral, la Cathedral Saint-Etienne, is a famed example, is located nearly at the outskirts of the Gallo-Roman boundries.
Today, I went for a bike ride in the morning with my host father, it was over-cast but still beautiful. Queen Anne's Lace is abundant here, along with dandelions and clover. (One of my favorite new words is the one for dandelions: boutons d'or, or golden buttons). One man who was walking through the park said bonjour to us as we went by, and once we had passed him, my host father told me that it was the mayor of Bourges. He was out for a morning walk, wearing a black beret and giving a friendly hello to the other passersby who had woken up early.
I hope that all of you are doing well at home, especially my friends and family on the East Coast. One of the weirdest things so far has been watching two natural disasters occur at home, while I'm in a foreign country. I just wish the French news would stop dubbing over Obama and the Americans they interview on the street- but I guess that's all part of the experience. Tonight, we had the news on in the background while making cupcakes for my host sister's birthday tomorrow. It was their first time making cupcakes, and my first time measuring all the ingredients everything in grams and militers, so all things considered, they turned out pretty well.
One of the harder things to adjust to has been the food. Don't get me wrong, everything here is as delicious as reputed, but it turns out that it's because the French don't exactly scrimp on adding butter and salt. It's rich enough that I had a very low grade nausea for the last few days, but now I'm feeling better so I hope that I've adjusted and can enjoy the food with gusto. (It also took me a while to realized that lunch is th biggest meal of the day, but now I'm adjusting to that too).
I actually can't wait for school to start. It's nice to have an adjustment period, but I also can't wait to have a routine and really get my year underway!
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