"Oh France, How I Love You"

Wow. So these past two days have been SO long and full of things to do. I absolutely adore France beyond words. Top three reasons:

1. The people. Even the ones who stare endlessly at my American self. The ones in this small town I am living in are absolutely amazing. I love that they try to help us speak our French. I love how they love that we are here. I love how they dress. The dress with simplicity and comfort and it's a way of expressing themselves, rather than pleasing others. The women mostly do this. My French teacher, who is about 30 or so, is my favorite example. I'll hopefully show pictures to prove my point later. Nonetheless, the French are very used to tradition and I love how they live their days in this small town of a 1000 people.

2. The landscape and the architecture. Since I am in a town so far from Paris and Tours, we all see a lot of the land in the horizon. The buildings are beautiful to me and the land has hundreds of trees that have been there for hundreds of years. The Abbey campus has a carefully landscaped property that has tons of shrubs and gardens and a little creek that flows through the back. The building itself has tons of history and the arcs throughout the building are divine. In the town of Pontlevoy, the houses are one story with flat fronts, lots of long windows and most have a gate too. I'll elaborate on my point too, after I get back from Paris so I can take pictures. :)

3. The history. In Fort Worth, where I'm from, the oldest building I can think of was made in the late 1800's. In America, the oldest standing house today couldn't be more than 200 years old. The Abbey has been here since 1034. 1034. It blows my mind. My friend Erik and I were talking about the history of this building and all the people who have sat where I am, walked the property like I did and who's born and died here. The French history has lots and lots of glorious moments and horrific ones too obviously. I don't know that much about the whole country itself, but my World Lit class is there for me to understand it. I started it today actually.

Yesterday:

Woke up around 8 because I had class at nine. It's so nice to have a class that's one floor under me. Erik, Lindsey had a cup of coffee beforehand. It was yummy coffee.. Cheap too. We then went to French 2 and my teacher is a French born citizen. She's fluent in English but I don't always understand what she is saying. She is a very VERY nice professor. She is about 30 or so, married with kids and she is going to live in New Zealand after this semester is over. French 2 will be a bit of a challenge but I'm sure it'll all go well.

I then had a two hour break. I pretty much facebooked and attempted at unpacking. We eat lunch everyday around 2 at Le Commerce. Lunch was SOO good. We had mashed potatoes and beef bourguignon. I've never had it before and I'm pretty sure nothing in the world tastes better than it.

After that, I had my first da Vinci class. Our teacher is probably half of the reason why I took the class. His name is Terence Netter. He's a 80 year old man with the heart of a 20 year old and looks like a 60 year old. He's German born, a French Citizen. He was a priest in the early 60's and left to marry his wife, and they are still together today. He's a renowned visual artist as has several galleries aross the globe, one being in Tours. Go to his website at www.terencenetter.com. He has taught all over too. Georgetown was one. He's brilliant and open to any questions we have for him. He has so many stories to tell and knows everything about Leonardo da Vinci. I'm SOOOO excited for this class.

After that class, we all kinda just hung around the campus and went and got a Coke from like a general type store. We had dinner that night (CHEESEBURGERS!) and had a meeting about traveling and some of the things that we're doing this semester. I had a horrible headache by then (go figure) and pretty much went to sleep as soon as we were done that night.

This morning consisted of my French class, which was better than yesterday, and my World Civ class. My professor in that class is so awesome too. She's a 25 year old woman from Toronto has her doctorate's in something that I don't remember. She dresses so well. I love it. Scarves, long pencil skirts, lots of grey and black and wears the cutest dark rimmed glasses. She's incredibly smart and is currently writing a book about women's objects from the beginning of British history. Crazy cool.

We just had lunch about an hour or so. I've been cleaning my room and finally finished unpacking. We're going to go to the grocery store later on.

I'm excited about this weekend. The whole staff and student body are going to Tours. We're seeing Clos Luce, which is the house (well, mansion) that da Vinci lived the last three years of his life. Some of his own original inventions are still there. How freakin' exciting. We're also visiting some famous chateaus and Professor Netter's art gallery there. Some friends and I are also staying an extra night to see the city another day. We all need to buy somethings we can't get here and going to visit an asian restuarant there. YUM. It's going to be so fun!!

I still can't believe I'm here. I'm going to be incredibly sad when I leave this place. Love and miss you all that read this :)