A cow!

Hahaha, so I think everyone should know that as I’m writing this, I am watching a French reality show that has all these kids live in a boarding school like it’s the 1900s. Isn’t that hilarious? I love reality television, so this is great. Except I understand zero of it. Television is hard, they speak WAY too fast. And you can’t ask a TV to repeat itself. But they are wearing funny clothes on this show! Excellent.

So big news of the day: I bought a cell phone! It was a little more expensive than I would have hoped (120 Euros for the phone and a prepaid card), but completely necessary. Especially because I only have dinner with my family three times a week, it’s a definite must to be able to make plans with other people. And a safety thing too! What if I suddenly become lost and need to call for help? I’m definitely rationalizing for my parents, by the way! J So that was fun, and Annie and I negotiated ourselves successfully through that whole situation too…all in French, of course! My days consist of little battles, and if I can speak French well to someone while I’m ordering my lunch or buying a cell phone, my whole day is complete! And speaking of lunch, we found the cutest little sandwich shop for lunch, and they have a special where you get a sandwich on delicious ciabatta bread, a drink, and a dessert (most delicious pastries ever) all for 3.50 euros! And that’s amazing, because I am stressing about spending too much money. So we are doing some trial and error. Yesterday, we went to the Casino cafeteria, and it was not a good choice—too expensive. So for these first few days, I’m not worried about spending too much as I discover what places are good. But as time goes on, it will definitely be a concern.

Let’s see….what else? I didn’t go for a run, I was too lazy. And it has literally been raining since Monday. And everyone is like “wow, this weather is really weird!” And I’m like “Hello, Toulouse! Can you please have nice weather for my first week here?” Ohhhh, and we had this very normal and good orange juice that I was drinking with breakfast, but I guess we ran out of that stuff. So this morning I come into the kitchen and there’s another bottle in the fridge, so I’m like “okay, that works…” Umm, turns out, it doesn’t work. Because it was some “Vita-juice” that really tasted like people shouldn’t be drinking it and it was full of chemicals. Gross. That’s my orange juice story. No more French weird vitamin juice.

Well I guess if I’m talking about orange juice, I really don’t have much to say. But one last story, and I’m really proud because I understand all of what was going at the dinner table: Manon is 6 years old, so learning how to read and spell and that sort of thing. And also, she goes to a speech pathologist, so Valérie and Gauthier are always working on her speaking with her. So today she was reciting this little poem, and then Valérie was asking her what words start with “A”. And Manon was giving a variety of answers, such as “Les chausseurs?” [shoes], “Un chateau?” , etc. And then Valérie was like, okay Manon, listen to me, what starts with an “A”, like “les animaux” [animals]. And Manon thinks for a moment, and then says all confidently “Une vache!” [a cow!]. Well everyone starts laughing, so she thinks she did something funny. And we just could not stop laughing, and it was hilarious. She never did quite get the hang of that whole exercise.

Well that’s all for tonight. Bonne soir!