Bonjour! Le Premier!

SO we landed in Geneva Sunday morning about 8 am and there was snow on the ground which I guess is very uncommon for Geneva. So we took the train from the airport (though I guess you can take a bus also) and then took a bus to the cite (pronounced see tay but I don't want to deal with french accents right now) dropped our stuff into two dormitories (a girls and a boys) and then we went to this grocery store for lunch that the prof recommended which was literally a grocery store-then we walked around that part of the town for a while which was mostly shopping areas got some wine and the group went back to the cite and sipped on wine and got to know each other a little better. Then we went to dinner and I had gnocchi with gorgonzola and then I passed out at 9:30. At midnight a couple of girls who had different flights landed and I was convinced it was time to wake up and thus was confused for the rest of the night as to whether or not I should be sleeping. We woke up and it had snowed a lot and Geneva like Portland can't really deal with that amount of snow and so the busses and airport shut down and we all had to pile into cabs to get to the train station, then we left for Montpelier which was supposed to last 3 hours but due to snow and a suicide took about six so we got in at 6:00 instead of 2:55 and our family picked us up at the train station we have a mom and brother (and his gf) and there's a Japanese student in our house as well, the family was very impressed by our height and the mom mentions it every time we enter a room. Then we unpacked and had dinner, some kind of ham and potato quiche type tart with salad and cheese plate for dessert (SO FRENCH). Then crashed at 9:30 again.

This morning we had breakfast, baguette and butter and jam and coffee and then our host mom drove us to school. We had to be there at 8:30 for the placement test. then we had a break and our first class for two hours. I'm in "Intermediate Advanced" aka somewhere in the middle. Class went okay, we talked about the history of Montpelier introduced ourselves and did a listening assignment. Then we had another break where our prof recklessly lead us through the streets of Montpelier to show us the cheap wine at Monoprix and the mall (???? I Know right?) then we hauled ass to grab lunch and get back to the school for the "tour" that took 2.5 hours of french explanation of the freezing cold city (which apparently is warmer usually) then when that finished we stopped at Monoprix and the mall to pick up a few essentials (ie shampoo) and went and had a glass of wine with some of the kids from the group and then came home to dinner which was some sort of beef and potato dish, salad, cheese plate and yogurt (coconut flavored).

School today went better than yesterday-I suppose it can only get easier? But, 5.5 hours of french class is pretty overwhelming. Tonight I think I'm going to see what Montpellier is like by moonlight... ;)

Montpelier is a really nice city-our family keeps saying how small it is but it's WAY bigger than Hamilton, bigger than Monasque but still very "french," so far I like it but I still don't know very much of it so we'll see how it all turns out. I have french class five days a week, MWF: 10-1 TR: 9-12 1-4 so tomorrow's a long day-we'll see how that goes... My french seems to slowly be getting better and hopefully by the end I wont sound like a giant poop (at least that's my goal...)