Commencement d'Orientation

We went on a three-and-a-half day trip to Vannes, a small ville about two hours northish of Nantes. It was four people in charge and all 80 of us IES programmers, many of which persisted in speaking English to each other even though we were strongly encouraged to communicate in French given that it is the language we will be speaking our entire time here. My first friend Kate (who reminds me a lot of Miriam, a good friend at Grinnell) and I spoke French to each other because we were excited to get started in conversation. I don't even remember all that we did; IES is extremely organized in their affairs and we all just went along like a herd of sheep where they told us to go. We had a lot of free time in each place because they always allow extra time in case of an accident (luckily we don't have a huge accident every time we stop somewhere). There were a ton of activities every day and every night we were exhausted and fell asleep really easily. We toured an island and rented bikes for five hours and traversed the entire island and had lunch, it was so small. And we went to a crazy old fortress and walked all the way up to the top tower, which had an incredible view. There are a lot of students from Whitman and Grinnell here, six or seven from each, and the rest are from other fairly good schools like Bates (two of my favorite people so far are from Bates, one a swimmer and one a rower), Berkley, Harvard, Wesleyan, Northwestern, etc. Many of them seem smart, but I was surprised to find that many people have a very closed mind when it comes to going abroad. The whole point of this experience is to delve into a new culture and language, let down your defenses and try new things. People who know me well should know that's not the easiest thing for me to do, but I find myself being more open to new foods, activities and ways of living than many of the students here. A lot of people also don't seem to understand that the point of being here is to blend in and immerse oneself in French culture, not to persist in being as American as possible and making that clear to everyone around you. I think things will get better once classes start and we all have schedules and are forced to speak French (English is forbidden in the IES Center) all the time. I'm also more easily irritated when I'm tired and I've been tired a lot since arriving here. But it's hard to be cranky when I'm living in a house with four of the coolest, sweetest, nicest and cutest kids on the planet. Tonight Jeanne and Philippine and I played Uno and Timothé and I read Tintin, a french cartoon book together. Thaïs just talks to me nonstop and I catch about 10% of what she says.

Tomorrow and the rest of this week we have continued orientation at the center. We took a four-part test during our little trip to determine what level of french classes we should be in this week. We find out the results of the tests tomorrow and then start our orientation. Then I think real IES subject classes and classes at the university start the following week. We shall sooooon see. A bientôt!