Bienvenue a Grenoble!

I made it here at last. The town I call home for the next five months. I've met my family and mastered the bus system (which seemed to give me the most comfort, perhaps not surprisingly). I've found the CUEF (pronounced the koo-eff not C.U.E.F.) which is where we will have classes. I take a placement test on Monday (lundi) which is comprised of written, listening comprehension, and an oral part. My room is so cute and large. The house has wood and stone floors. I've been randomly bumping into furniture (because it's me) and the sound echoes across the house. Im getting used to navigating in the dark- rarely is there a light on unless someone is inside the room. At home there is Isabelle (my host mom who picked me up from the train station and gave me two kisses) and Benoit (the dad who is shorter than I am and works at Schneider Electric who offered me wine last night, and when I said no he SURPRISINGLY said "Voudriez-vous du Dr. Pepper?" >Would you like some Dr. Pepper?< and I laughed.) Also, there is Veronique- the 17 year old who is studying for the Bac- the final test the French take that determines if they go to University or not. The first night, we were a little shy, but last night she came into my room and we talked and found that we both share a love for Harry Potter, think that Ron and Hermione will marry, and we looked at all our pictures. I showed her my family (Christmas / New Years / Pappasito's going away party) and she showed me family albums of hers. I like talking to her one on one because she speaks a bit slower and we tend to correct each other a lot. If I dont understand a word, Ill try and spell it. 9 times out of 10 if I can spell it, I can decipher the meaning. The first night my head was pounding. My family speaks almost NO English. To me, they don't speak English at all because they know I want to learn. Ive been thinking in French constantly- and it's a relief at night to write in my journal in English- though Ive been slipping into a Franglais (French/English hybrid) recently. I can only imagine a month from now, or two. Madame Barrow at Nimitz always said that the French language ruined her English spelling, and it's so completely true. I saw SNOW on the way here on the train from Paris, and it was so beautiful. This morning there was snow on the sidewalk as I walked to the bus stop. If the bus stops in Texas looked like the ones here, I would never own a car. The buses are also clean and don't smell like homeless people. And the meals! It was hilarious because I've always read that the French eat one course at a time, but I always thought that was just something they said in textbooks left over from the 80s or something. So the first night I sit down to the table and Isabelle serves me this soup. Thick, orange- I think it was some kind of squash or something soup. So I help myself to a bit because I was hungry, thinking that was the only course. Isabelle even said, in French of course, we eat a lot of soup. So I'm thinking, this is it. Well, then I look and Isabelle and Veronique are done and waiting for me. So I finish my soup quickly. Then they bring out mushrooms and potatoes. Then when that was done, we had salad. Then we had bread, cheese and yogurt. Then we had fruit. I never know how much to eat because I have no idea what is coming next. Last night we had this coleslaw like salad followed by a rice, tomato, onion hot dish, then salad, the cheese, then chocolates and fruit. It was so funny. We took a tour of Grenoble- it's much bigger than I originally thought but it's still small. I love it and am just now learning to navigate the streets. The Internet Cafe I am at gave me free hot chocolate- which surprisingly comes with sugar on the side that you have to add yourself, which I thought defeats the purpose of hot chocolate, but whatever. But I found it. There are open air markets in the morning on almost every street corner except for Monday mornings. The window in my room- I opened the shutters one morning and looked out- and I see BelleDonne- the beautiful snow capped Alps- outside my window. Simply breathtaking to wake up, rub my eyes and slowly walk to the window, throw open the windows in the 30degree cold and have this brillant sight greet me. C'est magnifique. France is now in the period of the Soldes- a national time when all the stores have sales. We're going to go now to check out some soldes- Id like to buy another scarf or something and maybe a purse for books, etc. Hayley- your purse has been in every picture I've been in! Ha. Thanks. I am staying warm- Im finding the cold more tolerable even if it is FREEZING outside. My host family is great, the views are breathtaking, and the city is welcoming. I feel that every day my French gets a little bit better. I made my first French pun last night. I said "Le francais dans le livre n'est pas le francais dans le vivre" which is like saying, French in the books isnt the same as French in life. La vie. Something like that. I got a laugh, and I was happy about that.
I hope all is well with everybody and I feel like I've been gone much longer than I actually have. How will I feel in three months? I guess we'll see.
:)
Exciting!