Hello World,

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. My life has been rather insane over the last two weeks. I guess doing summer classes tends to do that to you though.

My first course finished up last week (finally). It was a little trying, I'm not going to lie. The material wasn't too difficult, but the professor was a little hard for me to understand some times. Her style of teaching just really didn't fit me well. C'est la vie!

Last Friday I started my second class at the university of Caen. And, I get free internet!!! and I almost didn't bring my laptop... This second class is half phonetics and half conversation. It has a lot of presentations and such (which are rather intimidating - especially in French). It also has a lot of really fun phonetics labs though. I've always loved phonetics, so its quite enjoyable for me :). The prof for this class is amazing too. He's a very natural teacher.

Last Sunday me and my room mates spent the whole day at McDonalds beceause they are the only place around with free WiFi. People in France don't ever feel bad about taking a table for the whole day either, so we didn't have to worry about the fact that we were there for six hours. Sad thing - the French Fries in France kinda suck ;). But the rest was awesome. It was kinda nice to eat wonderful terrible for your health north american food again. Somebody special also managed to crawl out of bed at 5:30 to talk to me for a few hours ;).

D-Day was pretty neat. We got to go to three of the beaches and see all the memorials etc. It's very strange to look out over our beach and think of it being invaded instead of people suntanning on it. There are bunkers every km or so though, so its not too hard to imagine. Because Obama locked down every American beach in the area on D-Day we got to go to the Canadian memorial ceremony. It was really neet. Steven Harper was there and he spoke. It was really neat. Despite the fact that we sat on bleachers in the rain for 4 hours ;).

We went to Omaha beach and the American Cemetray, etc the day after. And it rained. It was a very rainy weekend, which I suppose is appropriate. It was just really neat to be in Normandy for everything. I really enjoyed it.

Ok, time for class. Enjoy NA for me :)

I ate ratatouille

It's not near as cute as in the movie, but it tastes pretty awesome. We ate it with CousCous, it was pretty great.

France continues to be fun. This week we're going to mont st michelle, and hiking in Swiss Normandy. Oh, and aparetnly Obama is comming and we're going to go try and see him on D-Day - which will probably involve a lot of sitting around doing nothing trying to get through security. I don't really care to go, but all these crazy Americans are pretty set on it. Who knows, if we manage to actually meet Obama it could be cool. Just in general I'm really looking forward to seeing all of the D-Day stuff this weekend. I'm hoping that we somehow magically end up at Juno Beach, but I'm the only Canadian, so I think my chances are pretty low.

School has been going pretty hard core this week. It's really a lot at once. Summer classes are officially not my favourite. It's like a week in one day. Pretty intense. It's really hard. I don't think I did too terrible though. 1/3 of the way done the first half. The second half is at the universtiy of Caen. I'm really looking forward to that one because we both get to go to Caen everyday (best market in Normandy) and there is a large chance of free wireless for us.

Anyways, my 15 minutes is up.
Later!

Hello World,

Comment ca-va? France is still beautiful. We've had a couple amazing thunder storms, one with awesome huge hailstones.

The other day I got to see the old castle of William the Conquerer. It's pretty awesome. Lots of beautiful old ruins and stuff. The walls are half broken down and you can see the outlines of the palace, and the moat is still there. It's great.

The same day we went to the big market in Caen. It was great. I bought this great long skirt and a beautiful little coverup so that I can wear my dresses here (whoever thought that France would be more modest... I guess Paris is the opposite, but I can't even wear pants to church).

Ummm.... I start class in two days. I'm extremely excited for that. Believe it or not, France can be a tad bit boring when you live in a little town that's less open than Sioux Center. I've done lots of walking on the beach and stuff. There are so many shells here. None of them are broken. There were these amazing guys playing ping pong without a table on the beach.

I've discovered the wonderful world of pain au chocolate. It's absolutley delicious. You guys should try it next time you're in France. It's like bread, only more like a croissant, with chocolate baked into the middle.

Talk to you later!

(I'm sure I've done more than that, but..... I can't remember. I'll post masses of photos when I can get my computer on the internet. Maybe in Paris or something.)

A bientot!

I made it

Guess what! I'm living in France, whoever would have thought. It's pretty amazing. I can look out my window and see the ocean and walk a whole block and buy fresh baguettes in the morning. Sorry if I have typos. I'm trying to learn to type on a French keyboard. It's interesting.

Lets just say I fell in love with France when I looked out of the window and realised that the fields aren't in strait lines. Very much cooler than Iowa. I took pictures, but I can't get internet on my computer, so I won't be putting too many picture up. I might put on a bunch one day.

So, I share a room with two girls. One from Indiana and one from Tenesee. They're very fun. On the way here from the airport we stopped a Ginervy (Monet's house). He had the most beautiful gardens. Again... photos one day :) Maybe in Paris I'll get internet. You can walk around and see all the scenes from his paintings. It's very fun.

Today we went to Honfleur. Its also just really beautiful. I loved it. We got a little boat tour and walked around all day. There was an awesome little carousel near the harbour. All the houses are tall and skinny and stuff. Its so cute.

Its not really real that I'm here. I'm sure that one day I'll wake up and think. Oh, I'm really in France! But so far it feels like I'm on vacation in an art museum and I'm just looking at the whole thing.

Anyways, I'll update some day. Enjoy North America for me.

Oh PS - our toilet paper is pink. Its awesome.

Hello Toronto

No. I am not in France. I am currently spending three hours of my life in Toronto. Its fun. For those of you who want to know, this is what the international section of the Toronto airport looks like.


Yeah. My plane leaves at 9 PM (EST) and arrives at 10 AM (France time) and only takes 7 hours and 5 minutes. Isn't that funny? I guess I loose like 10 hours in total. Yay jetlag here we come :)

I'll probably take a million pictures on the drive there. I'll try to post some if I can. I don't really know what my internet will be like. Yep. That's all folks.

(cue looney toons music)

I'm leaving on a jetplane....

....tommorow!

I officially fly out of Vancouver at 10 AM tomorrow morning heading for Paris, France. And no, if you're wondering, I'm not excited. But I'm sure I will be. From there I'll be heading to a little place called Merville-Franceville on the coast of Normandy.



If you want lots of pitures and info and stuff you can go to Chez Vous's website. It's got some pretty fun stuff.

This past week has been wonderful but busy. I kicked my brother out of his bedroom and he moved downstairs, so our house has been in shambles while we rearranged everyone. Jon came up on Wednesday and spent almost a whole week here which was pretty awesome. I was really refreshing to be together again. It's sad that I have to leave home so quickly after being here for just a week and a half. I don't really get sick of being home very quickly. But hey, I'm going to France for six weeks, so who can complain?

I won't have free internet while I'm in France so I won't have a chance to send many personal e-mails, but I will certainly try to keep this updated with stories and pictures and great things like that.

Enjoy North America for me while I'm across the ocean! I love you all - Eryn.