Rain and Other Fun Tales

Well, I think I've met my match in rainy Nantes. It rains all the time here! And by "all the time," I of course mean, "all the time." It rains HARD all day, every day. Well, it's not raining right now, I guess, but it has rained every day since I've been here. I love rain, so it's no problem for me. The only problem is that where there is a lot of rain, there has to be a lot of humidity. So my hair is a bit Borneo-ish (see 11/11/06 entry if you aren't sure what that means). I tried to tell my hair that it just needs to "adapt and overcome," but it insists that it's too Concrete-Sequential for that. Seriously, though, I really like this city. The beautiful Loire runs right through it, much like the Mississippi to Minneapolis. I will get some pictures up soon. I was finally able to figure out why there is no computer tower for the iMac. Tee hee. So I figured out how to plug my camera in to the USB port, BUT I wasn't sure what was going to happen if I clicked "okay." The instructions were all in French, and I didn't have time to figure it all out. I didn't want to inadvertantly save all my photos to their wallpaper and then not be able to fix it in time. So I am working on the photo issue; it's just going to take a little bit of time.

So I had my first driving lesson on Friday. Oh, boy, that was a fun time. I felt so stupid, like I was 15 years old and didn't know how to drive. The instructor had all the pedals on his side and everything! In the middle of the lesson, I just started laughing, because I felt so dumb. He pretended not to notice. He only showed me how to put the car into first gear and then switch between 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and "point mort" (I'm not sure how to say that in English, but it roughly means "death point," and it's when the gear shift is in the middle). Anyway, I don't think I'm going to have too much trouble learning. The roads are different here, though. They are a lot smaller, and then there are the infamous roundabouts. Apparently you're supposed to signal on the way out? Okay. But you're already on your way out, and everyone can see what you're doing...so what's the point?

So, my classes. In order to obtain my visa, I had to register for 10 hours of French language classes per week. My classes are in downtown Nantes at a huge school that has more than just French classes. I'm actually going to be taking the DELF exam in June. The DELF is a diploma that signifies your proficency/fluency in French. Having passed that is a great thing to be able to put on your résumé. So I have 3 courses - grammar, DELF preparation, and Civilization. By the end of my first day here (last Monday), I had already made some new friends. I have met girls from Italy, Germany, Lithuania, Mexico, Spain, the Czech Republic, China, Hong Kong, Britain...there are people from everywhere! Some of them (like the British or people who speak English very well) insist on speaking English with me. My French is actually better than most of theirs (there are three levels of proficency - I am at the superior level). For the most part, though, we speak French. The cool thing about making friends in a foreign country is that your common language is a lot less likely to be English and will more likely be the one of the country in which you are. So instead of being able to just fall back on English if necessary, you are forced to make your French work. Last week, some of the girls invited me to go out to a "boîte" on Saturday night (a nightclub). I turned them down, since I had to babysit, but I'm pretty sure our interests will differ in that area, unless they don't want to go out for the reasons most people do. We'll see what happens with that.

I have class again in five minutes, so that will have to be all for now. Ciao!