Here we go!

Tomorrow I head off to Normandy for some D-Day Celebrations! I am so excited! I really love history, especially WW2 history so this is great! We have started classes at the C.L.A. after taking what seemed like a French ACT test to determine what class we need to be in.  I feel like I'm where i should be but its hard because my teacher and some of the kids don't speak english so its all french all the time and i feel like i have fried my brain by the end of the day but i think its for the best to only speak french! I love living with my host family! The food is great and we have family dinner then my host mom and I eat breakfast every morning with a big cup/bowl of coffee! its great! I have a host sister who is 20 and speaks really good english! we get along great! tonight she made a fantastic chocolate cake from scratch of a recipe she made herself! It has been nice to walk around town in between classes with the other students, especially the other Americans who are from Penn State.  We all run errands together, like today we went to get bus passes so its nice to have something in common with the kids when we are all doing stuff in the town.  This place is so charming and the buildings are beautiful and old with a lot of character! I hope it gets better from here on out with my understanding of the language but they tell me practice makes perfect.  We keep dry erase boards at the dinner table for mini french lessons every morning and evening! I feel like being with a host family really helps! I hope to be as close to them in 12 years as I am with the kids that lived with us from Germany and all the Baseball boys we hosted! I am making the best of this experience for sure!

the city river

view from a huge mountain i climbed

the boys!

bread outside the palace 

all that sparkles and shines

my idea of a museum!