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Bonjour tout le monde!
Well. A lot has happened. I finally have the Internet in my room so I can talk to people. That is a relief.
My flight from Chicago was pretty easy. I sat next to a CPA who works for the U.S. Treasury and he has a daughter who's studying in Italy and he was going to go see her. He was nice. When I got to Paris, I had some trouble buying my TGV (Big Speed Train) ticket, but I made it. At my next stop, the train/bus station, I met a girl from Illinois who's also studying here. After we got off the bus (in Amiens), we met a girl from Mississippi. Now we all have rooms right next to each other. They've been a HUGE help in this transition. It's really nice to be lost with people instead of lost alone. Anyway, we somehow got a couple taxis to the campus and told the drivers the name of the school and nothing else. Well, I talked to my driver a bit (which was my first real interaction with un français) but I didn't know the address. So we had to take hundreds of pounds of luggage halfway across campus. It was not fun.
The foreign programs director here is so helpful. She speaks good English, and she saved us right when we got to campus. It just so happened that she was walking out of her building when we arrived. Seeing our rooms was awesome. The rooms are small here, but they're set up well. I'm in a room to myself, and I have my own shower! And there's a fridge, too. These are the newest dorms at Picardie Jules Verne. I'm taking a language class now, but not for credit (real classes start in a week and a half). The class is all exchange students, and there's quite a mix. Almost half are German, but there's a girl from Brazil, two Polish guys, a Mexican, two Portugese, two Brits, a Spaniard, a Finnish girl, and six Americans. I got to talk with a lot of people after class yesterday and met most of the rest today. All the Germans were relieved to speak English, because they know that much better than French.
Amiens is beautiful. I feel so bad that we don't have cities like this back home. I went to the center of town today, and there's a lot to see. There's always something new to see or do. Talking with the other students has been a blast. I've never done anything that compares with this experience. Everyone is so nice, and we're all trying so hard to learn the language. It's surreal to be in the middle of this country where it seems like everything is different. And I really prefer this sink-or-swim environment, because it's so hard to learn a language in the classroom.
I'm actually having trouble writing in English already. When I talk to my American and German friends I switch back in forth between sentences, or even in the middle of sentences. I've been forced to think through almost everything en français. It's very stressful, but I can tell I'm going to make a ton of progress over here.
And now, I sleep. (it's about 4:30)
Bon nuit,
Stephen
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