17.1.09 Orientation

I wrote this last night on my computer, but I don't have the internet working yet so I have to retype it here on my host-mom's computer:
(excuse any typing errors, french keyboards take a little while to get used to)

17.1.09
Last night I slept pretty well; I woke up a few times because it was really hot; but I just threw the blanket off of me and I was fine after that. :) This morning I woke up at 7:30! Very strange for me, as all of you who know me well will admit...
After that I spent some time catching up on Facebook.
For bfreakfast I had muesli, a type of French ceral that's like chocolate granola, very dense but delicious! Afterwards my friend Samantha stopped by so we could qalk to orientation together. We had a ma^and instructions frm my host-mom but we still got a little lost... The streets in France aren't in grids or anything logical so even reading a ma^can get confusing, but we stood there looking like confused tourists holding a giant map in front of us and a nice old French man came to our rescue, and after talking to him for a while and not riguring it out, two more people came over and helped. Our gorup leader, Bethany Zehr, livess on rue de Zurich. The meeting was at her apartment tand the people helping us said rue de Zurich is the most confusing street in all of Strasbourg! Lucky us.
Fortunately we figured it out and made it to the meeting on time. There we ded some get to know each other activities. There are 8 students from Lewis & Clark and 2 students from other Universities (De Pauw and Bryn Mawr). So 10 students: 9 girls and 1 boy. Lucky him!
We went through a huge packet; filled out some forms and then took a break for lunch, sandwiches. Even simple meat and cheese sandwiches are delicious in France! We had turkey and some sort of delicious white cheese on a baguette.
Then it was time for the galette des rois, a sort of pastry filled with almond paste. It's the traditional food for epiphany and they eat it all throughout January. Inside is a fève (a small plastic toy or figurine) and whoever gets it is the roi (king) or reine (queen). The youngest child goes under the table so they can't see the galette and they say who gets which piece. Sean (the only boy) had to go under the table because he's the youngest and we were all laughing because the table was so small!
After everyone had a piece and he came back out from under the table we dug in. He found the first fève and qas declared the roi! He got a crown and since we had another galette there was one more toy to find... and it was in my piece! So I was the reine and was crowned as well.
After all the excitement of rois and reines we started our petit walking tour of Strasbourg. We started off going to the Université to see where we will take our language placement tests on Monday and the bank where we will open our accounts. The buildings are not very attractive at all and our leader, Emily, said no one really likes school or takes it very seriously... I'm really going to miss the beautiful Lewis & Clark campus! It's so lovely in the spring! I hope things look better here once the winter greyness disappears.
Then we headed downtown! We learned how to ride the tram and stopped to watch the swans on the River Ill, and I had a moment of freaking out when I thought I lost my camera... it was just in my pocket, silly me!
We got back on the tram and arrived at the centre de ville (downtown). Quite a shock because around the Université there was NO ONE, then the second we stepped off the tram in downtown it was swarming with people! Very loud and busy! But lots of shops that I'm excited to go check out :) We saw the famous cathedral of Strasbourg then split up to go home or back to Beth's or wherever we like. A few of us went to get phones so we could contact each other if we needed to, then we went to Monoprix, which is like Target. I got conditioner and face wash (very exciting). After all of that we were exhausted and our feet hurt se we headed back home.
Luckily my friend Samantha lives near me se we walked together. On the map it looked far away and I was kind of dreading the whole walk home, but it really wasn't very far, and I recognized the school cafeteria on the way back and felt so good to finally be figuring out where things are.
When I got back we had poulet (chicken) for dinner with some sort of vegetable that looks like onions, but isn't... and wine, bien sûr! Then a course of delicious cheeses again. I could get used to this; :) Hélène and Wolfgang went for a cigarette break so I checked up on facebook while I waited for them to come back for dessert. We had a galette des ois but we were all so full that we only ate half of it, and the fève wasn't in that half so we'll have to see who is our next roi or reine another time.
Afterwards Hélène and I talked about books and music and she shared a lot of CD's with me. Her daughter is studying English literature in Montréal so I told her about the books I read in my francophone literature class from Québec.
The rest of my evening was spent on facebook. My computer still won't connect to the internet so I borrowed Hélène's, but she had to call her daughter on Skype so I'm typing this journal on Word and will post it as soon as I can connect, which will hopefully be tomorrow. Hélène has a friend that knows about computers that we're going to call.
Tomorrow is a free day so hopefully I can get some rest and check out the jardin botanique (botanical garden) next to my apartment.

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18.1.09

This morning I woke up at 6 am.... ridicule!!!! Well not much to do here right now so I retyped that blog I wrote last night. Sam, Jessamy, Allison, and I are meeting at the University at noon. Not sure what else we'll do... maybe I can get some more sleep!
Au revoir!