L'Investiture (inauguration)

I've gotten a couple days behind! Sorry about that...
Monday we took our placement test, not much to say about that. On Friday we'll find out our language groups and choose our classes. Afterwards we opened a bank account and Friday we get our bank cards so I can't stop charging things to my credit card.
I was tired but the rest of the group wanted to walk around a bit more so I went with them and I'm glad I did. The walking and some food perked me up a bit. The rest of the group went to get phones and we walked around the center of town trying to find a movie theater, which we did and might go back to sometime.
After our feet got too tired we went our separate ways back to our homes. I took a nap and woke up for dinner. Rice and chicken with some kind of yummy sauce. No cheese course this time though :( After dinner the group wanted to go out so most of us arranged to meet at Le Trou.
Le Trou means "the hole" and that's basically what it is. You walk down this little road that looks like an alley way, open the door to Le Trou and walk down some stairs and you're in a little cavern. It reminded me of where the Beatles played their first concerts, in the Cavern, though much smaller. I don't think the whole band let alone their fans would fit in Le Trou. So we just hung out and had some drinks, talked and got to know eachother better. It was definitely an experience for the first bar I've ever been to! I really like the people on this trip and I'm glad I get to spend time with some people that I probably wouldn't get to know very well at Lewis & Clark.

The next day Samantha came over and we made some lunch, just some potato thing I found in the freezer and we added red peppers an cheese. It was pretty tasty! At 2 we had an academic meeting at Beth's and she just told us how choosing courses would work, etc. and we talked about our experience so far. She's great and we're so lucky to have someone to help us work through all the stinky details and strange experiences that come with living abroad. Then we left to get ready for the inauguration. We were walking back towards my apartment to drop off some stuff and go over to Sam's and we saw two students from Lewis & Clark who are going on the Nancy trip! Most of the Nancy group is arriving on Thursday but they did self-travel and were here early so we invited to come to the Dubliner's to watch the inauguration with us.
So we talked to them and started heading back towards downtown to try to find the Dubliner's, an Irish bar that was showing the inauguration. We got there a little later than we expected to but luckily nothing super important had happened.
The inauguration was quite and experience. Pretty much everyone in the bar was Americain or spoke English I'm guessing. My friend, Maia, and I kept making comments to eachother which annoyed some people who were watching intently, but we had fun... There's a lot of comments I could make, but I'll save that for some other time. Let's just say I really didn't like the looooong prayer (except for how he said MelEa and SAsha) but I did like Aretha Franklin :)
After it was all over we went outside to decide what to do next. Some people wanted to go home but I was feeling homesick for America and wanted to keep hanging out with LC kids. Maia, Evan, Whitney, Alla, and I went around the corner to a French bar to get some drinks and some food for me. (Maia and Alla are on the Strasbourg program with me and Evan and Whitney are the people from the Nancy group that arrived early). At the bar we all got a beer and I ordered a tartine aux quatres fromages, which is just basically a piece of bread piled high with four different kinds of cheese. It was delicious!
We all just hung out and talked for a while and then headed back outside to decide what to do next. Alla wanted to go home for dinner so Evan, Whitney, Maia and I went to Evan and Whitney's hostel to hang out for a while.
I've never been in a hostel before, it was pretty interesting. Evan's room had eight beds in it, but he was the only one staying there. We all just hung out and listened to music for a long time until Maia and I decided we were getting tired and should probably start walking back home.

So all in all I'm having lots of fun here, seeing new things, meeting new people, and experiencing things I wouldn't be able to back home, but walking home last night I was just so homesick. I miss Lewis & Clark, and my family, and my friends a lot. I want to get as much as I can out of this experience while I'm here but I'll be so glad to come home and see everyone again! I'll be writing postcards soon!
I love you all and hope to hear some news from America :)