Trop des tartes flambées!

Last Thursday I went to a dégustation des tartes flambées (tasting of tartes flambées). Tartes flambées are kind of the Alsacian form of pizza, but don't call it pizza or they'll get pissed! It's on a thin bread with cheese and usually ham and onions, but there were also some with mushrooms. And for dessert we had chocolate tarte flambées or apples and cinnamon tarte flambées!
It was a University event so there were lots of people but I didn't know anyone when I got there. But I very soon made some new friends :) I met Hudson from Brazil, Angelica also from Brazil, Mateo from Colombia, Stella from China, and Konstantin from Germany. They were all very friendly and fun! What's interesting is that most exchange students speak English much better than French so we tried to keep up conversation in French but spoke English a lot. We got absolutely stuffed from tartes flambées and then walked around near the cathedral a bit. I hung out with Mateo and Konstantin the rest of the night.

The next day (Friday) I had class at 8:30. Ick. But that went by relatively quickly and then I had a meeting with Beth to make sure I was taking enough classes, etc. Everything was fine there and we just hung out and talked for a while about the abroad experience and random things like psychology and religion (she also majored in Psychology in college!) I met up with Mateo, Konstantin, Ashton, and Sean (Ashton and Sean are in my group, Ashton's from De Pauw, but still part of the "LC" group) for lunch and we had more tartes flambées! After that Mateo, Konstantin and I were a little tired of tartes flambées and we were joking that we couldn't eat anymore, at least for the rest of the day, haha!
Then when I got my home my host mom had gotten back, along with her boyfriend, Wolfgang, his son Yannis, and Yannis' girlfriend, Valentine. Before dinner we had champagne and guess what... more tartes flambées! I managed to eat a little bit more :)

Saturday evening I hung out with friends... I don't remember doing much else during the day. Saturday we went to the Dubliner's and watched some rugby games! That was really fun, except France lost to Ireland :( Then we went to Jessamy's French friend, Lorrain's, friend's house and hung out with some vrais français! We played some games and tried to converse in franglais :)

Sunday I slept in the met up with Konstantin to watch more rugby. It's a fun game to watch! Most of the LC group is getting together next Saturday since it's Valentine's Day and we're all alone and we'll probably watch a rugby game and go to the opera, how culturally diverse of us :) Anyways, after the game we just walked around the town until I had dinner. That was pretty much the end of my night.

Monday I had my first rock climbing class! Alla ( a girl from the LC group) was there too so it was nice to have someone I knew there. I went with the beginners and we learned how to tie ropes etc. and then we got to climb. The beginner routes were a little too easy and my balaying partner (the say assurer instead of balay in french) kept saying I was going too fast. But I signed up for another class on Thursday so I can get right to the challenging stuff next time! After class I got my opera ticket and exchanged some money that Dad & Barb sent me for my birthday. (pst, Dad, do you know if checks expire? Because depositing that check from here is super complicated and I was just going to wait till I get back to the States)

Anyways, today I got up at a heinous hour, went to class at 8 and had eight hours of classes... I almost fell asleep a couple times in one!

So that's where I am now. Dinner is soon :) I'm excited for another rock climbing class on Thursday and Jessamy's birthday! We're going to a Pizzeria.

Hope all is well with all of you! Sorry to those of you whose e-mails I haven't responded to, I've been busy trying to get my travelling plans in order and it's a little frustrating and time-consuming but I'll get to it when I have my plans all put together.

Bisous!