the first week of school and other such stuff

Salut tout le monde!
Sorry I haven't written in awhile but things have been pretty busy. Spent a weekend in Geneve with my high school homestay family the Micallef's. Met up with Laure after she was done with work then we headed to her apartment and ate dinner and talked about politics, and other things with her and her friend Lauralee. Most young people don't seem to like Sarkozy, my roommate was angry because her housing aid for this year is very low, she's only getting like 85 euro a month. But I think the housing aid is great, no matter how much money I end up getting. The next day (sunday) we took the tram to the border of Switzerland and France and met up with Laure's dad, Serge and he took us to their country home in Nangy France. They have a very nice home there and we ate a delicious lunch of raclette with Laure's grandmother and uncle. French sunday lunches are quite the experience, first you have an apperitive, champagne was ours, then you move to the table for the entree which for us was the raclette. Raclette is a little like fondue but you have this grill thing that you put little plates with a piece of cheese on. The cheese then melts and you eat it with potatoes and deli meats. It's delish! After that was a little break than a pinapple snack, then coffee and then finally a cake desert. The whole lunch was around 3 hours. Laure's mother, Cathy, is a great cook though and it was a great day! They're a really nice family and were impressed with my language skills (luckily they have improved in four years). I hope to visit again soon!

Monday I started classes and so far it's been alright. I'm alone in a class with 10 other chinese students so it's kinda weird. They all speak chinese to each other and their french is not that great. Many of them have only been learning it for a year. I think it will get better soon though and my teachers have told me they can give me harder work. The chinese students are nice for the most part but it's hard to communicate with them because they're french is not that great and neither is their english. Hopefully they're fast learners and we'll be chatting more casually soon.

Yesterday my finnish friend, Iida, and my italien friend Erica, along with her parents, drove over to Voiron to check out the Chartreuse liquer cellers. They're the longest liquer cellers in the world and the Chartreuse was first made by a monks and are still doing it. Our couchsurfing friend told us about the cellars and it was a really cool tour. I even bought some of the digestive elixer, which you eat with a sugar cube :). This week should be pretty good, there's an international student party on Wednesday, so that should be fun, get to meet some more friends! And next weekend no plans yet but maybe a trip to Grenoble or somewhere else close by. I'll keep you all updated, but until then bonne journee et a tout a l'heure!