Quoi de neuf?

Bonjour again all. Not too much exciting to update but I figured it was about time to say hello again and keep everyone in the loop.

I had an amazing weekend in Montpellier with my fellow cougar Emily. We decided to couchsurf chez Germain who's a music student from the Reunion, which is a little French colony east of Madagascar. It was a really great weekend, we got there and he cooked us a delicious Reunion meal, chicken and rice and veggies, it was delish. Friday we spent the day at the Musee Fabre which had lots of different stuff including some Monet and Manet. Then we spent the afternoon just walking around Montpellier. It's a very nice and compact city and it was much warmer than Chambery so a great break. That night we met some more Reunioners and went to a bar to listen to an African music group. Unfortunately a storm rolled through the next couple days so weather wasn't too good, but still fun times eating African food and chatting about music. I really think that couchsurfing is one of the best things about my travels here. It just makes all my experiances so much better and welcoming. When you stay at a hostel it's just a bed to sleep on, but with couchsurfing you make friends and actually get to experiance the culture of a city. I strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to travel on the cheap, and it's not just for Europe but the whole world, so I definitely want to try sometime back in the states.

I've gone skiing a couple more times and the other day I tried snowboarding, but that was just really frustrating and annoying and after a couple hours of falling on my butt I gave up and went back to the skis. I don't really think winter sports are my thing but it was fun to try a couple of times and I'm glad I went. Lots of first semester students now are heading out which is a bummer, but we've got new students coming in so that's exciting and it should be a good couple of months. Also yesterday I took my first final in French, which was an oral exam for all the internationals and I definitely smoked it with 17/20! It was for my Int'l Relations class where the prof obviously didn't favor the US but hopefully he sees that we're not all stupid now after me :D. Next week is going to be intense with the majors, class from 8:30-4:45 everyday (with a lunch break of course), but then after that I'm heading to Spain for the week! Madrid for a couple days then Barcelona for the rest with my friend Iida, so it should be a great time!

I'll keep in touch and hopefully I can live through next week and be in Spain ASAP! Bisous to all, a plus!
-Steph