“Macdo”

Well, I am sitting in McDonald’s (Macdo) in France, and at the moment a Michael Buble song is playing… haha, not the epitome of French culture. But I need to access the internet, so voila, I am here. Well, just  to explain a bit – I am currently pretty well occupied with my intensive French class. I am working on a sort of mini research paper right now which I have to present to my class on Friday. Here is a typical day for me right now: I wake up around 6 or 6:30 so that I can get ready and walk about 45-50 minutes to campus (I am going to get a bus pass soon), I have language class all morning and then 2 hours for lunch, a lecture about either French literature, French history, or European institutions, and then my research paper class until 5:00. Then I usually try to take care of some sort of business that I need to get done – for example, I went to IKEA last week to buy sheets and towels. Then I take the bus or walk back to my dorm, do homework for quite a while and go to bed. I know… you can hardly handle all the glamour. But this class is quite a bit more work than I had expected and concentrating so hard on speaking French all the time leaves me pretty exhausted.

I have met some pretty cool people so far, and I have been exploring the city a bit with them. I have gone to an international church here in Strasbourg for the past two weeks. Strasbourg is actually a  pretty interesting place for those who wish to go to church, because there is much more of a choice here. When the law separating church and  state was established in 1910, Alsace belonged to Germany. Therefore, there is a much greater presence of religion here in Alsace.  It’s a pretty interesting region to read about.

Friday night, I went out with my German friend Mareike to have some “tartes flambees” – which is a specialty of Strasbourg. Then we found a French bar, which was quite packed, and I tried a Belgian beer which was pretty interesting and fruity… I can’t handle really strong beer. Anyway, it was pretty cool to experience a bit of Strasbourg culture, and it’s really good to speak French with someone… since most of the Americans I’ve met speak English most of the time.

Well, I suppose that’s all for now…

A bientot!  

Je suis ici!

Well, I am here and all is well – I dont really have internet access in my dorm right now, so I am writing to you from an internet cafe. I suppose there is to much to say at this moment, but I will just give a couple of highlights.

I found my dorm, payed for my room, and then collapsed the first night. I explored Strasbourg a bit on Saturday – I went to the Cathedral, which is just amazing, and bought a couple of postcards. I went to church Sunday and met a really nice British girl, French-British girl, and another American and we went to lunch and explored the city a bit.  Then we met last night to see the lighting of the Cathedral, which was really cool and hard to describe. Today I started my prep class and am getting more and more familiar with how to get around the city. I met a very nice German girl today in class, and we are going to meet later this evening to explore some more. I honestly cannot pronounce her name, and I feel awful about it. 

 Okay, I think that is all for now. 

Tu me manques.

Jenna 

Hello world!

This is the blog I will be using while I am studying abroad this year in Strasbourg, France. This is primarily just to keep my family and friends informed of my activities since I will not be able to call much. Well anyway, I leave tomorrow, arrive in France Friday, and start my prep class on Monday. I’m getting a bit nervous, but I think that’s probably pretty normal. I’m hoping to update this on a fairly regular basis, but I would still love to get e-mails from all of you… or letters   

 To end, I will just say that I am looking forward to this adventure and beginning a new phase of my life and I hope to keep everyone updated.

Au revoir!