day 52-57

Day 52: Monday, May 11, 2009: Today, we spent the day in Nice again! We were pissed at Katy and Christophe for not answering their phones. After we got up, we walked to the train station to try to get our tickets changed and explain the problem. It was so difficult! No one wanted to help us! They acted as if it wasn’t their problem. I finally demanded to speak to a manager who finally resolved our problem and reissued us new tickets at no additional cost.
So then we walked back to the hotel to get our bags. We had an hour before we needed to be back at the train station so we sat on the beach! There was no way we were going to make our grammar class. We text Christophe and he still never responded. Thanks!
We arrived in Avignon and took a taxi to Melissa’s house because it split the difference between my house and Lance’s. I walked home and explained the situation to my host parents. Jacqueline was really mad and suggested that I write a letter to the TGV and demand 25E for the cost of my hotel room for the night.
After dinner, I wrote a paper for literature class and studied for the grammar test that I have tomorrow. Lance text me and said that the test was moved and that it wasn’t going to be tomorrow – Christophe didn’t let me know, Lance did. I’m really glad that I’m paying him to be here on vacation with his girlfriend and he can’t communicate with me at all. It’s excellent!

Day 53: Tuesday, May 12, 2009: Today was busy; I had three classes. John got back from Germany. Yesterday in grammar, they watched the movie for the book that we are reading so I missed that. I have to watch it tomorrow with Lance and Melissa.
I had dinner with Jacqueline, Bernard, and John and did some homework. It was a pretty average Tuesday in France.

Day 54: Wednesday, May 13, 2009: Even though there was no class today, I still did a lot of work. I went to the internet café with Melissa to print our papers for our writing class tomorrow. Then we met Shawna and John at the university to work on our oral presentation that is tomorrow in our oral grammar class; topic: the language of the youth. We have to record a conversation between students our age, transcribe it, translate the slang terms that they use and present it to the class.
Shawna recorded a conversation with some of her French friends talking about a handball game but it wasn’t what we needed. We needed slang terms. John talked to his correspondent and we all decided that we could meet up at the bar tonight to do this.
Then I went to Melissa’s to watch our movie. Lance came too. After the movie, we had to write a film critique comparing the book to the movie. I went back to the university library to write and email mine to Christophe.
After dinner, we went to Red Sky to do our project. John’s correspondent brought a bunch of friends and it was really cool to just hang out with them. We are all basically the same age; some of them don’t speak any English so I have to speak French which helps me out a lot. We recorded our conversation and decided that we would write the presentation during our four-hour break between classes tomorrow.

Day 55: Thursday, May 14, 2009: Today in writing class, we talked about our book that the class is making with all of our poems from class. Each person has a job; it’s like high school yearbook. I’m the editor-in-chief. Each person gets to choose four poems, a picture and biography for the book and at the final dinner, we get to read one in front of everyone.
After class, we worked on our oral presentation. We decided that it would be way too hard to transcribe the conversation so we just typed up a page with the slang terms that they used and the meanings in regular French. Some were a little dirty but that’s how kids my age talk to describe things.
Then we had class and we had to present our project. The four of us – Shawna, Melissa, John, and I each read a section. We printed our handout and the professor copied it for us. After dinner, I decided not to go out because I went out last night and it was raining. So I stayed in and did lots of homework for next week.

Day 56: Friday, May 15, 2009: Today we had two classes again. When I was leaving my house this morning, I ran into the postman and I got a letter from Mamaw! It had some money that she had not spent while she was here.
In history class, we watched a film on the French Revolution. It is a really interesting part of French history. I sat next to Shawna and explained, in English, the events for her because the professor is a little difficult to understand.
I ate lunch in the cafeteria, had my journal meeting with Jenny, and had literature class. He explained another project for next week. We have to choose a French author and a short excerpt and explain the meaning in a presentation to the class. Everyone explained that we were all going out of town for the next Friday and only four people would be in class.
On our original schedule for France, it says that we have Thursday and Friday off school next week but then Christophe decided that that was wrong on Monday (when I wasn’t in class) and told everyone that there would actually be classes. Everyone explained that they wouldn’t be attending because we’d already made reservations for a four-day weekend (we hadn’t exactly made reservations yet but it would happen soon).
After class, I went to Melissa’s with Lance, Nina, Zoe, and Meghan so we could decide what we wanted to do for the long weekend. We thought we found really good plane tickets to Brussels, Belgium, but then the price doubled with fees and taxes so we decided against that. Finally, after much research and debate, we decided to go to Lyon. It would be Melissa, Lance, Meghan and I for two nights; leaving Thursday morning and returning Saturday afternoon. We found a hotel and train tickets and made all the reservations online.
After dinner, I decided to join everyone else at the bar for a while but I didn’t stay out long because we have an excursion tomorrow.

Day 57: Saturday, May 16, 2009: Today was really fun! We had an excursion to the village of Uzes and we went canoeing to the Pont du Gard, a huge ancient Roman aqueduct. The day was really fun!