Finalized Classes and a Good Weekend

I survived the first week of classes!  Barely.  By Friday I was exhausted and I had a hard time waking up early for my language block at 9:00.  HOWEVER, I finally have my classes picked out.  Funny enough, most of my classes are on Mondays and Tuesdays.  Thursday I don't have class until 6 PM, and even then it's only for one hour.  Unfortunately, Friday I have class at 9 AM for 3 hours and then again at 1 PM for three hours, so I by no means have a long weekend.  But Thursday will be a good day to run errands and catch up on homework and catch up with everyone back home.  This Thursday I'm actually planning on going into Germany with Harris (a good friend from the French Academy last summer who is teaching English for the year here in Strasbourg).  It will be my first time going into Germany but we're going to go shopping there for groceries and necessities, apparently meat and household items are a lot cheaper in Germany.  Who knew?  Either way, I'm excited to go to Germany!

So my final list of courses is:
Monday:

• 10 AM: Language block
• 11 AM: French Society Through Song
• 2 PM: Advanced Grammar
• 3 PM: Linguistic Diversity
• 5 PM: Street Languages
• 6 PM: Culture and Civilization

Tuesday:

• 10 AM: Language block
• 11 AM: Teaching French
• 1 PM: Art History
• 2 PM: Theatrical Language
• 4 PM: Geopolitics
• 5 PM: One Work, One Writer (we'll be studying Voltaire and reading Candide)

Wednesday:

• 1-3 PM: Language block
• 3 PM: World Philosophies
• 6 PM: Literary Movements (20th century French Poetry)

Thursday:

• 6 PM: Creative Writing

Friday:

• 9-11 AM: Language Block
• 1-4 PM: Language Block

There you have it!  Lots of classes means lots of work but I think I'll learn a lot this semester so I'm really looking forward to spending so much time in class. 

I had a pretty good first weekend after classes.  I'm no longer jet-lagged so I was actually able to somewhat enjoy the weekend!  After class on Friday, I went with my friend Tifffany to get books and school supplies.  The only two books that I need for my classes cost a total of 17.75 Euro, about $25.  I still can't believe it!  My school supplies were only about 12 Euro, so that was a relief, too!  I thought everything in France was supposed to be more expensive??

Friday night I hung out with Harris at his apartment and we watched trashy TV online (The Real Housewives of New Jersey) and talked.  It was nice to chill out after such a hectic week!  Saturday morning, unfortunately, I woke up not feeling too hot.  I had a bad headache, stuffy nose, and felt achey all over.  (I knew it would only be a matter of time before I got sick!)  I ate some breakfast and showered but that was exhausting so I went back to be for a bit afterwards.  I took a pretty late-morning/early afternoon nap but by the time I woke up and felt better, it was mid-to-late afternoon.  I had a few errands to do, so I did those and then went to Mass with Astrid.  After Mass, my headache returned with a vengeance.  I went back to the apartment and took some aspirin and laid down for a bit before I went to a wine and cheese party at Astrid and Claire's apartment.  It was a lot of fun!  I got to meet their friends and everyone was really nice.  I got home pretty late and was FREEZING so it felt great to sleep in a warm bed and sleep in on Sunday!

This afternoon, Astrid came over and so did her grandparents and we all had a really awesome lunch.  My host mother is an amazing cook and I'm learning a lot about French cuisine!  For lunch, we had real champagne (most of what is in the US is just sparkling white wine because real champagne is expensive as it is only made in the Champagne region of France) and as an entrée we had oysters on the half shell.  It was my first time eating oysters, and I had no idea they were alive when they were served!  Astrid instructed me on how to prepare them and then how to eat them.  I was surprised by how much they tasted like salt water and I didn't know that you were supposed to drink the salt water with the lemon juice when you slide the oyster down the shell and into your mouth.  It was really salty and I wasn't sure about how I felt about the first one so I was hesitant to try another, but I did anyway.  The second one tasted better than the first.  It was pretty good!

As the main dish, we had DUCK.  If you have heard about my first experience with duck, you will know that I LOVE it.  Today we ate a duck thigh with sauerkraut (but the Alsacian version).  It was soo good!  Champagne, oysters and duck in the same meal?  France is spoiling me.  Maybe it's just my host family... :)

For dessert we had a fruit salad.  It was refreshing after a heavy meal!  

After lunch, the family moved into the living room where we had coffee and talked.  It was a great afternoon.

This evening, I helped my host mother made a chocolate cake from scratch.  It was really easy!  I'm going to get the recipe from her and try to make it when I get home; it was delicious!  

Tonight I'll be working on homework for tomorrow and Tuesday since I know I will be burnt out tomorrow night when I get back from class.  I'm happy to be back in class but I could live without all the homework!