Empty House and Test

After my little adventure Friday night, I got up a bit later than normal since I was so exhausted. As lunch time rolled around I had some salad left over from Friday night's dinner and made a mini serving of noodles for myself. I was actually the only one there (host family visiting other family and the other guest student left Friday night for a trip to Annecy).

In the afternoon I went to le Festival de la theatre (21 Rencontres du Jeune Theatre Européen). It was pretty cool. The girls and I spent the afternoon following the festival. In some cases this really meant following... The Parade started in Place Notre Dame and ended in Place d'Algiers. It stared with these giant marionettes that paraded through the streets dancing. There were so many people just there to follow them. After an hour they led us to Place d'Algiers. Here we watched 3 spectacles de rue (street shows).

The first street show was a cooking comedy that was pretty cool. Then there was a chorale concert that was fairly amusing, but the church bells kept going off so it was difficult to hear them talking. The third one I had a hard time falling. It was the same story plot as some classic I don't know (something like Gone with the Wind... but maybe it was something else). They were all in French and done by small theater companies. It was pretty fun, though the spectacles de rue we had to sit on the ground... and the ground is like... pointing rocks joined in cement.

After that we went and had drinks at a cafe. I don't know what it is, but apparently just about everything here is carbonated. It's all bubbly and I'm not thrilled about it. I'm still in the process of finding something to drink here other than water. I had a perrier, which is bubbly water with un sirop in the bottom. I got mint.... It's alright, but bubbly. After that the girls and I had dinner downtown. With my host family gone, I didn't really want to cook dinner for myself. After that the girls tried to go to a salsa bar (this actually was a failed attempt) and I went home since I didn't want a repeat of the previous night.

Sunday I made lunch for me and Rachael (it's Rachael not "Rachelle," Rachelle is just the french pronunciation). It was just pasta with a meat sauce, nothing spectacular. I don't know why, but it took the noodles 45 minutes to cook, including the time it took the water to boil... The stove here is really cool though. It's a touch stove. Each burner has a power touch button and (+)/(-) to control the temperature. When you take the pot off the burner, the temp control blinks and turns off.

During the afternoon I met the girls to go to the Musee de Grenoble. It was pretty cool. I walked through a large portion with Megan while discussing the paintings in French. Well, trying to discuss the paintings in French. After that I watched and hour of Le Cage aux Folles with Megan before heading home.

Rachael and I made a makeshift fried rice dinner using ground beef, cherry tomatoes, scrambled eggs, green bell pepper, rice, and a variety of spices. It turned out alright, but it was definitely a questionable process. Then... HUGE SPIDER. It was terrifying. It was big, brown, and tried to attack the shoe I was trying to use to kill it! Rachael and I knew that if we left it... the host family wouldn't kill it. They had quite a laugh the other day when they heard about one of Rachael's spider frights. After that I packed for today and went to bed.

This morning I got up bright and early to get ready for the day. It took my about 45 minutes total to be ready... half the time I had allotted to the task... Then Rachael and I caught the tram to campus and made our way to the CUEF building to take our French placement exam. On the way there were a few other people from Rachael's program (they are all in homestays) that she introduced me to.

The test consisted of a 15 minute oral exam with a teacher; really it seemed like a simple discussion, but it was a test... This was followed by an hour written exam. There was a number of listening comprehension parts that gradually got harder. After that there were some multiple choice questions for comprehension and a story we had to read and answer questions about. The final part was free response/essay. Which completely played off the listening comprehension, so if you didn't get that... well... it may have been a bit harder for you. I finished as she said time was up.... So I needed ALL of the time.

After that we met up with Patrick and 2 girls who were here for juin. The girls, Patrick, one of these other girls (her name is also Claire), and I went up to the Bastille. We took les bulles (the bubbles) up there and Patrick talked to us about different areas we could see from the Bastille. I could see where I go running in the morning (I pass a HUGE cemetery that I haven't made it into yet, but lucky for my Patrick warned me that not only is taking pictures in a cemetery not permitted, it is ILLEGAL. I was shocked!). It was really pretty.

We then hiked up to a Memorial a little farther up the mountain and had a mini pique-nique. After this we hiked down to the Bastille Patrick's way... which means we mocked death... He goes down a back way through what must have been an animal trail at one point. I was rather frightened... It was really steep with slippery rocks and shifting gravel underfoot. I'm sure it was probably a beautiful hike.... but I didn't really get a chance to appreciate it. I watched my footing instead.

After we made it down to the street level we stopped for drinks and I tried un sirop ("sear-O"). It's the same thing as a perrier, but with tap water rather than bubbly. It was alright... until Claire (the one who was here for juin also) asked me "Isn't it like drinking toothpaste?" and low and behold... it was... which made it much less good. On my way back here, I stopped at Le Geant to grab a few snacky things. I'm going to need to bring snacks with me if I'm really to have 4 hours of class straight... I'm dreading sitting that long in one spot.

I find out how I placed on my test tomorrow at noon and will have my first class soon after.