October Already!

I cannot believe that it's October already! The weeks have just flown by so far. It's also hard to believe that I haven't had a full week of classes yet! (this coming week will be my first FULL week)

Classes are going well. I have a few classes JUST for exchange students, so the profs know that we ALL are learning french, and are here to improve our language skills. Those classes are very simelar to home, and are going perfectly excellent.

My other classes are a little bit tougher. About half of my classes are french litterature, taught by a french prof, to (mostly) french students. They don't consider (on a regular basis) that they need to speak a little slower than normal for the international students. Those classes are a little more difficult to keep up in, but I will definitely be learning a lot there!

Those classes are also pretty tough classes for the french students. They have three classes they have to take, where they do a 25 minute presentation for each class, and then they study for the final exam for ALL THREE, but only write ONE! (they don't know which one until the day of though).

LUCKILY the french profs remember us international students here. We don't have to do the presentations, or the final exam :) Which is EXCELLENT:) Instead we write a 10 page essay for each of these three classes, and that constitutes our final exam for each class.

In other news, Virginia and I went on our first out of Lyon outing today! We went to Vienne for the Day, which is a small city 20 minutes by train away. We managed to go for less than 10 euros there and back! We left in the morning, and then just wandered around the city! (it was pretty small, so very difficult to get lost) We found touristy things, and bought a 6 euro pass for all of the museums in the city! We went to a roman amphitheatre, an architectural museum, which had roman ruins (of houses and communities) we went to some churches, climbed lots of stairs, had an excellent picnic lunch, and ate some french pastries! All in all it was a very successful day!

In other travel news, Virginia and I have also booked train tickets to go to Geneva, for the end of October! We had originally planned to go to Zermatt as well, but found it was MUCH too expensive to go there as well in the short amount of time that we can go for. Hostels are also booked for this weekend which is pretty exciting I think :) We're going October 24-25, so check back after then for details about my trip!!

Lastly, Virginia and I JUST booked a flight to ROME! I'm especially excited about this trip, although I have awhile to be excited. It was cheapest to go in December, so we've booked our flight from December 4th to the 6th. I'm sure I will be mentioning it more, as my excitement grows! We have A LOT to pack into 2 days there, but I think we can do it, even if it means buying some Gelato for extra energy!

By the way, anyone who has ever been to any of the places I'm going to, or may want to go to, please reccommend anything to me! Places i should go, things i should see, places i should stay? Also if you think i should try and visit any places around europe mention those too! I'm always up for suggestions!

Link to my Vienne Pictures!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16221&id=1642740063&l=e091c287c2