Bienvenue A Rouen!

I am in an apartment, with a view, with a balcony, in France. It feels so amazing to be somewhere cute, modern, and clean. Bonus: It’s literally directly across the street from the university. I am so excited to be here right now.

So my host mom isn’t actually going to be home until next Sunday (one week from now), but her friend is living here until then, making sure we’re fed and taken care of. I say “we” because I am not the only student staying here with Mme Lasserre. There is another girl, Evelyn, who is a Swiss student studying at the law school in Rouen who is staying in the apartment with me. She is fluent in German and English, and is here to practice her French, so naturally I am very excited to have her around too. Apparently Mme Lasserre often houses foreign students. She has three spare bedrooms, so she tries to circulate students in and out of them as much as possible. Evelyn says that Mme Lasserre herself is nice, but is very work-oriented, and so she doesn’t really talk to the students that much. She sounds like the exact opposite of Nadine. Though it doesn’t sound like I will be having a bonding host family experience, I am still excited to meet the other students who will be staying here over the course of the next few months, and I am really happy to have so much freedom. I’m living in an apartment in Rouen for three months, and can basically do whatever I want. Also, both Clément and Camille have apartments in the city, so I will hopefully be able to see both of them.

Also, I just this second had my first conversation on the phone IN FRENCH! And I could understand everything, and say everything I needed to say! Granted, it wasn’t very complicated-- Mme Lasserre’s son called to help me out with connecting to the internet – but still, it was so cool to have to figure it out in French! (I wrote this in a Word document before blogging it, because the internet was being complicated.)

So, now I’m just hanging out in my new chambre, and loving it. I definitely miss Nadine and all of the other host families, but I am excited to be living in the city now!

Bisous :)

Josie

PS. I no longer have a picture-uploader thingy (I was using Nadines), so no pictures for a while until I buy one. Sorry!