Wherever you go, there you are.: Jour 8 à Limoges (Day 8 in Limoges)

To commemorate my first time getting to school and back (on my own) without getting lost, I shall blog!! A few other notable things:
1. Yesterday marked my first full week in Limoges
2. Today was my first class of the semester
3. I attended mass for the first time

4. I attended my first french "party"
5. Andd I had my first café today! (actually just a shot of espresso, photo below)

So, at the moment it is 16:27 for me and probably 9:27 for most of the individuals who will read this. I am sitting in my room eating une pomme(an apple) and penut butter (yup, they sell Skippy in Limoges). The weather is amazing and so far, this day has been pretty great.

The British Literature class I took today was in about 75% french and 25% english. Although I only understood about 25% of it, I enjoyed it. As I first sat amidst the chattering and flirting of the french youth I was a bit nervous as to how the class would go. We ended up having to move from room B005 to Ampithheatre 4 because we were out of space, luckily I have enough common sense to realize that the class is overflowing and the students are getting up to leave ten minutes into the period: we must be moving rooms. I sat next to a sweet girl who luckily spoke english very well (she said her accent was bad, but I think it was fine. While we are on the subject of accents, I love them. Regardless of if it makes it difficult to understand what people are saying or not, I love that we carry that little piece of out native language regardless of the language we are speaking). I followed her from the first room to the next and sat next to her again, hoping I didn't come off as being weird/annoying/creepy ect. But what do you know? Just like most of the people I have encountered so far, she was extremely helpful and even introduced me to a few others who spoke english and were great themselves!

Although I have been anxious/nervous/scared and so on, I have really loved France so far. Much due to the other American students I have befriended: Hunter, Hannah, Matt and Candice. They are all stinkin' awesome. And as Matt said, "we have went to church together and done laundry together, we're family". Our other friend/family member includes Josh, who is from China and studying Mechanical Engineering here for the next four years. He is super sweet and awesome and likes to speak English! The Lord definitely sent these awesome individuals here for a reason.

Hannah, Candice, Matt, Hunter, Lyndsie, Josh

To address a few other things I have done thus far!
Mass: Candice, Matt and I went to Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Limoges and it was beautiful. The stained glass windows were all amazing, the entire building was beautiful and definitely the oldest construction I have ever seen! We plan on going to the smaller church this Sunday. The entire thing was in french (no latin) but luckily Candice translated a few things for me during service and it was just really awesome. I will now post visuals:

P.S. Matt and I both got a present from some birdies as we were sitting in the park after Mass, here is a nice visual of how I felt about this:

My first french "party" was an integration party hosted by the English department at the university, it was at a small bar, a hole in the wall type, downtown. It was a cool place, but not necessarily my "scene" and we (Matt, Candice, Hannah and I) did not stay long. It is a curious thing, the school hosting an event at the bar, I am told it in normal for professors to go have a drink for lunch and come back. It was not an over-the-top thing like parties I have been to before, and honestly if I had heard more english being spoke (or if I could speak more french) I probably would have stayed a little while. The walk there and back was probably my favorite part, I really love it being a normal thing to walk everywhere you go, and I am even growing fond of the bus system. It is just all so foreign and exciting to me, as I have never really been to big cities in the States either.

Since I have been here I have been going running with Candice at the track and once on the trails around the school. An interesting thing about it here is I have not seen many (if any) over-weight individuals. How do they do it?! So many sweet and decadent things to eat around all the time (not to mention the Lord-knows-how-many-carbs 12 baguettes a day diet) and yet they are all so small?! Well, it does seem like most people walk quite a bit an the day-to-day plus the track and trails seem pretty full of those who care about their health. It's a beautiful thing. We tried to go into the weight room (full of insanely ripped guys and gals) but were informed it was for the "upper-level" athletes but we could come back and basically try out with the coach. Now, I am about 95% sure I will not be able to keep up with these athletes but my plan is to try it out anyways. Plus, I'm pretty sure Candice can handle it, so don't worry America, you will not be (too) disgraced,

I am positive there are some things I wanted to write about but forgot, but as I have been writing on this forever and keep stopping to do other thing (skype, facebook, eat, help neighbor with her broken bead and setting up her internet ect.) I think I should call it quits. Maybe a few more random thoughts/photos.

1. Popular American music (Kesha, Justin Timberlake, Imagine Dragons, and I have even heard some Destinys Child) is played in a lot of unusual places; the mall, the train station ect.

2. Baguettes (long pieces of bread) really are everywhere, and they are super cheap.

3. Almost everybody here smokes

4. The fashion is a bit more dressy than American, I have yet to see a girl walking around in athletic shorts or tights haha