Sept 1st

Bonjour tout le monde!

Well, I just wanted to let everyone know how I was doing here in France. I've been here since August 26 and I have to say, I'm loving it!  The food (yummy), the people, the language, everything!

The airplane travel wasn't too bad, considering how long it was, and I staved off boredom (more or less successfully) by reading, watching the two on-flight movies, and talking to the Australian lady next to me for about 7.5 hours. I opted not to sleep for either of my flights, resulting in me being awake for about 30 hours straight, which probably isn't too bad compared to the travel of others. Unfortunately, this time was lengthened by me missing my connecting flight from Paris to Toulouse, due to the enormous size of the Paris airport and some other factors. I had to get another ticket for three hours later, which luckily, I ended up getting free of charge, as I only missed the flight by 5 or 10 minutes. This helped quite a bit to calm me down (I was a little worried when I found out I missed my flight). The second flight was an uneventful hour and a half and I was happy to see that my host father Patrick Le Digabel, and my district coordinator, Gerard Charpentier. It was so eerie getting off the second plane, at that moment, the exchange seemed the most real.

I've spent the last week getting my school books, which Rotary has very generously paid for, and my carte de séjour, which is basically my long term visa. I've also seen some of the sights in Toulouse, including a very cool museum, and a lot of cute boutiques. Yesterday, I spent the day in the Pyrenées (a mountain chain between France and Spain) with my family. It was soooo beautiful! It was the first time I've been to the mountains, I was amazed. I also took about 40 pictures-Also, earlier today, I attended my first Rotary meeting with my counselor, Jean-Pierre Matheos. I exchanged the banner of my home Rotary club for theirs, and understood the gist of what they talked about during the very excellent meal.

My host family is very nice, it consists of the father Patrick, and the mother Huguette, and also the children Romain (9) and Charlotte (5). They are so adorable! It's nice to have little siblings, since my youngest sibling is 16, and Patrick and Huguette are great. They have a very good sense of humor. They are also letting me use their daughter, Aurélie's cell phone while she is on her exchange in the United States, which is very cool of them.

School starts in two days, on Wednesday, and for my required classes I have Math, French, English, Biology, History, Geography, and Economics. For my optional classes, I chose another math class and Italian-I'm hoping that it won't be too difficult to learn Italian through French.

Wish me luck !

Michelle Gleason