Amsterdam!

I'm back in France! Yesterday was a very long day-8 heures dans une voiture pleine. Naturally, I slept the entire way.

I bought my host family crazy clog slipper things because I thought they were hilarious. My host family thought the same thing.

While I was in Amsterdam, I basically just walked around all the time by myself. I would wake up every morning and leave the apartment and walk for 5-10 hours until I was tired or it was time for dinner. It was amazing. Amsterdam, is so beautiful. The architecture is very different than in France, but it still holds that wonderful European style that I have always loved. I spent a bit way too much money for my taste, but je ne regrette rien. The apartment was beautiful and in the center of everything, so it was easy to walk everywhere. Which leads me to another one of my not-so-useless-but-still-pretty-useless moneyspending stories: I wanted to see the Anne Frank house. My host family told me that there is always a huge line to wait in if you want to see it, but it's still worth it. The only problem was I had no clue how to get there. So, I created a master plan. I had seen a lot of canal boat tours in front of the apart and I knew one of them stopped in front of la maison d'Anne Frank, so I went to the nearest ticket counter and bought a day-pass for 20E because I figured after Anne Frank I could go to some of the other stops that the tour offered. I got on the boat and it was very nice. There was an audio tour of interesting attractions that we passed and it was a beautiful warm day. The first stop was Anne Frank. I got off and walked to the house... what do I find? A huge line that goes down the entire block. I spend a few hours in the line before entering the house, which was so amazing and heart breaking. After I was done with the tour, it was already pretty late and I had no time to go to any of the other stops with my day-pass. But, how do I get home? ...I walk of course, Anne Frank's house was literally like 2 blocks away from my apartment. There was no point in me buying that 20E day-pass... oh la vache.

I go back to school tomorrow, I have to say, I'm kind of relieved. I really missed Rennes and I am so happy to be back.

xx

L'école

I guess I never really explained my classes and how school works.

Basically there are like 60+ students in the entire program, and we all took placement tests to determine our level in French and math. They are 2 levels of French I and II. Level I is for the meilleur éleves and they study a lot more Literature and work less on learning grammar. Level II, were I am, is dedicated to expanding our vocabulary and speaking skills. Level II still takes Litt. but not as often as level I.

So, the school day is created for each individual student and group. Each level is divided evenly into groups--IA, IB and IIA, IIB--for scheduling purposes. I'm IIA, so all of my classes are with the rest of the people in IIA. Except for math, math gets mixed up according to math skill. I'm in pre-calcI and there is a pre-calcII and a pre-calchonours as well as ABCalc and BCCalc.

Classes are:
CESF(culture et société Françaises-Taught in French)- which is us just learning everything we need to know about France and it's culture..... the prof is hilarious.

Histoire(Taught in FRench- French history... I'm really surprised by how much I love this class, our prof is crazy.

Histoire de l'art(French)- Art and architecture... I love this class the prof is so funny!!

Litterature(French)- French literature

English(English)- Is just a basic English class.... the prof is so smart and crazy, I really enjoy this class

Langue(French)- grammar class..... I love speaking French

TPL(French)- it's a pronunciation class, each group has it once a week

Math(English)- I love our teacher, she is so young and smart and she's super fun

C'est tout! Je vais faire mes devoirs!

PS below is me reciting my first essay in French. We were supposed to do it in class, but they prof only chose certain people to recite. I worked really hard on it, so I wanted to share it with you! Excuse my pronunciation... I was reading too fast.

xx