Waouh!

Gosh, I don't know where to begin. I've been in France for six days, Besançon four days, and school three days. All I can say is "Waouh!"

It feels good to understand even a little bit more than I did in the beginning. For a while, my answer for most things was a blank stare, but now as I type, the words come to me in french as well. I think that the things most difficult are those you can't translate into english: tidbits of culture, things that only exist in France.

The organization of high school, for instance, is quite different. There are some classes for one hour, some for two hours, and often there's a free period sometime in the day. Yesterday, I missed half of one of my classes because I didn't know that you changed classrooms in the middle of class. I sat in the library and read "Huckleberry Finn" in french while the teacher apparently looked all over for me. Oops.

Other than some minor miscommunications like that, everything is going exceedingly well. People at school are friendly, and even though I talk very slowly and often unintelligably, they talk to me. The town is beautiful (so green!), my host family is amazing, and the FOOD! Fromages, thés, poissons, yaourts, macarons...

Ahhh...