School and Life in General

Today was the first day of official school. Yesterday we only had one class because the other half of the day we went to the Office of International Relations and spoke to the vice mayor. We also had a wine and cheese dinner with our host families so that they could get to know the other students in our class. This morning I had to get up at 7 am and get ready. Our usual breakfast here in France consists of coffee or tea with French bread, jam, butter, and Nutella. I had tea with jam. I am not a coffee drinker. My host bother makes fresh bread for the next morning's breakfast. The apartment always smells really good because of it. Benoit, my host brother is a seventeen year old high school student that is more mature than most college students at Texas Tech. We always talk in French about politics and the world. We also watch the Simpsons in French because we are both enormous Simpsons fans. The humor in the Simpsons is almost the same with the exceptions of the French idiomatic expressions. I love it here. I think that I will do everything possible to move to France. It has always been my goal to live here, but even more so now that I know for sure how the life style is. There is a lack of stress and cars. The public transportation is excellent and I do not really care that the taxes are higher because the social services are very good. The gas is expensive, but one can live an entire lifetime here without using a car. I think that there are not as many pressures here as there are in the United States because people take time for themselves. I love it!