First days in Grenoble

Bonjour, tout le monde! It's now been a few days since I have arrived in Grenoble. I will pick up where I left off: arriving by train to Grenoble. My host mom, Viviane, and the other student living with them, Chris, picked me up from the train station. I will explain who is part of my host family. First, there is the mom, Viviane. She is the sweetest. She is very patient with me and Chris and she loves to go out and do things with us. Next, there are four kids: two sons and two daughters, all around 18-25ish. Manon is the oldest child and she works at the hospital. Then there is Albain, who is a year older than me. He knows the most English and I talk with him the most. Next, there is Leah, a year younger, and then Rudy, two years after that. I cannot understand a word Rudy says. Haha. He speaks way too fast for me. Just Albain and Rudy live at the apartment. They also have the most adorable little puppy named Apache (like the Native Americans, but it is pronounced ah-pash).

There is also another student living with the family. His name is Chris and he is from London. When he came to France, he knew barely any French. He arrived a few days before me. He is only here for a month. He is super nice and when the family is all talking together super quickly, we just look at each other in shared confusion. :)

My host brother, Albain, immediately took me out to a local pub the night I got there (Thursday) along with Chris. I had a delicious Guiness and I was talking to one of Albain's friends for a while. He didn't speak much English and he was trying to say McDonald's, but I couldn't understand him for at least five minutes. That was definitely a funny moment.

On Friday, I met up with my group again and they took us on a tour of Grenoble. That would have been interesting if I wasn't miserable the whole time. It was really cold and rainy. I felt like I was in a colder Oregon. Blahhh. I hope that is not the weather all the time, but at least I have a great pair of rain boots. Since I was wet and freezing, I am sad to say I didn't absorb much of our tour, so most of Grenoble is a complete mystery to me still.

Anyways, after, we took the tram to the university and they showed us where we would be taking classes. From what I've seen, the public transportation in France is awesome. At least in Paris and Grenoble, there are buses as well as trams and metros (metro is underground and just in Paris). The trams are quite fast. It takes me about 15 minutes to get to my school.

Friday night, I went with my host family to their house in the Alps. I introduced Albain to Angry Birds and he loves that game now. We played the whole two hour ride there.

Saturday, I went snowboarding with Chris and Albain. Albain is an amazing skier  but he stayed with me and Chris the whole time, which was super nice. I just can't believe I snowboarded in the Alps. It was hard day for me because that morning, I fell down the stairs and hit my knee really hard. Both my knee and my tumor hurt all day, which kinda sucked. The Alps are absolutely beautiful, so it was worth it.

The next day, Albain's knees were hurting too so he drove me around the valley. Just on the other side of the mountains is Italy, which is pretty cool. He told me that sometimes when they get a craving for pizza, they just drive into Italy. Anyways, he showed me the last village on the road through the valley before the elevation gets too high and it was very beautiful. We also had Apache with us and so we played with him.

Sunday night, we came back to Grenoble. I just took my placement test today and tomorrow I find out my level for classes. I will write more in a few days about my classes. A bientot!