Arrival and reflexions on week one.

First of all, I just want you to know how much I love you all. You are getting a blog post even though I still haven't hooked up the internet in my apartment and am thus forced to compose this at school on one of these ridiculous ZWERTY kepyboards.

Tomorrow, it will have been exactly & week since my arrival in Tours. When I got off the train two really nice escem students named Aude and Morgane were waiting to greet me with a blue escem t-shirt on a pole-and close hanger contraption to let me know they were legit. They welcomed me with a traditional French double cheek kiss which I completly botched. I was wearing a pack on the front and back and as a result had to manouevre around really awkwardly. In addition I kind of actually kissed them which is not really how this sort of thing is supposed to work. You are supposed to just let your cheeks kinda brush up against each other, making a kissing sound, not a big old best friend smooch...idiot! How did I not cover that before I came over here...Anyway, both of my first french friends were incredibly kind an gracious to me and I a, greatful for the warm welcome to their country. After that they took me to get groceries and then to the apartment. The last thing I did that day was spend 20 min trying to figure out how to call my folks collect using all french instructions and operator service...it was somewhat frustrating. Keep in mind at this point I had been awake for close to 40 hours so I was not really at my sharpest.

I spent a long lonely night sleeping interruptedly in my apartment and felt pretty uneasy by the next morning. But when I arrived at the school and started to meet the rest of the exchange students I began to feel more at home. We are a mix match of a Swede a Hungarian, 2 Mexicans, an American, a Japanese and a whackload of Candadians, 2 from Guelph the rest from Quebec. Everyone is really nice and we seem to be forming a bit of a team. I can't speak highly enough of the international student assoc here at escem "aloha." They have really taken good care of us, taking us to pubs, cafés and restaurants (and threw a pretty fun party for us with some students from another university).

Lastly, and the thing I know that you are all wondering about...The markets...Yes they are awsome, and yes they are pretty much open every day. I went to the saturday open air market (oh yeah it's like 5 or 6 degrees today so yeah...open air market). It was pretty good, very similar to our summer farmers markets. It wasn't very big though and I saw everything in a matter of minutes. After that I stumbled upon the Halle Tours indoor market...Cheeses and meats of the highest quality and bakerys that were unspeakable. I didn't know where to start...Someone had told me that the Galettes where a seasonal tradition. They are consumed in remeberence of the 3 wise men and are essentially puff pastry filled with custard. DROOL...Anyway the tradition involves the youngest person at the gathering sitting under the table and deciding the order in which people eat the pieces. The person who gets the small figurine burried inside the pastry gets to wear a paper crown and choose their "special" friend for the day.

Anyway guys that is all for now...I have another 3 hours of classe coming up so I will say farwell for now, but their will be much more to follow.