Freedom!......(July 11, 2008)

Since there are no afternoon classes on Friday, we had the afternoon free! So after lunch we all took off to go to town. Kristen, Amy, Allison, Melissa and I went through the Musee de Grenoble, which has the second largest collection of art in France after the Louvre. It was quite impressive. Then Melissa and I took off to find a couple of stores that our phonetics professor (who is quite cool) told us about. We scoped out some jewelry, but decided to wait for the 3rd markdown (they're on the 2nd now) for the summer sale. We were both desperate for a large coke with ice, so guess where we went? McDo, of course! Where else can 2E20 seem like a good deal for a coke? Then we went to Monoprix and stocked up on some more food for our rooms and the Bastille Day picnic. I found the Old El Paso section, but that stuff is way too expensive. I will just have to wait until I get home to indulge that craving.

The good news is, my French is really improving. Madame Abry has helped us a bunch with our pronunciation, keying in on areas that certain language speakers need to work on. We are all having fun exaggerating our corrections, which is what she said we have to do to retrain our brains. Even the current events class was a bit better today, although the prof showed us a bunch of clips dissing George Bush and the war in Iraq. No wonder the French people hate American politics so much, if that is what they watch on TV!

Clouds are rolling in and we may be in for a rainy weekend. We were supposed to go river rafting on Sunday, but we need to find 1-2 more people, so it was postponed a week. (It would likely have been rained out, anyway.) So, my current plans are to try to find the Eglise Evangelique Baptiste and attend church. Even though all of the stores are closed on Sunday, I'm told there is a really good market in town, so I'll probably check that out as well.

All's quiet on the eastern front (translation.....the cement factory is closed!) Seriously, it is a good thing I can sleep through anything, because they start mixing cement around 6 a.m. and it is loud!

Ciao for now......