Rêve

Hello!

Well we have now officially been in Cannes, France for 4 days! We're here at the International College of Cannes to take language courses for 2 weeks and begin our immersion into the French culture. No complaints here, as it's a cute town within walking distance of everything, including the BEAUTIFUL beach right across the street that is fed by the Mediterranean Sea.

The day we arrived: slightly overcast with beautiful rays shining through!

La plage

 On Monday, we took a placement exam to see which level of language classes we should be in for these two weeks and saying my performance was mediocre would be kind. The written conjugation and comprehension portion was alright, but then came the essay part about our arrival to Cannes-where everyone wrote about 15 lines and I filled in about 2 1/2 lines, beginning with "J'aime France..." It was rough. The oral portion followed suit in failure and voila! We were done! We spent the afternoon roaming around the city like foreign wanderers looking for adventure and in love with every aspect of the city we saw. Cannes is small city of about 7500 inhabitants and home to the Cannes film festival. Separate from tourist/film festival season, it's about and precious and quaint as they come.

Cannes Film Festival 

Beautiful glimpse of the mountains and sea

Tuesday was first day of class. The professors only speak French, and I think I must have tested decent in the comprehension where they might have placed me in one level too high, because I'm DEFINITELY in way over my head. At one point, I turned to the boy next to me to ask what we were doing, and of course with my luck-he began to speak Italian. So here I am, sitting next to a native Italian boy who only speaks Italian, in a class that only speaks French, and all I can think of words is in English. What an adventure! I thoroughly enjoy being surrounded by the language though. In my classes, at meals, you can even hear it through the walls in your room-everyone is speaking French and I am just enamored by it. Now if I could only become that good at speaking it...

We went down to the beach one day with some friends, and it was chilly but not too chilly to dip our toes in the water. We then had rules/safety/drinking/housing meetings with our AIFS Paris directors, who were so kind to come to Cannes to meet with us. Low-key night with a full night's sleep, then up again this morning for class, which I was able to comprehend more today! When attempting to communicate in our partner-paired activity with my Italian friend, Julio, and let me say-it.was.struggles.central.-he turned to me and said "Tu hables espanol?" and I responded with "Oui!" So today, I was sitting in an French class, attempting to form my English words into French ones, while reading my friends Italian dictionary, as he communicated his words in Spanish. WHAT.A.DAY. I feel officially abroad! Now we're currently sitting and waiting to interview about housing, so that they can properly place us in a home-stay that is best fit for us!

La plage

Ashley and me right as the water soaked our pant legs

Aubrie's hands and my feet

Sunset view from our room

As Ashley is on the lookout...

Picture of the International College of Cannes

That's all for now folks! In summary, loving life here. It's beautiful, filled with sunshine, and we have fresh delicious food for every meal. Friends are great. Life is good.

French word for the day: "Rêve" which means "dream" so "à rêver jour" is to day dream.

Rêve sur mes amis.

-MC