Update + Contest!

Bonsoir de Grenoble! This post has the first of what I hope will be many contests throughout the year. The contest is at the end, so be sure to reply with your guess/answer to win something undetermined but guaranteed to be awesome.

This past week has been pretty good. I started classes and here’s what it looks like I’ll be taking. French classes in the morning (8 hrs/week), 2 classes at the CUEF for international students—French contemporary history (1789-1914) and Translation, and 2 classes at the Fac with other French students—intro to political science and regional linguistics. None of that’s set in stone but that’s what’ll hopefully end up happening! I like my French teacher a lot…she’s pretty funny and nice and class has been good so far!

Thursday night Kelly and I went out with Julien, a friend of Stephanie’s from CISV. It was really fun. We just went to a bar and hung out and talked for a while. It was really fun and I think and hope he had a good time too! Very cool to be speaking French with a real French person who lives there and not other Americans!

Last night was really fun. A group of us went out to a discotheque to go dancing since people really wanted to do that. It ended up being a ton of fun and we ended up talking with these random French people (in French!) for a long time....let's just say that no one needed to spend the night at my house (great downtown location) because the trams started running again in the morning by the time we were headed home. Here’s a picture of me and Clare that they put online: http://www.famous-people.fr/img_report/vertigo/vertigo12septembre2008/P9130052.jpg Then today some of us went shopping and I got this really hilarious/awesome zebra underwear. It's pretty sweet.

I’ve been eating so much amazing cheese it’s not even funny. My cholesterol’s probably through the roof but I walk a ton so whatever. It’s worth it regardless. So amazing and good and so much variety! It’s pretty much heaven. We went to Marie-Eve’s (director of BU-Grenoble program) apartment for dinner Wednesday night. It was really fun and good. The 10th-floor apartment has an incredible view of mountains and the Bastille. They had this incredible cheese platter from cheeses from the region plus camembert. It was amazing. Céline, Marie-Eve’s daughter and the person in charge of housing and pairing students with families, made it and told me the store where she got it all. It has the best cheese in the city according to her. My family agrees. So Kelly and I went there Thursday night and bought a chèvre and parmigiano reggiano and a baguette for dinner and ate in the park. Both were so amazingly good! The chèvre was very fresh and light and the parmesan was so strong and flavorful. Keith, you would’ve gone nuts. The people in the fromagerie (cheese store) were really nice too so we decided to make it “our place” and go there all the time to buy cheese. And ditto with the boulangerie next door to it. BUT, quite possibly the best part, is that Marie-Eve has a PIANO at her house! So I got to play piano! It made my week no joke.

Guess that’s all I can think of at the moment. Oh, my family grows like every vegetable imagineable in a garden at their mountain house. Leeks, lettuces, potatoes, broccoli, carrots, peppers, tons of other stuff. It’s crazy. We made a soup tonight just from that stuff. Très yummy. My mère is a social worker and my père is an “informatique”…computer something or other. He works in a hospital on their computer systems.

One of my favorite things to say is "cool" the French way. They use it like we do but it's awesome how they pronounce it lol. I said it a ton at dinner tonight. And I had Mathis (host brother) speak English which was fun too. He's way good. Has an accent of course but not much because he watches lots of American TV. I'm gonna introduce him to The Office and we're gonna watch it soon I hope!

And now for the contest! Simply answer the following question! First person right wins. Good luck!
What was Grenoble called during the French Revolution?