My first scheduled class on Monday was an integrated three hour film class at 9:15 in the morning. Yikes! This is my only integrated class this semester. An integrated class means I am taking this class with regular French students, as opposed to my other classes that are with only study abroad students. Unfortunately, I do not know what happened in this class because I missed it. I woke up early that morning, in fear that something like this happening. It was my first time venturing out into the city alone and I have to admit I was a little scared. To get to the University I have to take the Tram about 7 stops; it takes about 12 minutes.  Our program conveyed to us that we were able to purchase unlimited month passes, but since the Tram Office wasn’t open on Sunday when we decided to go get them, I figured I could just use a day pass for Monday. I went to the little machine at the Tram stop to buy my ticket only to realize that it doesn’t take cash; it only takes coins. Getting a little nervous about being late, I ran back to my apartment to get my credit card. When I went back to the machine to use my credit card the machine wasn’t reading it. I later realized that the machine doesn’t take American credit cards. At this point I had exhausted all my resources and I only had about 15 minutes before the class started.  There was no way I could walk to class because it was so far and I didn’t want to disrespect the professor by showing up late. I walked back to my apartment defeated.

Finding your way around any new city is difficult. But being in a completely different culture with a completely different language feels almost impossible. Every little task feels like it takes 10x longer to do and uses 10x the amount of effort as usual. Later that day, I finally did make it to campus for my Grammaire class. My professor seems very nice, but she speaks SO FAST. I can barely understand what she is saying. I am going to see if she will move me down into a lower section because my listening skills are not up to par for that class. My favorite class that I have is a conversation course at our program office with Cedric, one of the program staff. I have this class one day a week for two and a half hours. Apart from the fact that Cedric makes coffee and tea and brings bread and jam for us, I love this class because of it’s relaxed setting. If you couldn’t guess already, the conversation class is a completely oral course. Each week we bring in a news article or video clip and present it to the class. With only eight students in my section, I feel very comfortable speaking in class. I think I will learn the most from this class because I need to work on my listening and speaking abilities the most. I also think that learning about current events in France is the best way to integrate ourselves into society. The workload doesn’t seem too hard so far, but it was also only the first week of classes. Of course this semester is called study abroad, but I think I will learn the most outside of the classroom.  Everyone I have met here so far has been so helpful and patient with teaching me French. I find it most beneficial to be able to order at a restaurant, ask where something is, how much it costs, or where to find something.  Most people here in Montpellier speak a little bit of English, so if you are ever having trouble they can still understand what you are trying to say.

I’m hoping that I won’t be too behind in my integrated class tomorrow morning considering I missed three hours of lecture! I’m planning on asking some of the French students for their notes so that I know exactly what is going on in class. Definitely going to be missing Starbucks about half way through that lecture!

Location: Montpellier, FR