crash course

So, I just got done with class for the day... Wednesdays seem so long! The afternoon class this week was about the woman of France. Mdm Thyss taught us about the history of French feminism, which was largely controlled by men (how ironic). It's so interesting to hear how much of a non-issue it is here. Their outlook on the family dynamic and the differences between sexes is so different, and I really enjoy it. There are a lot of familial aspects that I agree with and wish the United States could get more of. The family and the quality time between children and parent is so much higher, and it's so ingrained into their lifestyle that no one ever discusses it.

Last night was the France-Italy soccer game. We met a young French man at the restaurant (cafeteria) yesterday and spent some time helping each other communicate in our non-native language. We all enjoyed it so much that we decided to meet at the Fountain of Elephants and go to a pub to watch the game.

After an entire day of studying, I was more than ready to go. We went to O'Cardinals, the most popular Irish pub in town, and grabbed a table outside. It immediately began pouring, but we were able to scoot our table into the covered area and stay with the large crowd of French supporters. There was too big of a group for us to see the game, so we were just following the cheers and boos, mostly boos, since France lost by two.

It was just a really good night of conversation. We got to practice a lot of French, and Orlando, the French student, was able to try out a lot of English. We also tried a really common French pub drink, flavored beer. The beer is really light here, and so they focus on really changing the flavor instead of getting a really high quality. We opted for the peach, which seemed pretty common. Next time, I think I'll just go for the red beer, which has a splash of grinadine and seemed really popular as well.

I have a ton of studying to do tonight; I borrowed Leslie's notebook so that I can get the material from the advanced class on top of my own. I'm going to get started stealing all of her stuff :)