UPDATE!

SORRRY guys....It's been sooo long since I have had the time to update the blog, and tell everyone how things are in France. And it's not that I was able and chose not to. But of course it is again due to the on going struggle with obtaining internet in the apartment. It has been almost 2 months since we made the request, and the people at the store tell us each week we go to ask them what the problem is...'sorry you are really unlucky, this has never happened before, it has happened with every customer that requested internet on the same day that you did, you just have to wait one more week etc' and more excuses like that. Suffice it to say we are STILL internetless, and have almost given up all hope. So I am in an internet cafe, hoping to spend most of the time updating you what has been going on since the last blog (mostly in november).

I took Thursday off from classes to go to London and visit my uncle, cousin, and some friends. I bought a round trip train ticket from Paris to London and got to go under the British Channel for only 60 euros! Cecil, my roomate, didn’t come with me unfortunately because he had classes, but it was ok because it was still very fun to be in a country that spoke English!!!!!!(A break from a foreign language does some good from time to time) ... Ironically I spoke very little English in London because 5 people from Lyon (people I met last Christmas when I went to France) stayed with us in my uncle's London apartment near Tower Bridge. So I ended up actually speaking more french than english, which was actually really good because I was able to improve a lot and learn more french words (some cool slang words which I probably shouldn't mention here - haha).
In London, my cousin came drove from Bristol to visit me on the first day. The rest of the weekend I spend taking the underground with my Lyonnais friends, visiting typical London monuments like Big Ben, London Bridge, The London Eye (a huge ferris wheel), Oxford Street (a road famous for its shopping), and my personal favorite...Wembley STADIUM. The soccer field where the England National team plays. Since I love soccer so much, I decided to pay 8 pounds to do the full tour. I got to sit in the highest chairs in the stadium, touch the field, visit the MVP room, sit where the players get interviewed after the match, and even check out the dressing room with all the players' jerseys on the wall. It was SOOO WORTH IT.

So that was my biggest trip during November. For the rest of the month, I continued working at my high school in the week, and taking small train trips with Cecil to visit other Normandy cities/villages that we hadn't already seen. One weekend we traveled 1 hour to Dives Sur Mer - it was Absolutetly BEAUTIFUL. I have to return here! The train from runs through the green countryside in the first half of the journey, and then moves almost directly on to the sandy beaches, the train tracks running just parallel to the shore, just 200 feet from the sea! Cecil and I spent the day speaking french, picnicking, enjoying the blue waves, and taking pictures of a spectacular sunset.

Later in november, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving with the other american assistant in Lisieux. Even though no french person celebrates thankgiving, the american teaching assistants (3 of us) came together and bought everything we could find from the local supermarket with the word turkey on it (in french 'dinde'). And since we have no oven, we used the microwave and 2 stove tops to cook cordon bleu (with turkey), mashed potatoes, canned corn, and mexican chicken wings. VERY THANKSGIVING if you ask me hahaha. I hope all of yours was a little more traditional. I definitely felt myself longing for a slice of turkey and stuffing, doused with gravy after the French Thanksgiving meal was over...

Teaching has been very enjoyable as well. I work Monday to Thursday every week, and get Fridays off so I can enjoy 3 day weekends. My busiest days are Tuesday and Thursday when I have 4 hours of classes. I have 5 different English teachers I help out with, and they have different teaching methods and ways of using me, the English assistant. Sometimes I am in the same class at the same time with the teacher, helping by going around the room and talking to the students, or helping them with activities. Other times I take a small group of students for an hour in another classroom and try to get them to talk in English, on conversation topics (their favorite subjects are when we discuss the differences between the U.S. and France - like high schools; american students have the same schedule every day and get out of school around 3 o clock, while french students have different classes every day of the week and get out of school by 5 or 6 pm. And finally other teachers have me take half the class and talk to them,, or design English activities to engage them for half an hour. I really enjoy talking to the students and find them all to be friendly and nice, and excited that there is an American around their same age in the classroom. It's weird, it kind of feels like being a movie star since the town is so small. Even the Librarians at the local 'bibliotheque' recognize the two american guys that come in once a week, and always say 'Hello' in a french accent (instead of Bonjour), followed by 'Go Obama'.

What else... that was mostly it for november, besides some other weekend bus trips to small French town.

What's really cool is that last monday, Dec. 8th, my mom came to visit me in france!! In fact she is here next to me, working on her own computer, and she is staying for another week, for a total of about 2 weeks here in Lisieux. It has been wonderful having her here. Since she is a french teacher at the U of O, her french is obviously very good and so it makes living and traveling around france very easy for her. We have already seen many things together, and it is really nice because she has rented a car. Normally Cecil and I do not have the luxury to go to too many places in france, especially if they are far or inaccessable by train. But having a car makes all the difference. And in fact last weekend, we 3 drove to the second most visited touristic site in France - le Mont St. Michel. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it is this incredible castle/abbey/town that was built about 1200 years ago on an island out in the middle of the British Channel. When the tide is low, people can access the island on foot by crossing on the sand, but later in the day when the tide comes in, the castle/town is almost completely surrounded by water (making it extremely difficult to attqck during the middle ages). It rained the entire time we were there, but we took a TON of pictures because it's truly a specila monument, and I was told my a teacher of mine that it is considered by some as 'la ouitieme merveille du monde" - or the 8th wonder of the world. We have many more adventures planned before she goes back this weekend, such as visiting Caen, the city where she studied as a student for study abroad back in the (olden) days, and also Paris of course.

That's it for now, now time for some pictures...

Hey everyone. I'm really sorry I haven't written in a while, but I have been waiting and waiting for 4 weeks and one day now for our wifi internet to be set up in are apartment. They told us it would take "about 3 weeks" but obviously they lied to us!!!! hahaha. ohhh FRANCE. But we discovered lundi (monday) we will get the password in the mail. So I will have a major update very soon. For now I will upload some pictures...

Vacances de Toussaint

France is great. Last Friday the Vacances de Toussaint (All Saints Vacation) began, and it lasts for about a week and a half. Since the vacation started cecil and I have been having a lot of fun. It actually started off on a very interesting note. I woke up on friday morning, was in the middle of taking a shower, and then my roomate cecil knocks on the bathroom door and says 'Uh tom, we have a new roomate'. I was pretty shocked, but just responded 'Uh OK!'. The school did not warn us but, apparently a spanish assistant was coming to live with us in our apartment. So Cecil and I spent the morning cleaning up and moving all of his stuff into my room - the apartment is a 2 bedroom, but they are squeezing 3 people into it. I don't mind too much, since the rent is really cheap, but it was definitely a surprise. The spanish assistant's name is Milena and she is 29, from Columbia. Her french is really good since she has already been an assistant last year, and has been living in France for a year now. She goes to university in Caen 3 days a week, and will be helping at the same school as me on the 2 other days. She is nice, but having 3 people share an apartment is a lot different/more difficult than just 2. The fridge is stuffed to the limit, the washing machine is going constantly, and the dishes get used up pretty quickly. But I suppose it's something everyone has to get used to; I'm learning how important the skill of living with people really is - especially in an apartment where english is not the language spoken most often.

About France...
So this week has been nice, because milena has been going to Caen (another big city 20 mins away) for university on monday and tuesday so we have had some time to ourselves. In fact on monday we decided we have to get out, so we went to deauville. It was only a 20 minute train ride (2.90 euros!) to the beach, and this city is basically a ritzy beach town. The thing was we didnt realize it was going to be the worst weather EVER. Instead we brought our swimsuits, a nice picnic lunch in our backpacks, and short-sleeve t-shirts. All of a sudden while we walking through town, it absolutety POURRRED and we got drenched! Out backpacks, our jeans, even the baguette that we were eating got soggy. But we just laughed and continued walking to beach. Nothing was going to stop us from swimming in the ocean. And so we did. AFter a quick baguette cheese and salami lunch, we changed into our swimsuit, and ran to the ocean and dove straight in! You can probably imagine - its very similar to the oregon coast in the winter. Something normal people just dont swim in, but we did and it was very memorable! and cold!

Just yesterday we decided to leave lisieux again and go into Caen, just me and cecil, because I discovered online that there was a soccer game on wednesday night - Caen vs. Nice. Although cecil doesnt love soccer, he was content to come along and we both got pretty into the game. Although the caen team is no where near as big as a soccer club as Liverpool, the atmosphere was still really great. We got tickets for 10 euros each, and got to sit right near the raucas crazy young hooligans who were standing up and singing songs the whole game, some with their shirts off. And it was COLLLD. I dont know how they did it. Im guessing alcohol could have been invovled. anyway the game ended 1-1 and i was very glad to watch my first european soccer game in a stadium. I hope there is many more...Since the game was late, there were no trains back to lisieux from cean. but we had already planned for that and reserved a 'cheap' hotel - it was 32 euros total, 16 each, but had only one bed and a shower in the room with no curtains. hahhaha. we opted not to shower, but the bed was fine cuz i have slept in a doulbe bed like that with 2 other guys before (college trips to san fransisco and lss vegas come to mind)!! It was a great trip, and we just got back to lisieux this morning. However, we reserved another night in the hotel for friday (tomorrow) becuase cecil bought two tickets to go to a pretty famous french/english musician who has a concert on friday night. Her name is Camille, you may have heard of her. It will be interesting because i think she makes music with her body parts, as well as of course singing, but I will just be glad to bet out of our apartment and explore more of caen again.

I guess thats it for now. Cecil and I have decided that we have to start planning trips to take and do in our 2 week vacations that we have free, because everyone says you can get really cheap tickets if you purchase in advance. since the next two week break is during the christmas holidays, i dont know if i can go anywhere with him, since i might be celebrating it in the alps with uncle john. But for februrary we our looking at train tickets to the south of france, specifically to NICE, which is supposed to be beautiful. We were thinking of spending 3 days exploring that area (day trips to Monaco and Antibes), then taking a train across the border into Italy (GENOVA). And from there,we would spend the rest of the week on this great hike that cecil found in his travel book. Its called cinque terre, and it's basically a hike (not too hard) through small Italian villages on the coast line and it looks absolutely beautiful, and it says since its not really a touristy place, its cheaper so that sounds great. Then were thinking of getting a ryan air from pisa back to paris at the end of the hike. We want to do at least one big trip each 2 week vacation (once every two months) and then smaller weekend trips via ryan air at least once a month. For the april trip we were thinking of going to scotland (edinbourgh) to visit his friend, but it could be nice to visit greece, or spain might be really beautiful. Theres plenty of time to decide though. That's it for now :). I have included some pictures.


Deauville, notice the gray clouds looming.



Cecil and me.


Behold La Manche (The Channel).


The beautiful harbor between deauville and trouville.

La vie est belle

So fixing up the internet at our apartment has been the most frustrating thing to set up ever. I dont kno why it really has to be this complicated in france, it's almost as if they enjoy it. i swear ive gone to that french telecom store 4 times and i'm still really confused. but yesterday it was nice because my favorite classof guys, who i eat lunch with in the cafeteria, walked with me at lunch time into the city so they could help me out with the fast speaking french emlpoyees at France Telecom. But we found out the store was closed until 2 pm which was the time the store re-opened after lunch. all of them had class at 2, but they stayed to help and skipped a class to help me which was really nice of them. i finally got my carte blue from my bank which is the credit card yesterday (which was the only thing holding me back from the internet), but after talking to the guy i discovered we have to re-open the phone line for 110 euros, then pay 40 euros a month for just internet and phone - which seems expensive, but then again internet in the apartment would be really helpful for creating lesson plans, keeping in touch with everyone, and buying plane/train tickets online. anyway it was confusing and the reason it takes so long is because the store is reallllly crowde and we dont understand everything at the stores! As of now, a technician is coming this week, but because its France, it will take a month before it actually works in the apartment!!!! Somethings about France really frustrate me like the customer service and the bureaucracy of opening any account (i had to sign and initial 20 pages before i could have a bank account).

But France is great in a lot of other ways too. I have been really enjoying our weekend adventures. Cecil and i have been finding cheap train rides and bus rides to nice normandy cities on the weekends. Last weekend we took a bus to Honfleur, which is this cute little fishing village on the coast. We hiked to the top of the biggest hill, and ate chesse, avocado, and ham baguette sandwhiches (i dont think i will ever get sick of french food), and admired the view. Then just this weekend we went to a much bigger city called Rouen, the city where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake! We saw the church dedicated to her, and we also visited the museum of Beaux Arts (fine arts) and got to see some Monet!!! I didnt think i was much of a museum/art guy, but i enjoyed the paintings a lot more than i thought i would. I wish i could have taken some of them home with me. Suffice it to say we have been loving the weekends. And guess what, at the end of this week, we have a 10 day vacation because its the vacances de Toussaints (all saints vacation). God I love the french school system.

Random story: My roomate Cecil says really funny things like the otehr day he was talking about the musical CATS and how ridiculous of idea it was. he was thinking...what do they do throughout the play? just lick temselves and meow a lot? well we found the dvd in FRENCH at the mediatheque (the library), and we spent a night watching the movie, drinking cidre (a local alcoholic specialty of normandy) and laughing at how ridiculous it was!!! we also love going to the supermarket and bakeries, so we make up lame excuses to go everyday or everyother day.

The night life in lisieux doesnt really exist. There is one club but I havent gone yet, and the students all tell me that its not that good in lisieux, and i should go to other cities for discotheques. it doesnt bother me too much, because cecil is not much of a partier and so i dont really feel the need, since we buy wine cidre and beer chez nous. Thats all for now.

Bikeride to DDay beaches

Last Friday was the best day i think we've had here. Me and my roomate cecil had the day off cuz i dont have work on fridays, and we took a train to bayeux - which is closer to the ocean but not right on the coast. it is the city that has this famous 70 meter long tapestry. so there are a lot of tourists for a town of only 13,000. but we were wanting a less touristy visit, plus we were cheap, so we didnt see the tapestry and instead rented bikes and biked all the way to the dday beaches. it took us about an hour, but we passed corn fields, small villages, cows, horses, french cafes, locals, and the sun was out and it was just gorgeous. i said ti cecil OUR WE REALLY DOING THIS, is this real? cuz it was just so beautiful, and we were biking in france to the beach! then we could see the blue ocean on the horizon, and we just zoomed down hill into this cute little village called arromanches. It was really an epic journey. We also brought baguettes, cheese, and salami in the bag, as well as yogurt and rice and we had a picnic just watching the waves and all the historic things on the dday beach like old boat parts. Then we put our swim suits on and went swimming - but we were the only ones, i think people thought we were a little crazy but thats alright. we had a sweet time, took so many videos and photos. Then we strolled around the small town for a bit, before riding back to bayeux. it was truly a memorable day - one i wont forget for a while. The nexy day we were tired from our epic journey, so we stayed in lisieux. This weekend we might go someplace, the people in caen want to see us, but cecil and i are quite content not to be around too many americans, and explore stuff on our own. we just laugh a lot - he cracks me up cuz he's really expressive in a sarcastic way. and together we are good cuz we will just dive right in and say hi to french people, try to start up conversations and laugh a lot when we mess up. they are pretty nice though once u try speaking french. anyway thats it for now, classes are nice. i like helping the french students. its really not too hard yet. im also lookin forward to going to london in november in a month, to see uncle john and all the people from christmas that i saw. oh yea an about internet, we found out from someone else that if we use a differnet company it would cost only 20euros for the installation, and 30 euros a month - oh yea plus it comes with phone service so i could call the us for cheap (maybe unlimited), and 30 mins for cellphones free. also comes with a few tv channels, hopefully some soccer! but most importantly internet. the only drawback is its a year contract so i would have to pay for months after i leave, but i think its worth it to get it. plus im thinking of staying til the end of june now, cuz thats when cecil is done with his contract and i could probably stay in our apartment with him til then, so i could still have internet. but im not sure, that would be 9 months instead of 7 months. But I am just loving France so much that i think i might stay, and maybe reapply for the same program next year. Maybe go to the south of france next time :). Bye for now...


The famous bayeux tapestry. We only walked passed the sign sadly. The next time in Bayeux I'm sure we will see it.


In the front you can see the two bikes we rented, and in the back of course 'La Manche' (the channel). This is the Dday beach of Arromanches


baguette + Normandy Beaches + Sun = awesome


Here's part of a huge ship left from the invasion.

Life in Normandy & in a High School!

Im sorry i've been so busy lately - i havent been able to get onto internet much for a long period of time. but now im in a cafe in lisieu, the only one open on sunday! but yea im hear with cecil and lizzi. Cecil my roomate is really really nice. hes really freindly - from washington, artsy and interested in museums, festivals, and traveling so I think our time in france is going to be very memorable. hes interested in things i do even if he doesnt like soccer hes like YEA lets go totally. and i would go with him to see a camille concert (french singer) so we're getting a long really well. and lizzi is the british girl (another assistaant in another high school, but she also lives in lisieux). She's nice so we 3 anglophones havee been hanging out together, but also speaking french with the locals. anyway what else. i went to the first day of classes - there were five of them. it was pretty simple i just sat in front of the class and they asked me questions about america, oregon, my hobbies, my music interests, if america was like American Pie the movie, if i have a girl friend etc. They were mostly pretty interested, but their english was really poor, at a low level. I liked the classes with more 16 17 18 year old guys cuz they were not as shy to ask questions, where as the girl classes asked very few qeustions! it was not bad at all. and then there was another class called BTS which are the people after lycee, aged 20, 21, some 22 but their english isnt that good either. the guys were asking me if i like clubs though, and gave me an address for a club they go to on thursdays haha, all were pretty helpful and friendly. i pretended i knew zero french so they were forced to try their english. Oh yea and the first class i was in the 16, 17 year old guys class, were the friendliest and funniest - they invited me afterward to have lunch with them in the cantine, or cafeteria, and one guy richard who had the best english was trying to communicate with me and ask me all these questions. their group is really nice. they know another girls group - and the girls were really shy to meet me in the cantine, but they did the bisous (kisses on the cheek) it was funny. but they like me and cecil, and play guitar on their breaks and are always eager to have lunch together and play the guitar with us in the hallways.

whatelse - k quickly... me and cecil decided to go to Caen (a much bigger city than lisieux!!) yesterday - we took a train in and met some of the elementary school assistants cecil met at orientation. a really freindly girl from new zealand emma had us over, and invited all the other assistants who were mostly american. there were about 7 of them. i think they had aparty last night were recovering from hangovers saturday haha but they were nice, one guy was from missouri, one girl from califronia, one from michigan, and another from alabama, newyork. it wouldd be nice to visit them from time to time, if we are in caen because caen is really a nice city. its a lot bigger than lisieux. and i wanted to watch the caen cs. marseille soccer game with cecil in the stadium but i discovered at the office de tourisme that it was an away game that night, playing in marseille. Oh Well, another time. ill post pictures when i get internet in the apartment, but still wont have a bank account til wednesday, so internet not til later.

im starting to like to explore a lot more though with cecil, we like to go around and travel so im happy about that. this weekend we want to go to Bayeux and also visit the D-Day beaches. Its perfect because i get fridays off, so i have 3 day weekends to travel and see as much as possible!! im liking our set up though, and the classes so far, so if i really like it i might decide to stay somehwere in france for the summer and reapply for this program next year, but yea that would be a lot of time in europe without coming back to the states, so i dont know if im gonna do that, there is still a lot of time. but part of me is thinking, why not, europe is so great, and while im young if i was in europe for two years it would be really cool. thats it for now. more to come...

Apartment set up

I've been staying in my apartment for the last 2 nights and for a place at a school, its actually pretty big. it has 2 bedrooms (i took the biggest one the fartherst away) which is connected by a hall. in the same hall is the shower - with no toilet cuz its europe and the toilet is in a FREAKING closet!!! and i took a shower yesterday and halfway thru the water went cold so i couldnt wash my hair. and i tried to have one this morning but the water is cold, so im gonna have to ask the enlgish teacher. oh yea and i used the washer last night and its kinda funky i shut my clothes in and started the wash but then wanted to add something else in, but the door is sealed shut, you can't even get in if u wanted. and another weird thing is that when the wash was done i opened it up and the clothes were sooooooaked hahahaha thzere was a puddle of water practically. and since there is not dryer, u have to hang them up on this drying rack in front of the heater - so it takes prolly a day to do your laundry but i think im getting the hang of it. plus i might have put the washer on the wrong setting cuz i don't know what the heck 'lavage' ment - apparently not regular wash! anyway my apartment is nice besides that, ive set up fifa and been playing a lot. also walked into the city yesterday and realized its not that small. i check out this huge cathedral, and walked around the town. i wanted to find a pub with a tv so i could watch liverpool but i doubted they would have it on. i really cant wait until the american comes tho cuz my apartment is kinda quiet and big for just one person. tho i have made a coulpe trips to the store so far and oooommmmgggg i love french food. i bought three different cheeses, 2 bottles of wine, a 10 pack of beer, 3 piZZas, yogurt, coffee, baguettes, some ham, pasta man and the store isn't too overpiced. but the best part of all is that i can eat at the high school and for only 2.50 euros per meal!!!! i got the student rate instead of the teacher's and so i can have lunch and dinner there if i want to. andrea (the englsih teacher) recommended i do that cuz think how much money i could save. if all i had to buy from the supermarkets was breakfast and food (and of course beer/wine) on the weekends, i could save close to 500 euros a month which would be GREAT for traveling. anyway thats it for now - seems like its gonna take some time for me to get phone, internet, and bank set up cuz they still havent processed all the papers.


My Bedroom in the apartment!

I'm in lisieux right now at the high school on the schools computer:: man this keyboard is funky! anyway i have an apartment set up which is pretty nice and another americqn assistqnt is coming on the 30th - a guy from washington (zhitman) named cecil. i don't start for another week, so i've been relaxin in the apartment (i borught my ps2 lol, and have been buying cheese, wine, pain au chocolats,) but i cant get fat so im gonna start running and playing soccer as soon as possible.

Unfortuqntely i won't be able to skype or aim until i get internet in my apartment but that could take some time (french are very picky ... papers and bureaucracy!!!!). I can email and facebook a little until then. That's all for now. I will post the phone number and other contact info when the papers get processed!

First days in Normandy

Picture of the Normandy countryside from the train window


Philippe (the dad) took me on a bike ride around the countryside, i took about one hour and was kinda intense, as we mountain biked on these small roads, up hills, through trees. It was nice though. It's kinda tough though cuz I can't really communicate everything I want to without messing up a ton. He tries a little in english but prefers french definetely. Last night I went to Kevin's (the son) handball game. Its really popular over here for some reason, have you heard of it? It's kinda a weird combination between basketball and soccer, but played indoors, 6 people on each team, and they have goals they you shoot on only you use your hands. except its crazy physical, people hold on you down, use their nails it seems, and push you to the floor - there is a lot of falling over. anyway that was interesting. and i guess everyone here in lisieux is WAY into it, cuz there was this national handball girls team of lisieux and wewent to see that game today. i got in free which was sweet cuz being american, but i don't know why the others would want to pay 2-3 euros each to watch it lol, it gets boring after a while. Anyway, now I'm back to the house for my last night in the teacher's house, before setting up in the apartment at the school. I'm excited to cook and live by myself for pretty much the first time! especially with all this great french food I can buy just a block away. And I'm looking forward to the arrival of another American assistant from Washington (i think) who will be living with me in the flat. Thank god for another anglophone! That's it for now. Time for some more pics...


View from the backyard (nice swimming pool).



This is the famous Basilique. It's huge! have to check it out

Paris, 1st blog

Me in front of le Louvre!

I've been in France for 2 nights now. The first night I stayed in paris at a youth hostel for pretty cheap. I was pretty tired due to the jet lag, but since I arrived to paris in the morning and because it was PARIS, i forced myself to tour the city a bit and saw all the things all the tourists see - eiffel tower, notre dame, le louvre, arc de triomphe. I usually used the metro to get between places, but when i couldn't find a station anywhere between notre dame and the eiffel tower so i started walking. On the map, it didn't look like that far, but i soon found out how far it really was. My legs were SOO tired when I finally reached the eiffel tower, that I had to rest and buy a drink. Buying a drink at the eiffel tower was not the best idea - 3 Euros (5 dollars) for the smallest bottle of water you can imagine!!!!!! ah well. Anyway, I got back to the hostel and slept for a while, before I went to get some dinner with my roomate at the hostel. And guess where we went for dinner? of all the fine restaurants to eat at in paris, we chose - McDonalds! hahhahaha my mom would have killed me. But who can resist a 5 Euro dinner with so much food, when everywhere is twice as expensive for half the quantity. I had a beer at night in the hostel bar, then took the train the next morning for Lisieux, Normandy. The scenery from the train window was pretty amazing - it went from packed apartments in Paris, to open grassy fields with a LOT of COWS in normandy. The English teacher picked me up from the station, and invited me to stay at her house for the weekend which is where I am right now. They are a nice family, and because she is the English teacher at the high school (and from England) it's quite nice that I can communicate fairly easily. Anyways that's it for now.

My room at the hostel in Paris.

Thought this was cool to find in Paris. Home away from home.











And a photo of the house in the countryside I am staying at for the weekend....