Frenchification

So I feel like I'm in my element...I'm going to be going to see Carmen at Lille's Opera in December with some fellow music nerds, and I've joined an equipe de volley (volleyball team!) And the girls on the team speak only French except for one, so it's been exciting learning how to call certain things in French. Like to call for a hit you go, "LA LA LA LA!" and when the setter wants to run a play she goes "OUI OUI OUI ou ALLEZ ALLEZ!" It's pretty self-explanatory though, but whenever I play volleyball I get REALLY into it and scream and cheer all the time, and of course I don't know how to scream those things in French so they think I'm this psychotic American girl. But they're really nice and laugh at me which is good. If they just stared then I'd feel even wierder. One of the girls has never ever played volleyball before so I was the one asked to teach her, and strangely enough, she actually improved throughout the course of the evening. I just used very simple French and a lot of hand gestures and body movements. It's funny how useless words can be at times...You can read a lot more about a person by how he or she reacts with the environment around him or her.

Needless to say, I feel like I've found a spot for myself here. It would be way different if I wasn't hanging out with French students because in the beginning when I was just with all American, British, and Australian people it felt like some sort of utopia removed from the world of Lille where the only language spoken is colloquial English. I still hang out with them but I am the most restless person in the sense that I cannot confine myself to a group of individuals with whom I relate well. I must be constantly on the move, which probably explains why I want to travel so much here! One of the funniest French people I've met here is my friend Clement's roommate "Coucou." I think his actual name is Ediouardo or something, which is way too sophisticated of a name for him judging by his character! He is such a goof and his English speaking is limited to slang, so we're constantly laughing at him.

Time to do my French homework. I'm off to Switzerland demain pour passer un weekend chez mon pere et ma belle bere a Basel. J'espere que j'amuserai la. Il sera un peu bizarre parce que je suis avec les eleves mon age ici! Donc j'ecrirai a une autre heure. A bientot :)