Day 34: Pau, France

Today was Friday.  I am pretty much shocked that another week just went by.  I hope every week doesn't go by this fast, but I have a feeling they will.  I woke up still feeling sick, and had a really difficult time getting moving.  I got up and showered, and that helped, but I still didn't feel so great.  Class was pretty good today.  I am starting to like our teacher more.  She is pretty funny.  She is also smart.  She is Finnish, and she speaks Finnish, Swedish, Danish, German, French, English, and Latin.  She said it took her three months to learn German and pass her language tests.  It was kinda dreary and damp today, which I wouldn't mind, but it can't be making me feel any better.  I didn't get to practice this morning, so I went home as soon as class ended to play.  I spent about 4 hours tonight playing.  Overall, it went well.  There are still parts of the show I have hardly touched.  Hopefully tomorrow goes well.  I ate dinner with my family tonight.  I tried some kind of pate made with pig's blood.  It was weird.  We also had tian, which is a local dish to the south of France.  It is kind've like Ratatouille, but good.

I also had a major French breakthrough at dinner.  I explained to my family that the US education sucks, that funding is based off of test scores, and teachers only teach content for the tests, and not the whole subjects, and if a schools scores get too low, they lose funding, when they really need more, and that if teachers have to be fired, it is the youngest that go, and not the worst. Then I told them about my opera rehearsal, and that I like rain, but not a lot of rain. In French. Granted, all of that probably took me like 10 or 15 minutes because I have to think about every single word for 7-10 seconds.  But it's still progress.

After dinner, I smashed my trumpet into 4000 tiny pieces because I hate music, and then I watched my first French film that I understood.

There are lots of pretty girls in this movie.

This movie was good.  Laura and Erin and Jenny watched it the other night and then they gave it to me to watch.  I had the French subtitles on, but I understood WAY more than I would have even a week ago.  It is about this French guy that moves to Spain and lives with a bunch of other European people in a tiny apartment.  I turns out to be a life changing experience.  Blah blah.  It was good.