Orientation Week!

Hello everyone! I can’t believe it’s only been one week in Grenoble, this past week has felt like a lifetime! We did a lot of orientation this week: orientation to the city, orientation to the university, and orientation to our new host families. We also had a LOT of free time to explore the city which is amazing! I cannot believe that I get to live here for the next three months... it all feels like a dream. Hopefully time starts moving a little faster when we start classes and more traveling next week.

I tested into the level I wanted in French, so all my classes will be taught in French. I will have 10 hours of language classes a week, 2 hours of vocab, and 6 hours of electives; yes that does mean 18 hours of French per week (just in the classroom)! But I am excited for this opportunity because it will allow me to practice the language in ways I cannot in the US. I speak a lot of French with my host mom as well—she is amazing! She cooks everything vegetarian and organic, and she loves talking to me in French. I even have my own studio apartment attached to her house 😊.

Finally, we didn’t travel a lot this week, but we did explore Grenoble quite a bit. We went to the amazing Musée de Grenoble and walked all the way around the city. Today we walked around Sassenage (we were supposed to hike, but it rained quite a bit) which is beautiful, and yesterday we traveled to Lyon, France. We saw the Basilica, Le Parc de la Tête d’Or, et le vieux Lyon! C’était très beau! You can see my pictures and video of something like volleyball (only without hands) in the appropriate sections. I was very excited about this sport it looked super fun. I am going to head to bed as my first class is at 8:30 am tomorrow, but everything is going well here! Thanks for staying updated :)

Until next week,

Rachel ◦