8 snails and some conversation

I suddenly have so much to write about. Classes started this week and it's going to be a busy (and hard) but hopefully very rewarding semester.

However, before I get into the subject of my classes, I have to talk about eating escargots with my host family. We had them on Monday because it was the best day of the week for all of us to eat and because next week Pascal (the swiss exchange student) will be back in Switzerland. Escargots are a particular Burgundy specialty. They are cooked with parsley butter and garlic and so essentially taste like butter and garlic. The texture is sort of similar to lobster and I found them to be quite delicious. They are also usually served in their shells which thankfully did not make eating them too difficult. The only real difficulty is that the shells can (and were) hot and so getting them out of their shells as rapidly as possible was best for my fingers!

After eating the actual snail there was always a good deal of garlic butter. My host father actually drank the butter from the shell, but I followed my host mother and mopped up the butter with my bread.

In all I ate eight snails, which I'm quite sure was more than any one else at the table. Pascal asked if he could keep the shells and my host mother said yes but she put the shells through the dishwasher first! She asked if I wanted them to keep in my room but I said that pictures would suffice! Of course, the escargots were not the only item on the menu. Before them we had some sort of soup which was made of something similar to squash and after we had some sort of fish pâté with the obligatory bread and cheese afterwards.

As for classes, mine started on Tuesday. I had technique d'expression which I think will be sort of a combination of two other classes (oral expression and written expression) but with more opportunity to practice what we might have trouble with. All of my French classes will be quite challenging which I am slightly apprehensive of but also excited for. I didn't just come to France to see places and people but to begin mastering the language.

In Oral Expression we have to research a controversial topic in French politics, present it to the class, present our personal opinion and start a debate on it. Part of our research; however, includes talking to an "expert" on the subject. Thankfully we were grouped in pairs, me with a girl called Mandy who hails from Alberta, Canada. We chose laïcité for our topic, which is the concept of secularism in French society (which harks back to the French Revolution). In particular we are looking at the laws against all religious items in public schools. The presentations are spread across the semester but we chose to go first (at the beginning of March). We'll have less time to research and do the work but I think we'll be fine.

I was a bit worried at first that the class might be too difficult but upon seeing that others are being corrected about as much as I am, I think that everything will be OK. We have two weeks to move up or down and hopefully at the end of the week I will know if it's right level for me. I have one Professor for three classes (two already, one tomorrow) and I'll ask her whether she thinks I'll be all right where I am. I'm willing to work hard and if that means a bit more studying, I'm fine with that.