First day of classes

Woke up at 7:00 to get ready for classes this morning to look like a bumbling fool downstairs.  Apparently the main door locks itself from the inside at night, so you have to press a button to open it.  Well, I was never told this so there I was pulling and pushing at the door handle, playing with the latch, and otherwise failing to open the door, until finally someone from upstairs came down, chuckled a little, and showed me how to open the door.

We took our placement exams this morning.  They made no attempt at hiding the scaled difficulty of the questions.  The oral comprehension part started off with something along the lines of "how are you doing," and ended with the French equivalent of an NPR show.  I was taken aback when I walked into my morning session because 90% of the class was Asian.  Aside from the Oklahoman and the Colombian, the others were all from Japan, Thailand, and Korea.  In any case, it definitely removed the possibility of mumbling a word in English, hoping to have someone else in the room recognize it.

Matt and I went around town looking for a nice place for lunch but ended up giving the school's lunchroom a shot.  If you're ever at CAVILAM, never dine there.

Afternoon class for me was definitely more interesting.  I was put in an oral communication workshop with a relatively amiable professor.  We spent the first part of the class interviewing our neighbors, so we could present them to the class.  He proceeded to make fun of every American accent in the room, seeing as they were all quite strong and noticeable.  That aside, he also chose a random fact from our profile to question us on . . . I had the misfortune of saying I was a physics major, so I had to describe what a Bose-Einstein condensate was to the best of my ability using words like "small ball" instead of particle and "traveling down a blocked road" to describe "classically forbidden regions."  The extent of my misery was quite mitigated in comparison to Cara, the girl next to me, who had to explain why she was majoring in botany with the intention of going to law school.  Our professor referred to her as the grand defender of plants for the rest of the class.

We spent the rest of the evening on a tour of Vichy.  Afterward, Matt and I found a kebab place in town, and he, too, finds that the kebab is quite the agreeable sandwich.

Vichy is known for its spring water.  We got to taste l'Eau de Céléstin here, which purportedly remedies headaches, treats boils, and reduces arthritis.  I'm not entirely sure about the validity of said claim, but I will say that the water is a bit more sour than expected and that it contains sulfur and iron, the same ingredients as some gunpowders.

A view of Lac D'Allier in Vichy.  The name is a bit misleading since it's actually a tributary that runs into the Loire.

Made from spring water minerals, these well-known mints are actually a lot better than the water they came from.

A monument for the fallen French heroes.  Every city has an equivalent memorial.  The most famous one, of course, is the L'Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Matt and I had a good laugh at the weather clock here.  Note that today's weather is "variable"--which I suppose any Sooner can understand completely.

The opera house from which the Vichy Regime operated during WWII.  There is still some stigma regarding the Vichistes (collaborators) when you mention Vichy to the French, but that stigma is diminishing over time.