Mango.

My host family has a Maine coon cat!  And another cat.  I was really hoping they'd have pets. And kids!  They have 4 kids, I can't remember the oldest boy's name, the second is Guillaume, whose room I am occupying (no, he's not here) and then the youngest two are twins and I think they're 19.  The girl's name is Cathleen (I don't know how it's spelled though; some French spelling, I'm sure) and the boy's name is Paul. I've only met Paul yet.  My host "mother" is Claudie and my host "father" is Yvon.  Oh, and the cats. Mango and Speedy.  Another thing I was really hoping they'd have:  INTERNET! I'm so glad they have wi-fi. It'd be a real pain to try to get online elsewhere. They also have a phone that can call internationally, and they said I can use it whenever I want. I don't know that I'll need to though.  I have skype, which by the way if you don't have that number please ask me and I will gladly give it to you.


My family actually does not speak a lot of English. Yvon is a Spanish teacher (I would say that is ironic but I did put on the housing form that I speak Spanish too) and I'm not sure what Claudie does but she gets off work at 8pm. They fed me bread with pâté (which I did actually like) and little mini elbow macaronis with a bolognaise sauce and... wine and sangría. Yvon wanted me to try it.


Oh, another thing that I am very glad for.  My host family's neighbors are hosting another student from the program, and she is one of the people I just spent a week in Paris with.  So I am not completely alone out here. They're literally right next door, and our host families are supposed to take us to the university for orientation the first day so tomorrow I get to walk over there and ride in with Anne and her host mother, Miriam.


We rode to Pau through the country today.  The French countryside is full of sunflower fields, cornfields, trees, cornfields, water, sunflower fields, trees and vineyards. It was a very nice drive.


Tomorrow we get to go to an orientation and then have the weekend to ourselves.  I'm exhausted. So I'm going to bed.


Oh yea, one more thing. I'm still not done uploading all my photos and I'm too tired tonight, so hopefully I'll get to it tomorrow.