Excursion-ing

Salut everyone:)

This weekend I had the pleasure of going to Chambéry, France- not too far from where I live in Corenc.  We took the SNCF train for about an hour and came to find not-so-lovely weather, but a very charming town.  Our professor from Calvin planned for us to visit Chambéry so that we might tour the home of Jean-Jacques Rosseau, and venture through another city similar to where we live.  I am feeling progressively more and more at home in France  and enjoyed the time we had to wander through the city.  Unfortunately I wore open-toed flats and was freezing cold.  It was a lovely day, despite the rain, and we relaxed after at a café.  The coffee in France is unreal, however it is only served in very small portions.  I am used to ordering VENTI- sized drinks at Starbucks- this will take some getting used to.  I have also begun my classes at the University of Grenoble- Stendhal.  My schedule is pretty full-- 20 hours of class a week, but I have Friday/Saturday/Sunday free- and hopefully open for travel.  It is hard to capture my campus with photos, so I will just say that it is surrounded by mountains and is a conglomeration of four separate campuses, totaling nearly 40,000 students?  (roughly estimated)

Things I am not so found of in France:

- public restrooms: as well as being few and far between, they often resemble cages, or lack standard- American toilettes

- showers: my shower luckily has a curtain, but many don't even though most bathrooms have big windows; the shower head has no mount and one must take a very efficient shower (water is very expensive, wet hair: turn off water, lather, turn on water, rinse... etc.),

- heat: the French apparently are very hearty- why bother even turning it on... hahaha.