Le Premier Jour

So today was the start of the Exchange Student Welcome Program. Started not-so-bright and early at 9am (it only gets light around that time). Everyone was really friendly and there are tons of Australian and American exchange students so most of the morning admin lectures were in English.

We then took a break for lunch and a few of us ate at café just up the road, but came back in the afternoon for methodology lectures in French. They are paranoid about their essay style. He gave the following example:

English essays are like an English garden:

French essays should be like a French garden:

Perfectly balanced, each part should have the same number of sub-parts blah blah blah. Luckily I’m working on a pass/fail basis.

The official day then ended in true French style with champagne and galette des rois. The galette is a buttery pastry cake that they eat around this time of year, and inside is hidden a little ‘fève’ (the size of a playing piece from monopoly). Whoever has the joy/horror of biting into it becomes the ‘king’ and gets to wear the crown that comes on top of the cake and they get to choose a ‘queen’.

 In the evening a bunch of us met at Place Monge and hit up a bar on Rue Mouffetard where we drank our way through a few bottles of wine (luckily class only starts at 11:15)