The Halfway Point

     It's hard to believe that I'm halfway through my semester abroad.  In some ways it feels like I've been here much longer than three months.  I definitely think I've changed in many ways... but it also seems just yesterday that I was getting off the plane and moving in with my host family.

     Well the last few weeks have been very enjoyable and super busy.  I've hosted two dinners - one to celebrate a friend's birthday and one to cook a good American dinner for my host mother.  Above is a group shot of all of us in my dining room eating my garlic breaded chicken, sweet buttery carrots, and cheesy mashed potatoes.  It was very good, if I do say so myself - complete with the French version of a birthday cake (a chocolate hazelnut torte from our favorite neighborhood bakery!).  For my host mother, I made a similar meal, except I added a tomato-basil tarte and my well-known specialty, chocolate chip cookies.  I think Thérèse-Marie really enjoyed it (well, at the least, she ate everything on her plate!).

     I also had another visitor - my friend Ben from Wesleyan came to do a tour of all of

his friends studying abroad in Europe.  He stayed in Paris for three days, so I took him around to all the sites and we both had a really great time!  It was St. Patrick's Day while he was here, and as we are both Irish, we had to celebrate the only way we knew how... with Guinness!

     And I finally had a chance to play football (what we Americans call 'soccer') with some French students!  It was a very intense match, and I must admit that the French players were much better than us Americans.  My official excuse is that I haven't played soccer since I was a little kid...  Still it was an awesome - and very French - experience.

    I should also mention that I just got back from a weekend excursion to Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo, but I will describe that in a separate post later this week!