Today I had my French language class and a French civilization class (it's one of my electives). I finished at 2:30 today, so Thursday is definitely my shortest day. I'm going to take advantage of the afternoon to walk around and explore a bit.

This is one of the (*many*) great things about France -- a vending machine that makes coffee! It works just like a soft drink machine, except the drink choices are Café Long, Café Court, Café Crème, Café au Lait, etc. It also dispenses hot chocolate, a "mokachinno"(which is 1/2 hot chocolate and 1/2 coffee), and hot tomato juice. When you put your money in, the cup drops down, fills, and voilà!
In fact, I'm drinking a coffee from this machine right now...


I decided not to pack a lunch today, but since I couldn't convince anyone to go to the Resto U with me, we went to a sandwich shop. It was a little shop open to the street with a big glass case (like in a pastry shop) full of all different kinds of sandwiches on baguettes, round bread...just about any kind of bread you can imagine except sandwich-sliced bread, which is so rare here!

Yesterday after dinner, I went to a friend's apartment for about an hour and got to speak to a few French people my age. One of the students in my class (from Italy) invited people from our class over to his apartment to meet "real French people," as he said it! He is staying with a French friend of his that he knows from participating in ERASMUS with him in Barcelona. (ERASMUS is an exchange program for students in Europe -- if you've seen the movie L'Auberge Espagnole, it was about a group of ERASMUS students.)

So I went, and I got to chat for a while with a girl my age who is a doctor. She's married with a young child, and working in the hospital here in Tours. She has one year left to complete (what sounded to be) a residency, then she will have her doctorate and be a pediatrician. There were 5 "real French people" there, all doctors! When I arrived, they told me, "Tu ne peux pas mourir ici!" --"You can't die here" -- too many doctors!

Hope you have a great day!