Day 23: Le premier jour de la semaine et je suis déja fatiguée. / The first day of the week and I am already tired.

Another Monday already?!? What is this craziness. It is hard to believe that today starts our 4th week in Avignon. A little over 3 weeks ago, I arrived in to a snow covered city that was nearly shut down. Now Avignon is alive and bustling (as attested to by the existence of the many cars and buses on the road that I still haven't gotten used to being there).

I woke up this morning planning to shower and get ready for the day. I headed out of my room and down the hallway where the shower is, only to find that the stairs to the attic are down, power tools are out, cords are everywhere in the hall, and Michel was doing something with all of it. - I come to find out tonight at dinner that they are building/renovating a new room up in the attic. So after encountering this road- or should I say, hallway- block, I went to the kitchen, ate some breakfast, went to my room for a little while, did some busy work, and then when I finally heard Michel bustling around elsewher (which meant he was no longer in the hallway), I took a shower... at nearly 11am.

I left the house for lunch after my already eventful morning at a little before noon. The Mistral had let up a little today, and it wasn't nearly as cold as it had been yesterday. After eating some bread with an herb/salt mix and olive oil this weekend at the dinner at my house, we tried to replicate it today at lunch. We couldn't find the herb/salt mix at Carrefour (the grocery store), so we improvised buying an herb mix and salt separately. Needless to say, it was nearly as delicious as the actual herb/salt mix with olive oil.

Every day brings a new encounter/exploration. While at the grocery store today (which is where you buy shampoo/shower & bath products, not at the pharmacy), I needed to buy conditioner. I had bought shampoo upon arriving in Avignon, but hadn't originally seen the need for conditioner. However with this crazy up and down, wet and dry weather, my hair has been crazy static-y and dry, so I decided to invest in some conditioner. With the help of a friend, I determined what was actually conditioner and what ended up being this after-shampoo leave-in cream. Out of the whole half aisle that was full shampoo, creams, and what I thought was conditioner, there only ended up being 1 option for conditioner.

I had two classes today: L'Histoire and Le Science Politique. At the end of the semester for History, we will have group projects. So being ahead of the game, our professor had us sign up for topics and groups today. Myself and two of my friends selected the topic on the European Union. It is very helpful how the history class overlaps with the Political Science class! The history class will be a great way to reinforce the information that I'm learning in the Political Science class. In the Political Science class today I could better understand what the professor was staying, but because of the acronyms that go along with governments/bureaucracies and specific political science terms, the class still sometimes goes over my head.

This week, Political Science meets for 3 times instead of 2 because next week he has to cancel class. So, my 20 minute presentation (called an Exposé) is on Thursday. Luckily, it looks like the reading I have to present is very straight forward, and though I'll probably have to ready it multiple times to solidify my comprehension of the material, I'm crossing my fingers that I'll understand all of it.

Between classes today, we finalized our list of what cities we want to visit on our "Tour de France" on our Winter Break, now we just have to book trains and hostels for those days/nights. We plan on going to the train station tomorrow to purchase tickets.

Last night for dinner, we ate fish (I think salmon) that had the skin and scales still on it (I had a fin on my piece). It freaked me out a little, but at least I knew it was fresh. It tasted great despite my initial confusion/awe at the presentation of the food. Tonight we had lamb, lentils, and rice. It never ceases to amaze me how delicious and filling such simple meals can be. I don't know if it's because they're fresh that they are so delicious, but I think that has got to do with it at least a little bit. Also, probably just the very fact that I'm in France adds to the tastiness of the meals!

À demain.