My First Week in France

Well where to start.  I guess one of the first amusing things that happened to me was having to read at Church last Saturday.  I was sitting in a pew praying my Rosary and a man comes up and asks if I want to do collection, I explain that it's my first time here so no.  Later on he comes up to me again and asks me to read.  Since I've done much more reading in Church before I felt more comfortable and agreed to do it.  I guess Father had a bit of a start when he heard me read hehe apparently I don't quite have a French accent :P.  It was great though.  I wasn't expecting to get involved in the parish the second day of being in France, so I felt like it was a great blessing.  That also seemed to open the door to meeting other people so that after Mass I met Father and some of the other parishioners more involved in the ministries.  One of the ladies I met that night showed me around Rodez on Sunday and took me out to her country home.

The Church here seems great.  There's so many beautiful churches and although for the most part the priests are older there's seven of them here in Rodez and two of them are younger.  I've had the opportunity to attend daily Mass everyday since being here, since there's 3 different times to go and I've heard that the Franciscan sisters have yet another time.  I'm currently working on getting involved in a Catholic community.  I've met some of the younger group 15-17 year olds, but I have a lead on an older group.

Where I live (one of the lycees) is really conveniently located really close to Old Rodez and easy to walk pretty much everywhere I've needed/wanted to go so far.  The Lycée in France has students aged 15-22 (although generally just 15-17) and many students live here during the week and go home during the weekend.  So I guess this Lycee is a technical school...  I share an apartment with three other girls.  Two of them are also doing the same program as me.

I started my "job" yesterday.  I will be working in four different elementary schools all within walking distance, the furthest schools are probably a 15-20 minute walk.  I think I will learn a lot about teaching a second language.  I'm not used to being around kids who don't know English.

I'm really enjoying life here.  The weather has been beautiful.  I am currently sitting in the kitchen with the windows wide open and the sun streaming in (I heard Calgary already got some snow).  The nights are cold though and I guess they'll only turn on the heat once it gets cold for a while.  One of my roommates and I went to get extra blankets from the "lingerie."  The ladies there laughed at us for already thinking it was cold. Now with four wool blankets I'm quite comfortable at night though.  

Well that is enough from me for today.