Today was the first day that we spent at Ste . Ursule, as yesterday was a holiday. I woke up at 6:00 in the morning to get ready for school. We ate crepes with Nuttella and whipped cream for breakfast. My host family lives in Luynes, a village 30 minutes from Tours, so we had to take a bus in the morning. There is a bus stop close to my host family’s house, but the bus was a little late this morning. The bus goes from Luynes to Tours every morning, packed with businessmen and students of all ages.
We arrived at the school at approximately 8:00, and I waited outside with the other American students until the bell rang at 8:10. We were introduced to the school and given schedules by Mme Roué and M. Le Pargneux. We spent the next three hours learning about the French academic system and its differences with the American system. To learn more about the French educational system, we saw part of a film called Profs. While we were watching this, many of the French students at Ste. Ursule were attending the end of year mass, as it is a Catholic school. At 12:00, we had a two hour break to eat lunch, double the time that we have at Cary Academy! Many of the French host students took their exchange students to restaurants or to their home to eat. Others ate at the school cafeteria. My host student took me to a sandwich shop in Tours, where I had a very good chicken sandwich (although some of my American friends did not enjoy the exorbitant use of Mayonnaise). At least twenty of us (Americans and French) spent the better part of two hours eating, shopping, and waiting for the owner of the nearby candy shop to return from his lunch break. We returned at 1:50 and attended a European History class that is ordinarily for seniors. In this class, we learned such things as the origin of the name Europe, and nicknames for the French soccer star Zinedine Zidane.
We spent the rest of the day checking our email in the Library and playing linguistic games with our French hosts. School ended for most people at 5:00, but my host student had math class until six, so I explored Tours with Hill Winstead and enjoyed more French delicacies at the nearby McDonalds. At six I returned to Luynes with my host student and went to his soccer practice to unwind after a long day.
Arjun Chandran
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