Second Update

Sorry for all the rambling and grammatical mistakes i make in all these updates.

I'm really tired and having a hard time soaking up everything. Thank goodness i have three months to be able to soak up stuff. Yesterday the rest of the kids met up with us finally. we went on the boat tour of Paris. of course that was really neat. After that we were all really cold and tired so Ricks sent us back to our hotel. It was basically a formula one only with the plastic shower and toilet in our rooms. The bedding smelled like cigarettes. I still smell like them actually.

I slept a bit better last night. I had tons of crazy dreams that kept my night from being too restful. I dreamed about monsters, ice skating/skiing, dating troubles, and being at girls camp and having a hard time finding a toilet while bears kept licking the back of my knees (apparently i hate that). I woke up at like 5 so i did a little better last night than the night before. hopefully tonight will be great.

This morning we were all sent off to get our Louvre passes. That was fun and took a while. After that we split up into groups. One to go shopping and the other to explore the louvre a little. One girl, Ariel, really wanted to see the winged victory and one other painting so we hung out mostly in that area. I don't know much about art and the other girls were all talking about their favorite artists there. I'll be happy to know more so i can join in the conversation. All i can really say now is "i like Dali..."

After that we all met back up at the hotel where Ricks met us so we could get on our way to our host families. My roommate, courtney, and i took a cab. Cabs always make me sick and they all smell the same. Thankfully our host family lives right next to the train that we can take to the metro.

Our host family lives in a large old house way outside of Paris. The patriarch is a surgeon and i understood that he works on intestines. He was very interested to learn that my dad is a bone surgeon. Courtney and I basically have the whole basement to ourselves. We each have our own rooms. My room has a dresser where all my cloths go. I'm having problems trying to figure out where to put all my stuff but i think i'll figure that out. I also have a mini bar in my room and the wine cellar is connected to my room where our fridge is. Courtney's room is a bit smaller but it has more storage. It also has the bathroom that only has a shower, a sink, and a chair. When we shower we have to leave the window open so the steam doesn't damage to walls. it's cold. the toilet is across the hall from my room and has no sink. Connected to Courtney's room is a living room with a projector and a large screen and the computer. The house is really old and even has that old smell. they have a lot of modern furniture with some antiques mixed in. They also have a pretty intimidating alarm system. I really hope i don't mess that up!

I like Courtney. She is still recovering from a car accident. She injured her head and apparently her serotonin levels are thrown off. She's not feeling too hot right now but hopefully she'll feel better tomorrow.

we ate dinner with the family. They are very nice and talk during the whole meal. They speak to us in French for the most part but when Courtney and i are having troubles understanding they will switch to English. Their English is pretty good, about as good as Courtney's and my French. They asked us questions the whole time and i was surprised by how much i could say... i was still terrible. We just talked about very basic stuff. I said how many siblings i had and their ages, how long i studied French and so on. it was very fun. I hope that I will be able to keep up better as the semester progresses. Their correcting me is actually really helpful.

There are three daughters and a son. The daughters are 13, 15, and 20 and the boy is 17. the 20 year old has moved out and named Laura. The boy is named Tristan and i can't remember the others. they are a cute family. They aren't LDS.