Well, it's been a busy week. Last Tuesday was my host mom's birthday, so she had a big party, with lots of friends from work over. I think I understood about three of their conversations (One involved the Leonardo DiCaprio film 'The Beach,' for some bizarre reason). On Friday, my classmates and I all went to see a French film, which we picked at random at the door: Ils se marierent et eurant beaucoup d'enfant (Loosely translated: 'And then they lived happily ever after'), about the married life of several couples. I think we annoyed the French people in the theatre, because we completely fit the American stereotype: traveling in large herds, and talking loudly. The movie was pretty good, though. In the middle of the film, some guy came to stand next to one of the lead actresses at the CD store, and all the girls in our group gasped and clapped their hands together in excitement. "Who's that?" the guy next to me asked. "Umm, I think it's Johnny Depp." To the girl next to me: "Is that Johnny Depp?" She managed a quick nod, not taking her eyes off the screen. Near the end of the film there was a fantasy sequence involving him and the actress, and I noticed that all the girls seemed a little dazed upon leaving the theater, for some reason...
We also went to old town, which is very cool. It really feels like something that came out of another century. On a related note, lots of the toilets here are holes in the ground. No, seriously. Holes. In the ground.
On Saturday, I went to Ancey with a couple of the girls in my class. There were only two who
went, probably because our class wasn't even told about the trip until two days before, and the list was already almost full. The town is the most beautiful place on the face of the earth. There's a canal running through the middle, the buildings are all ancient looking and covered with flowers, the water is filled with ducks and swans, every other shops sells ice cream or crepes, the lake has the purest water I've ever seen, and you can rent a paddle boat, or go swimming in it. Oh, and all the women are topless. Except for the last, it feels almost like Disneyland - like it can't possible be real. We hadn't been told about the swimming, so almost no one brought suits, but I swam a bit in the lake, in my clothes (it was a hot day, and I dried off quickly). The girls were jealous. The water was warm too. And the ice cream was good. There's another trip next weekend to some place that begins with a B, and I think more people from my class are going to that one. It was 
kind of nice not being with many of them, because it's easier to continue using French with strangers. We tend to use English together. I had a couple long conversations on the way to and from Ancey, with the people sitting next to me, who were in other programs. The other programs at Lyon 2, as best I can tell, are the year long UC program, the Oregon program, and the Pennsylvania program. I mentioned that the French movie I saw had Johnny Depp, to the girl sitting next to me on the bus, and she reacted about the same as the girls in the theater. I think she was going to see it, as soon as she got back to Lyon.On Sunday, I went to watch Formula 1 racing along the river. There wasn't a track for it, just the roads. There also weren't seats, so the sides of the streets were completely packed wtih people standing to watch. Everyone was climbing up buildings, trucks, trees, etc, to try and see what was going on. It was also boiling outside. I didn't see much, but it sounded interesting (the cars were very loud, and seemed to be moving quickly, from the doppler shift).
I got some peanut butter, jelly, and bread for lunches. The other meals are all very good - except last night, when we went to Quick. Their father goes out a lot during dinner, for "sessions of politics," and Annick works at the advertising division of some pharmeucitical company. I don't know anthing more specific than that.
Classes are all going well, and there isn't much homework so far, which is nice, since I think talking to my family is more helpful. We have one teacher, Hervé, for most of the time. He's funny. He keeps making comments about American women, though - "That girl who brought me a coffee must be an American - they're a lot more submissive than the French women." Then he asks the girls in the class to 'bring me a coffee, and please return the plastic spoon to Christine, when I'm finished: she likes to recycle them'... and they do! I don't understand it. Maybe they think he looks like Johnny Depp.
Au revoir!
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