One Step Forward...

Several steps back.

Ok, so that's a bit dramatic.

But I'm finding that one of the most frustrating things about learning a language is that some days, you totally rock the conversations. The French is flowing, you're not making many mistakes, you feel like you've actually carried on an intelligent conversation.

The next conversation, you're stumbling over your words as if you've never actually had a conversation in French before.

For example, on Thursday night, dinner with my host parents was great. We talked, talked, talked. I walked away from dinner thinking, schweeetttt I'm getting there.

Dinner on Friday night was a completely different matter.

I went to the country with my family for the night. Their country house is gorgeous, and I knew I'd be able to relax and get work done. Madame Briotet had told me that two of her sons were coming that weekend. I'd already met Christophe, is around 23 and is the second oldest. My first conversation with him involved me convincing him that I didn't have the swine flu. Awesome. This weekend, however, I would meet Vincent, the oldest Briotet kid.

Now, I would be lying if I didn't admit that I find Christophe insanely attractive. So, I had high hopes for Vincent, and was not disappointed.

My host mom and I were sitting outside reading when my host dad and Vincent arrived. It was already dark, and so I was caught a bit off guard not only when Vincent, who is probably about a foot taller than me, came bounding out of the darkness and swooped in for the French cheek kisses. In France, I find it so awkward meeting new people because some of them do the cheek kisses and some just shake your hand. So I never know what to expect.

But, being caught off guard never helps you speak coherently. I stumbled out my name and then awkwardly went back to reading as Vincent, who actually turned out to be quite hilarious, bounded around the house singing and playing with the dog

We sat down to dinner a little bit later and began talking about Obama winning the Nobel Peace prize. I thought the conversation was going fine until I started making stupid mistakes that I normally don't make (I attribute it to the attractive company). And then, Vincent started rambling to me about a tv show and, due to the fact he was eating and talking super fast, I had noooo idea what he said. He finishes his little speech with, "So what do you think?"

I just stared (which, because of his handsome visage, was not hard to do) and mananged, "En fait, je ne te comprends pas" which means, "Actually, I don't understand you."

My host dad laughed and goes, "Yea, because Vincent talks too fast and with food in his mouth."

So, Vincent starts over and explains about a tv show that said lots of Americans are Nazis. I stumbled through an explanation that no, its definitely not a common belief system.

I then shut up for the rest of dinner. Which I hate doing, but when I mess up or feel stupid, I have the tendency to just not talk.

After dinner we watched a movie, some classic French comedy from the late 70s that was actually really hilarious, called Le Corniaud. Vincent was really nice and helped explain parts I didn't understand, although I redeemed myself slightly by understanding most of the movie without any help.

I was invited to go hunting with Vicent and Monsieur Briotet the next morning, although I am about 99.9% positive they were banking on me saying no because no French man in his right mind would give an American girl who barely speaks French a gun. So instead, I slept in and let the boys chase animals through the woods.

After eating a bit of breakfast, I sat outside with Madame. I did homework, and she spent the morning looking through old postcards and letters collected from her parents' house, which she and her 7 siblings are trying to clean out.

The hunters returned for a lunch of pheasant, onions, and carrots (which was DELICIOUS) and mid-lunch, Christophe came bounding in the house. Once again, even though I'd met him twice before, the cheek kisses caught me off guard and with food in my mouth. Awesome.

Lunch progressed in a blur of fast French, of which I understood little except "Do you think our dog is stupid?" when the dog went rolling around under the table, and "No worries, it happens!" when I had to tell them I'd left my fork in the communal bowl of pheasant.

I was again invited to go hunting the next day, but this time I had the excuse of returning to Dijon that night as an excuse. I spent the afternoon with Madame. We went grocery shopping and then she drove me around and showed me lots of little villages and a chateau which was closed but complete with ferocious guard dogs.

I took the bus back to Dijon around 6:00, and then had dinner and went out with the Wake kids. Gotta love crazy nights.

Tomorrow begins class. Kind of excited and nervous all at the same time. I placed into the highest level possible in the program, which is awesome but means it'll definitely be a challenge.

Shucks, I'll have to actually apply myself here...thought I was in for an easy ride.