le weekend

I had a wonderful weekend. Friday afternoon, I went with the API group to a château about 30 km from here. Even thought it had been raining all day, it stopped at least while we walked around the gardens. It wasn’t bright and sunny, but it was definitely pretty. Then we went in the castle to check out the museum of the French Revolution. “Vizille is said to be the location that started the French Revolution!” (But as my group-mates and I kid, it seems that many towns make the same claim).
Friday evening I met Violaine, the daughter that is closest to my age. She is really nice, but she speaks TOO fast and doesn’t enunciate well enough for me to understand her the first time around. I had fun teasing her about it and learning a bit about French youth with her. Next week she’s having a big fancy party with her friends here, so I will definitely be learning some more then. This will be an interesting adventure, but I’m looking forward to it.
Yesterday I went to church with a girl from the group. I left the house about an hour before the service started. It’s a bit of a bummer that transportation is less frequent on Sundays because that complicates getting to the other side of town and getting back. Next week, Megan and I might try going to another Evangelical church that is nearer to our side of town. And that way I’d only have to take one bus (yesterday I took two and a tram to get from home to church).
I hurried home for Sunday lunch. We celebrated my host-dad’s birthday with my host-parents, two sisters, a friend of Violaine’s and Evelyne’s (host-mom) parents. I had been warned about Evelyne’s dad, and sure enough, he drilled me about everything. I successfully communicated politics, religion, a bit of history, cuisine, among other topics, all in French. What a feat! Thankfully when the rest of the family noticed I hadn’t been able to eat much because I’d been answering questions and giving my opinions, they turned the attention elsewhere.
Of course I met up with my neighbors for the weekly soccer scrimmage. Weather had been crummy all weekend, but thankfully it wasn’t raining out. However, the grass was pretty slippery, so we were sliding all over the place.
Today after class, I begin my new babysitting job… :) International Babysitting Business, I suppose. Some neighbors asked me to come a couple of days a week for about and hour at a time to just make sure their girls do homework and eat properly at the table. And I’m supposed to speak to them in English. Seem like nice girls. So we’ll see how it goes with them.