traveling. loving. living. giving.

I have made it to Chambéry, France with little complication but much sleep deprivation. The city is quite a bit bigger than I expected with really confusing roads and tons of town squares and roundabouts. In the middle of town is Le fontain d'Elephants, a really cool Elephant statue! And the city is surrounded by a backdrop of the Alps. I have taken a few pictures around town that I hope to post soon, but the internet in our room is not working so I came down to a café with Wi-Fi.

After finding my way to our hotel with two huge suitcases and by a city bus, I found my roommate already moved in. It was a relief to meet her and her friend, both from Virginia Tech. After I settled in to my room, we explored the city a little bit in search of somewhere to eat. We decided on a Brasserie and my first meal in France was pâtes carbonara (pasta with a white cream sauce and pieces of ham). It was tasty, especially after my long hours of traveling. Then we headed back to the hotel to hang out and I fell asleep fairly early.

Today (Saturday) we headed to Carrefour, which is a super size Wal-Mart/Sam's Club/Best Buy with about everything you could ever want! It was an interesting trip navigating the aisles for food and items we needed.

Upon returning from our shopping trip, we encountered three other students that are also in our program and staying at our hotel, which was exciting! We ate dinner at the le café de théâtre and a group of us went out in Chambéry. We happened to run into one of the other students from Tennessee and another student from Ole Miss and we met some locals who were very amusing and very interested in us. They were really nice and told us some more about the town and asked us a ton of questions; however, it was pretty difficult trying to communicate with them but we did manage- it was great speaking practice!

Sunday it is supposed to be raining and overcast. We will probably be hanging around the hotel and take a day to lay around before registration and classes and everything begins on Monday!