Glorious Albertville

Gosh it is so amazingly beautiful here in Albertville. We had forgotten (since our summer 2002 visit when my parents were studying here) how incredible it is to live nestled among snow-capped mountains and to walk through streets with quaint little shops and houses dating back hundreds of years. The charm is amazing. Also wonderful is the freshness of food here-even the Aldi here is stocked with fresh French cheeses which are truly delicious. The fruit and vegetables are also grown locally for the most part and that is a gift. Tonight we had loads of fresh green beans, vine tomatoes with real mozzarella and basil and a variety of French cheeses- Mmmm.

John is also in love with this place- he thinks it would be great to retire here and says that he has a crush on this town :-) Every time I step out of our door, I am struck by the mountains and the greens everywhere- truly amazing.

We had our first day of class today- we started with an oral interview to find our level and my dad and I are in the advanced class- I understand almost all of what is said, but it is not as easy for me to say what I want to as many of the others. It is so fun to be in class with my dad because he makes jokes all the time :-)

John was initially placed in the beginner class, I think not because of his oral interview but because they know that he only started six weeks ago. But after an hour of class it became apparent that John is at a higher level than the other students so he moved up. Now he is stretched a bit (understands 70% of what's said) but is much happier than reviewing the very most basic bits of French.

Sam's first day away from us went pretty well. We woke him up at 8 to feed him and then dropped him off smiling at the nursery at 8:25. We got him during our breaks and at lunch and he seemed to eat and sleep well though I think that he cried for a long time at one point. I think that he mostly is just laid on his back to look around and amuse himself which isn't necessarily his best talent, but I know that the staff are kind and loving so I'm not concerned. I think, overall, that it was harder on us (particularly John) than on Sam. I bet he'll enjoy the schedule and we'll enjoy being able to concentrate in class. We just adore him- he's laughing more now and can sit when propped up just on his hands (his newest trick).

We're staying in a cute little old studio apartment which is really nice for these three weeks and my parents have a large two bedroom in a neighboring building so we've got it made- there's even wireless internet here :-)

I suppose I should mention that our trip here didn't go as planned at all. We took the train to Casablanca and checked in and then were given a sheet of paper informing us that our flight was delayed from 3:30 to 11:30. They provided hotel rooms and lunch at the hotel though- but they forgot us and six others at the airport so we waited 2 hours for a bus to the hotel. The hotel was great and we all herded onto the bus at 9:30. But when we got to the airport it turned out that the flight was delayed another hour. There was supposed to be a bus waiting for us in Lyon to take those interested to the train station, but that didn't quite work out either so we were 90 minutes at that airport at 5 am French time (3 am Moroccan) with the airline staffer trying to work out rides. Eventually they sent us in taxis. We made our 8am train though :-) but lost our prepaid night in the hotel in Lyon. At least they gave us free vouchers for one-way tickets with them so we think that will help us get to England in the Fall when we visit friends for our visa run. Sam did great the whole night- slept his normal 12 hours and has been adjusting pretty well to the time difference here. We were exhausted though from the lack of sleep so we took turns caring for Sam and napping all yesterday- kind of a funny thing to do- getting sleep in hour-long increments :-)