11 Tours

Hi! Sorry it has been a while since I last updated. I’ve been in Tours a couple of weeks now, and have just been super busy. And, of course, the longer I put it off, the more stuff goes on the list…
I’m living in the home of the lovely Nicholas & Laurence Caillé. I keep forgetting to get a pic with them, so I just stalked them on facebook to find this:
they are great. Nicholas is a professional chef, Laurence takes care of babies during the day, and they’re expecting their first kid! (after I’m gone; I won’t have to share my room) Laurence is also a great cook, and I eat all my dinners here with them and Richard, a super sweet Swiss-German student living with them too (he doesn’t speak much french, which makes me look good) N&L are very into cuisine and fitness. They don’t really speak english which is fun. Their cat Pepette took a bit to get used to me, but now sleeps in my bed all day and realizes how great I am (slash how great my backstratching is).
Dinner with them is always very funny: I try to follow their quick banter when they fight, Nicholas and I joke, Laurence explains how the world works to us, Nicholas makes me eat a lot of vegetables because they are “très important, Riley!”, they try to teach me the difference between different cheeses, and we all try to understand what Richard is saying.
I’m taking classes at the Institut de Tourraine, a school for foreign french students. They’re 9-noon mon-fri, which is awful. But the classes themselves arent terrible (harder than Paris though for sure) This is my walk along the Loire to get there:
It is even prettier than it looks. Tours is great; plus, being in province, noone speaks English to you (equal parts helpful/scary/cool) There are the hôtel de ville and the main road, Rue National:

I found an awesome gym on rue national. Its on the second floor (which is called the first floor in france. confusing.) and is spectacularly anachronistic–workout machines in rooms that look like Louis XIV payed for, had constructed, used once, and then gave to some cousin. The best part is every room has balconies overlooking the rue
Anyways, in addition to the language classes, I’m in a history of France class (hour and a half Mondays&Wednesdays) which is super fun–the professor has incredible facial hair, I’ll try to get a picture. I’m also taking an international relations course… its super cool, and the professor is awesome, but he’s not from Tours and can only come once a week, so its 3 hours every thursday, which is a lotttt after language class 9-noon. Both these are in french of course, so basically I try to imagine what the funny sounds and hand gestures coming from my profs could mean.