For my first Friday in the apartment, Akila took me to meet some of her friends and then to the theatre! When we left the house, I asked Akila if she thought that her friends would like me, and she said “No, they’re going to hate you. They’re very mean and horrible people.” I laughed and realized that I just understood a joke in French! Pretty cool huh?

We went to meet her friends at one of their houses and it was so amazing. It was a huge studio with a wall full of books.

The garden in the backyard was incredible too. Her friend gave me some cold soup made out of spinach that was really interesting. We sat around there for a while just talking, and her friends said that my accent was really good and that they could understand me very clearly. That is a huge compliment to get from someone here. My friend Erwan told me that he has a hard time understanding my English when I’m speaking to other American students. I think my accent from Indiana makes me slur some words together and I don’t enunciate enough for the French people to understand my English.

Anyway, we went to the theatre, and it was a preview of the season at Jean Villar.

There were some that I couldn’t understand at all because they were speaking so quickly. One man had an Italian accent, and that was hard for me to understand as well. However, it was very entertaining to listen to the different actors and watch the band perform. Akila loves to go to the theatre, so she said that I could choose whichever shows interest me and go to them with her. She has season passes.

After the show was over, we went downstairs and mingled with all of the people who were at the show. It seems as though everyone knows everyone here, and I got to meet and (attempt to) talk with all of them as well. There were little stations with food to try, and Akila told me that I should taste all of them. There was even caviar there, and I got to try that.

While we were mingling, the band from the show came in singing a song that went like this: “Life is Good, Life is Good, Good, Good, Good is the Life.” I thought it was really funny that they would phrase it that way, but come to think of it, I’m probably the only one who even understood it!