I arrived in Angers on September 7th, still sick with bronchitis. Thankfully my host family was very kind and understanding about how I was feeling! Also, Andrei was a huge huge huge blessing in helping me move all my stuff, clean, and go shopping with me!

Instead of living in the same house as my host family as expected, I actually have my own little cottage in their garden! My housemate Mirjam is from Germany and she is the sweetest. We get along so well and are both clean and organized so I'm very glad to be roomies with her! Our cottage is beautiful, small (but not too small), and needed a LOT of tidying up. But we worked together and now it's the perfect living space! We also had our first laundry adventure at the laundromat. 15 euros later we have all our clean and somewhat dry laundry!

Orientation at UCO was...interesting. Having missed the first day with the campus/city tour, I felt behind, but the following days were also informative regarding academics and administrative things to take care of. When I did make it to the beautiful campus, I was glad to see the gorgeous architecture of the Palais and the beautiful trees in the middle of campus for students to hang out (and unfortunately smoke) at. All the international students are so nice and we are all equally confused by the French way of doing things so we're in the same boat. Next week we will be trying out classes to see which ones we want to register for.

The first weekend there was a festival in Angers called Accroches-Coeurs! It's a celebration of art in all forms: music, comedy, paintings, etc.! My favorite part was an evening cello performance by a man in the middle of the square, surrounded by beautiful red roses.

I am mesmerized by the beauty and the age of Angers and I look forward to exploring it more in the coming months!

Overall, despite the normal homesickness, loneliness, stress, and fear that comes with moving across the world for a while, I have faith that it will get better with time and I pray that God will give me strength to persevere. I am so blessed to have this opportunity and will NOT take it for granted! :)