Welcome to Tours!

I've been in Tours for a little over a week now, and everything is going great so far! As promised, here are some basics on my scholarship, the city of Tours, and my life here...

My scholarship is from the Rotary Foundation, which, according to their website, has funded scholarships since 1947 and awarded them to about 38,000 people from 100 countries. Rotary offers several types of scholarships and opportunities for international travel, but I'm in France on a Cultural Ambassadorial Scholarship, which is for language and culture study. Rotary sends Cultural Ambassadorial Scholars all over the world to study a number of languages, and I applied to study French and requested to be placed in France (my other options being Belgium and Quebec). Scholars enroll in language courses, live with a local host family, perform community service work, give presentations to a variety of groups, and participate in Rotary functions. The scholarship covers all costs associated with transportation, tuition, room & board, and participation in various events. I am so grateful to the Rotary Foundation and to my clubs in Great Falls and Tours!

Place Plumereau in Tours:

Rotary places all of the Cultural Ambassadorial Scholars in France at a language institute called the Institut de Touraine in the city of Tours in central France. Tours is about an hour (by TGV) southwest of Paris, and the metropolitan area has around 305,000 people. It is situated conveniently in the Loire Valley, which is renowned for its world-famous castles and highly-prized wines. Among history buffs, Touraine (the region surrounding Tours) is known for the Battle of Tours, which took place in 732 and marked a major victory of Christian troops over Moorish Muslim forces. Though there is not a consensus among modern historians, it is widely believed that the Christian victory at Tours ended the spread of Islam in Western Europe. Tours was also France's national capital in the 1400s, and briefly served as the seat of the French government during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and again for three days during World War II. And, inhabitants of Touraine are known for speaking the purest and most standard form of French - making it the perfect place to study!

The Institut is a wonderful school, and I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunity to study here. The professors are all phenomenally friendly people and extremely engaging teachers, and they make our twenty hours of class per week fly by! My language classes are divided into Written Comprehension, Written Expression, Oral Comprehension, Oral Expression, Grammar, Phonetics, and Vocabulary. I'm also taking Civilization (focusing on French social history) and International Relations (focusing on specialized vocabulary used in the field). A really interesting aspect of the school is its international character - there are students here from all over the world. Thus far, I've met people from all over the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, and Korea. Impressively, a lot of the non-Americans here speak perfect English as well, and are studying French as their third or even fourth language!

Jardin des Prebendes d'Oe in Tours:

My host family in Tours consists of an older woman, who lives alone but has children and grandchildren who visit often, and another Institut student. Saud, my housemate, is a 29-year-old from Saudi Arabia who is studying French with the hopes of attending medical school in France. His wife and their six-month-old son are currently living in Saudi Arabia and plan to move to France when he starts medical school, which will hopefully be this winter. Yesterday, he and all the other Saudi students studying in France had to take an assessment test for the Saudi Embassy to ensure that they are actually studying and learning French and not goofing off. I don't know what happens to people who don't pass it! Anyway, I have a nice room on the third floor of our apartment, my host mom is a good cook, and the 15-minute walk to school takes me through a lovely park, so I have no complaints!