Things came through!!

BONJOUR!
Our internet hasn't worked since Thursday so now I can update! Highlight if this past week: I found a band to play in and its so awsome. Every friday night and it's at a music school, but noone takes French Horn lessons, so he had 2 really nice horns for me to choose from. So I picked one that looked practically new and it was awesome. There were like 15 people there, usually more but since it was the same time as the France-Ireland rugby game, there were less. The music was nice, and the director kept saying that he couldn't believe he was going to have a french horn this year. Also in french its called a cor d'harmonie. 3 out of the 6 flutes are teenage girls that were super nice and talked to me after it. The only problem is getting there since its in another town and the only way to get there is driving. I hope this doesn't inconvienece my host parents too much. There are Ecole de musiqe everywhere, but the american system of teaching music in school at such a high level (at least in Champaign) is, I think, taken for granted too much. I played almost everyday from 5-12 grades for free. I didn't have to take private lessons, but I did. Here if adults or kids want to learn how to play an instrument its private lessons like once a week.
Also this week I got a cell phone, thanks to my mom. My parents are still in Europe, and have been, since I've been here. They are in Germany now so she sent me the cell phone she had before they left france...thanks so much!
On Saturday I went to a TFC pro soccer game, my first european live soccer experience. It was so awesome. We were right behing the goal and it was so cool watching somebody actually score doing a bicycle kick! Toulouse tied Lens 1-1 and are ranked now 9 out of 20 in france. I went with Fabien, who is a rotaract and came on the weekend to Cahors and loves soccer too! He picked me up and bought me a ticket and everything! Thanks so much, it was so fun. Yes, that is the same pro club, and they have a womens pro team, then 2 teams under that, then a U16 team. So hopefully maybe we can be on one fo those teams.
I found a pool in Toulouse! It only cost 1.40€ to swim laps and its 50m by 25m and so beautiful. It is super deep for like national diving competitions and has 2 full water polo courts in tile that u can see when u swim. the first time i went the lanes were the 50m direction, the 2nd time the other way.
Yesterday I saw Ratatouille, in French, and it was so adorable and cute. Life is so good and unfortunately I don't have time to add any pics this time since host mom needs the computer. School is good, I add to write my first in class essay today in French, over a passage from Sentimental Education by Flaubert. In History we talked about immigration and it was interesting to see that only 4 out of 24 students granfather were born in France. Most peoples were from Italy or Spain, who came as children in the 30s to avoid Franco and Musslini. Others were from Tunisia and Morocco. Spanish class is hard, since I don't know very much spanish. English class is just funny because the teacher keeps telling Sarah, Liza and I that we speak American and not realy English, and that our grammar is all wrong. So we laugh. In between classes is fun because we go to cafes and get croissants and crepes. Yummy. We also scored some of the rugby world cup stickers for free to put on our blazers! sweet! Toulouse is such a beautiful city and theres a campaign to make it the capital of French culture by 2013 so there are these fancy public swings and many colorful benches and stuff that werent even here when I got here a month ago. There are also posters of lots of 7th graders, kids who will be 18 in 2013, everywhere.
Ok salut for now,
Love, Liz