Today was the first day of orientation! Here, Katie begins the morning’s presentation.

Afterwards, the students had lunch on their own. Here, a group relaxes at a nearby cafe in a hotel called Le Calendal, where there is a beautiful garden. We overheard the students speaking from among each other, which is wonderful! Bravo!

Look that this size of this palm leaf! We’re definitely in a Mediterranean climate here.

After lunch, we split up into groups for tours of the city. Seen here, a group in front of the Rhone River.

After a few hours of free time, we had the welcome dinner at a restaurant called Cuisine du Comptoir.

The main course is something called a “tartine,” which is a piece of bread cut into pieces with different toppings. Katie and I split ours so that we could each try two kinds. I particularly loved the salmon one!

The meal included dessert, and even Julie (who doesn’t normally eat dessert) couldn’t pass up the chocolate cake!

More orientation tomorrow!