Italian, Students and Pools

So my first Italian class was on Monday night. It was so much fun! The professor is a little insane, but also very nice and forgiving. It was very interesting to me how close French and Italian are, I was able to understand the prof fairly well when she only spoke Italian to us, although the French she spoke was a little tougher!! Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I'm really excited to learn a new language.
French students always perplex me. We had a group project in our marketing class, and so it wasn't until 2 days before it's due that I was able to get a hold of my other group members. We set up a time to meet, and by the time that I got there, they had already finished the research. They decided to break at that point and write the summary tomorrow (meaning today, the day that the project is due). I get to the meeting point with another french student. 10 minutes goes by, no sign of the other person. Finally the other french student calls the missing student. The missing student had already finished the report without the help of anyone else! I had to put no work into this assignment, and no one felt bad about it! Back in the states, if you don't put in your fair share you will be ostracized for several years because of it!
Final though of this week before going to do massive amounts of homework, and going swing dancing tonight. I went to my first public swimming pool here in France. My first observation is that there is only one changing room. So I had to give myself the "when in France..." pep talk before quickly changing into a swimsuit behind one of the doors that don't entirely cover you. Then after changing, I needed to find a locker to put my things into, the first one didn't like it and wouldn't let me take the key, but finally the second one worked and I was on my way to the pool. I read somewhere that I would need to rinse off before going into the pool, so I jumped under the shower quickly and put my hair into a pony tail before going to the pool. I had originally came to swim laps, but seeing as there were about 5-6 people per lap, I decided to stand in the waist high pool for a little while and assess the situation. After a half hour, none of the laps were lightening up, and I was too afraid to join a lap because I am not the quickest swimmer and I thought I would slow everyone else down. So after swimming in circles for an hour I left the pool to shower again and change back into my clothes and walk home. All in all, it was a fun event, and I might go back, just with someone else or not at such a busy time so that I can swim some laps!
Peace, Love and Laps