C'est la vie (My life as a Rotary Exchange Student to France '11-'12)

Adieu Poudlard! Good-bye forever Hogwarts

2012-06-07T14:21:00.000-04:00

Do you understand why we call it Hogwarts?

Sarah and I look forward to this Cappuchino every day.

My year at “Hogwarts” aka Les Cordeliers is (almost) over! June 8th is officially my last day of school! This school year has been well interesting but I am so ready to get back to “fun school.”

In the USA I like school, a lot. Here is a completely different story. The first day of school I said I never want to come back it was that bad. Now on the last day, now when I actually know the kids in my class, have friends and shared memories I am sad to leave. Now don’t get me wrong I am SO happy to be done with school here and so happy that I will never have to go to French lycée again but I am a bit sad to leave Premier (Junior) Series S (Science) Group 3. I am sad that I have to leave my inside jokes about other classmates and go back to the USA where my friends are going to have inside jokes that I don’t understand. I hate knowing that my friends wont laugh when I say “dog” or that my accent wont be “cute” anymore.

I am crazy excited to come home. I am even counting down the days, 12 days from today. Yet I am in a bind because now I am multi-cultural. Now I have two countries, two ways of life and leaving either is hard.

You better enjoy the pictures I put up because technically we are not allowed to have electronics at school and so taking these photos was more like take out camera take a shot and throw it into my bag before I got caught!

Photos of the trip!

2012-05-18T05:55:00.002-04:00

2 Argentina 1 USA 1 Ecuador 1 Mexico
This is the world.

Prague with Gabi and Erika

Wait a minute. He is not Canadian, he is from Mexico!

Venise!

The water streets of Venise!

Our Gondola driver!

Luge in Charmonix France

Snow in Charmonix! (The most snow I have seen all year!)

Charmonix!

United Nations- Geneva, Swizerland

Add caption

Europe Bus Trip!

2012-04-28T17:15:00.001-04:00

I just arrived home from the Europe bus trip early this week. The bus trip was 2 weeks long and was one of the most amazing things I have ever done. I traveled from Paris- Strasbourg-Nuremburg-Prague-Vienna-Venice-Charmonix-Geneva-Dijon. It was probably the most hectic and tiring part of my year but it was defiantly the most rewarding and they best time spent during my exchange. Almost every day we changed countries/cities and best of all I was traveling with 50 of my closest exchange friends.

My favorite city was Venice, Italy. If you have never been there I highly suggest making plans to go. The water streets, the ocean and the gondolas make for such a pretty town. Geneva, Switzerland was interesting because the United Nations is there and there is also a very beautiful and large water jet that shoots straight up in the air. Best party was definitely the last night at Dijon. We had an awesome talent show which included the adults dressed up and dancing, the South American girls dancing, the South American guys dancing Creu, the Canadians and Justin Bieber, and everyone else sung a song about the bus trip that we created. After there was a contest for things like loudest snorer or best sleeping face and to end the night we had a dance. This trip was defanitly the best two weeks of exchange without a doubt.

Exchange Students wear bracelets.

2012-04-04T16:04:00.003-04:00

Exchange Students, the ones I have met anyways, seem to come home with bracelets covering their wrists and ankles. I always wondered if they were the type of people to wear bracelets before exchange or if they were all from the exchange process. What caused them to start wearing them and why do they have so many? Now after going through the process I have also started to wear many bracelets without even realizing it. It all started with one my grandparents bought me to remember them while on exchange, I have not taken it off since the day they gave it to me. The second? A piece of clothing ripped off one of the other exchange students and distributed to the other students. Another bracelet of mine was given to me by my host sister. As you can see I have a memory, an attachment to everyone of them. Each one holds a different story that I am reminded of every time I look at my wrist. My year has slipped right by me and these 10 things I have tied around my wrist are the only things that constantly remind me. They remind me of the memories, of how much I have changed, my friends and how close I am to finished with my exchange.

Fourth and Final Family!

2012-03-25T03:48:00.001-04:00

Finally I am all moved in to my 4th host families house! I was sad about leaving but I am starting to enjoy all the changes every few months.
This time I live with Mrs. Toublanc. She has four kids who all love to travel. Three of the four have been on Rotary exchanges and the fourth lived in Africa for a while. This time I live in Quevert which is pretty much considered the countryside. My favorite change so far seems to be no car noise. I missed silence so much. I hated every time I wanted to run having to watch out for cars 24/7 and while I was trying to sleep. Though with no car noise also means its a good 15-30 minute bike ride to get into town. Bread shops that I said before were on every street corner are now a 1/2 mile or so away. Also I will start having to take a bus to school. I am a little scared about that since I have not been on a bus since I was in the second grade. But nevertheless I do like the change and the food and the sheep, donkeys, ponds, and cows I have near the house!

Pictures coming soon :)

Video of Paris/Barcelona bus trip!

2012-03-04T02:40:00.002-05:00

The video I made for the bus trip from Paris to Barcelona is finally finished after staying up until 3 a.m working on it! If you would like to watch it click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stzODGl3rkA&feature=youtu.be
Please give me your opinion and tell me things you I should change about it!

New Month, New problem.

2012-03-02T14:38:00.000-05:00

If you don't know (since I have never said it on my blog) I have been sick or injured in France enough times to cover every month. I have gotten many of the normal colds and flus but also some rare things such as shingles. I knew exchange students got sick more often than normal people but for a girl who never got sick to be sick every month! I must be an extreme case..
New month, New sickness or injury. January: flu Febuary: tonsillitis March: sprained ankle
Yes, the FIRST day of the new month and I am already injured. I must have terrible luck.
First day back in gym class after a 3 week holiday, first day starting orientation course. I was so excited! On the bus I was slightly bragging (but mostly just proud) that I lived in the woods in the States and have spent a lot of time in the woods. I was given the rules, emergency numbers, and the long speech about how if you are late getting back to the bus we are docking points off your grade, blah blah blah. We started running and I was having more fun than I ever had before during gym class. We found four of the nine cones and decided it would be a better idea to cut through the woods since the cone would be a lot closer than if we went back out to the road. About 4 feet from hitting the road that would lead to the next cone something caught my foot and I fell. Once I hit the ground a surge of pain came at me and I was yelling in agony. The other two in my group came over asking me if I could keep going. Obviously when you have a person on the ground crying and yelling in pain they can not keep going! Another group came over and advised that I atleast move to the path which was 4 feet away. I knew I could probably do that so I moved into the road with help and sat down. I was not sure if I should try to walk and I had completly forgotten everything I have learned in first aid at the moment from being in such shock and pain. I started walking with aid towards the bus when we saw a teacher. The teacher advised that I don't walk on it and that the other students carry me! I was as far as I could possibly be from the bus at the time and I have gained a lot of weight on exchange so I was not to thrilled about having to be carried by other students but I really did not have a choice.
All the students around me were very helpful in carrying me for as long as they could. Even the teacher ended up carrying me for a while! The last bit of the journey I decided that if two people helped me I could hobble. So I hobbled my way to the bus and ended up crawling to get up into the bus. Unfortanatly our bus was the last one there, I was way over the time allowed and everyone on the bus was going to be late because of me. Talk about one of the most humilating things I have had to do all year! I made 50 people late, was crying infront of a huge group of people which destroyed my make up and had to be carried by my teacher and classmates.
Once the 30 minute ride was over I had to again try to walk another quite large distance to the school and then to the office. Another student went and got my school bag and things since I obviously could not finish out the day. The lady from the office called my host mom and dad who did not have their phones on them, so I ended up waiting 2 and a half hours for them to come and pick me up and I spent the next few hours in the Emergency room.
Luckly the sprain is not to bad. I took Friday off of school, I wear a brace for four weeks and no sports for 6 weeks. (Though I may start playing tennis before then...) Today my ankle is already feeling better, it still hurts but I am able to put more weight on in and walk at a bit faster (limping) pace than I was yesterday. I will be back to school Monday and hopefully I will be walking normally by then!

An Amazing week

2012-02-23T14:01:00.002-05:00

Over this year I have had many amazing experiences but I believe that this last week and a half has topped them all so far. First, I went on a bus trip! The bus trip was with about 35 other exchange students from all over the world. The trip consisted on a 3 day trip around Paris and then the rest of the week en route and in side of Barcelona. Ever since arriving my best friends have always been other exchange students. I think that is somewhat normal for exchange students though since all exchange students are going through the same thing and at roughly the same time. So I was already very happy knowing I was going to be spending a week with 35 other exchange students!

Eiffel Tower!

During the trip we stayed in beautiful hotels, had nice leaders, and had a lot of free time to do what we wanted. For the most part we had nice guides from whom we learned a lot. My favorite parts in Paris were probably the Effile tower and our walk around Paris. My favorite parts in Barcelona were having free time to explore and also the Picasso museum. I am not a huge art fan or anything and frankly I did not know that much about Picasso other than he is a very famous painter. The museum and the guide were both very interesting. The things Picasso did at my age and even younger are absolutely extraordinary!

Castle of Versallies- we could not go in the garden because of ice

For the return to Paris we did an all-nighter in the bus. The trip ended up being quite fun though, we were all telling ghost stories and jokes until 1 am when they told us we had to try to sleep. I did try but I gave up after two hours of failed attempts. So I listened to music and talked quietly. We ate breakfast at 5 am outside of Paris, then went to the train station and said our goodbyes.

After the trip ended Sarah and I were to stay with a family for 3 more days to see more of Paris. The time there was also good other than being exhausted from the bus trip. We got to see things we did not get to see with the bus trip like Moulin Rouge, Sacré Coeur, and we got to watch the Eiffel Tower twinkle which only happens for 5 minutes. The family we stayed with had a daughter who went to the USA with AFS last year so it was cool to hear about her time and learn more about AFS.

Now I am back in Dinan, I have three days left of vacation and then I return to school. I am not looking forward to going back so soon even though I have been off for almost three weeks due to illness and then the vacation also. In France the students get two weeks vacation every six weeks, which is something I think I like quite well. This also means in six weeks I will be on another amazing adventure doing close to the same thing but I will be traveling by bus for two weeks all around Europe!

Le Louvre

Starbucks-Le Louvre

One of her first times with snow! (She is from Brazil)

Nightly Parties

France loves American culture

2012-02-08T03:31:00.000-05:00

While I was sitting around the table with my family eating McDonalds I came to realise that the American culture is becoming more and more prominant in France. Sometimes here I feel like the French may be more patriotic for the USA than some of our own citizens. They wear American flag shirts and scarfs, listen to English music, watch Hollywood movies, and recently have started to enjoy McDonalds.
The menu has some different desserts and sandwiches than I have seen before but I think the biggest difference is here McDonalds is not really for the convienence. In my family in the USA we would eat McDonalds if we were running late to something or if we were traveling and needed to get back on the road quick. Here McDonalds is not like that, the people don't even understand that it seems. When I went we actually went out of our way to go to McDonalds, to bring it home and eat it as a family. Not that that does not happen in the States too but atleast for my family it does not happen very often. Though why would the French need the convienence, they are quite laid back people when it comes to food. I mean they take a whole 2 hours out of their work day for lunch! At my school I think we had something like 35 minutes to eat in the States!
No, McDonalds does not get healthier or even taste better. It is the same high calorie, high fat food as in the USA. It seems so strange that the French I know, the ones who love their good food and desserts. The ones who if you make food and they don't like the taste will tell you. They actually like the taste of McDonalds! Maybe that is just a weird concept for me since I have never thought McDonalds was very good to begin with but I find it very strange that the people the most food forward the people that hold food to a very high standard love McDonalds.
Anyways if you object to this in any way leave a comment. I really would like to figure this one out!

Hablo (un poco el) Espangol

2012-02-01T13:41:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if I was placed by Rotary in a different country. I have a feeling all exchange students think about this at some point. All they would of had to do was say your going to one higher or one lower on your list and life would be so different. For example my top choices were France, Thailand, Argentina. All 3 choices would have been life so completly different. I would have met different people, had different families, wore different clothes, and even spoke a different language!
If I would have been placed in a different country the French language would have still seemed so "foreign." Now French feels so normal and I have changed to learning Spanish as my next goal. Spanish is now the "foreign" language. In fact I learn Spanish through French from my host brother and through French school.
At the begining of the year I thought these people were crazy, why put me in a Spanish class when I am in a foreign country and can't even speak this language fluently? Even now I don't consider myself fluent but I know enough and can say what I want to say. (Yes, I have become GREAT at talking my way around certain words that I don't know.) A foreign language IS a lot of practice. You have to care and work hard at it to even understand. The only reason you learn the language on exchange is because you know if you don't life will be a lot harder for you. I think I have become a bit "hooked" on wanting to understand everyone in the whole world. While that is an close to impossible goal I am taking baby steps by learning Spanish! Also I thought I would profit from my Spanish host mom and my Italian host dad! :)

I am afraid.

2012-01-25T16:23:00.000-05:00

After living in France for five months I realised how hard it is going to be to leave this country. Of course there are the things that I miss my family, my dog, school. Yet when I return so many things are going to be different. I am not there to witness the changes in my friends and I admit it I am scared. I am scared to see the changes and accept them good or bad. I am scared of how different I will be. When I return, the changes in myself and in others will show themselves and I am terrified.
I also realised today that leaving my friends will be very hard. I did not think that I could become really good friends with people this quickly but I am afraid that I have. I miss my friends from the States but I know I will see them again. In France? I just don't know.
All of this being said, I think I have chosen a date to return! The 19th of June. I know that seems early to my rotary club here but I was already planning to be back for Grand Rapids and probably also the 4th of July. If I come home just a bit earlier, my parents are going on a backpacking trip and be back on my dads week off!

Blog Birthday!

2012-01-16T12:10:00.001-05:00

My blog is one year old! It has been a whole year since I found out I was coming to this amazing coutry. One year since I started my blog. It is amazing how life has changed in just one year. Time flies. I now have only six months left. Part of me is excited to go home to my family and friends, senoir year, prom but most of me is sad that in six months I have to return to the "real world". I wont be able to speak French everyday with everyone, I wont be able to complain about school finishing after dark or complain about the mean man who does not let us in to the lunch room. I think the saddest thing is having to leave all of the other exchange students at the end of year. Unlike my French friends they will also return to their countries and while some of my friends are from other parts of the USA and Canada; Many of my friends are from other countries such as Brazil, Turkey, Germany, Norway, Finland, Spain, and Taiwan. Even though I would love to see all of them again I don't know how much of a chance I have at being able to travel that much in the future.

I think that these photos sum up my outbound and inbound years with Rotary. Some of these photos might be repeated in other parts of my blog but in honor of my one year blog voila.

The French Inbound and me at the second outbound conference

Bon Voyage party and the cool card Brooke created

My mom and me right before leaving.

First photo in France, the plane that took us all here!

All of the students on the plane. Some had to catch other flights to the South of France.

This is only from 3 or 4 districts. I will be meeting all the exchange students in France in March or April.

Rotary meeting with the president of the region.

On the boat to Jersey. I think the sky in this photo is so beautiful.

Okay I don't know why it is not straight BUT I owe my life to these two.
They are the outbound coordinators and they are amazing!

Because Christmas is such a big part of the year ;)

I am in the Daily Press!

2012-01-03T03:31:00.000-05:00

I am in my local Newspaper!-->http://www.dailypress.net/page/content.detail/id/534139/GHS-junior-studying-abroad-with-Rotary-Exchange-Program.html?nav=5001

I thought that was a pretty good article.

By the way: If anyone is interested in exchange talk to me!

Joyeux Noel, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas!

2011-12-29T05:10:00.000-05:00

Christmas songs are in the air, the trees and lights are up all throughout the town but wait. It does not feel like Christmas! I think it has got to be the little differences such as no snow, my real family is not with me, and I have not had the "before" holidays like Thanksgiving and Halloween. Okay I had Halloween but it was very lame.

So Christmas here was set up pretty close to the same way we do christmas at my house. Go to church than after to one grandparents house, open presents, eat a meal, enjoy everyones company, and talk politics. The next morning we get a stocking to open and a couple presents from Santa and we open them, play with all the stuff we got, watch the 24 hour Christmas Story Marathon and finally for dinner we go over to the other grandparents house, open more presents, eat a nice meal, enjoy everyone, and talk some more politics.

Here it went like this: Go to a Catholic mass for 2 1/2 hours, then to one grandparents, opened presents, shared what we got, ate appetizers, ate a very nice meal with many plates, though one plate was not so nice though I will share that with you a bit later, then talked and drank for a bit and went home. The next morning we woke up slowly, once everyone was downstairs we opened our gifts from each other, then had 10 minutes to change for lunch at the other grandparents house went there opened gifts, ate appetizers and another meal with many plates, drank and talked and went home to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

So I guess it was not to different but I think being away from that "family tradition" just made it seem less of Christmas, though it was a lovely experience nonetheless. Now for the meal, the French are huge into food and Christmas happens to be the biggest, most done up meal of the whole year so of course we had a cheese plate, and a dessert, and a first and second plate and a plate with a substance only known to me as "foie gras." It was not horrible but definatly was not my favorite thing we ate that night. The next day we had the same thing so I asked if it was a tradition to eat this they said yes so I once again took a little bit of it (Thumbs up to me following the exchange students try everything three times rule right!?) and this time there was a semi-English speaker who told me it's duck liver. Yum! Duck liver. Come to find out it is actually specially fattened liver AND the specially fattened comes from the force feeding of duck and goose! Now I am not an animal rights activist at all but I find it funny how here if I even bring up hunting everyone is like you hunt because here there is not many animals to hunt so they are very protective of not hunting the few animals they have, so hunters kind of anger the general population. Yet they force feed duck and geese. Interesting right?

So this was pretty much my Christmas and thank you to everyone who sent me Christmas gifts and to my host family for getting me gifts also! Everyone is getting there presents from me when I get back because shipping is crazy expensive!

Going to Jersey!

2011-12-28T16:03:00.001-05:00

If I told you I was in Jersey would you believe me?

Well I was. Though probably not the Jersey you were thinking of! I was on a little tiny island between Normandy and Brittany named Jersey! The best part? After 4 months of speaking only French I was able to speak English for a day on the island. The Island is British and I even got my passport stamped and I caused a bit of confusion since im not sure they have ever had an American, living in France under a French visa who decided to take a vacation to Jersey. Thats okay, we got it all figured out fairly quickly. The boat ride over there took a little over one hour, there was a huge storm, reminence of a hurricane, that made the waves huge and made most of my host family and many other people on the boat sea sick. I ended up staying outdoors the whole boat ride there and back because even myself on the inside of the boat was feeling pretty sick. When we got to the Island they stamped my passport and we were on our way. We decided to first take the bus to go to another part of the island to see the "beauty" first. After we went back the the central town for shopping. The island has one road with almost every shop on the island on that one road so it was easy to not get lost and made shopping quite simple. I bought gifts for my host family and a few little things for myself including a watch and a pair of tights. (Though I really did NEED those things!) Sarah was with my host family and me. Sarah and I went shopping just the two of us for the whole day for lunch we ate spicy tomato soup and English tea and had a very nice time shopping. On the way home, it was cold and dark but I again stayed outside the whole time on the boat. When we finally got back we were all very tired, I was feeling sick and we finally got to bed at about midnight. It was a very nice day but unfortunatly I woke up with a fever and felt like I was hit by a truck. Yes, I woke up with the flu on the second day of break. Welcome to the life of being an exchange student. Sickness number 4 in 4 months.

Week at Gonzales

2011-11-30T03:29:00.000-05:00

The day after I got back from Paris Sarah and I got to go on a wonderful "mini vacation." We went to live with the Gonzales family for a whole week! They have a beautiful house in Quevert, a 15 minute drive from my school. Quevert is the "countryside" and is very quite and peaceful. Living out in Quevert reminded me a lot of home. There were forests, farms, and hunters! At the Gonzales house Sarah and I both had our own room and bathroom, eletric shutters (which we were fasinated by even though they are quite popular in France), and amazing (huge) meals every night. For example one night we had tons of seafood and after that we had salmon with potatoes, then the bread and after a dessert. It was so good and I ate so much. They have two dogs which I played with a lot during my time there since I really do miss playing with dogs. The week was such a nice get away from what has become normal life at the Berthoux house hold. Though by the end of the week is was nice to return home.

The City of Love-Paris

2011-11-29T12:47:00.001-05:00

Okay so the title kind of gives it away but I finally got to Paris! My host family is friends with a person in a small band out of Rennes and the band has wanted to play at this place in Paris for a while and finally got a spot. The concert was a competition, like battle of the bands so the band decided to have a bus of fans go along and watch the concert and cheer for them, since every other band was Parisian and had that as an advantage.

Notre Dame

Well it is the city of love?

My host mom, Hortense and some of her friends, and I got up and drove to Rennes at 7 in the morning. We got on the bus and had a 6 hour ride to Paris. We got into Paris at one in the afternoon. We had about 5 or 6 hours to do our own thing before the concert started so my host mom and I decided to walk from the spot the bus dropped us off to whatever was closest. We walked to the Seine River, onto "bridge 9", the oldest bridge in Paris, then on a path along the river when we walked up the path and back onto the road I saw the Notre Dame Cathedral right in front of me. That was so cool there were so many different languages being spoken there, there were people taking pictures in dog suits, and a huge line of people wanting to go in. I skipped going inside because of the huge line but it was very pretty.

Host mom and Starbucks

When we crossed the Seine the second time we went on a bridge filled with locks. I have seen pictures of this bridge before with people getting married on it but I never understood what the locks represented but when you look closer at the locks they all say names of couples. Next we went to the museum of modern art where many people were just sitting as if it was a park and not cement. People were playing music all over and others were painting. After we walked up a road and there it was STARBUCKS! :) I have not had Starbucks since before I left and I was craving it! I ended up indulging though it was okay because that night for supper all I ate were some cookies, at 2 in the morning on the bus. Anyways, after Starbucks we walked through a very nice area of Paris, went into a famous tea shop which smelled so good and then went shopping and yes I did buy two little things for myself. Then it was time to go to the concert. We went to a club where a whole bunch of kids were standing around waiting to go in. While we were standing around my host mom pointed to a sign and said gay club. Yes I was in a gay, UNDEGROUND, night club but that night all the gays were somewhere else since this was kind of a kids concert. The music was usually good and there was some bands that I liked that played some cool "African" music. The band from Rennes was good too actually they were so good they came back with a second place! We ended up not getting back on the bus until midnight and when I finally got in my bed it was 7 in the morning. I slept until 11 am and then got up for the weekend.
Well this night was definatly a night for the record books, I saw Paris for the first time and then ended up going to a gay, underground, night club to watch a band from Rennes sing. How many people can say that they were in a gay night club in Paris?! Haha. Anyways, I am going back to Paris atleast two more times so it did not really matter that I did not get to the Effile Tour or the Louvre because I will be getting to everything else later this year.

Yes those are all locks.

This reminded me so much of my trip to New York.

On "pont neuf" - oldest bridge in Paris

2011-11-17T13:59:00.001-05:00

I think I say this every month but wow. It has almost been 3 months. In school we are changing from Handball to Running, I have already had 1/4 breaks from school. I have gone through the honeymoon stage and the homesickness and the angry over stupid random differences stages and now its on to normal life.
In just three months I have made so many amazing friends.
First off, Sarah: www.sarahindinan.blogspot.com . <- That is her blog! She is the other exchange student with Rotary in Dinan. We go to the same school, she is from Canada and she is literally one of the only people in my school who speaks English, other than the English teacher. She is soo awesome. We have fallen in love with the coffee machine at our school. We both don't understand why the guy at the door is screaming and hope everyday to just get by him without any problems. She is one of the only people who I can vent to properly. ( It is so hard to try and vent in a different language) I am also super jealous of her creativeness. Just read her blog, she does an amazing job at writing very creatively!
Next is a friend I have made in my class. Her name is Maiwenn. She has helped me so so much through out the year so far! She would remind/tell me about things that I did not catch the teacher say. At the beginning she really slowed down her speaking and if I still did not understand she explained it to me as best as she could. That is probably one of the most important/helpful things as an exchange student is to have someone who will slow down, explain, motion, ect. to get you to understand. A person who will spend time helping you to improve, whether it is writing the word on your notebook for you or repeating the same word over and over to try and improve your French R's which are soo difficult but I am starting to get them! Maiwenn made: "Le crayon de Boris est dans le trouse." to work on my R's. Haha :) Anyways she is really awesome.
Okay this list could really go on a while but I am going to stop with number 3: Brogan. Brogan is another RYE student who actually lives a few hours away from me but he is really awesome and we talk a lot of Facebook and whenever we are around each other at Rotary events. He is one of those people who are so fun to be around and can pretty much be friends with anyone and everyone. He is pretty much the definition of an exchange student. Oh and he also has the cutest Quebec/France accent ever. Yes he is from Canada too.
Weird that the girl from the U.P. would naturally have two really good friends that are Canadian!
Yah I really need to stop myself now because I could go on about Faith, Manon, Naz, and a lot of people from school and rotary and yah.
3 months also means I should be understanding pretty much everything. I love looking back even one month. I think back and see no progress but then I think about it a little more and I DO see the progress. The little random things I learn every day help so much.
Another thing I have learned is how slow and progressive language learning is. I always heard stories of people randomly freaking out because they realised they are thinking in a different language or had a dream in another language. I always thought it was like one day you started thinking everything in a different language or one day you went from dreaming all English to all French. Though it is not like that at all. I have had dreams that have been in Chinese, English, French, and even Franglais. I also think in French and English, the language I think in depends a lot on who I am around. When you are on exchange everything is just "mixed up". Your brain does not know what to think. For the first few weeks you feel so stupid because your vocabulary has had to be severly cut in both languages to make yourself understood. You zone out a lot because you are so tired and can not focus another second of the language being spoken. For the first few weeks all my dreams were me at home now they are me on exchange/me at home, after exchange.
Anyways I do really like it here and I can already tell there will be reverse culture shock when I go home. Going back to kissing people on the cheeks as a foreign thing that you would rarely/never do to the way toilets work, to speaking English all the time. I think the little things will catch me off gaurd the most though. The things I don't even think about being foreign or different anymore. The things I have forgotten about will be the strangest because I was not prepared for it. Though it must also be weird for my parents when I do go home. I mean when I come back I speak a whole new language, have met people from multiple countries, have traveled on my own, who eats a different way, ect.
Though I should not be thinking about that yet right?! I still have 8 months here! Which I am sooo happy about. If I was in the short term program I would be leaving so soon and I would not be ready! Though after a year I don't know how many people are ready to go home either.

Random things I have done since the last time.

2011-11-11T11:49:00.001-05:00

Warning this is going to be a really random list format of things I have done since last talking.

List:

Ate Snail
Ate fish eggs
Ate some amazing chocolate from an artisan in Dinan
Decided to start running since I don't get the chance to play sports as often here
Took a beautiful run on the border of the Rance river. <-- What is the better word for border?
Get graded in gym class. It works so much different here. You actually have to be good!
Made Nutella cookies! Yumm. 4 ingredients. So simple.
Mailed a letter home.

Okay now that is not a lot of stuff but I have been really busy with school. Though I look back at that list and it reminds me how normal life has become here, which is what is suppose to happen. So that is good.

My French is continously improving! Grammer is starting to come to me, I think. Grammer can be really hard and difficult and I choose not to practice it because it is boring.

I got grades back and I actually had a 13/20 in French which is like super good. I think that it is probably down now. I don't think my teacher knew my host dad read through it and fixed the big mistakes the first time. The second time it had to be handed in in class so of course its not going to be as good. :/

Also I thought I was over the phase of sleeping all the time because of language but lately I don't think I am. I am tired a lot. That is okay though because it means I am working my brain really hard right?

It has been something like 2 months and 20 days in France so far and I finally realised that when they said in 3 months you would be able to understand in speak is true. I mean I still have words that I don't understand but if someone says a phrase I know what they are talking or asking. Also I realised I think I hit the talking and understanding thing at more like 2 of being here but I did not really realize it until now.

Next weekend I am going to Paris! I am only going for one day but I am for sure going to bring my camera and update my blog. Now I won't have a lot of free time to see things so I might not even make it to the bigger more famous things but if I don't I will definatly be back in Paris in Febuary for a longer time.

I am also going to an island called Jersey for one day near Christmas for Christmas shopping! Also it is an English speaking Island so that means I will get a day of speaking English in all the shops! After having 3 months of going to stores/buildings and thinking about what you want to say or do ahead of time it will be a nice change. Though there is something that is a confidence builder when you walk into a building to ask questions or buy something in a different language with 0 problems. Yes I have done that many times. I think my next big confidence builder will be trying out public transportation since I am kind of scared of it. Like what if I miss my bus or train? I would have to figure it all out by myself in a foreign land. Something about that seems so awesome and so frightening at the same time.

Normandy, WWII

2011-10-30T04:35:00.003-04:00

"A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon" - Napoleon Bonaparte

D-Day, Normandy beach, WWII. We all have studied it in our history classes in High School but D-Day has a completely new meaning after being on and around the beach the soldiers stormed.

Imagine having to climb that huge hill.

The soldiers were true heros. Standing on Omaha beach looking up the hill where 67 years ago stood the German soldiers brought a whole new meaning. For one the hill was so steep that Sarah and I got tired just from walking up the hill on a paved path. The Germans had such a large advantage over the French, Americans, Canadians, and British that I think the first soldiers to get out of the boats must have known they were going to die. It was amazing to think at how brave these men must have been.

The American cemetary

The cemetary where the Americans lie today is so beautiful and peaceful. The white crosses and the silence remind us of actually how many Americans lost their life that day. You could feel the weight of that day. The soldiers rest on American soil. The land that the cemetary is on is considered the USA. (so techinically I was in the U.S. for a while!)

Crosses that went on seemingly forever.

After this cemetary we went to another beautiful cemetary for the Canadian soldiers who lost their lives. I liked the crosses here better, they told the age of the soldier and even had a quote or saying ingraved that the family of the soldier had wanted on the grave. It reminded you that it was not just the soldier affected, it was their kids, their wives, everyone around them. You could see how much each and every soldier was missed after they were gone, you could see the sadness.

Canadian Cemetary

After the two cemetarys we went to a museum at Caen. We ate our lunch outside the museum. We had sandwiches and crackers that are a specialty of Bretagne. The museum was very interesting. I liked seeing the perspective of the war from a different countries view. I also learned a bit more that I did not know from my History class. I find that history is taught in the states as much more of this is what the US did for the war, not this was the war. Anyways I learned about how we, meaning Canada, US, France, and Britain bombed all the major French cities on D-Day after Britain was bombed by the Germans. The cities that were bombed, including the city I was in Caen were complete recks after. Buildings were toppled and burning.

American Flag!

The crosses went on forever it seemed.

This is at the top of the hill looking out over the water

Walking down to the beach

Almost there!

There!

Museum in Caen

On the bottom it says "He gave his life so we might live"

Host Dad- Thanks for bringing us!

The day was so nice and Sarah and I were both very tired after the day. We did not get home until pretty late and I went to bed so after I got home. Thank you Mr. Berthoux for taking Sarah and I on this wonderful adventure, we both appreciated it!

Did I just say this is NORMAL?

2011-10-24T08:16:00.002-04:00

France ended up playing New Zealand and lost 9-8. Such a close game to bad I could not watch all of it though. I was playing in a tennis match at the same time! I won my match 6-2 6-3! Which is a very good score if you don't know anything about tennis. Anyways on the same day Michigan State University beat Wisconsin in a super close match, I can't watch the games here so the next day I watched a clip of the last throw. That was a simply amazing pass.
Anyways that was my little sport rant.
So for this whole week and part of next week I am off school! I get a break from school about every 2 months. It is really nice but at the same time everyone I am friends with lives outside of Dinan by atleast a few minutes if not up to an hour away! So I have not really hung out with anyone from school other than Sarah.
Every Friday for the last two hours of the day all the students in the "junior science" class go to this one huge room that would be compared to probably the size of a small gym, we sit down, and take a test while teachers walk around the room. You are not allowed to bring anything but you pencil case. They give you one peice of scrap paper and then your test. I always finish early either because of a lack of knowledge and understanding (because of the language) (some kids write a whole page about one question, I write one or two sentences usually) or sometimes its because its English and I understand perfectly so I can finish super fast. What ever the case I ALWAYS finish early. So with an hour or so to spare I make oragami! I usually take the scrap paper and just start folding it to make something, once I make something I unfold the paper and refold it to try and make something else! It is somewhat productive, I mean I am making use of my resources and learning something? Anyways, everytime I do this it seems as if the teacher has no idea that I am foreign. They always come up to me, look at my test and kind of role their eyes and walk away. For some reason that always makes me giggle.
It is starting to get colder. It is 60 degrees right now! I think here though 60 degrees feels more like 50 or so because it is so humid.
I ate a Danon yougurt today, when I looked at the package I relised it said Danone. At first I was like oh thats different, then I remebered that if they did not have the E on the end everyone would be walking around calling it Dano yougurt. They always drop the last letter of a word. :)
I have begun studying French again using livemocha.com. If you ever need to learn a language its a super good website and they have just about every language you can think of and the best part is it is free!
Sarah and I baked mug cakes! Which I will link her blog so you can read about them if you want :)
Lately life has just been "the norm" for me. Nothing super exciting, I don't think. It is funny to think living in France is just "normal" but it really is. :)

Vive la France!

2011-10-15T08:52:00.000-04:00

France is in the finals of the Rugby World Cup! They will either play Australia or New Zealand! Go France!

Mont Saint Michel! Encore!

2011-10-04T15:10:00.000-04:00

The school weeks have been going by pretty fast despite how long they are. I talk with everyone in my class and my French is improving very quickly. I am reading a 300 page book called L'egume des jours and I also wrote a page about why I chose to be an exchange student for my French class. I don't do a lot of my homework and stuff yet because it is pretty difficult and there is a lot of writing with it. Also school for me is not super important here for me, my main goal right now is to understand everything and to make friends. Though I do the homework when I have time. (My mom is probably not happy about that but its true) :)
This school week was kind of interesting though. Monday I was still sick and it was actually a lot worse, I would blink and next thing I know my eyes are shut and I am almost sleeping. I could not focus and felt really bad. I was so sick I ended up coming home and sleeping for the whole 2 hours of lunch. I ended up getting back to school at the bell, hurried up the steps, even though I was still sick, and arrived in my class to strange looks. Maybe because I had been sick all day and now I had a panicked, out of breath, I just woke up kind of look to my face? Yah that is probably it.
Tuesday there was a strike in a lot of schools in France, this is the first year in over 20 years for teachers at my school to strike but for the rest of the schools it happens almost every year. I think I heard they want smaller class sizes? Having the day off was so nice, it was a beautiful day something like 80* F or 30 * C and I ended up going out with my host sister and her friends to the park where we sat and talked for a few hours. Now the rest of the school week was really normal BUT the weekend was amazing.

So to talk about the weekend. I went to Mount Saint Michel again but this time with about 150 other exchange students. It was awesome. We walked on the sand surrounding the abbey and walked on what they call moving sand, which is pretty much just quick sand. If you run over it you are safe but if you were to stop while on it well you might die. No joke. So many times they were like you must listen this is dangerous you could die if you don't listen and no one would be quiet and I would be silently freaking out because I did not catch what she said. Also sometimes we would do something like try to sink into the sand and someone would come up to us and be like, "The tour guide told us not to sink very deep because you could get stuck and die" and we would already be up to our knees in the sand. The walk was long but it was a lot of fun. After we got back we took some pictures and then headed into the resturant to eat. I was thinking "oh thats weird we must be eating early!" Since we went into the dining hall at 6 pm when most of the time we dont eat until 8 or 9 pm. Well we sat around listened to a man tell us how alchol is forbidden and at the same time we are drinking alcholic cider. Cider here is not considered alchol but it has alchol in it, not a lot, less than beer but still. Then after he was done we watched some traditional Breton dancing and even got to try our hand at it! It was very intresting. That went on for about 3 hours or so and by the time we actually got the food out it was 9:30. Oh it was buffet style so I did not eat until about 10 pm but it was fine because the waiters kept coming around with bread, which I must have had 15 pieces. After the meal every country sung their national anthem, it was suprising to see how many people did not know there national anthem, in some countries its just not an important song. After this we had desert and then we had a dance until 2:30 in the morning. That night I didn't actually go to bed until about 4 in the morning and we had to be up for a 7:30 breakfast. We were all so tired all we wanted to do was sleep but we were kicked out of our rooms so there was no chance to sleep after breakfast. So I ended up going to Saint Michel and exploring. We went as far as we could up before you had to pay and ended up just sitting around talking to other students. It was fun but it would have been better if we had more sleep. Once we got back at 12 we ate lunch and then waited for our rides to pick us up. While waiting for our rides we were dancing to Mc Creu and got some strange strange looks from people, but who cares were foreign right?!

In the last 5 days...

2011-09-27T13:11:00.000-04:00

Friday for half of the school day we ended up going to a small town, having a "picnic" in a gym with a sort of talent show, then taking a walk through farm land and apple orchads and to a spot overlooking the sea. It was really beautiful and the weather was perfect for it. We ended up just sitting and talking in this field for a long time and then went back to school. It was really nice to not be in class though.Friday night I went to a soiree with my host sister which was a lot of fun and I ended up talking to everyone. We had pizza and cake because this week has two of my host sisters friends birthdays! We danced and sung to English songs, it was a good time. Saturday Sarah and I went to St. Malo with my host dad for the tennis tournment. Saturday was beautiful out and we ended up watching the semi finals of the singles and the finals of the doubles matchs. The Open GDF Suez de Bretagne is a pretty big competition with 100,000 Euros prize money. Nice right?

Anyways that night I slept at Sarahs house and in the morning we got up at 6 in the morning to get on a bus to go with the Rotary of Dinan to a Monastery for the morning which was very pretty but ended up being a bit long for my liking, especially since it was all Latin and French. For lunch we went to a resturant and we were served quiche with mushrooms on the side I ended up eating it all and about 5 pieces of bread because I was still hungry and then they brought out the main dish. I did not know there was a main dish so I was almost full by the time this came out. This consisted of a huge piece of ham, potatoes, more mushrooms, and a steamed carrot. It was all good but I was so full I ended up eating only about half of it.

Then it was time for dessert, this I will show you a photo of because it was so good and so hard to describe. The bottom was a fruity sort of thing and the thing on top tasted like caramel and the sauce tasted like creamy melted caramel icecream. It was so good.

After lunch we hopped back on the bus and drove furthur to some Ruins of the Romans. Since France is a lot smaller in land size than the USA people would just build houses on top of the ruins not thinking they were anything special so this Roman town is now partly a new town but with ruins scattered around. For example, in the middle of the town we went inside this newer looking church and they ended up having half of the floor taken out and it is now a place for tourists because their is an old roman "wash room"

Inside the museum

under this church. We saw one of those really cool ampatheaters that the romans use to watch people being killed in for fun. It was pretty intresting. My next host sister which is Sarahs host sister right now, Marina, likes photography also so I let her borrow my camera and she ended up getting some really cute pictures of Sarah and I! It was nice to actually get to be IN the pictures this time! The only down side of this trip was that I ended up having a terrible cold show up and so I did not feel the best but I tried to not let it stop me.

Monday was rough, I ended up going to school but I was very sick. I would blink and next thing I knew I was drifting asleep. At one point in the day, I was so cold I had my sweatshirt and jacket on and I wished I would have brought more clothes and then the next moment I was taking it all off and using it as a pillow. I was tired so I ended up going home at lunch and sleeping the whole 2 hours of lunch. I ended up eating a quick something and hurrying back to school. When I got to school the bell had already rung and I was late for class so then I had to hurry up the stairs which only got me lightheaded. But by the end of the day I was feeling better.

Tuesday was awesome. Sometimes I really like the French school system better. If your teacher is not their you don't have class. So if your teachers go on strike for smaller classes, you also don't have classes! To bad they did not choose to strike every Friday right?! So I ended up going out with my host sister and hung out with her friends for the afternoon in the park.

The weather started getting cold here but now it has warmed up to 80 degrees! It is suppose to get to 90 something in Rennes this weekend. Summer is finally in Bretagne! Oh and only two months of snow, which I am in a way looking forward to because last year in those 2 months school was canceled 5 or 6 times because of the snow. A lot of people from my school travel by bus a long ways to get to school because my school is a pretty well known private school and so if it is snowing the buses apperently can't drive. That is kind of humerous saying because where I am from it snows a ton and school is only canceled if it is either really really cold or a lot of snow falls and the snow plows don't have time to clear the roads.

So this is funny let me translate:

The tennis player in a white skirt is like a cricket in a kilt but better.

Marinas photos

Thanks Marina!

The kids table

Amphitheater ruins

I survived!

2011-09-25T14:37:00.000-04:00

Lived. Thrived. Survived. in a Foreign country for one month!
In one month I have done so much! I flew to France, saw a glimpse of the effile tour, been to the city of Rennes AND St. Mal two times, took a beautiful boat ride along the shore near St. Malo, Dinard, and a lot of other really pretty towns, met so many intresting and wonderful people, switched families, started school, made friends, went shopping, played tennis, and most importantly improve my French!
It is such a confidence booster and amazing feeling when I look back in the last month. At the begining of the month, I hardly understood anyone and if I understood it was because people spoke very slow and pronounced things very clearly. Now people can speak normally and I usually understand most if not all of what they are saying, I also can respond even though my grammer is not very good and I have developed a new skill of talking around a word I don't know or describing the word. I am looking forward to the months ahead of me in France and I am proud of what I have acheived in a month.