Dix Mois- My 10 months in France

Summer begins as my exchange draws to a close

2011-06-17T07:13:00.001-07:00

I'm finally done with school! I got out last Friday. The last few days didn't really seem like the 'last days' of school. More like regular school days! Everyone had been warning me about all the crazy stuff that might happen (that happened in the past) like pigeons getting let loose in school and people bursting into classes and singing. Instead, it was pretty calm. There were some people dressed up, such as some in tennis clothes who came into our class and danced, and then later they played tennis in the courtyard using benches as a net, but other than that it was a normal day. I ate at school for the 'last time' Thursday, then ended up eating there again on Friday. Friday my final class got over at 10, but I stayed with friends, ate at school, and then stayed a little longer to copy some videos from theater class onto a USB stick. It was very different from home, where everyone leaves ASAP after the final bell! Then Friday night my class got together one last time. We went out to eat at an American Restaurant (yes, that exists!) and it was really good! I practically started drooling over the menu. Their big thing was bacon burgers (because bacon is practically inexistant here) but they also had lots of other yummy, American things. I had a chicken quesadilla and it inspired me; tonight I'm making quesadillas for my host family.

In the last week of school, there was a magician who came one day in Philosophy class. He showed us lots of his tricks and he showed us how some of them are done as part of the course on Illusions. Most of the time, even after he showed us what he was doing we still didn't catch him in the act! It was really cool. Unfortunately for my class though, that was the only lesson we got about illusions. Guess what one of the subjects was for the bac?

Wednesday afternoon, I took the train to Grenoble to meet up with Sophia. It was really great to see her! We ate at her host sister's (for the week) house, and then went to a mall. We were with all of the other girls in her class and their host sisters at first, or rather for the tram ride to the mall, and then we split off and did our own thing.

Since then, most of my friends have been studying for their Bac, which started Thursday. I've been keeping busy though, doing stuff around the house and around town and seeing certain people who either don't have final tests or who manage to take a break. I've been grocery shopping with my host mom, hanging out in town with a friend, then we made supper at his house, reading, playing piano.. pretty basic summer stuff! Yesterday I was shopping with a friend, and we were going to go to her house and swim afterwards. Instead, it started raining really hard and it ended up raining all afternoon. But that's okay, we still had a good time.

Two weeks from today, I'll be getting on a train to go to Paris, and the next day, I'll be home. So, I'll see you all very soon!

A busy week!

2011-06-04T07:50:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone! I've had a busy week, if you couldn't guess from the title. Last weekend I spent the night at a friend's house, and then Sunday I went to a volleyball game. It was France vs. Italy. (France lost). My volleyball team was there to place people in the arena. We got a special tee-shirt and everything! And then we got to watch the game. The organizers brought the placers (my volleyball team plus the boys volleyball team, plus a bunch of other kids) snacks during the game. Some people had 3 packs of cookies, others 1 pack and a banana. I got the banana. :( After the game, we stuck around to help take down the volleyball net and floor. Yes, we took off the floor! The arena is usually used for handball, so they had layed down a plastic flooring system for the game. We also got to get autographs from the players as they left, and at the very end (several hours after the end of the game; there was a lot to take down!) there was a 'cocktail' with appetizers and desserts. When I got home that night, I had a nice dinner with my host family because it was Mother's Day.

This was the week of the theater performances for my school. Monday night, I went to watch the junior's, and then Tuesday, it was the sophomore's and senior's turn! We got the whole afternoon off from class and we rehearsed and hung out in the actors' lodges. That was fun! But towards the end of the afternoon, we started to stress a litte bit more. We've only been learning our texts since about 2 weeks ago, and last Friday, 4 days before the show, was the first time I acted out my whole scene! The show was called 'From the loss of control to Craziness' and it was composed of lots of scenes from different plays. I play an amnesic who comes home from the hospital and doesn't recognize his wife or his appartment. In the end it went fine; nobody forgot their lines!

Wednesday afternoon, I went to a friend's house. We ate spaghetti and then later, more people came over. They wanted to sing the Marseillaise, the French national anthem, to make a CD to send to their friend. I filmed! After we watched 2 movies to get in the spirit for the bac tests in a few weeks. They're old movies, from the 80s and 90s. The first one's about people who take the bac for the 5th time, and the second one's about a boy who insults his teacher, thinking he's finished, only to find out that he has to present his oral reports to that teacher a few days later.

Thursday was a national holiday for the Assomption, and we had Friday off too to make a long weekend. Friday I went to the amusement park Walibi, which was really fun. It's about an hour from town. The morning weather was grey and not too hot, and there weren't that many people in the park. It worked out great for us, because we didn't have to wait very long in line! The park wasn't very big compared to the ones I've been to at home, but we still had a good time. There were two small roller coasters, a drop tower, and a couple other little things. Also, there was a water park with some slides and a wave pool. The sun came out just as we were heading back towards the rides. What luck!

All in all it was a good week, that passed much too quickly! Now there's only one more week of school. Don't worry, I'll make the best of it!

Easter break, and back to school again

2011-05-23T09:44:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone! Today I've got good news and bad news. Let's start with the bad news, because the good news is far more interesting and this way you can all be looking forward to that while I tell you about my bad luck. For me it seems like a very big difference into home (meaning my little town of 300 people) and my host town (being a city of 50,000 plus suburbs). At home, I don't own a bike lock and I've never locked my bike to anything, ever. Here, I do have a bike lock, and I never leave my bike anywhere without being attached. However, this is not enough. Can you guess where I'm going with this? Yes, my (or should I say my host brother's) bike was stolen yesterday. I left it by a community building, the same as nearly every morning for the last 8 months, but when I came back all I found was a broken lock on the ground next to the bike rack. It's rather upsetting.

And now for the good news: I once again had a two week vacation from school! The Easter break was the last one, until I get out of French high school for good June 10th. The first week, I went out with friends and generally took it easy. With some of my friends, we had an American party. It was supposed to be a superbowl party, but since we missed the superbowl by a few months, we watched the Longest Yard instead. We also ate hamburgers with little toothpick flags in them and had macaroni casserole and American desserts. Note: Macaroni casserole doesn't work all that well without corn casserole. It's edible, but the noodles don't really get cooked.. I also celebrated Easter! I went to church, and a family invited me over to eat with them so I wouldn't be alone all afternoon (my host family had tennis). It turned into a really good day.

For the second week of vacation, I went to the French Riviera with my host family. We drove down, and it took about 5 hours through the beautiful French countryside. I was so tired that I didn't get to enjoy it very much though! We were in a resort called Belambra, which had activities during the day and at night for my host sister and I. They were pretty fun usually, and we had a good time with the other teenagers that we met. One of the morning activities was kapoeira, a Brazilian martial art, and it was really fun. Another morning there was volleyball, and at the end, we played a game: A boy and I against everyone else (7 or 8 including the adult leader) and my team won! One night there was karaoke, and we sung a little. I learned some new French songs! There was a group of German students there and some of them sang with us. It was cool. Vacation wasn't just about staying in the resort: we also went visiting! We went to Cannes (a week before the Film Festival!), Menton, Nice, Grasse (world capital of perfume), Biot (glass workshops), and St. Paul de Vence. I'm having trouble getting my pictures online, but don't worry, you'll see them at some point!

This weekend, I had my last YFU weekend. It was awesome, as usual! Saturday we did a 'via ferrata', which means 'railroad' in Italian. It's kind of like rock climbing, except we're always attached to iron cables that are strung along the cliffs. It was pretty scary at times, but I really liked the challenge of it. That night we ate spaghetti, which I haven't had in a very long time, so it was delicious! The next morning we had sessions of talking about what we'll miss, how to say good bye to our new lives in France, and how to go about going back. Once again we all brought desserts from our country. It's funny: at the first reunion, EVERYONE had a nice traditional dessert; at the second one, a few people forgot; and at this one only about half of us had a dessert. I brought peanut butter cookies. I had to go to two different stores to find the peanut butter! The cookies turned out great though and they were well-received by all the hungry étrangers!

That's all for now, talk to you soon!

School in France

2011-04-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

Hello! This week I had another Bac Blanc. It went pretty good, or at least I think so. We'll see what the teachers think! Today in English the test was 3 hours long and I was done after about 1. I didn't think about doing it in French until after I had already started, and I hadn't talked to the teacher about it so.. I did it in English. Really easy, except for the translation part! In history/geography it went pretty good-it's the main thing I have to study for. This time we didn't have to learn the maps, just 7 or 8 different chapters that we would have to write an essay about. The choice ended up being between 'Russia, a State in Recomposition', and 'The Mediteranean, an interface between the north and south?' I took that one. In Philo my essay question was.. I don't remember, which is sad since I spent 4 hours writing about it.

Anyway here's some pictures of my French school work, and I figured now's a good time to tell about school in France!

Philosophy notes about Culture

School in France requires spending hours after hours listening to the teacher, writing down every word that he or she says. Well, not every word, but the written down things are dictated-no notes just as summaries! Basically, it's like everyone writes their own textbook with the teachers' words. Nice long phrases in nice long paragraphs.

The 4 books we studied in Litterature

Since I'm in Terminale L, I have 4 hours of lit. class per week. Throughout the year we study 4 books, that every TL in the country has to read. I'll admit-I didn't read the Oddysey in French, I read the abridged version. It was at the very beginning though! I've read the other ones, but I'm not done with the Memoires of Charles de Gaulle. They're really really long and boring at times, but I don't complain about them as much as many French people I know since I don't have the pressure of possibly having to write 2 essays in 2 hours on the subject.

One of the dozen maps: this one's the Mediteranean zone

In Geography, we learn things and then we make maps about them. We've covered the US, Brasil, Russia, Japan, Asia, Europe, the Mediteranean, and globalisation. For the test, they have to do the whole legend and then fill in the map, from memory, being given just the title of the map.

More philo notes

Homework in France consists mostly of studying the notes we took, and doing some essays. In my class we almost never have homework to do for the next day, except when the philo teacher tells us to read something for example. Most of the time we get essay subjects at least 2 weeks in advance. Everything's really planned out and structured-no 5 paragraph essays here! In philo, there's usually a thesis/anti-thesis. In history and litterature, there's a structure of big parts and sub-parts, usually 3 of each (3 big parts and 3 sub each).
Tests are either maps (in geo) or essays to do in class-never multiple choice questions. Once we had a test with actual questions in litterature-once in 8 months! French people mock our American True/False and multiple choice questions. Secretly, they might just be jealous.

On that happy note, happy Easter!

J'adore la France!

2011-03-21T04:08:00.001-07:00

Exchange people talk about the curve that most exchange students experience. At first everything's shiny and new, so it's super fun. Then that wears off and you get homesick. Then everything goes good til about January, when you hit a low point again. When spring starts, everything's great until the end of the year. I personally am a great model of this cycle. I don't know about the start of the year, but January and early February were really hard for me. At the mid-year orientation, they told me (us), "T'inquiète pas, don't worry, in March everything will be better, you'll see!" I remember thinking.. "March? March is soooo far away!" But here we are, and sure enough I'm having an awesome time now!

The weather's getting nicer, I'm going out with friends more, everyone's in a better mood.. it's all good. It's the season of Carnaval, which is around Mardi Gras. It's not the same thing as New Orleans though! There is a parade, which was last Saturday in my town. You know that Fountain of Elephants that's in the picture? Well, an actual elephant walked in front of it! It was awesome. I watched the parade with friends, and then afterward there were some little things to watch-like the tightrope walker (video on facebook is a friend of mine who got pulled from the crowd into the air. We didn't know about it because she wasn't with us for a few minutes, we turned around and she was there!) and a giant thing that got burned. Then yesterday, I went to the Carnaval in Annecy, which is a Venetian-style carnaval. Annecy is really pretty to start with because there's canals, a lake, and pretty old streets, but it was made even cooler by the fact that people in masks and fancy costumes were just walking around, posing for pictures and just looking cool. Unfortunately it was rainy, but it was a good day anyways.

Yesterday there was a volleyball tournament. We won! There were 8 teams and 2 of the games we won really easily-we kind of stood around and let the serve make all the points. Speaking of volleyball, we're doing volleyball in PE class now! That means that finally, we're done going to the pool to swim. Last week it was nice out, so with some friends we ate lunch in the park next to our school. It was great! I've also gone to a town by my town with friends and we laid out by the lake and got McDonald's ice cream and cotton candy. They didn't have Oreo ice cream, but there was another chocolate-like flavor called Daim.

My host parents are really involved with their tennis club, and right now (all this month) there's a big tournament. So we go to the club a lot to eat croque-monsieurs (hot ham and cheese sandwiches, but better) and watch the games. Last weekend there was a 'soirée cards' and so I was there playing cards all evening. It was fun and there were some people my age! We also played a round of hide and seek in the dark around the tennis courts. :) Then this weekend, there was a soirée wii, with wii games like Just Dance, wii sports, and Mario Kart. There's a foosball thing in the clubhouse, so we played that too!

I've been doing lots of other stuff, but that pretty much covers the important parts. Hope you're all doing well!

La Turquie!

2011-03-05T07:16:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! As you probably know I spent a week in Turkey, you might even have already seen the pictures. It was a really good trip and everything went pretty much smoothly. I say 'pretty much', because the first day we had two flights, one directly to Turkey and the other one to the city of Izmir, and after the first flight custom's took so long that we missed the second one! There happened to be 40 extra seats on the next plane an hour later, so it worked out okay. We stayed three nights in the first hotel, one night in the second and two in the third (at Istanbul). The hotels were nice and they all had nice buffet restaurants filled with awesome Turkish food! Actually most of the meals we ate were at buffet-style restaurants. One of them had little flags that they put on each table to show where the tourist groups were from. Our table had a French flag on it of course, but all the flags were sitting on top of the buffet and the Mexican exchange student helped himself to a Mexican flag for the table. Then we got one for us two Americans, and then the Brazilian for himself. It was sweet!

We spent most of the first four days visiting historical (as in ancient history) sites. They were really beautiful and pretty interesting. We also went to a store that sells Turkish spices, teas, and candy things. They had samples of everything and it was so good! My favorites were the apple tea and the sesame something or other (pâte de sesame in French, Halva in Turkish) We had a tour guide who explained everything to us and was with us all five days. Pictures speak louder than words, so here's some examples:

A library

We saw tons of theaters!

The site of some of my favorite ruins, built right into the mountain rock..

..and not far from this calcium formation thing, called the 'Cotton Castle'.

The St. Sophia, a 1500 year old church that got turned into a mosque.

The Grand Bazaar

Then Thursday night we arrived in Istanbul! We had some free time in the immediate area of our hotel, but it wasn't very 'touristy'-there were lots of clothes shops but they were wholesale, and to buy anything you had to buy at least 3 of the same exact thing. Mostly we just walked around. Friday morning it was rainy and cold, but we visited a palace, the Blue Mosque, the St. Sophia church, and a few little places anyways. Then, Friday afternoon, we were free in the Grand Bazaar, a big covered marketplace with more than 5000 little stalls! There were lots of counterfeit stuff (sunglasses and tee-shirts/sweatshirts mostly). I didn't even know that there were counterfeit Aeropostale sweatshirts, but you can buy them in Turkey! Lots of the French bought them because there's no Aeropostale, Hollister, etc. here. They also had lots of more Turkish looking things, like necklaces with the Turkish eye (blue and white circles), scarves, and things like that.

Throughout the week we spent lots of time in the charter bus-most places we went were at one or two hours from our hotel. Between hotels 2 and 3, we had about 6 hours total of driving that day! It was okay though because we played cards, talked, played the Question Game and Who's Who (everyone tries to guess what person they're supposed to be using yes or no questions). It was fun and the games lead to lots of laughs!

Every night at the hotel, we had a quiz game to review some of the things we had seen during the day. Each time the game was organized by a different class. Certain nights, we played a game afterwards (the people who didn't want to go right to bed), and one night, I taught a cheer to everybody! That was cool. It was one of the quarter cheers, the one where usually we do a flip at the end.

So in general, Turkey was amazing! I got to see lots of new things and also meet some cool people who go to my school. Going in I only knew two French people and the 3 other exchange students, and now I know.. lots and lots of the people who went!

Nothing out of the ordinary..

2011-02-18T03:58:00.001-08:00

Hi! It's been a while since I've written, I guess. Or at least it seems like it! Not much big stuff has happened, though. Mostly everyday stuff! I've had plenty of homework, took the final test in swimming (not sure how I did, but I'm sure glad it's over!) and went out with friends a bit. In my last post I talked about the Bac Blanc, and it turned out not as horrible as I thought it would be.  The philosophy went good, and I think I actually prefer the 4 hour time limit to a dissertation we do at home-at least in the test, after 4 hours it's done, and there's no need to keep saying 'I'll finish tomorrow.. Just one more thing to add..So maybe the next day..' etc. Not that I would ever say things like that! I got pretty awesome grades in all the subjects, if I do say so myself, so I'm pretty happy about that. Not to brag, but I had the best history grade in the class! (15/20). Not sure how that happened..

The weather's been really good-it's actually kind of strange. It hasn't snowed since before Christmas, and the last week or two it's been almost warm-in the teens (celsius) most afternoons and at the breaks, we sit in the sun in our sweaters but no coats!  But yes, normally in France in February, it's winter. It'd actually be nice if it snowed though, because it's not very good for skiing and with the vacation coming up, I want to go skiing!

Speaking of vacation, I'll have 2 weeks with no school after a week in Turkey. So I'm going to go 3 weeks without school! It's crazy for me, but in France having at least 2 weeks of vacation in normal for every time there's a vacation. It's been 7 weeks since Christmas and my classmates will be in school this week, meaning 8 weeks between the two vacations. I didn't really notice it, but for them it seemed super long since usually it's only 7 weeks at most between the 2 week vacations. During the vacation, I'll be in and around my host town-no big travels with my host family. I want to go visit some of the other cities around me, like Annecy, Lyon, and Grenoble. I'll get to see some friends and some of the other exchange students! As for Turkey.. I have mentioned that I'm going to Turkey, right? I'm leaving Sunday and I'll be there til next Saturday. We're visiting Istanbul (1 day) and the Egéen Coast (not sure how to write the name of the coast in English..) There's one girl from my class who's going, and the 3 other exchange students in my school. I also know a boy who's going, but the rest of the group of 30-40 students, I don't know yet.

One Sunday afternoon I went to a game of handball with my host family. I really liked it! Handball is played for 60 minutes and it's like a cross between basketball and soccer. Sort of. I don't know how to describe it, but there's a little video on my facebook if you want to check it out! It's exciting to watch because it moves fast and there's a lot of points.  The final score was 33-35 after 60 minutes I think, and each goal is worth one point. The atmosphere in the arena was really good. Everyone had these giant fan-type things (big piece of paper, folded accordian style and held at one end) that you clap against your hand to make a loud noise. It was sweet! And my host town's team is the best in the whole country. 2 or 3 of the players are on the French national team, that just won the world cup of handball.
Later that week, a Wednesday, I went to a soccer game with my host sister. There's a French Soccer Cup, which every men's soccer team in the country can participate in. It starts out with the little teams against little teams, but since all the divisions are together it's possible for the little teams to work their way up. My host town's team is doing really good-they're in the quarterfinal and have been beating really good teams! So that was exciting. We won! During the vacation there'll be another match, and I'm hoping to go see it. This one's at Grenoble so that there's a bigger stadium.

There's some English correspondants (like an exchange student, but just for a week or two) that just came to our school yesterday. I went up to talk to one English boy, and even though I talked to him in English.. he might possibly think I lied when I said I'm American. :) I said things like "And you?" which is okay in French but sounds awkward in English, and things like that. You can't blame me though, I had spent all morning in class and reading in French! I've been meeting a lot of English-speaking people lately. A couple students studying abroad that I randomly came across downtown who were talking English, that I started talking to, and a girl in my bus who I didn't know I knew (apparently we ate together at school once. I didn't remember.. ) who, when I said where I was from, got all excited and said "I speak American!!!" and so for the rest of the bus ride we talked 'American'.
   By the way, a lot of people say things like that-'I speak American' or when they talk about the US, they say that they speak American over there, not English. It's odd.
Have a good week, Happy Valentine's Day!

Hey, let's go to Switzerland!

2011-01-23T00:06:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I went to Geneva Switzerland with a German exchange student that I know (Christian). We had a YFU reunion last weekend, and I was like hey, let's go to Switzerland! Originally we would have been 3, but the other girl (American) ended up having something to do with her host family. Christian came to my town Friday, we hung out in town for the evening and then early Saturday morning we left for Geneva! It was about an hour and a half of travel on the train. When we got there, we walked a ways to get to the Palais des Nations, an area that includes the seat of the UN (didn't get to go inside but had a hundred or more flags to see in front!), some other fancy buildings, and the Intl. Museum of the Red Cross, our destination. We spent some time there, and it was pretty interesting. Afterwards we took the tram into downtown and managed to find the St. Pierre's (Peter I think..) cathedral. It was pretty from the outside like the other buildings in 'Old Town' Geneva, but not as exciting inside. We walked around some more looking for food and then we found a nice little restaurant right on the edge of Lake Leman (Lake of Switzerland). Had some pizza and then set off again! It was hard to be ready to leave the restaurant, because it was SOOO cold outside. Really, very cold! We walked to the Museum of Art and History, then to an old house called Maison Tavel that was actually tiny and took us about 245 seconds to visit. Walked through a couple stores, and then we took the tram a little ways to try to find the Museum of Ethnography (Geneva has lots of little parks to visit, not just museum, but it was so frozen that the museums were a much better bet!) It turned out the Museum was closed, and has been for a while judging by the walls and construction around it. Instead we went to Starbucks and kept warm for the hour before it was time to go back to the train station to head home.

Funny story. Starbucks was packed, it was hard to find a place to sit. Finally we were able to sit down across a table from a man and woman speaking Greek (don't worry, we asked first!). We had been talking English, well, Franglish since we mixed French words in every few sentences, all day. All of a sudden the couple across from us started talking English. Okay, whatever. A minute or two later though, they lapsed into German! Now they were just showing off, I figured. Of course Christian understood everything, and he looked up and smiled at the guy, who then realized he could understand. He told me later that, in German, they were talking about how it's so hard to know what country people are from-trying to figure out where Christian and I were from. So we started talking to them and they were really nice. The woman is Greek, and she knows English and some German. The man was German, and speaks English, French, and some Greek. It was cool to talking to them, and it just goes to show, you never know who you might meet!

Let's see, what else is new.. This week is going to be a busy or at least mildly stressful one, because we have a Bac Blanc at school. The Bac is the big set of tests at the end of high school to see if you have to redo the year or if you pass/graduate. The Bac Blanc is a 'practice' test, but we still get graded on it to see how we're doing. Here's my test schedule: (you may want to sit down..)
Monday: 2 hours of litterature in the morning, 3 hours of English in the afternoon
Tuesday: No school for the students to visit colleges
Wednesday morning: 4 hours of philosophy
Thursday: 4 hours of history/geography, and then regular classes in the afternoon
Friday: regular class
Written out like that, for you it probably doesn't sound that bad, but these tests are all written. No multiple choice or fill in the blank! For lit. I'll have 2 questions to respond to in 2 hours, philosophy is one dissertation in 4 hours, history is 2.5 hours responding to one question, and then 1.5 hours filling in a map completely from memory on a subject like the Mondialisation or the Superpower of the US. For the map, we don't even get the legend! It's up to us to remember everything that should be on the map, and then to fill it in.

After this week though, I'll be halfway through my exchange! That's why I had the reunion last weekend-it's the 'halfway and it's still hard' moment. Don't get me wrong, there's people who are having a peachy time and everything's great, but most of us have little bugs we still are working out. The reunion was good because it made us realize, it's NORMAL, there's others with the same kind of issues! So that was reassuring. We also ate good again! The Americans didn't represent our desserts very well.. There's 3 of us in this area, 1 brought her dessert, 1 forgot to make a dessert and bought a French one, and I made apple crisp but then forgot it in the fridge. My host family got to eat it though!

The weather last week was really good.. not too cold, not rainy. I think I made the mistake of telling someone from home that 'the weather's great' because the last couple days, it's been freezing! It was really windy at Geneva and in addition to the cold, it was unbearable to stay out in the cold.

That's all for now, talk to you later!

Joyeux Noël!

2010-12-29T13:24:00.000-08:00

Hello again! Bet you didn't expect something else this fast.. but a lot has happened and I just happen to have the time to tell you about it! Let's see.. I left off on Christmas Eve, no? We got to my hostmom's parent's house just in time to change clothes for the 'midnight mass', which was actually at 8:30. There was a story about a wall that opened up to let everyone enjoy the garden inside that I didn't quite understand, but overall it was an average Christmas Eve service! It was weird that I didn't recognize/know the songs though!

After, we returned to the house and started the meal (it being nearly 10 at this point). First was the apéro, which I believe I've mentioned before, aka the appetizer. Then we went to the table, where the presents were waiting for us before we ate a succession of dishes: including the foie gras (a specially prepared liver, usually of swan or duck that doesn't taste at all like normal liver), then a meat and vegetables, then cheese, then a clementine, then the Buche of Noël (a log of cake and chocolatey goodness). We stayed at the table a long time, eating and talking, and the night ended for me around 1:30 or so. The adults stayed even longer!

The next morning was strange for me as a Christmas morning. I slept in longer than I ever have before on that day-10:00!! There was no rush at all to do anything, since we had opened the 'Santa' and family presents the night before. PS, Santa presents are the same as presents from Mom and Dad-kids don't get something from Santa and something from the parents! Anyways, spent the morning hanging out in the house-little tiny breakfast, cleaning from the night before, etc. At noon we had another big meal, even though there was a lot less people (my host aunts/uncles/cousins had left before I woke up). After eating, we headed to my host mom's brother's house.

We spent that afternoon and evening there: there were 7 little kids aged 3 and 1, so that was fun! But the adults also spent time hanging out in the wine cellar and talking or playing cards. Of course around supper time we ate! This time a soup and sandwich type meats, then cheese and dessert. I had a good time there talking and joking with my hosts!

The next day we said goodbye and moved on to my host dad's family, about an hour away near the town of Angers, which I'm told is 'la plus belle ville du monde', the most beautiful town in the world. Spent another afternoon around the table, and into the evening playing games and talking. We ate a lot and I tried some new stuff.. in addition to a terrine of salmon, something like shellfish (don't know the name in English but it's what lives in shells when the shells are in the ocean!), and jigot which I found out later is a type of lamb. It was all really good! A few highlights of the day were when we all gathered around the computer to talk to my host brother who's in the US, and then when I in turn skyped my family. My host family came in to say hello to everyone back home, it was really cool!

The next few days were spent with family- Papy and Mamie (grandparents) in particular, but also with the others! One of the afternoons I went with my host mom, aunt, and cousin in downtown Angers to shop. The downtown's really big and has plenty to see! I got a coat so now I'll be much more stylish/French in the cold. Believe it or not, not everyone wears ski coats all the time like back home!

I also got to see the Château d'Angers-the city's castle. It was cool but a completely different look than Chambord. Angers has a castle from the Middle Ages, so it's older and was more 'functional' as a fortress than as a royal palace. The little streets all around it were even more beautiful though, all paved in stone and looking like they came right out of a movie.. which is not entirely false, as they did make a movie there!

Pictures coming soon!

An American in Paris

2010-12-28T02:16:00.001-08:00

Joyeux Noël everyone! Hope everything's going good where you are. Let's start with the last Friday of school: Fête du Lycée, or School Party/Festival. The main event was a concert all afternoon long in the gym. The students did stuff but also the teachers! Including my philosophy teacher who was dressed up as a member of ABBA and danced with some of the other teachers. We also had lunch made by the teachers, and plenty of dessert brought by the students! It was sweet! If you look on my facebook, I'm tagged in a newspaper clipping picture about it!

Sunday me, my host mom and sister left for Paris. We stayed there with a friend of my host mom, about 20 minutes from downtown Paris by train. It was awesome! Saw lots and lots of touristy stuff, and did a good bit of shopping too! I'll get some pictures up later hopefully, as I'm not chez moi right now. Anyways, Paris.. Got to see Montmartre, the Sacré Coeur, Notre Dame, Les Halles (Shopping!), the Champs Elysées, the big stores like Printemps and Galeries Lafayette with their Christmas lights and windows, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay (museum of 1800s-1900s art), and of course the Eiffel Tower. The day that we went to the Eiffel Tour it was really really cold-so cold there was no line at all to go up when there's usually an hour or two wait, and we could only go up one floor because the other levels were closed. The big 'oops' of Paris came when my host sister took us to a store called Abercombie. It was supposed to be AbercRombie as in the clothes store, but google maps suggested Abercombie, a store for old ladies! It was pretty funny. Paris was cool because it was so easy to get places either walking or with the Metro. And the shopping-let's just say there's a reason Paris is the fashion capital of the world!

Since the end of my school I've been in serious French mode.. yes there was touristy stuff in English in Paris but I've been thinking a lot in French and it's French French French.. One night coming home from Paris on the train my host fam. wanted to talk English, and I had more trouble than them because I kept mixing in French words! It was bad.. I also had trouble when I first started talking to family on Saturday, don't know if you guys noticed but it wasn't a very good English day! I also had an akward moment when we were visiting a chateau in the Loire.. there were Asian tourists who said 'Sorry' for being in the way of my picture, and I responded.. 'C'est pas grave' which is obviously French. The next time they said something I responded in English and it felt really weird!

That leads me obviously to the Loire.. The morning of the 24th we picked up my host dad from the train station and drive a long time towards the East. We stopped at the chateau Chambord, which was amazing, and then to my host family's family for Christmas Eve and a week long visit that is still in progress.. but that's a story for next time!

Bye, Love you all!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

2010-12-13T13:28:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone! Hope you're doing well. If you hadn't guessed from the facebook pictures, yes, it snowed here. Quite a lot actually! I didn't have school the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, so I stayed the night at a friend's house Tuesday night. We discovered in the middle of the night that it had snowed quite a bit, and then again the next morning we had an amazing snowball fight! It was around 60 cm.. almost knee high! School got cancelled Thursday, and with a few (2) teachers gone, I only had one hour of class on Friday. Also, while walking downtown with some people from my theater class, we got filmed by France 3, the regional tv channel. They interviewed us but that didn't show on tv, just us walking in the snow. I didn't see it, but some people from my class saw/recognized me on tv! Over the next week the snow melted and it rained a lot. That was interesting-uck.

What else is new.. yesterday I made Christmas cookies with my host sister, because it can't be Christmas without there having been Christmas cookies. They turned out really good, even though they were depressingly all frosted the same color-no food coloring. I took them (pretty much the entire batch) to school and shared them with my class, other friends, etc. and now they're all gone! Gonna have to make more. In short, the cookies were generally loved by all!

Tonight Dad gave my host family a virtual tour of the store by skype. It was awesome! Way confusing to 1, try and translate slightly technical meat processes, and 2 to go back and forth between French, English, French, English, Franglish.. Ahh! But it was cool.

Have a great week, Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-29T10:31:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was a good one for me this year, I hope for all of you too! Thursday I was in school all day and didn't even get to eat any turkey, but I did go to a meeting about my trip to the country of Turkey! That counts as my share of Turkey for the day I guess. That night I skyped with the whole clan-everyone who was at Great Grandma's house for lunch (7 hour time difference) and that was really cool. When I got off the phone with them, it had started to snow! It was perfect: Thanksgiving day over, onward towards winter!

Friday I had school, but I managed to enjoy black Friday a teeeny bit by going shopping in the afternoon with some friends. It counts as black Friday, since it was morning in the US, right? :) Speaking of school friends, everyone was fascinated and greatly amused by the tradition of the US president pardonning a turkey.

Saturday was a long day. I got up early to go ice skating with friends, but the rink ended up being closed. We walked around in the snowyness for a while and got hot chocolate instead. That afternoon, from after lunch until around 6 or 7 at night, I cooked and cooked.. Some of the time was spent on the phone coordinating the arrival of the stuffing for the turkey though, which was stressful.. Long story! Anyways, in the course of the afternoon I made eggplant casserole, homemade (actual pumpkin, not from a can!) pumpkin pie and homemade rolls. That evening I went with my hostfamily to an exposition (exhibit hall with vendors) on.. food! Specialty food, like fancy wines, cheeses, desserts, spices, etc. When we came home, I stuffed the turkey which was much less complicated in the end than anyone expected. The big surprise was when I took the turkey out of the fridge, not having seen it yet, and.. a turkey head was staring back at me! Definitely didn't see that one coming. Imagine, if you will.. a turkey, ready to go in the pan.. with it's head. According to my host mom (who cut the poor turkey's head off before cooking it), the head is a mark of freshness of the turkey we bought. Hmm.

The next morning, spent lots of time in the kitchen again-doubled the recipe of the eggplant since it's generally loved by all here (here that, those who believe eggplant causes deadly diseases??) and made mashed potatoes, which took a very long time to peel and then mash. Let's just say we might have overestimated the necessary amount of potates purée that the French would want when confronted with all the other Thanksgiving stuff! Set the table, cleaned up, and the moment arrived!

My American friend and her host mom were the first to arrive, and my host mom had to help her with her vegetables that didn't cook right. She brought sweet potatoes with marshmallows and brown sugar stuff, and brussel sprouts in addition to making the stuffing. Then came the other family who ate with us: parents and 2 kids. We had an apéro, which is a sort of snack before the meal that's basically the first course, but around a different table and much less formal, while being more formal than the carrots we munch on before big meals in the US. After a long apéro, we ate! It was good; the hard work paid off!

Thanksgiving was a good one, and I'm glad I got to share it with my host family and friends. There's a good bit of leftovers, which is part of the tradition. The whole weekend was definitely very educational for everyone involved, me included!

November - 3 Month mark!

2010-11-21T08:05:00.000-08:00

Wow.. In finding a title for this post I realized it's been nearly 3 months. I had to open a calendar and check to make sure, and sure enough, Thursday is my 3 month mark. Wow. Does it seem that long for you guys? Or that short, depending on your perspective? Three months. Unreal. That means I have seven left.. Here's what's coming up the next 7 months: Around December 18th (a few weeks from now) Christmas break starts, and we go to Paris and then to visit host family's family for Christmas. By New Year's we'll be back in town. A few weeks later I'll have my 'half-way' orientation with the other exchange students. A month later, I go to Turkey on a school trip :D and then there will be a 2 week school vacation, leading into March.. then another 2 weeks of vacation in April.. and after June, I come home. Not bad, huh?

Anyways, let's see.. what are some things that I've done this month? I've been reading a lot, and watching TV slightly more than before the vacation because somehow, I can understand a lot lot more! I've been to church, to cafés with people (very French, right?), cooking with friends and with my host family, and generally staying busy. Friday night I went to the theater (the live kind) to see two plays by George Feydeau. The actors spoke really fast (like Robby racing fast!) so I didn't really understand all that much, just the main idea of what was happening, but it was still cool. Last weekend I bought some boots, so now I'm slightly less of an unstylish American alternating between Ugg boots and tennis shoes every day for school! It's also handy because it's been raining a lot, so the boots are much more practical. It still hasn't snowed here yet, though! Today it was nice so this afternoon we went for a long walk in the mountain area. It was nice!

That's all for now, sorry if I'm all over the place with my writing!

Edited to add: If anyone wants to send me anything by mail, the address should have my host family's name in the top line ("Chez Mr. et Me. LAST NAME first name) Otherwise it might not get to me or get sent back to you! If you don't know the name, you can email me or ask my mom.. :)

Corisica Vacation

2010-11-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! Hope you enjoyed the vacation.. oh wait, you're probably in the US, where there is not a ten day vacation at the end of October! Sorry to rub it in.. Anyways, yes, the French get a week and a half of vacation at this time of the year. It was great! I spent the vacation in Corsica, a French island south of France, with my host family. In Corsica, we visited little towns, the coast (beaches and also giant rocks) and also spent some time relaxing.. playing Mario Kart on the Wii, playing Rummikub or cards, reading, etc. The weather was mostly really good, but it rained a few of the days. It was really pretty there, but I won't waste time trying to describe it.. here's some pictures!

The middle of Corsica

In the North, near where we stayed

There were lots of towns with fortresses (citadels) like that.

Giant rocks.. pretty and fun to walk on!

In the South

On the way home in France, pretty fall colors!

Grève!

2010-10-19T09:26:00.001-07:00

Since last week, there's been a huge stike (grève) in the whole country of France. It's about the retirement/social security reform.. The government's changing the retirement age from 60 to 62, and people are just not happy at all. The manisfestations (demonstrations, basically) are not every day, but there's been about 3 or 4 of them. Here's what happens: the bus system is all out of whack, as in less buses than usual and at random times. Also, there's a big march/parade in the afternoon through downtown, with people yelling things and carrying signs and all. Other consequences of the strike: the Cité des Arts where I take an art class on Friday evenings is closed, the city library is closed (both of which annoy me very much!) and there's a higher likelihood of vandalism and general craziness in town. For example, today when I was coming home from school, I had to avoid the staute of elephants (right in the center of downtown pretty much) because there were people all over and we could smell the remains of some gas, I think tear gas, in that area. Don't worry everyone, I was safe and all! I was with a boy from my class, and we avoided the big mess. Also, I go to a pretty boring private schoo: In front of the public schools, there are riots a lot during the strike, where the kids use the strike as an excuse to light trash on fire in the street, and generally do bad things. There's police teams with helmets and shields! Public school teachers also go on strike, so they don't have school usually when this is going on. Remember though: that's not where I go to school, it's a ways away. In my school, we don't even hear the parade when the manifestation starts. Pretty peaceful, as far as high schools go.

Hope everyone had a good homecoming week/is enjoying the football season!

Eggplant!

2010-10-09T08:56:00.001-07:00

Hello! I just had to pop in and let the world know.. I made eggplant casserole last night! With my American measuring cups that I got in my package! They measure things in grams or liters here.. But anyways, I made eggplant casserole! I know my family at least is appreciating this fact.. It turned out good, not exactly like normal (a different cheese), but good. It only cooked about 20 minutes in our oven. And between 6 people, (host grandparents are visiting) we ate the whole thing! They liked it.

In equally exciting (but in a different way) news, last weekend I had a YFU weekend with the other exchange students in this region. It was really great to see everyone again! We spent most of the time just talking to each other, which I liked. We were there Saturday overnight til Sunday, and Sunday we ate the desserts with our lunch-everyone had brought a dessert from their home country. I brought scotcheroos! The desserts were so good, but I think everyone ate too much.. too much sugar, but sooo good!

St. Gervais and the Markets

2010-10-01T13:35:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone! It's been a busy week. Last Thursday through Friday I went to St. Gervais with my class for a philosophy seminar. The guest philosophy speaker was probably really intellectual about philosophy, but I hardly understood anything he said. It was a good time to be with my classmates though and get to know people better. We also saw some cool Baroque churches from the 1700s and a newer church that was full of artsy stuff. I gave an oral report about the history of stained glass, which I think people understood. St. Gervais is known for being really close to Mont Blanc, which is the highest mountain in Europe and covered in snow all year. Blanc=white, it's very logical! So anyways we got to see the really pretty mountain. We also visited a place where 'sisters' (the religious kind) live and people can go there to relax, go to religious sessions led by the sisters, etc. We had a few hours of Q&A with the sisters about their beliefs and life, then ate supper. Supper was really good, and lots of food! First course was a soup, like chicken noodle but without chicken or noodles. That leaves basically broth and veggies. Next we had spaghetti and lettuce salad, which was awesome. Spaghetti, I missed you! Then we had cheese or yogurt, then a fruit mix (like fruity applesauce). It was delicious!

Last weekend, I went to two markets: the normal one on Saturday morning to buy fruit, veggies, cheese, and meat; and the Braderie to buy..anything! The market was cool to see all the different types of fresh food-very cultural as well! The Braderie was awesome. Think of it like a high class flea market that happens twice a year, that is with actually good, new things that you would want to buy, all over downtown. We're talking about LOTS of vendors! Clothes, purses, shoes, books, jewelery, makeup, pretty much anything, and for a good price. I got some clothes :) And there was lots of cool food too. There's 'barbe à papa', which means Dad's Beard, which is..cotton candy! I had a kebab, which in French means a bread shell filled with rotisseried meat mixed with onions or something. It was pretty good but hard to eat!

Au revoir!

Continued!

2010-09-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

Bet you didn't think there'd be pictures, huh? Well, here they are! These go with the post before this one.

Who new that the sound of the mountain was actually cowbells??

That's my city, obviously. And it was a game day, obviously!

This is that spinning bouncy house thing at the fair.

Almost 3 weeks in??

2010-09-17T03:11:00.000-07:00

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." -Bertrand Russell

Hello everyone! Let's see.. where to start. I've been in school two full weeks now, and overall it's been a good experience. I manage to understand nearly all of the history and most of the philosophy. English is good too. It was my favorite class for the first few days, but now my favorite is history. We're studying the Cold War, which included a lecture on American culture :) which was interesting. Since I studied the Cold War at the end of last year and I consider myself kind of an expert on American culture, so far it's going good! As for literature.. the rest of the class read the Odyssey, by Homer, over the summer. So I'm playing catch-up and trying to understand the teacher's really fast lectures on the Trojan war and I have no idea what else. But it's getting better. To summarize, school is sometimes hard but usually manageable.

Last weekend was a busy one. Saturday morning, my host family and I drove up into one of the mountain, where we hiked an hour both ways to the top. At the top, there's this huge cross that looks over the town. The view, and the trail to get there, were amazingly pretty. Although on the trail, I was mostly focused on my feet because it wasn't an even path and it went up and down a lot, with lots of rock to maneuver over. After the mountain, we came home and ate.

Then I went to the Fair of Savoy to meet up with a couple girls from my school. We walked around, and that was pretty much it. It was a little like a state fair, but with more vendors and less 'stuff' to do (like shows or magicians, etc.) There was only vendors, a judo demonstration, and a spinning bouncy house. (Picture a slow tilt a whirl, with a jumpy castle on it instead of metal seats!) The other, main attraction was the exhibition, this year focused on Japan, which was actually pretty cool.

When I came home from that, I went almost immediately to meet my ride to a Christian youth group. It's made up of teens/college students from lots of different churches in town. It was interesting and fun. I'm going to continue to go there Saturday nights when I don't have other things to do. At the end, there's always cake. Yum. I love cake!

Sunday noon, we went to a picnic at the tennis club. Lots of good food there, too! It was partly a potluck, but the families mostly ate things they had brought for themselves. The dessert was shared though, and it was awesome! Fig pie (which is good), chocolate cake (brownie cake), and cake of Savoy, which is a light yellow cake that is sugary and very very good.
If you haven't guessed, the area I live in is called the Savoy region, fyi.

Also Sunday, I went to the movies with some girls from school. We saw Tamara Drewe, which is a British movie. It was in English with French subtitles (their idea, not mine!), and since it was kind of a 'specialty' movie, it was in a small theater. Seven rows, no previews, no ads before the movie, no popcorn. The movie was okay.. funny at times but the characters weren't very likeable! Maybe it's a British thing. Who knows?

That's all for now.. A plus tard!

First day of School!

2010-09-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

"Nothing grieves a child more than to study the wrong lesson and learn something he wasn't suppose to." - E.C. McKenzie
This didn't exactly happen to me as in the quote, but I was almost in the wrong class! Here the Premiére (Junior) class starts in the morning the first day, and the Terminale (senior) class starts the afternoon. So this morning Lou took me to school and we went inside to try to talk to someone about my complete lack of a Spanish level sufficient to be in 3rd year Spanish (what the 1éres do). It was a mess and we waited for people who weren't coming, but finally we found someone who was able to tell me "No, sorry I can't help you with your 1ére Spanish problem, but it doesn't matter because you're in Terminale!" So we left. We did some errands around town and then had to go exchange my 1ére books for my Te books (you have to buy schoolbooks here) Originally I had been given the list of Te, but we thought it was a mistake and so bought the 1ére books instead.

Anyway, after waiting around a few hours and eating lunch, Lau took me back to school and we still couldn't find a person to talk to, so she left and I sat with some girls I met yesterday in an assembly. There was a lot of quick French that I got the main idea of, then we went to classrooms by class. The Te L (litterarie, it's my division of the grade, we mostly study French Litterature, languages and Philosophy) are a class of 30, containing 4 exchange students: me, Mexican and Brazilian boys, and another American girl. In class we got our schedules of classes (it changes every day) and wrote down some important dates in our calendars. Maybe an hour or two later, school was over! I talked to someone about my Spanish class (turns out I don't have to take it), and then..

I walked to Centre Ville (the downtown area) with the other exchange students. We walked around and looked at stuff and spoke French. It was overall a good day!

By the way.. my class schedule is excellent. No math or science all year, and 3 days I start school at 9. Wednesday I have 2 hours of class and the day is over. Monday I have about 2 hours for lunch! :)

A plus!

2010-08-30T05:36:00.000-07:00

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.

Oscar Wilde

Hello from France! I arrived in Paris Thursday morning and stayed in a hotel there until Saturday afternoon, mostly in a hotel with the 70 other exchangers in France (7 Americans). There we spoke a little French but nearly everyone had better English than French. It was cool meeting people from 30 countries!

Then I took the train to my Chambéry, where my host family lives. They speak nice and slow for me, so I can understand quite a bit. Salomé, my host sister helped me unpack and they showed me around the house. My room has its own little balcony.. It's awesome! Here's what I see looking out the door:

The next day we went to help a friend move to a house 200 km away (very close; we carried a few things there by hand!) That afternoon we went to the tennis club for a bit to watch and meet friends. I made my first French friends there.. 2 girls, aged 3 and 6. They made dirt tea for Salomé and I and stuff like that. Little kids are the same everywhere I think: :)

This morning I slept in a bit; then the girls of the house went to play tennis for a while. It was really hard! This afternoon we are going to downtown to buy school things and see the school. Salomé's also, because she's changing schools. C'est tout pour maintenant!

14 hours.. Yep, panic!

2010-08-24T15:24:00.000-07:00

Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would I'd never leave. ~A.A. Milne

Okay, this is it. The next time you hear from me will be from across the pond, around the world, in France. Today was a bit stressful trying to finish packing and all the little things that still needed done. Tonight we're having spaghetti bake as the last 'family meal' for a while. :) I'm really gonna miss Mom's cooking!

I need to leave the house for the airport around 4:30 in the morning.. so by that count I'm less than 12 hours away! Hopefully I can sleep tonight.. Anyways, just wanted to say hey one more time before it's bonjour!

I'll see you all soon!

2 days.. should I panic now?

2010-08-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. ~Carol Sobieski and Thomas Meehan, Annie

Yesterday was a long day. First church, then helping finish lunch, then family started coming. It was fun playing an hour or two of Apples to Apples with the family, because it gave me some good memories from the day as opposed to just goodbyes. Later in the afternoon friends and those people who are so close they could be family, but are not, came over. Thank you everyone for coming! It was a good day, but I was pretty drained by the end of it.

It seems unreal that I will not see most of these people again until next July. They are all so much a part of my life that it just doesn't seem possible! Saying goodbye definitely made this experience more real to me, probably because nothing real and worthwhile is 100% good. Now I really believe that in 48 hours, I will be in an airport in Denver. It's not just a dream anymore!

Here's what today holds: packing, finish cleaning my room out, going to town for lunch with dad (and an errand, but that's not important!), and maybe visiting grandma. Busy busy!

3.5 days.. Not that anyone's counting!

2010-08-21T14:24:00.000-07:00

"It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome."

-William James

Hello all! As I hope you know, I leave this Wednesday. Since I leave my house around 3:30 a.m.. my official count is going to be 3.5 days. I meant to post something when I hit the month mark.. when I got to single digits.. a week.. but I didn't and now here we are! This whole summer has gone so fast. For me I guess it's still summer, because although my town's school started last Wednesday, I haven't been going. Friday I went to town with my parents and we ate lunch and went to Wal-Mart to get food for when the family comes. It was odd being virtually the only teenager out and about!

Everyone is asking if I'm ready to go, if I'm nervous, if I'm excited. It's hard to answer because I don't know how I feel exactly. Or rather, I don't simple words for it. I want to go, of course I want to start this adventure and face the new challenges. At the same time, I want to stay here just a while longer. Getting ready to leave definitely makes me realize how much I love my family, friends, and home and how much I'm going to miss it. I knew it would be hard to leave my family, but it seemed a bit unreal and hard to wrap my mind around exactly how hard it's going to be. It takes time to realize that yes, this is actually happening. I'm ready for it, though--I accept the challenge and I'll make it through.

That's all for now!

American Overseas Orientation

2010-06-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

Also known as: A lesson in culture.

A few weeks ago, there was an American Overseas (as in Americans going overseas) orientation at the YFU rep's house. There was a grand total of 7 students in attendence. Three others besides me were year students (all to Germany) and then there were three summer students, who will spend 6 weeks in Japan, Japan, and South Korea (respectively).

We started off by getting to know each other. It was awesome when we first arrived how we instantly had something in common. Besides the usual 'where ya from', we wanted to know where each new friend was going. This is pretty awesome, I think, because instead of, where are you now, you could see people's goals and dreams: where are you going. Maybe only for the short term, but we each had a goal and a sense of purpose in common.

When we got started, we learned about culture and living with a host family. The goal is for the student (me) to really become a family member, not just a guest in the house. We had a short session about who to go to if we needed help and in cases of abuse. We also brainstormed some ways to deal with homesickness and other common problems for exchange students, and ways to respond to people who criticize our American culture. It was really interesting! The day ended on the practical side, with info about preparing for departure and then the parents came in. They all had lots of questions, of course.

One of the most important things I learned that day was a story that went something like this: In country X, all people are born with 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, 2 ears, and a pair of yellow sunglasses. They don't question the sunglasses because that's what they are used to. Everyone has them. In country Y, all people are born with 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, 2 ears, and a pair of blue sunglasses. That's what they are used to, so they don't question anything. Then one day, a teen from country X goes to visit country Y. He realizes everyone there wears blue sunglasses, so he buys a pair and slips them on. When he gets back, he tells everyone all about his adventures. "Wow!" he says. "Everything was green!" The guy forgot about his yellow sunglasses, so he didn't get an accurate picture of the culture of the country he visited.
Here's the moral of the story: sunglasses are like culture. We are all born into our culture and it is part of us. Even if it's hard to completely abandon our cultural perspectives while we're on exchange, we need to remember that our culture is there, filtering our observations about the world. So, basically, try to see your new country with fresh eyes, not all through the filter of your own cultural 'sunglasses'.

In other news, I officially have an exchange sister! I love that I'm tripling my amount of siblings this year.. Anyway, she's from Germany, and she's going to hopefully get here at the beginning of August.

If anyone is thinking about hosting, do it! I am so lucky to have this opportunity and it's a great experience to give to another person. I have lots of information if you want it-just let me know! The area rep for YFU is especially trying to place a YES student, that is, a scholarship student from a Muslim country. They aren't all Muslim, and you can pick the student who you think best fits your family. Really, if you want to host.. go for it! It doesn't matter if you have kids, don't have kids, anything. Host, host, host! It's the only way programs like Youth for Understanding can succeed in spreading Understanding!

Unofficial Exchange Dates

2010-05-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

After a week of trying to contact the YFU office or otherwise find out about my departure and airport, today I learned, unofficially, the dates of my exchange! No, not the romantic kind- the departure date! The program in France starts August 25, so I will probably (this is where the unofficial comes in) leave August 24th. I'll have a few days of orientation in Paris before I go to my host family. Then I'll stay with them until July 2nd, when I return home!

Scholarship!

2010-05-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

I bet you didn't expect anything new so quickly, but I have news! Today I got a letter from YFU informing me that I recieved the Founder's Scholarship. It covers round trip domestic and international airfare, and some other stuff. I'm so happy! Since my exchange is already paid for, though, I guess they'll reimburse us or something.. Here is the page about the scholarship.

The letter was mildly entertaining because it assumed that I had not already been accepted and that I don't already have a host family. It said it included the student and parent handbooks, but then at the end the enclosure part was white-outed. :) I already have these! It also said that information necessary for getting a visa would be coming 'shortly'. That includes a departure date! Keep your fingers crossed that I'll know soon!

Updated information

2010-05-05T18:35:00.000-07:00

In December, I was officially accepted to be an exchange student. In January, my application was sent to YFU France and within a few weeks (quick as far as exchanges go), I learned I have a host family in France. I have a hostmom, hostdad, 13 year old host sister and a host brother who will be on exchange in the United States while I'm with his family. They live in a city in southwest France and I learned that the school I will go to has around 900 students!

I have an outbound orientation May 23, when I will hopefully find out when I am leaving. It's also really frustrating because by now most people know that I'm going to be an exchange student, so everyone wants to know when I'm leaving. But I don't know yet! I'm hoping it will be timed just right so that I can meet the person our family is going to host and also meet my host brother before he leaves for the US.

Yes, you read that right: my family is going to (most likely) host an exchange student while I'm gone! We are having an interview next week, but as long as that goes okay, we'll be a host family! I think it's awesome how I am tripling my number of siblings this year. :) Of course no one can replace my real sister, though.

Hopefully soon I'll be able to tell everyone when I'm leaving. Talk to you soon!

This is my exchange blog

2009-10-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

Oh man. Introductions are always scary. But I'm going to have to get used to them, because I am hopefully going to Europe next year for ten months! So, welcome to my blog. It's called Dix Mois, which means "Ten Months" in French. From that, you should be able to guess that I want to go to a French speaking country, specifically France, Switzerland, or Belgium (in that order). I don't know for sure yet where I'm going because *gasp* I even haven't sent in my application yet. If you are going to be an exchange student, you will realize how annoying of a problem it is when you tell someone you are going to leave them for a year. "Where are you going that's so great?" they'll ask. "Uh...I don't know..." you'll stutter in response. This is annoying! Mainly because you will want to know, so much, who will be your family and where you will live and what your life will be like for TEN WHOLE MONTHS!

I will be gone for my junior year of high school. What would possess me to leave behind my family and friends, my school and my entire country for TEN WHOLE MONTHS, you ask? I'll let you know when I figure it out. No really, it's hard to define my reasons for wanting to go. Trust me on this though, there are many reasons. Good ones, too! But you probably don't care about any of those. Oh well.

I'll keep you posted (punny!) on my progress applying, waiting, and finally someday, being in some country in Europe. But for now, bye!