La Fete de NOEL!

    Christmas in France was certainly an experience. Christmas in France, at least with my host family, was extremely different than any Christmas I've ever had before. The whole 'jour de Noel" revolves around food. No kidding, the food is the only thing that matters. Well, that and family.

    On Christmas Eve day, my host dad and I left the house at around 3pm to spend Christmas with his family. When we arrived, there were already a few aunts ad uncles, and Mamie (grandma), along with Yanne (a cousin), Elodie (cousins wife), and Camille (cousin). They left to go to the Catholic Christmas mass, and when they came back the house was full. About 15 people (aunts, uncles, cousins, girlfriends and boyfriends) spent the night at Mamie's house. 

    We started eating at around 8pm after the mass. We all gathered around the table to talk, while passing various plates of appetizers around the group. After about and hour of that, we moved on the the second stage of appetizers. It was some sort of pureed vegetable with a sour cream and onion cream on top. By the time we had finished with that, it was about 10pm. Then the main course came out. It was scallops, with sides of rice, and fennel, all covered in a cream sauce. It was a very very interesting dish, and tats being said by someone who (now) eats almost everything. 

    After the main course, bien sure, we had to have the cheese. The cheese plate was passed around, and le pain was distributed. There were several types of cheese, but I couldnt tell you the first letter of any of them, because by this point I was so tired and also halfway in a food coma. Just know that it was some good cheese, okay?

    After the cheese, came the dessert. It was SO GOOD. The dish was an apple crumble with ice cream, but it looked so fancy and classy. The apple crumble was made from apples, and a little bit of dough crumbled on top. They cakes were baked and then put on a plate with homemade cinnamon ice cream, and a sauce of apricots, or maybe dates. Some kind of fruit (like I said, food coma). It was heavenly. 

    The dessert plates were collected and put into the dishwasher, meanwhile, the whole family stayed sitting around the table and continued conversing. At around maybe 1:30am, someone remembered that Santa still has to come. In the US, this would mean that everyone has to go to bed so that Santa can come to fill your stockings, and eat cookies. In France, Santa comes at midnight. I don't know how parents convince their children that Santa comes when they are still awake, but that's beside the point. Anyways, everyone passed out their gifts and opened their presents. A couple people received chocolate, so we all got to try various types of chocolate. I gave Christmas cookies as gifts, and I hope that they were good and enjoyed because I kid you not, I spent at least 6 hours making those darn things. They were made with several cups of love, and a sprinkle of frustration. 

    Finally at 2:30, my host sister and I went to bed. We were the first to go. I have no idea how everyone else managed to sit around a table for hours after that.

    I woke up at 11:30 on Christmas morning. I was one of the first to get up. I was heading to leave the bathroom after brushing my teeth when one of the cousins comes in and tells me "Joyeux Noel!". I think I gave him a look of confusion. It took me at least 5 seconds to register in my mind what he was saying, and then I said "Ah ouais, toi aussi... Joyeux Noel?" (oh yeah, you too. Merry Christmas?). He just burst out laughing, I think he could tell that I had just woken up and was extremely tired. 

    At about 1pm, more cousins, and uncles and aunts arrived. There were at least 25 people at this point. I helped cut of some baguettes for the meal, and then sat down to eat. I bet you can guess what we did for the rest of the day. Correct answer: we ate. We spent, again, 6 hours at the table. We talked, ate, and I got to know some of the family better. It was a really nice day. After the cheese and dessert, more presents were distributed. Mamie passed out her cards to all the kids, and even I got one. It was a really pleasant surprise. She gave us all 20E but thats not even why I was happy about it. She wrote the sweetest little note inside and it was so nice.

    She said, "Ce fut bonheur pour moi de te voire encore aujourd'hui, en cette nuit de Noel. Bonne adventure en France. Je t'embrasse affectuesement, Mamie Marguerite" which translates to "It gives me pleasure to see you here today, on this Christmas night. Have good adventures in France. I embrace you affectionately, Mamie Marguerite". She's such a cute and tiny lady and it was so nice that she treats me like a member of the family. 

    We left the house and the family at about 8pm today, and got home a little while ago. I got my Christmas present from my family in the US which made my day when I opened it. I hope everyone has had a merry Christmas, and happy New Year!

I thought i might also add this picture of lunch. This is what the average school lunch in France looks like. It's actually kind of really good... And I know the people who make the yogurt. I have connections.

Fluent?

   At dinner today, my host family and I were talking about a play my host mom, Fabienne, is writing. It will be performed during the summer and it will be in English so that the English tourists can understand. She said that it was hard to find people who know enough English to be able to do the improvisation involved in the play and that it'll be hard to answer the questions the tourists have. I said that I can probably help because I'll be bilingual by then. Fabienne responded by saying that I ALREADY AM BILINGUAL. This is such a huge accomplishment for me on my study abroad journey. I can't believe that an actual French person thinks that I'm bilingual. A lot of exchange students said that it only took them three months to become fluent in their host language. I don't know what exactly defines being fluent but apparently I am? YES, Life made :)

Two Months Already!

   It has been almost a month since I last wrote a blog post. That also means that I've been in France for two months. At this point, it feels like I've been here forever. Living in Florida feels like it could be months or years ago. Time in France goes by so fast. I don't know if I want to to slow down or speed up. There's obviously a part of me that really wants to go home and see my friends and family, but I want to be here so badly that going home isn't even an option.
   This past month has been... weird?
   We got back from Italy about three weeks ago. Rome was really beautiful. We went and did all of the normal tourist-y things but spent most of our time walking around (or eating) and exploring the city. We went to the Colosseum and people watched for an hour, then went and walked around the old roads and ruins next to it. One day, we had tickets for a guided tour through the Vatican. Our tour guide was a French lady who was very enthusiastic, slightly crazy, and asked me several times throughout the tour about my comprehension of what she had said. I was mostly interested in looking at the art, not knowing the ALL the history, so I wasn't putting that much effort into understanding the tour. I was thoroughly confused by the end of the visit. Oh and we lost my host mom for two hours when we were in a room with blocked cell service. That was interesting. I'm not about to complain about being in the Vatican though. The rest of our Roman adventures did not involve a lot of getting lost, even on with the bus and metro rides we had to take to get into the city. We went to the main shopping street where there was a Vans store, two H&Ms, an addidas store, and one street over to  see a Chanel store and a luxury fur store. It was a very posh neighborhood. Overall, Rome was really good even though we all did get a little frustrated with eachother by the end (but what group of people can go somewhere for a week and not get frustrated when you can only communicate amongst yourselves?) NOTE: ITALIANS ARE SCARY DRIVERS. No one in Rome used turn signals OR stayed in their lanes, or even acknowledged that lanes even exist.
  During the rest of the two break, I baked a couple cakes with my host mom, Fabienne. She never really follows recipes but somehow all the food she makes ends up being reeally good. I also went to Longué with Laura to hang out with Tom for the day. We walked into the centre ville and ate croque monsieurs. Then we walked to a park and swung on some swings, then we went to Leclerc (the french Walmart?) and bought snacks. then, of couse, we ate our snacks. The next day Laura spent the night at my house which was fun. We had a long conversation with my host parents about the differences in France, Brazil, and the US. The next morning we got up and Fabienne suggested we carve a pumpkin for Halloween (the next day). I showed Laura how to carve a pumpkin since it seems that only America does jack o' lanterns. We ended up with a really handsome pumpkin. It is still sitting on the windowsill (window-sill, windowsil, window-sil? can you see my English getting progressively worse?) outside and since its freezing (sometimes literally) Jack is still perfectly intact.
   We went back to school on Monday (today is Friday). I was welcomed back witha butt-load of confusion. I never got most of the homework given out before the break (while I was in Italy) and understood almost none of what happened this week. But honestly, that's nothing new. I've basically given up on trying to make good grades(US standards). A lot of the work I got back from before Italy, I got fairly good grades on. The best grade I have gotten since being in France has been a 8.75/10 on a SVT (science de la vie et de la terre= earth and life science=biology) assignment. The teacher complimented me on my work. actually complimented me. Usually, if they tell you something about your assignment it's to tell you that you suck and need to start being such a suck-up. The teachers will literally go around the room and interrogate everyone about why they didn't study and basically tell them they suck. Moving on, I got a 6.8/10 on a history test. That's better than half the class. But in the US, that's failing. In pysics/chemistry, I got a 13.5/20 on a history test which was probably just below the class average. There's no way I want my grades in France to transfer back to the US.
   This week, I presented a powerpoint about Florida to my French class. It took me about an hour and a half the night before to do it. A for A(E)fficiency :) It was honestly very sloppy but everyone was pretty interested to learn about Florida. I included the fact that Florida has 246 days of sun a year and everyone was like "WHAT". Tom did a presentation on Belgium too, and we both showed our houses on google maps street view to which everyone was again like "WHAT". Sometime next week, I have to present a powerpoint on my high school in the US, but to my English class.
   On Tuesday, Tom, Maxime from our class and I went into town during our break. Originally it was just so Tom could buy a jumbo pack of tissues. We ended up going to eat kebabs too. We sat in the top floor of the little restaurant and ate our sandwiches and watched NRJ (French MTV). It's always really difficult to have a conversation with me and Tom because we both speak broken French and confuse ourselves while speaking it. We have to have things explained every ten seconds but it's good for learning I suppose. We both are good friend with Maxime so he doesn't mind too much and tries his best to help us.
   After kebabs, I had my first beginning Spanish class (i take a beginning Spanish class once a week now to help me catch up with the rest of the kids in my class who have been taking Spanish for a few years). I still understood almost nothing because the teacher speaks almost only Spanish, but I did learn some things. i can say red and green, can conjugate the word 'go' which is 'ir' in Spanich,and can conjugate all regular -er, and -ar verbs in the present tense! I've decided that after French, the next language I want to learn in Spanish.
   That was mostly just a summary, nothing TOO interesting but maybe someone would like to know? Mom. Dad. Maybe. I hope. 
  
  

Let's Talk Embarrassing + General Updates

    So everyone told me that I would do some embarrassing things or have embarrassing things happen to me. The embarrassment has officially begun and you get to here about it. Let's start with what happened about an hour ago...

   Embarrassing #1- My host mom had just called me and my host sister down for dinner. I took my time going down. I put on a sweater (cause its really cold okay) and then went to get my socks from the bathroom where they were drying after being washed. I think we all know how graceful I am, but even so I'm going to blame what happened next on the fact that my socks had just been washed (?). I start walking down the stairs, casually, and then next thing I know, I'm sitting on my butt sliding down the stairs. My host parents are like "OH MY GOD ARE YOU OKAY" and I'm like "yeah, yeah, um i just fell".

    Embarrassing #2- This morning I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and my sister tries to open the door (which was locked). So I say "Oui, je suis presque fini". I really hope she didn't hear me because what I said means "Yes, I'm almost dead". Then quieter I was like "I mean J'ai presque fini" (i have almost finished). And when I'm nervous or make a weird mistake in french I end up mixing languages. My host sister was probably really confused.

    Embarrassing #3- I was sitting in Spanish, next to my friend Maxime. I said something about the chair ('chaise' in French) I don't remember exactly what I was saying. But instead of saying "chaise", I ended up talking about "chiasse" which is a French curse word for diarrhea... So now basically whenever he sees me, Maxime makes a joke about chiasse. Or he'll turn around to me in class, point to the chair and say "chiasse". At least I learned some new vocab.

    

   General Updates:

    -I'm forgetting how to spell... in English. Today in English class I had to ask the teacher how to spell maximum. 

    -My host family and I are leaving for Italy tomorrow. While everyone else has four more days of school, I'll be hanging out in Rome! 

    -I got invited to not one, but two parties this week. One is on Friday so I can't go :( and the next is in November :) and I'm excited for my first French party... And I think I'm having a New Year's party at my house? I made a joke about it one day at school with some friends and now I think it's probably going to happen. My host parents said a few weeks ago that if I wanted to have people over that its totally fine because they're going out. They're so very calm about everything and I love it. 

    -Since I have a two week (three weeks because Italy) they also said that they can go pick up Laura (Brazil), Tom (Belgium), and Catalina (Chile) and they can hang out at our house for a few days during the break. 

    -I went shopping for real for the first time i France on Saturday. My host mom took me and my host sister, Jeanne, to Angers to a "big" mall. There we crazy amounts of people there for not that many shops. When I went in International Mall in Tampa, I doubt there were that many people. There was a ginormous parking lot and a three story parking garage. COMPLETELY full. It took ten-fifteen minutes to get out of the parking garage and out of the parking lot because there was a really long line to the exit (which also happened to be on a one lane road the whole way across the parking lot). We then went into 'centre ville' Angers and got drinks at a cafe. Then on the way back home, we stopped at a boulangerie for a snack :)

    -In American schools in French class, they teach you that 'limonade' is lemonade. Can I just take a moment to acknowledge how completely wrong that is? I ordered limonade the cafe in Angers and did NOT get lemonade. Limonade tastes like a mix of seltzer water and Sprite. It's good and all, but was really looking forward to some lemonade. 

    -Last week (or the week before, not really sure) on Wednesday after school, I stayed in Saumur with Tom, Cata, and Laura. We ate lunch at a kebab place. Also, I should mention that a kebab in France, and a kebab in America (what I always learned and ate) is completely different. In the US, a kebab (or shish kebab) is basically any kind of meat or vegetable that was put on a stick. A kebab in France is lamb meat. It is a specific type of meat seasoned a certain way. You can eat a kebab panini, or a kebab (you just say "I want a kebab" and you get some lamb meat in some type of bread with the sauce of your choice and fries), but if you want chicken in the sandwich, it's no longer a kebab. Please excuse my kebab rant.

    -I am now a part of a musical group in my school. Its a club type thing that focuses on personal growth with your own music. We'll be writing music, collaborating with the other people, and performing three times throughout the year. Its not a band or anything, but I'm excited for it. Unfortunately, I may or may not know when the meetings are because when we had to give our number to the teacher running it, I unknowingly gave him the wrong number. I had been giving people the wrong number for the whole time I've been in France I'm pretty sure. Only last week did I figure this out.

     T'is all :)

Constantly Confused (but learning)

    Here is a list of some of the things I've learned from two weeks living in France:
1. Once you meet someone, you have to do 'la bise' with them every time you see them in the future.
2. I frequently forget to do 'la bise' and will just be like "Bye" and then walk away... oops
3. French teachers are slightly crazy...
4. French teachers, after a test, will go around the room interrogating anyone who received a less than superior note on said test.
5. People in France do not believe in turn signals.
6. People in France are, however, really good drivers.
7. A road considered a one-lane road in America is considered two-lane road in France.
8. The whole France-eats-smaller-portions-of-everything really does not apply in my host family, town, or school.
9. French teenagers are obsessed with kebabs and fries.
10. My school doesn't really do the whole homework thing very effectively.
    I am always forgetting to do 'la bise' with people or I try to do it at the wrong times. Like I will think I'm about to leave, do la bise and then it ends up that my host family wants to keep talking with whoever we're with. Or doing la bise will just slip my mind and I'll walk away without properly saying goodbye. But people basically let me do whatever I want because I'm American. Do not be worried because I am, however, discouraging any stereotypes anyone has ever had about Americans.
    Special thank you goes out to Mom for almost never cooking hamburgers or fries or eating fast food. When people ask me if I eat hamburgers for every meal, I can proudly say "no, I've probably eaten 2 hamburgers in the past year" or "Actually no, I was vegetarian for all of last year". And we all know how Americans supposedly have huge portion sizes? The portion sizes aren't exactly small here either. Yesterday for lunch at school, the menu was a plate (a really plate, not a Styrofoam one) full of fries with a hamburger (real one too) on top. And my host family eats so much! Maybe my family has just never really eaten a ton of food but I swear my host family eats way more than we ever have in the US.
    Continuing with the discouraging stereotypes theme, anyone who has ever me me will know that I'm not exactly the loud, arrogant, stereotypical American everyone in France may have expected. In class, I try hard to understand everything and write down what I can of the notes we take. I've only been yelled at for talking twice and that was only because I was explaining how to do a math problem to the girl next to me. So in case, AFS ever reads this, I have been a very good 'cultural ambassador' so far and I've been living my life to the motto 'It's not good or bad, just different'. You're welcome.
    So this week was, unfortunately, not as good as the first week. But the first week was so good, it would be really hard to top it. This week was more getting to know people, whereas the first week was just meeting people. Last week I was only really friends with guys. But now I'm friends with girls too! Tom (my Belgian exchange student friend) and I have a pretty good group of people we hang out with consistently.
    This week was a really strange week in terms of communication. I'm having trouble speaking both French and English. When I speak English, it feels familiar but I can't always remember the words I need to form normal sentences. When I speak French, I occasionally with slip in a few words in English. Or I will start off my sentence speaking English and finish in French. Is this normal? I really need to stop doing that....
   It is now Sunday. I have officially been in Doue with my host family for two weeks. This weekend there was an AFS reunion for all the exchange students in my region and their host families. My host mom drove me to another city to meet Laura, an exchange student from Brazil who goes to my school. Laura's host mother took us both to Angers where the reunion was being held. Before I left, several exchange students told me that other exchange students are always going to be your best friend during your study abroad experience. It's crazy how true this is. I became really good friends with several exchange students in Paris (Tom, Emma, Karianne...) but talking with them about all the weird things that have happened to us at school or with our host families this weekend was really fun. The people I hadn't really talked to much in Paris I got to have a conversation with and we all got to know each other a little better in the three hours we were together. We were all forced into a rather embarrassing situation in the main square of Angers (dancing, chanting, etc,...) but it was still really entertaining because we could image how ridiculous we probably looked. We ended up visiting a lot of central Angers and it was a really great time! Laura, and I left and here host mom took us both chez moi. We went to a party with a lot of people, dancing, and alcohol. It was a folk dancing party at the house of a man who makes wine... Just to clarify. I tried two types of wine and some champagne. Probably amounted to two small glasses. I was worried that I was going to get trippy drunk having not drank any significant amount of alcohol before but I just got a little giggly. yay for amelia holding her booze, but I don't think that I'll be drinking much anytime soon. Still isn't that appealing. What IS appealing now, however, is CHEESE. Laura encouraged me to try some French cheeses and I ended up really liking the two I tried. Last night was probably the French-est night of my entire life.
    We got home from the 'party' at one in the morning. Laura and I had a nice conversation about studying abroad and then went to bed. This morning we got up, and went with my host parents to an amphitheater built in the 16th century in my town. Pictures for everything I've mentioned will be at the end! We got home, ate a healthy lunch of salad, rice and baked chicken and then we went for a walk around Doue la Fontaine. I attempted to screen-shot a few pictures of a map of Doue but they really weren't very helpful. So, relying on just on the information I've collected from 2 weeks here, we made our way to a boulangerie in centre ville Doue. It was a twenty five minute walk, but we did not get lost once! For that I am very proud. We bought a viennoise au chocolat, a pain au chocolate, a caramel eclair, and a chocolate corn flakes cookie (sounds bad but was amazing). We each tried a little bit of everything and then saved the leftovers for later.
     Laura and I got back just before 3pm so that we could go with my host dad for a guided tour (guided by my host dad himself) of the troglodytes and sarcophagi. There were about twenty other people in the tour with us. We got to learn all about how people in this region lived under the ground from 500 A.D. to 900 A.D. And how the western part of France was actually submerged for a long time and Doue la Fontaine with it (facts not 100% sure are true, the tour was completely in French). It was really interesting to see where these people lived and how they survived underground. Altogether, it's been a really good weekend!
    Now here are the pictures:

some nice wine at the wine party.

Nice rainbow with a rustic house at the wine party.

Super pretty view of a field near the party last night.

A sped-up video of the folk dancing.

The stage at the amphitheater

Some wall at the amphitheater. It's artsy

Me at the amphitheater

Found a small field of grapes.

Viennoise au chocolat

The whole group of us exchange students in my region. Taken in Angers.

My plate before eating the four courses at the folk dancing/wine party.

Yet another relatively artsy picture of the amphitheater(below). And the pastries we bought. (above)

My French Home

    Pictures of my host home. The backyard, with a table where we've eaten every night so far, the kitchen, and a picture of the back of the house.
I live a pretty simple life here. I wake up, go to school for ten hours, come home and eat dinner, do homework, then go to bed. I love it though. I'm not homesick yet but I'm sure I will be in a few weeks or months.
   School here isn't that hard, mostly stuff I already know. Everything here is just really cool. Culture shock? I don't know but I love it.

Premiere Jour Au Lycee

   Yesterday, I arrived in Angers, France. Me and several other exchange students took the train from Paris to Angers early Sunday morning to meet our host families. I had just spent two days in Paris, getting to know the other exchange students who came from twelve different countries. We all made really good friends and got to learn a little about each country represented at the orientation. I became friends with two girls from the United States, a girl from Finland (I think), a boy from Argentina, and a boy from Belgium.
   We stayed at a hostile in the outskirts of Paris. There were showers and beds, but not much else. It was an interesting experience... Its amazing how people from all around the world can communicate so well and become friends so quickly when we are all about to embark on the same adventure in France.
    The first day with my host family was awful. I was extremely tired and became homesick immediately after arriving at my new home. Being surrounded by people who speak a different language than you is not fun and is very tiring. Once I got to my host family, it hit me that I really won't be seeing any of the people I knew in America for ten months. I wasn't very willing to speak French because if I had, I would have started sobbing. After a snack at a neighbor's house, and meeting some very nice French people, we got home and I went to bed (skipping dinner) at 7:30. I woke up this morning, all rested and cried out, and went merrily off to school.
     I took the public bus to another town (Saumur) where I followed many many many other student going to my school. I found the office where the three other exchange students at my school were waiting. Luckily, the Belgian, who I had become friends with in Paris is in almost all of my twelve classes. We started off the day (missing the first class because the administration took a very long time to get their stuff together) with some kind of science. I have no idea what it is but I think it has something to do with chemistry or physics. I'm definitely bringing my chem notes from the US to class.
     After that we had another science class, which I think was biology. Since I already took biology last year, the class was a breeze, besides the fact that everyone was speaking French of course. I can't even begin to tell you about the other classes because I have no clue what they're about. One has something to do with the library, and another has something to do with public speaking?? I don't know. When lunch time came, a guy named Maxime(1) showed me and Tom to the cantine and we ate lunch with him and another boy in our class, also called Maxime(2). They were both really nice and talked in French to us, explaining in English when necessary. Maxime (1) introducedd us to some girls in our class, all of whom were very nice, and then we went to our next classes.
    Fabienne, my host mom, picked me up from school and took me to a SuperU (comparable to Walmart) and I got a simple phone. It looks a little like a BlackBerry but I can't do anything besides texting and calling on it. We then went home and ate a very healthy meal of salad (fresh from the garden), with vegetables like radishes and cucumbers (also fresh from the garden) and baked chicken which was really good. It was the first meal in days where I've had any kind of appetite. Even the delicious pastries they had in Paris was unappetizing for me. I have completely lost any kind of craving for food.
     Even though I can't understand anywhere close to all of what the teachers say, I know for a fact that I have learned so much already. I can hear that I have less of an American accent and that my vocabulary is improving. I'm even beginning to think in French. Even when I'm writing this, I start to write something in French, quickly realizing that French is the wrong language to use right now. Its really stressful not knowing any words to have a full conversation, no one drinks enough water here (I'm always thirsty), I dropped and shattered my phone this morning, I may or may not have told my family that I am sexually excited (funny story regarding the misuse of words), and I am without my friends and family for ten months. But I get to learn another language, live in a beautiful town, make plenty of new friends, and become a stronger person. Today, I don't regret my decision to go on an exchange program.