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.