Update

So the complete update:

The day after I was practicing my French with Gabby, Stephanie, Alexis, and me went to Dinan and ate mussles! Then we took a walk around the town, Dinan is so pretty and I really like all the old buildings but I forgot my camera!

 The next day M. Berthoux, my second host father, came over with bread and wine. I brought him Philadelphia cream cheese because I guess you can't find it in France! He was an exchange student in Denver in the past so he speaks really good English. We did not speak much English though, mostly very very fast French which I did not understand at all! Haha! After Stephanie and Alexis came over and we went swimming! For supper we had Seafood and Morel mushrooms! It was so good but I think all the food in France is good!

 In the morning we woke up early and drove to the ocean and took the boat out on the sea! It was a beautiful day and I got a lot of beautiful photos! There was also a sailboat race going on so there was many racing sailboats on the sea. We ate lunch on the boat near Saint Malo and then we headed back. On our way back the sky got cloudy and the wind picked up so the waves were huge! It was a lot of fun, the waves would still splash us on the top of the boat! When we got back to port Stephanie, Alexis, and me ate a choclate crepe!

The next day my host mom took me to Lehon, a small village near Dinan. Her daughter was married in a beautiful church there. The courtyard next to the church is one of the prettiest courtyards I have seen, with the cobblestone, the flowers and the birds it was amazing. We walked around the town, saw the Rance river and the lock on the river, for really small boats. A mine where the rocks for the houses was mined in the past and a fort on the hill which was used in the war. Then we went to the port and got macarroons, carmel which is made with butter salt, which is super popular in my region, and a slice of a specialty of Bretange made with eggs, prunes, and milk. After supper that night I watched a movie called Deja Vu in French, I did not understand it and I think it would have been a hard movie to understand in English also.

Today my host mom took me to Dinard and St. Malo by car! The towns are right out of a magazine, they are so old but so pretty. In Dinard we took a walk on the rocks by the sea and then we ate mussels and fries by the sea. After we went to St. Malo and walked on the wall around the town, when we came off the wall we shopped a bit and I ended up meeting a kid who was an exchange student in Minnesota last year! He had amazing English and I hope my French is that good when I come back! Then we stopped for ice cream and went home. I was so tired from the day I slept for 2 hours when I got home! Tomorrow I am just relaxing around the house and then Thursday is really busy. Stephanie, Sarah, the other exchange student in Dinan and her host siblings, which will be my host siblings later in the year, and going to Mo

unt Saint Micheal! I am so excited for that. It is very famous in France and I he



So this is pretty intresting, this is an old pool, the sea water fills it
with the tide and then when the tide resides you can swim in it!
The whole thing goes underwater, there is a huge tide here.



ard it is very pretty there.

Also the sea here has one of the biggest tides in the world. In fact, tomorrow the tide is the biggest at 12 meters! Which is huge. The rocks that jut out of the sea at one part of the day are barely noticable at another time of the day, it is amazing!

                                                                        My host parents

                                                                      Some pretty houses

                                 Lunch- We are all laughing because my host dad bent the bread!

                                                          The flag on the back of the boat!

A lot of sailboats out this day!

Courtyard

Lehon

Bridge in Lehon



Port of Dinan



In Dinard, behind me is St. Malo



On the wall of St. Malo



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Later in the day this is completly surrounded by water and people cannot walk out to it.





Wall of St. Malo



En France!

Sorry to not update this earlier but when I tried to do it yesterday it stopped working and I lost all my writing and pictures! I was 3 pictures away from posting the darn thing! Anyways to repeat everything I said yesterday. On the 23rd, the day I left, I woke up very early at 5 am and drove to the Green Bay airport. My famille stayed in Wisconsin Dells for the 22nd to go to the Wisconsin Dells! That was a fun day, riding the slides and swimming in the wave pool, for supper that night we ate at a pirate themed buffet! Anyways at the airport we sat around for about 2 or 3 hours, then I boarded the flight around 11:30 and took off at 12:03, once I got to Minneapolis I walked what seemed like the whole length of the airport to get to the gate. A few minutes after getting there more students came and we all hung out for our flight to start boarding, another 2 or 3 hour wait. During the wait I ate pizza and a parfait for lunch, exchanged some money, and just hung out with the other 19 kids flying with me. When we got on the plane I was very dissappointed that they did not have the little tvs on the back of the seats since the kids who flew from Seattle to Minneapolis had them. Also the seats were so crowded! It was a long 7 hours but sitting next to Aja and having 2 other exchnage students, one who is going to my district, Faith and another named Hannah made the trip a lot more fun. Once we landed in France we went through customs, which is just a quick stamp of the passport and then on to baggage claim! After baggage claim some of us decided to venture out the doors and all the Rotary clubs had signs for us, François was waiting for us, Herves wife, and then once all four of us from the flight ventured out the exit we were told we were going to a hotel to wait for everyone else, while in the airport we were told to move and asked what was happening after men with huge guns and berets came out and they had red tape and were hearding us. Francois said someone must have left some baggage or else their was a bomb threat! Ahh! That was an intresting way to start the day, since it was 8 am Parisain time! After we got the to the hotel Francois asked if Faith, Brogan, Christain, and I wanted to go take a shower, we were so happy to finally get a shower after the plane ride! After we showered we then waited in the hotel lobby for all the exchange students from 1510 and 1650 to get to the hotel at about 2 everyone arived for 1510 and they left and at about 2 30 1650, my district, left. Then we got on a bus and I got about 2 hours of sleep, solved the worlds problems with other students, and spoke and laughed a lot. I even got to see a quick glimpse of the Effile Tour for a second while traveling on the road. I got off at the second stop and Sarah, a girl going to the same town as I and myself road home with my host father M. Alix. After we stopped at Sarahs host familys house and dropped her off, which is actually my host family in January we drove around Dinan and saw my school and then we went home. When we got home Stephanie and a family friend were over visiting. When they left we ate and then I went to bed since I had just been up for about 36 hours with 4 hours worth of naps. In the morning I woke up at noon by Mme. Alix If I had not been woken up I would have slept all day! I was still tired but I got up and had lunch with Mme. Alix and Gabbi, a 2 year old who knows French better than me! Anyways after lunch I watched a cute movie where a girl does not want to cut open a frog so she saves it and then she sees a man and thought that the man was the frog she lost and she takes care of the "prince". It was very cute. Then Stephanie stopped buy but then had to leave, she lives just a short walk away so she stops in a few times a day. Then while Mme. Alix was in the kitchen preparing the salad we were going to have for supper, Gabbi who was usually very timid started talking to me a little and we ended up looking at franklin books together and he cant read so I would point to something and ask him "est-ce quoi" and he would respond, it was so so cute and sometimes he did not know the name but most of the time he did, it was good vocab practice for me and him! Then when Gabbi had to leave with his mom he said he did not want to leave, he wanted to stay here with me! So cute! Then Mme. Alix and I had supper and then I went to bed because I was so tired.

9 days, flight schedule, school, tennis

9 days until I leave! I am so anxious to be in France but so nervous about leaving. I can't even sleep through a whole night without waking up thinking about exchange! Yesterday I recieved my final flight plans and a list of all the people who will be flying to France with me, and a list of flights from America landing in CDG!
My final flight plans are Green Bay to Minneapolis. Minneapolis to CDG. In Minneapolis I will be the first of 19 students to arrive. Early bird gets the worm? Haha probably not but it will give me a while by myself to eat and veg before I go meet the other students! I don't understand why we have to pick our own seats since we are exchange students and we will want to sit by each other. So if I want to sit by any exchange students I have to talk with them and figure out where we want to sit and book the seat now. Unfortanatly when I went on the website the only open seats were directly in the middle of each group of seats. Great. Can we say cramped, uncomfortable plane ride all the way to Paris? But I honestly wouldn't mind if I was cramped with other exchange students because we would be on such an adreniline rush anyways!
I already picked my seat on the way to Minneapolis! I will be sitting at a window seat! It showed like it was behind the wing so hopefully I will actually get to see down!
Anyways thats my probably really boring flight information that you don't care about but for those of you (like my mom) who are trying to live vicariously through me while in France well than you might think of it just as neat and exiting as I do! ;)
P.s. I am done with my job for the summer now all I have to think about: France, packing, Paris, host family, visa, travel agent, kati and doug, Rotary powerpoint (which is actually going to be a Prezi), gifts, and candy! That's not that much I guess ;)
Oh I keep thinking of things. My school is now trying to tell me my year in France may disqualify me from getting any scholarships if I come back and be a Senior. I really don't think that is right since technically I am an ambassador for Gladstone Schools and why punish me for going away for a year to go to school? Especially when I am learning about another culture, a new language, and going to school the whole year. I will come back with more knowledge about the world and more real life experiences than a year at GHS could ever provide me. When was it bad to expand your horizons? Anyways I am kind of upset about this so I am going to have a meeting before I leave and maybe write a letter or two about why this is not right.
My host dad! He is amazing! I told him I really like playing tennis and the saying Rotarians move mountains but you have to tell them is so so soo true! My host dad has now gotten me into a tennis club for the year for free and has also invited me to go to St. Malo to watch a tennis tournment and have VIP passes and get to meet all the players. The players are not super famous but they are like the up and comings and some are even from the USA! Anyways I am super exited about both of those oppurtunities!
Okay Finally I can't think of anything else!
So A bien tot!= See you later
Cassandra

Visa, Camera, and Rotary

I got back from Chicago last night! I finally got my visa papers into the consulate, after a long wait to get all the papers to me and enough time for me to organize them all. It seemed good I didn't get asked any questions like a lot of other people. It was not like I expected at all. We went into a huge building and as we walked up to the front desk the girl had already assumed we were going to the consulate and then asked us for our IDs. You have to scan a slip of paper to get to the elevators then  you go up to the 37th floor and the whole floor is the consulate. You go left and there is a super pretty view of the city, a tv in French with French subtitles, and a lady behind a desk. She sends you down the hall, you wait in a room for your name to be called you go up to the counter she takes your papers, fingerprints, and photo and your done.
Everything went good in Chicago and it was nice to have 2 days off of work but unfortanatly on the way home the papers that I am suppose to send to my travel agent got spilled on and I am currently trying to dry them out. I don't have the courage to tell my travel agent what happened yet. I am sure it will be okay because thank god they were all copies and no originals, since the consulate took all my originals and passport. I had the only set of originals! Ahh!
Once we got home things got better my Nikon Camera arrived! I spent a lot of money on it because I wanted a really nice camera to take to France. I have been practicing with it all morning and I love it!
In a little bit I am going down the harbor in Escanaba to help out with a Rotary fundraiser at the marina, I am bringing my blazer and a map of where I am going maybe to encourage other kids to go on exchange?! :)
Anyways
Au revoir!
Cassandra