Adieu Poudlard! Good-bye forever Hogwarts

Do you understand why we call it Hogwarts?

Sarah and I look forward to this Cappuchino every day.

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

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

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

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

Photos of the trip!

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

Prague with Gabi and Erika

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

Venise!

The water streets of Venise!

Our Gondola driver!

Luge in Charmonix France

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

Charmonix!

United Nations- Geneva, Swizerland

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Europe Bus Trip!

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

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

Exchange Students wear bracelets.

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

Fourth and Final Family!

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

Pictures coming soon :)

Video of Paris/Barcelona bus trip!

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

New Month, New problem.

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

An Amazing week

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


Eiffel Tower!

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


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

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

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

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



Le Louvre



Starbucks-Le Louvre

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

Nightly Parties

France loves American culture

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

Hablo (un poco el) Espangol

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

I am afraid.

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

Blog Birthday!

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

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

The French Inbound and me at the second outbound conference

Bon Voyage party and the cool card Brooke created

My mom and me right before leaving.

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

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

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

Rotary meeting with the president of the region.

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

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

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