Joyeux Noel, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas!

Christmas songs are in the air, the trees and lights are up all throughout the town but wait. It does not feel like Christmas! I think it has got to be the little differences such as no snow, my real family is not with me, and I have not had the "before" holidays like Thanksgiving and Halloween. Okay I had Halloween but it was very lame.

So Christmas here was set up pretty close to the same way we do christmas at my house. Go to church than after to one grandparents house, open presents, eat a meal, enjoy everyones company, and talk politics. The next morning we get a stocking to open and a couple presents from Santa and we open them, play with all the stuff we got, watch the 24 hour Christmas Story Marathon and finally for dinner we go over to the other grandparents house, open more presents, eat a nice meal, enjoy everyone, and talk some more politics.

Here it went like this: Go to a Catholic mass for 2 1/2 hours, then to one grandparents, opened presents, shared what we got, ate appetizers, ate a very nice meal with many plates, though one plate was not so nice though I will share that with you a bit later, then talked and drank for a bit and went home. The next morning we woke up slowly, once everyone was downstairs we opened our gifts from each other, then had 10 minutes to change for lunch at the other grandparents house went there opened gifts, ate appetizers and another meal with many plates, drank and talked and went home to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

So I guess it was not to different but I think being away from that "family tradition" just made it seem less of Christmas, though it was a lovely experience nonetheless. Now for the meal, the French are huge into food and Christmas happens to be the biggest, most done up meal of the whole year so of course we had a cheese plate, and a dessert, and a first and second plate and a plate with a substance only known to me as "foie gras." It was not horrible but definatly was not my favorite thing we ate that night. The next day we had the same thing so I asked if it was a tradition to eat this they said yes so I once again took a little bit of it (Thumbs up to me following the exchange students try everything three times rule right!?) and this time there was a semi-English speaker who told me it's duck liver. Yum! Duck liver. Come to find out it is actually specially fattened liver AND the specially fattened comes from the force feeding of duck and goose! Now I am not an animal rights activist at all but I find it funny how here if I even bring up hunting everyone is like you hunt because here there is not many animals to hunt so they are very protective of not hunting the few animals they have, so hunters kind of anger the general population. Yet they force feed duck and geese. Interesting right?

So this was pretty much my Christmas and thank you to everyone who sent me Christmas gifts and to my host family for getting me gifts also! Everyone is getting there presents from me when I get back because shipping is crazy expensive!

Going to Jersey!

If I told you I was in Jersey would you believe me?

Well I was. Though probably not the Jersey you were thinking of! I was on a little tiny island between Normandy and Brittany named Jersey! The best part? After 4 months of speaking only French I was able to speak English for a day on the island. The Island is British and I even got my passport stamped and I caused a bit of confusion since im not sure they have ever had an American, living in France under a French visa who decided to take a vacation to Jersey. Thats okay, we got it all figured out fairly quickly. The boat ride over there took a little over one hour, there was a huge storm, reminence of a hurricane, that made the waves huge and made most of my host family and many other people on the boat sea sick. I ended up staying outdoors the whole boat ride there and back because even myself on the inside of the boat was feeling pretty sick. When we got to the Island they stamped my passport and we were on our way. We decided to first take the bus to go to another part of the island to see the "beauty" first. After we went back the the central town for shopping. The island has one road with almost every shop on the island on that one road so it was easy to not get lost and made shopping quite simple. I bought gifts for my host family and a few little things for myself including a watch and a pair of tights. (Though I really did NEED those things!) Sarah was with my host family and me. Sarah and I went shopping just the two of us for the whole day for lunch we ate spicy tomato soup and English tea and had a very nice time shopping. On the way home, it was cold and dark but I again stayed outside the whole time on the boat. When we finally got back we were all very tired, I was feeling sick and we finally got to bed at about midnight. It was a very nice day but unfortunatly I woke up with a fever and felt like I was hit by a truck. Yes, I woke up with the flu on the second day of break. Welcome to the life of being an exchange student. Sickness number 4 in 4 months.

Week at Gonzales

The day after I got back from Paris Sarah and I got to go on a wonderful "mini vacation." We went to live with the Gonzales family for a whole week! They have a beautiful house in Quevert, a 15 minute drive from my school. Quevert is the "countryside" and is very quite and peaceful. Living out in Quevert reminded me a lot of home. There were forests, farms, and hunters! At the Gonzales house Sarah and I both had our own room and bathroom, eletric shutters (which we were fasinated by even though they are quite popular in France), and amazing (huge) meals every night. For example one night we had tons of seafood and after that we had salmon with potatoes, then the bread and after a dessert. It was so good and I ate so much. They have two dogs which I played with a lot during my time there since I really do miss playing with dogs. The week was such a nice get away from what has become normal life at the Berthoux house hold. Though by the end of the week is was nice to return home.

The City of Love-Paris

Okay so the title kind of gives it away but I finally got to Paris! My host family is friends with a person in a small band out of Rennes and the band has wanted to play at this place in Paris for a while and finally got a spot. The concert was a competition, like battle of the bands so the band decided to have a bus of fans go along and watch the concert and cheer for them, since every other band was Parisian and had that as an advantage.

Notre Dame

Well it is the city of love?

My host mom, Hortense and some of her friends, and I got up and drove to Rennes at 7 in the morning. We got on the bus and had a 6 hour ride to Paris. We got into Paris at one in the afternoon. We had about 5 or 6 hours to do our own thing before the concert started so my host mom and I decided to walk from the spot the bus dropped us off to whatever was closest. We walked to the Seine River, onto "bridge 9", the oldest bridge in Paris, then on a path along the river when we walked up the path and back onto the road I saw the Notre Dame Cathedral right in front of me. That was so cool there were so many different languages being spoken there, there were people taking pictures in dog suits, and a huge line of people wanting to go in. I skipped going inside because of the huge line but it was very pretty.

Host mom and Starbucks

When we crossed the Seine the second time we went on a bridge filled with locks. I have seen pictures of this bridge before with people getting married on it but I never understood what the locks represented but when you look closer at the locks they all say names of couples. Next we went to the museum of modern art where many people were just sitting as if it was a park and not cement. People were playing music all over and others were painting. After we walked up a road and there it was STARBUCKS! :) I have not had Starbucks since before I left and I was craving it! I ended up indulging though it was okay because that night for supper all I ate were some cookies, at 2 in the morning on the bus. Anyways, after Starbucks we walked through a very nice area of Paris, went into a famous tea shop which smelled so good and then went shopping and yes I did buy two little things for myself. Then it was time to go to the concert. We went to a club where a whole bunch of kids were standing around waiting to go in. While we were standing around my host mom pointed to a sign and said gay club. Yes I was in a gay, UNDEGROUND, night club but that night all the gays were somewhere else since this was kind of a kids concert. The music was usually good and there was some bands that I liked that played some cool "African" music. The band from Rennes was good too actually they were so good they came back with a second place! We ended up not getting back on the bus until midnight and when I finally got in my bed it was 7 in the morning. I slept until 11 am and then got up for the weekend.
Well this night was definatly a night for the record books, I saw Paris for the first time and then ended up going to a gay, underground, night club to watch a band from Rennes sing. How many people can say that they were in a gay night club in Paris?! Haha. Anyways, I am going back to Paris atleast two more times so it did not really matter that I did not get to the Effile Tour or the Louvre because I will be getting to everything else later this year.



Yes those are all locks.

This reminded me so much of my trip to New York.



On "pont neuf" - oldest bridge in Paris

I think I say this every month but wow. It has almost been 3 months. In school we are changing from Handball to Running, I have already had 1/4 breaks from school. I have gone through the honeymoon stage and the homesickness and the angry over stupid random differences stages and now its on to normal life.
In just three months I have made so many amazing friends.
First off, Sarah: www.sarahindinan.blogspot.com . <- That is her blog! She is the other exchange student with Rotary in Dinan. We go to the same school, she is from Canada and she is literally one of the only people in my school who speaks English, other than the English teacher. She is soo awesome. We have fallen in love with the coffee machine at our school. We both don't understand why the guy at the door is screaming and hope everyday to just get by him without any problems. She is one of the only people who I can vent to properly. ( It is so hard to try and vent in a different language) I am also super jealous of her creativeness. Just read her blog, she does an amazing job at writing very creatively!
Next is a friend I have made in my class. Her name is Maiwenn. She has helped me so so much through out the year so far! She would remind/tell me about things that I did not catch the teacher say. At the beginning she really slowed down her speaking and if I still did not understand she explained it to me as best as she could. That is probably one of the most important/helpful things as an exchange student is to have someone who will slow down, explain, motion, ect. to get you to understand. A person who will spend time helping you to improve, whether it is writing the word on your notebook for you or repeating the same word over and over to try and improve your French R's which are soo difficult but I am starting to get them! Maiwenn made: "Le crayon de Boris est dans le trouse." to work on my R's. Haha :) Anyways she is really awesome.
Okay this list could really go on a while but I am going to stop with number 3: Brogan. Brogan is another RYE student who actually lives a few hours away from me but he is really awesome and we talk a lot of Facebook and whenever we are around each other at Rotary events. He is one of those people who are so fun to be around and can pretty much be friends with anyone and everyone. He is pretty much the definition of an exchange student. Oh and he also has the cutest Quebec/France accent ever. Yes he is from Canada too.
Weird that the girl from the U.P. would naturally have two really good friends that are Canadian!
Yah I really need to stop myself now because I could go on about Faith, Manon, Naz, and a lot of people from school and rotary and yah.
3 months also means I should be understanding pretty much everything. I love looking back even one month. I think back and see no progress but then I think about it a little more and I DO see the progress. The little random things I learn every day help so much.
Another thing I have learned is how slow and progressive language learning is. I always heard stories of people randomly freaking out because they realised they are thinking in a different language or had a dream in another language. I always thought it was like one day you started thinking everything in a different language or one day you went from dreaming all English to all French. Though it is not like that at all. I have had dreams that have been in Chinese, English, French, and even Franglais. I also think in French and English, the language I think in depends a lot on who I am around. When you are on exchange everything is just "mixed up". Your brain does not know what to think. For the first few weeks you feel so stupid because your vocabulary has had to be severly cut in both languages to make yourself understood. You zone out a lot because you are so tired and can not focus another second of the language being spoken. For the first few weeks all my dreams were me at home now they are me on exchange/me at home, after exchange.
Anyways I do really like it here and I can already tell there will be reverse culture shock when I go home. Going back to kissing people on the cheeks as a foreign thing that you would rarely/never do to the way toilets work, to speaking English all the time. I think the little things will catch me off gaurd the most though. The things I don't even think about being foreign or different anymore. The things I have forgotten about will be the strangest because I was not prepared for it. Though it must also be weird for my parents when I do go home. I mean when I come back I speak a whole new language, have met people from multiple countries, have traveled on my own, who eats a different way, ect.
Though I should not be thinking about that yet right?! I still have 8 months here! Which I am sooo happy about. If I was in the short term program I would be leaving so soon and I would not be ready! Though after a year I don't know how many people are ready to go home either.

Random things I have done since the last time.

Warning this is going to be a really random list format of things I have done since last talking.

List:

1. Ate Snail
2. Ate fish eggs
3. Ate some amazing chocolate from an artisan in Dinan
4. Decided to start running since I don't get the chance to play sports as often here
5. Took a beautiful run on the border of the Rance river. <-- What is the better word for border?
6. Get graded in gym class. It works so much different here. You actually have to be good!
7. Made Nutella cookies! Yumm. 4 ingredients. So simple.
8. Mailed a letter home.

Okay now that is not a lot of stuff but I have been really busy with school. Though I look back at that list and it reminds me how normal life has become here, which is what is suppose to happen. So that is good.

My French is continously improving! Grammer is starting to come to me, I think. Grammer can be really hard and difficult and I choose not to practice it because it is boring.

I got grades back and I actually had a 13/20 in French which is like super good. I think that it is probably down now. I don't think my teacher knew my host dad read through it and fixed the big mistakes the first time. The second time it had to be handed in in class so of course its not going to be as good. :/

Also I thought I was over the phase of sleeping all the time because of language but lately I don't think I am. I am tired a lot. That is okay though because it means I am working my brain really hard right?

It has been something like 2 months and 20 days in France so far and I finally realised that when they said in 3 months you would be able to understand in speak is true. I mean I still have words that I don't understand but if someone says a phrase I know what they are talking or asking. Also I realised I think I hit the talking and understanding thing at more like 2 of being here but I did not really realize it until now.

Next weekend I am going to Paris! I am only going for one day but I am for sure going to bring my camera and update my blog. Now I won't have a lot of free time to see things so I might not even make it to the bigger more famous things but if I don't I will definatly be back in Paris in Febuary for a longer time.

I am also going to an island called Jersey for one day near Christmas for Christmas shopping! Also it is an English speaking Island so that means I will get a day of speaking English in all the shops! After having 3 months of going to stores/buildings and thinking about what you want to say or do ahead of time it will be a nice change. Though there is something that is a confidence builder when you walk into a building to ask questions or buy something in a different language with 0 problems. Yes I have done that many times. I think my next big confidence builder will be trying out public transportation since I am kind of scared of it. Like what if I miss my bus or train? I would have to figure it all out by myself in a foreign land. Something about that seems so awesome and so frightening at the same time.

Normandy, WWII

"A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon" - Napoleon Bonaparte

 D-Day, Normandy beach, WWII. We all have studied it in our history classes in High School but D-Day has a completely new meaning after being on and around the beach the soldiers stormed.

Imagine having to climb that huge hill.

The soldiers were true heros. Standing on Omaha beach looking up the hill where 67 years ago stood the German soldiers brought a whole new meaning. For one the hill was so steep that Sarah and I got tired just from walking up the hill on a paved path. The Germans had such a large advantage over the French, Americans, Canadians, and British that I think the first soldiers to get out of the boats must have known they were going to die. It was amazing to think at how brave these men must have been.

The American cemetary

The cemetary where the Americans lie today is so beautiful and peaceful. The white crosses and the silence remind us of actually how many Americans lost their life that day. You could feel the weight of that day. The soldiers rest on American soil. The land that the cemetary is on is considered the USA. (so techinically I was in the U.S. for a while!)

Crosses that went on seemingly forever.

After this cemetary we went to another beautiful cemetary for the Canadian soldiers who lost their lives. I liked the crosses here better, they told the age of the soldier and even had a quote or saying ingraved that the family of the soldier had wanted on the grave. It reminded you that it was not just the soldier affected, it was their kids, their wives, everyone around them. You could see how much each and every soldier was missed after they were gone, you could see the sadness.

Canadian Cemetary

After the two cemetarys we went to a museum at Caen. We ate our lunch outside the museum. We had sandwiches and crackers that are a specialty of Bretagne. The museum was very interesting. I liked seeing the perspective of the war from a different countries view. I also learned a bit more that I did not know from my History class. I find that history is taught in the states as much more of this is what the US did for the war, not this was the war. Anyways I learned about how we, meaning Canada, US, France, and Britain bombed all the major French cities on D-Day after Britain was bombed by the Germans. The cities that were bombed, including the city I was in Caen were complete recks after. Buildings were toppled and burning.

American Flag!

The crosses went on forever it seemed.

This is at the top of the hill looking out over the water

Walking down to the beach

Almost there!

There!

Museum in Caen

On the bottom it says "He gave his life so we might live"

Host Dad- Thanks for bringing us!

The day was so nice and Sarah and I were both very tired after the day. We did not get home until pretty late and I went to bed so after I got home. Thank you Mr. Berthoux for taking Sarah and I on this wonderful adventure, we both appreciated it!