La Semaine Lente

Nothing very exciting happened this week. However that is not necessarily a bad thing at all. It was very relaxing and yet also productive in all the ways this experience should be! I'll go ahead and just give you a play by play on how this past week went down.
Monday I went to this very large and very popular shopping mall called Alma with Eliza and Alyssa. Before we took the metro to Alma, we ate lunch at this little creperie in downtown Rennes. The crepes were amazing. I had a salmon crepe then a caramel crepe because Bretagne is known for those so I had to! After that I had a cafe au lait which was the beginning of my new found love for coffee. I still drink tea at home though.
Tuesday morning I wrote, studied some vocab and hung out with my older host sister, Ombeline, while she did her homework. Which she did almost everyday for at least an hour! She's studying to be a lawyer so I guess that makes sense. She also told me, in detail, all about the french school system and how they have to take English (or any other language) up until at least the second year in college on top of all your other classes. It was very nice being able to have a long conversation about something. I'm at the point where I can understand almost everything, but only of certain topics. School and small talk are more on the easy side but topics like politics or analyzing art in depth are things I still get a little lost on. Still have 62 days to work on those!
Then that evening I went out with Faustine and her friends and didn't go home until around 11:45, it was just about eight of us just talking, laughing, and eating kebab pizza. Faustine's friends are so nice to me! They talked to me all night in English but I had to talk to them in French! It was fun helping them out while they were helping me out at the same time. One girl asked me if I would rather go back to Colorado or to stay and live here in France. I immediately started thinking about the deep things such as not being with my friends and family and Pim, of course. Then, before I answered, I quickly thought about what it would mean to MY life. Stay with me here; I am one of those people who move to a place where I know no one and can make friends and be really very happy and content. However (you knew this was coming) I've found I've never been happier than when I'm with people who love me and really know who I am. I'm really good at the loving other people part, but the other people really loving me and want to be a part of my life part (especially friends) is something that I don't find very often but is something I have in Colorado. Don't get me wrong. I am in no rush to get back home. My life in France is just how I want it to be and I wouldn't trade this semester for anything. But my whole life? I just don't think that's my path for the long haul. But right now I don't feel out of place at all. Wow, that was a lot of rambling, but now you see how fast my mind rambles on all the time. Anyways, I gave the short answer being that I wouldn't want to be so far from my friends and family for too long and that I like driving and I like my highschool too much. That question really did get me thinking of the pros and cons to both scenarios.
Back on to the rest of my week; After a really fun Tuesday night I woke up and cooked myself some BAE (bacon and eggs), which is worth mentioning because it was the first time since my first week here that I made just myself something hot for breakfast. I'm going to be an adult soon so I better start acting like one. Or at least pretend to act like one in the eyes of others. And to continue the streak of doing adult like things, I made my family corn dogs for lunch! They all thought they were bizarre but they also thought that they were good regardless. The corn dogs weren't the best but I'm happy with how they turned out. They were really easy and fun to make too! Ombeline helped me make them so that added to fun. The rest of the day consisted of doing work and hanging out around the house.
Thursday I finally got out of Fouillard for the first time since Monday. I took my usual bus 50 into Rennes before lunch to take myself on a little shopping/lunch date. It was great feeling so independent! And shopping by myself was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I had to find a dress for a wedding next weekend and in the second boutique I went into I found one! I also found about four other things I really wanted but I thought against it seeing that the cheapest item I wanted (besides the dress) was about fifty euros. So the shopping part of my date ended short, but also just in time for lunch. I got some cafe au lait and a small baguette sandwich to go. I walked around while my coffee cooled down a bit and found this gorgeous spot with flowers and a little field with benches next to what looked like a wall of a castle that once stood there which had huge lavender colored flowers hanging down from the top of the wall that looked like it could be a scene in a movie. After I ate and drank I wandered around unfamiliar parts of downtown and almost bought a ukulele and a few vinyls when I realized I have no idea how to bring those items safely back with me to Colorado or even fit them in my bag. When I got home the house was empty because my family went to the dentist. Then, after they got back home, we watched TV for a while and ate dinner.
Friday came too quickly. I spent most of it finishing this presentation for school and realizing I only had two more days to sleep in didn't make me very pleased. Typing this now, realizing I have to wake up early and walk to the bus in the cold makes not very pleased again. But that was prom night for Vista so that made me happy seeing my twin sister all dressed up and looking like a glamorous celebrity. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty bummed I couldn't go but I still have next year and hey, it's a small price to pay to be living in France.
Yesterday I tried a new food! Pig intestine. Wasn't a huge fan to say the least but at least I had the guts to try it (pun intended). That evening I hung out with Faustine's crew again for a while. I was a little lost at times but I'm seeing myself improve so much in my listening makes me feel not as bad when I don't catch a sentence or two.
Today I ate crepes for breakfast while having a fun conversation with Natalie about the dream I had last night which was her coming to Colorado, meeting all my friends and shopping with me. She told me she's only been on a plane once in her life and would be too scared to go to America because her English isn't good. I assured her that I would be her translator like I was in my dream, It's wired to dream in French! You can't escape having new experiences even in your sleep! I also went on a run after lunch that day. Ombeline left for college and now I'm just keeping myself busy until I have to go to bed. My class starts at 10:20 tomorrow so it will be nice to start the week off a little more refreshed! I'm not particularly excited to go back to school. I'm going to miss the late nights watching movies with my host parents and Ombeline and I'm going to miss sleeping in and not worrying about what time I have to wake up in the morning, but for the next three weeks I have at least one day off in each of them and school is also the place where my french grows the most so there is an upside to most everything.

La Meilleur Semaine

I am surprised at how amazing this past week has gone for me. If you do not want to become totally jealous of my exchange experience I would skip reading this blog because I really don't have a bad thing to say about the past seven days! 

Monday was a more relaxed day. Not much happened besides my host family noticing that my portions of food were smaller, and all of them thinking I was crazy for thinking I was fat and reassured me that I was not fat and to just not care because I was in France! After lunch I went shopping with Natalie and Ombeline. I didn't buy anything but Ombeline did buy a about ten candles and Natalie bought a very cute purse.

Tuesday was a much more interesting day! I made my whole family an American breakfast consisting of chocolate chip (and a few plain) pancakes, hash browns (which they had never seen before), bacon and a large bowl of various kinds of cut up fruit. They all liked it a lot and said I have to make them pancakes every day from now on. I'm really glad I could do something for them that also helped myself by making me get a little out of my comfort zone. I'm not very confident in my cooking and tend to burn things a little, like I did with the pancakes. Even though I was nervous I knew that my family would smile and say it was all very tasty. Except maybe Maxent, my younger host brother, who didn't want to try the hash browns because he thought that they looked to strange even though I assured him that they were just potatoes. I didn't get offended because to someone who has never seen hash browns, I can see why they would be a little hesitant to try them. Eating American food with my host family was defiantly a new experience that further revealed the differences of the food culture between our countries. They weren’t exactly sure how to eat the pancakes, they asked me if they put jam and eat it like a crepe, they also tried to cut up the crispy bacon with a fork and knife to which the fork couldn’t stab the bacon properly because I had made it more on the crispy side, but I very nicely showed them how it is done back in The States. Maxent, despite my little lesson, covered his pancake in butter and ate it with his hands. He said it tasted good though so that made me happy. This was also the first breakfast that the whole family sat down and ate together for. It’s a very important thing in France for the whole family to have a sit down meal for lunch and dinner, but I have to say I have missed having the whole family in their PJs eating together. I think it’s a great way to start off the day and I’m glad that I could show them that part of my culture. The rest of Tuesday, my whole family was out and Faustine had her girlfriend over and another friend and they made cookies then invited me to play some interesting card games with them. I actually understood the last game we played and  I even won a few of the rounds! I felt very accomplished. Then after they left it was just Faustine and I, so we made dinner and ate it outside and hung out and talked and then went inside and watched Spy Kids until the rest of the family got home.

Wednesday was a day I don’t think I’ll ever forget. At least I am really hoping that I don’t. It started off me taking my normal bus to Republique to meet my Canadian friend, Alyssa. I’m really glad I got to spend the day with her. She’s great company as well as a great friend now. We started walking to the train station and picked up a baguette sandwich on the way. Then we figured out how to get our tickets to Saint Malo! Which is the beautiful, walled city right on the coast. The train ride was about forty five minutes long and we arrived in St. Malo at around 1:30. The weather was the hottest it has been in the past three months at a wonderful 76 degrees Fahrenheit with hardly any clouds. Being able to wear shorts and a tank top again almost filled my eyes with tears of joy. It was a little windy though, but hey, you can’t have it all. (Kidding, the wind was more of a nice breeze). While there, we went shopping for souvenirs, walked around everywhere and took a lot of pictures, ate macaroons on the beach and had the most amazing ice cream I have ever consumed in my life. It wasn’t as crowded as I thought it would be so that was another very big plus to the whole experience of the day. However, we had to practically sprint to make our train because we got a little lost. Never fear, we made it with a few minutes to spare! By the time I got home my legs were really sore, but it was so worth it. I slept really well that night.

Thursday I worked out, wrote a lot and hung out with Natalie and Faustine until lunch. After lunch the whole family (except Ombeline who went left for Paris on Wednesday) went to an enormous ‘lake’. I use the quotes because it was so empty it was more of just a monstrous hole in the ground. It reminded me of the Grand Canyon only on a much, much smaller scale. After that we went to Vennes (at least I think that’s where we were) and walked around, ate beignets and visited an old, dark, yet very beautiful and historic church. We also walked around a smaller castle. The west wall was broken down so we couldn’t go inside. It kind of made me sad seeing such a historic thing all crumpled. At least it was just that one side though. I slept a lot on the car ride home. I was very tired from my last two, very long days. But I had another thing coming to me if I thought that those days were long.

Friday I woke up a little later than usual and missed breakfast but I only had to wait a little over an hour for lunch. Which was the first meal (besides breakfast) eaten inside all week because the weather wasn’t up to par for outside eating. After lunch I went to Faustine’s grandparents’ house with her and there we organized medication and pulled weeds from the yard for about two hours. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there wasn’t this one type of weed that would shoot seeds everywhere when you touched it. It scared me and Faustine so many times. It was not fun. After that we went to Faustines friend’s house that had just come home from the hospital and hung out and talked with him for a while. He had something happen to his leg. But he was in good spirits and moving around with crutches and he said he should get better soon. Then after that we went home and got ready for Faustines Aunt’s 50^th birthday party! She’s Stephan’s sister and everyone from Stephan’s side of the family is so nice so I was more excited than nervous.  We were some of the first people to arrive and within the next twenty minutes the house was full and I kissed everyone on the cheek who walked in and I tried talked in French as much as I could but meeting all those new people so fast made me feel very overwhelmed. Faustine saw me saw how nervous I was and kept giving me a much needed reassuring smile. After everyone arrived we went in a tent in the backyard and ate a whole bunch of yummy French snacks and drank a whole bunch of cider and champagne. I also went outside with Faustine and her cousins when they would take their (frequent) smoke breaks. It’s just an interesting culture difference how not a big deal smoking is. When it came to be about 10:30 when dinner was finally served which was galette saucisse (a galette wrapped around a sausage). It is very popular here in Bretagne because also originated here. Or so I hear. Anyways it was very good except the first one I ate had very spicy mustard that made my eyes water and my nose feel as though I just snorted spice. The cake was served at midnight. But the birthday cakes here are not like they are in America. Her cake was basically just very large apple tart. They even sang “Happy Birthday” in English after singing it in French and the a few flags and things of that sort were in English which I found interesting. Then for the next two hours we danced and played games. I helped my team by being able to name the song “Thriller” the fastest, but it was hard for them to understand it because of my accent. I was quite proud of myself because it took every other team a while to figure it out but I knew as soon as the door was half way through its creaking. I couldn’t participate very well in the other games but people talked to me and made me feel included. We left at 2:00 a.m. which I was told by Faustine before the party that that would be the approximate time that we would be leaving but I honestly thought that she was joking because it was an adult party and I thought adults became tired but 11:00 at the latest! The French really do know how to throw a good party though. It was so much fun and it went by really fast. We were some of the first to leave though so I’m guessing some people stayed an hour or so after we left.

Saturday the whole family slept in pretty late to eat breakfast. After breakfast I went to Republique to eat lunch and hang out with Alyssa again. We ate Kebab which is really, very popular here in France and also really, very good. That night I watched a movie with my host parents and Ombeline and I actually understood a good amount of it and I was able to laugh at some of the jokes! Then Sunday was a much needed lazy day. After a late breakfast followed by a late lunch, I went for a run, hung out, read and watched a funny French movie about a popular French cartoon before I went to bed.

I feel so at ease, happy, grateful and excited for myself about this past week. In addition to talking more with my host family I’ve been studying more French verbs and vocab on my own. Thanks to this past week I’m not as nervous about facing the final 70-ish days of my program. Having had gone through the some tough things in the past 100-ish days has given me a new found confidence to face what might be coming at me in my next few years with many new challenges that I am sure will be thrown at me. It’s more clear than ever that on an exchange you learn so much more than just a new language.

The Week Before Les Vacances

This week started off normal. Monday I went on a long walk with my host dad and the family dog. After the walk I met up with Faustine and some of her friends, who were really nice. I hope I see them again. Faustine has a lot of friends, so I feel like every other week I hang out with a new group of people! Also, a few weeks ago she made friends with someone who goes to our school, yet I've never seen her before. I met her on Thursday for a brief moment. I'm surprisingly not making a lot of friends through Faustine, though. I'm making most of my friends in my class and then with a few other exchange kids.

Yesterday, I grabbed lunch with my friend Joel from Finland and then went shopping for a few hours. I'm very happy with my buys. I'm still on the hunt for summer shoes and a sundress. I hope these will be easier to find now the weather is warming up. Have I talked about spring in Rennes yet? It's so beautiful. There are those pink japanese trees and tulips everywhere. Another very noticeable thing about spring is the large amount of bugs. They are buzzing around everywhere. I actually love the sound of them buzzing around and how they make nature look more alive, but I'm a little over that happy feeling as soon as they get in my hair or face while I'm on a run or walking home. Overall it is so cool to experience seasons like this. The weather (with the exception of Saturday) has been so warm and sunny! I feel as though it's making everyone more joyful.

Now to the part where I tell you how my streak of normal, uneventful weeks has been broken. This week one big thing happened that made me realize two very big things. I'll tell you what happened before I explain those two things. Wednesday, I was called into my local coordinator's (LC) office with my friend whose French is better than mine, but not by much. I thought that it would just be a three month check in type thing, but I was very wrong. It turned out to be quite a meeting for me. My friend was there to translate because my LC thought my French was so bad that I wouldn't be able to understand him. He was wrong. However, he just assumed that my French skills were the same as they were a month ago when I last talked to him. The meeting was just him angrily yelling at me because my grades are not good and my host family thought I was not spending enough time with them. I'm glad these things were brought to my attention, but I'm just confused as to why my host family didn't tell me any of this directly.

Based on my LC's “speech”, I came home from school that day thinking that my host family hated me. When I talked to my host mom about it she wasn't angry at me at all! She just wants me to get the most out of my experience and she felt as though I could do more things to be more apart of the family and also improve my French. Since Wednesday I've stayed away from my room (where I used to hang out before and after meals). Spending this time visiting with my host family has made a world of a difference. I've said it before and I'll probably say it a million times again. I'm very lucky to have an extremely open and nonjudgmental family.

Okay, now on to the two things I've realized: There are signs all over in my school in the classrooms and surrounding areas saying not to yell at other students and to be respectful to one another. However, I find it annoying how teachers are allowed to yell at students all day without hesitating or taking a second to sympathise or hear the student’s side of the story. Students can't try to defend themselves because that is considered talking back. I've lost count of how many students have been excused from class for simply trying to explain to the teacher why they were talking. I just hate how they teach us the exact opposite of what they do on a daily bases. It's probably a good thing that I can't talk back very well because I would tell the teachers that snaps at me a little of how I feel about how they act verses what they teach. I have a fun time imagining those conversations in my head.

THING TWO that I learned is that I really don't care what my LC thinks of me, in fact I don't really care what any of my unsympathetic teachers think of me. I'm learning more and more that I don't care about people’s opinions about me (with a few exceptions). However, I also like to be able to think that, for me, I did my best.  My LC made my day so much worse than it had to be. He could've told me in a better way what was going on. I'm sad to say that I don't look up to most teachers here. It's not because they are strict, but how they are strict. Some of my favorite teachers back in Colorado were some of the strictest too.

After I realized that I don't want to be like certain people, why would I look up to them? I feel like teachers should be people that their students look up to. So, my plan is to just do my own thing without getting in trouble. I want to so badly write a letter on how I feel about their whole system, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't listen to a snooty, American teenager. There are a few teachers and counselors that are extremely nice and caring. So at least the students at my school have someone to go to.

Anyway, I’m moving forward from the drama of all that and will just do my best to better my experience. My vacation just started, so I'm very thankful that I don't have to worry about school for the next two weeks and I can just spend time with my family and better my relationship with them. So far all I have planned for this vacation is going to St. Malo and maybe St. Michel! Also I'm planning to cook my family breakfast and dinner or lunch so I will let you know how that goes! 

No April Fool's Joke!

Easter Monday is upon us! That means that all of France has work or school off and everyone gets to sleep in till 10:30. Okay, maybe not as late as I did but you get the point. I'll start off my talking about my week though. Monday was a normal day besides the season finale of the Walking Dead! That was really exciting for me. I've rewatched it about four times throughout the week on my computer. Also last weekend the clock moved an hour forward so now the sun is out until around 8:30 p.m. but it doesn't rise until about 7:20 so that means that Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to walk to my bus alone in the dark. At least my flashlight is going to good use! Another thing that is thankfully not going to good use is my lunch card (in a way). I still eat lunch but I've been really good about not getting bread, a baguette sandwich or sugary dessert, so I am proud of myself for that. Also, on Tuesday, We started watching the play, Dom Juan, which is quite difficult to understand, it might be the old-timey French way of talking or just that they are practically shouting the whole time. I'm not positive but I feel happy when I do understand even one sentence of dialogue. Wednesday was a particularly good day! It was April first, the exact halfway mark of my program (86 days down and 86 more to go!) and also I kept seeing little paper fish on the floor because instead of April Fool's, they will tape little fish to your back. I didn't get any taped to me as far as I know. In my MPS class we just listened to presentations on how milk or yogurt is made and a lot of students made their presentations at least somewhat interesting, and sometimes funny, to listen to. Then, in my art class, we started working on a new project. Embarrassingly, I'm still not sure as to what we're working on but we just watched Youtube videos the whole time and talked to this new kid from Brazil, so it was a good class to me. I forget how to spell his name but it is pronounced like Johaa and he's sixteen. His french is already pretty good but he's also in France to play soccer with some team in Rennes. We take the same bus to Republique after school, where I catch my other bus and he catches his train so I got to chat with him for a little longer about Brazil and everything. Once I finally got home I ate lunch with Natalie and Maxent for the first Wednesday in weeks. Then went for a really long run on this new route that's really pretty. I don't even need to run with music because it is just so peaceful and has a lot of trees and open fields. I know this is now going to be one thing in which I'm really going to miss. I'm glad I got a good run in before the next four days happened...
Thursday is just automatically the hardest day because it's my longest day at school. My math teacher wasn't there in the morning which means that if I had known that she wouldn't have been there, I could have slept for another hour but instead I had to sit in Perm (permanence is the room which is where students go during their off periods to work). My Geographical History teacher did let us out an hour early from school so that was a pick-me-up. However, when I got home I got hit with a really awful headache. You know the kind that feels like a knife in the side of your head? It thankfully went away in time so that I could still get a reasonable amount of sleep. Friday had another good thing happen! Our EPS teacher was gone (which is P.E.) so we didn't have to go to swimming for the fourth week in a row, so I just sat in Perm for that two hours, I had some friends from another class there so I hung out with them. Also, Friday was bol de riz day and eventhough I was on a good healthy-eating streak, I wasn't feeling like eating a bowl of rice. I'm not really sure why but you had to get a special ticket to be able to go to the other cafeteria (called Fast). Which is what me and my friends had. I was a little moody to be honest. It was just one of those days where I would have rathered been curled up with a good book and not have to pretend like I was interested in all these details about the different rowing clubs and the different kinds of boats and everything that goes along with that. Sorry, but come on, we've all been in one of those situations. I'm just being real here. This was all before lunch, too!! After lunch I had physique, maths and Francais. I had a big test in physiques, but had absolutely no idea what was going on. On the maths test, however, I feel as though I could've maybe scored a passing grade! Go vecteurs! Then I got home that night, hung out, ate a yummy dinner and went to Faustine's friends orchestra concert when it hit me. I got an awful stomach ache and knew I had to go home. The place was only about an eight minute walk from my house so I told Faustine and I walked home alone. That was not a fun walk to say the least. That whole night was not fun... to say the least. Saturday, I mainly spent just sleeping and skyping my friends and family. It's very hard being really sick when you don't have your mom to help you. My family did make me a sick-friendly dinner on Saturday. That made me feel really a lot better just knowing that they did that just for me even though I could only eat a few bites. This is yet just another way I'm learning independence in a way I didn't know I was going to.
Yesterday was Easter Sunday, I went to the local church with my host dad and Faustine. The church is 108 years old. From looking at it from the outside, it's age wouldn't surprise you. The inside of the cross-shaped church is a whole different story. It was all smooth with white stone, very clean, very heavenly looking. I wonder if anything is original on the inside. The stained-glass windows seemed a little too clean and polished to be original. I wish I was able to take pictures. I will try to do that sometime in the next three months. Easter wasn't a big ordeal like it is in the churches in America though. It seamed as though most of the people arrived on time and just left right when service was over. Not much staying to mingle from what I could tell. We did get chocolate eggs with a princess inside and some family from Natalies side came to visit (normal occurrence), co besides church and the chocolate eggs, it was normal Sunday. I Skyped  my twin sister for sometime that night. Her and two of my really close friends (one who lives in California) are who I talk to the most. It's still hard not hearing from some people when you thought and/or when they said they would but that's just another thing that I have to get used to as an exchange student. A lot of people say they would email me at least once a month and when that doesn't even happen it just a way of telling how much someone wants to be apart of your life. It's hard and it's not fun to realize that but what I've been telling myself when things are exactly going my way is," I'm not in heaven yet." Assuming that I'm even on the list to go to heaven in the first place. Overall it was a good week because I'm improving on my French so much and Faustine just keeps showing me over and over again how great of a host sister she is. I'm very lucky to have been placed in this city and host family!
Funny thing just happened. I'm sitting in my living room and the family just walked in, looked at itself in the reflection of the black glass door thing for the T.V. table for about ten seconds, then kind of whimpered and walked away... I hope that dogs can't have self-image issues.. that would make me really sad but I think she just got confused. She's a strange little creature but such a snuggle-bug you can't help but love her. Also I just noticed that my family has the newest True Grit movie. Christa, if you are reading this, I thought you would be pleased to know of that little fact.