The End = La Fin

My last week in France was a good one. I had no time to think as I was busy everyday getting ready to leave. I had a mini pool party with my friends and finished up the memory book with Laura for Claire and Michel- which they really liked!

Saturday morning we were supposed to leave at 6am, the bus was late and we left around 7:30am. We got to Paris around 3pm after stopping twice on the way. We had a mini group meeting at the hotel in Paris where we talked about our feelings on leaving/returning. For dinner that night, we went to an AFS house in Paris that had a huge backyard and had a barbeque. We left around midnight and the next morning all the US kids left for the airport at 10am.

The airplane left at 3:30pm Sunday and we got to NYC at 5:30 local time. I found mom and said goodbye to the other AFS kids. For dinner we went to see Michelle (my Alaskan friend who was taking a ballet class in NY) and ate with her and her two roomates.

Monday, mom and I left at 3:30 pm heading to Portland for a layover and then on to Anchorage.
We got to Anchorage around 12:30am and found dad and Anna.

Since I've gotten home, I havent done much. I saw my friends and some of my relatives. The first time I see someone, they ask me 'How was France?' Other AFS kids tell me they get so annoyed by this, I just think its a silly question because most people are satisfied when I say 'It was really great, yeah it was fun' with a smile. I understand why people ask this, becauses they cant really ask anything else until they have details to ask questions about, but if they really wanted an honest answer they would have to sit down on the couch for a week while I told them about it.

Since I'm back in Alaska, my blog has officially come to a close. Thank you for reading my posts throughout the year!

Sincerely, Erin

Les orages = Storm

We just had two weeks of beautiful weather. Then Saturday we had a thunder and lightning storm all night. Today its back to being beautiful but extremely hot. When its warm, its about 90 or 95 degrees.

Last weekend I had my dance performance, which went well.

Last week I went shopping, the summer sales started. I went swimming almost everyday...multiple times to counter the heat. Laura and I have started a memory book for Claire and Michel, so we printed pictures and now we need to put it together by Saturday!

We went to a party Friday night for some friends of Claires who are moving the the Beaujolais region of France.

Yesterday I went to Sophias house in Millery, which is about 45 minutes from Lyon, for a going away party but I had to come home early because today I got up at 5:30 to take my oral exam for the bac de francais at 8:00am. I met Olivia outside the school because she was taking it too, along with other kids from our class. The teacher picked Dom Juan for me, and then I had half an hour to prepare. I read, explained and answered a question about the text, then she had 10 minutes to ask me anything she wanted about the text. I think I did pretty well, she said "c'était une belle réusite" which means I did a good job :)

Tomorrow I invited my friends to spend the day here, swimming, eating, etc.

This week I need to finish everything! (And pack!!)

Silk = La Soie

Im on my second week of summer vacation. The first week I did pretty much nothing! It was rainy and cloudy and I stayed inside and studied for the oral test for the bac de français.

Friday I make two chocolate cakes and some coconut balls for Claires party on Saturday.

Saturday Laura and I went to see L'Agence tous risques (The A-Team) at the movie theater and then came home and said hello to people at Claires party.

Sunday I went to an exposition of a French artist called Ben, he writes phrases in black-and-white, they eventually go on pens, stationary, etc. Its really 'in' with the highschoolers here, but the expo was really boring. It was pretty much the same thing for all three floors, luckily Ingrid felt the same way so we just buzzed through it!

Monday was the written part of the bac de français, it was really long...4 hours...and suprisingly I stayed for all four hours (youre allowed to leave after one hour), longer than any of my friends!

Tuesday morning I went to the marché of La Croix Rousse. La Croix Rousse is famous for two things, being on a hill (a very steep one) and for being a very big area that produced silk a long time ago, now there are just lots of stores that sell silk. The marché was about 10 times bigger than the one in Montchat. It runs down the main street, on one side, clothes and house-hold goods are sold, on the other its veggies, fruits, cheese and meat.

Tuesday night I had a rehearsal for my dance performance this Sunday.

Wednesday I had my last dance class.

Yesterday I went to place bellecour with Sophia to find Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Marie-Pierre had told me she had found some there once. I found it!!! Lots of American products are really hard to find here, I needed it because tonight Im making an American Dinner for Chloé and Ingrid. There is a tv show here called Un Diner Presque Parfait (An Almost Perfect Dinner) and for the show, there are five people who each host a themed dinner and are judged on the atmosphere, food, etc. We decided we were going to do that, so tonights my turn. Im making salad (not too hard), hamburgers (they don't really have buns in France so I made my own) with all the good toppings: lettuce, tomato, pickles, cheese, bacon, ketchup, mustard, onions, etc. with REAL french fries, Claire showed me how to fry them. Then for dessert a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting!

I have 2 weeks left in France and waaay too many things to do!

L'escalade = rock climbing

Tuesday night Eliane and Marie-Pierre took Laura, Victor and I out to dinner. We went to an Italian restaurant where every tuesday you can eat as much pasta as you can.

Thursday was our last French class for the year, at the end the teacher (who speaks 5 languages, but not english) tried to have a conversation with me in english. She told me all the english she knew she had learned from the internet just because I was a student in her class!

We skipped history class and bought smoothies :)

Friday was the very last day of school for me ever at lycée lacassagne! In English we had a debate with the subject being homosexuals, I was surprised to find half the class was really against gays. In chemistry-physics, we actually worked for an hour and a half and then watched a little kids chemistry animation film that explained atoms and molecules, etc. In history we had a 'goiter' (snack time). I made snickerdoodles. Then I went to Italian class with Ingrid and we ate some more :)

Through out the day everyone (teachers and students alike) all kept asking me the same questions, when am I leaving, what am I doing next year, am I excited or sad, etc.

On Saturday I had a 'dance recital', though it was more like 5 people dancing in the street to Thriller :) But fortunately, thats how it was supposed to be. I was the only one from my dance class to go, but Ingrid, her friend, and two women from the adult dance class came too. The point of it all was to ease tension between Villeurbane (an area on the outskirts of Lyon) and the 6th district of Lyon. Villeurbane is a poor area, the 6th district is rich and apparently they have some sort of 'war' going on. So we, along with other stands in the street, bands, etc, were stationed in-between the two areas and danced. Once there was a crowd, we asked people to dance with us, though it was mostly little kids, everyone else was too self conscience.

Right after, Claire picked me up and we headed to l'Ardèche for the last half of the AFS weekend which was being held about 2.5 hours away in a town called Les Vans (south of Lyon). It was fun, I went rock climbing Sunday morning with Sophia, we belayed eachother, trading off between climbing and belaying. The two guides were pretty trusting! Afterwards, we were waiting for the bus to pick us up and take us back to the camp site and decided to wade in a river.

Sunday afternoon, we drove back to Lyon with Ingrid (a girl from Norway) and stopped at a store called The Palace of Candy and Nougat in Montélimar! Apparently Montélimar is THE town in France for buying nougat.

Today is Monday and I am on summer vacation! I already tried studying for the back de Francais...but its so hard! I am currently trying to figure out Le Pouvoir des Fables de La Fontaine. Ill get there eventually...

Pictures

1) Cloud with golden lining taken from a moving car!

2) River where we waded after rock climbing

la dernière semaine = the last week

Last Saturday I made pavlova with Ingrid from a recipe Claire left for us before she went back to Australia.

Sunday was Mother's Day in France. We had a big lunch with both Claire and Michels Mom, Michels Dad, and Michels niece and her husband and three kids. We ate very 'typical' food according to Claire, steamed, cold asparagus with a sauce, goat meat, very small potatoes fried on top of the stove, cheese, and chocolate cake!

That afternoon I started to work on my French bac, Claire explained the text, Le Héron (a type of bird, same word in English), to me.

Monday, our French teacher gave us a DM for Friday so I worked on that, I just got it back today and she gave me a 14/20!!!! Which is a realllllllly good note! :) But I did work on it for at least 5 hours!

Last week was sort of a strange week, for some reason, there were lots of teachers absent. On Thursday I had only 2 hours of class whereas I normally have 7 1/2.

Friday I invited Ingrid and Chloé to eat dinner at the house because Claire, Michel and Victor were all going out. We ate croque monsieurs à l'ananas, which is a type of grilled sandwich made with industrial bread, grated cheese, ham, and in this case pineapple.

Saturday four of the youngest cousins came over to plan a song and choreography for Fannys wedding (one of the oldest cousins, who is getting married the day Laura and I leave Lyon). We went swimming in the afternoon, I was in shorts and a tanktop next to the pool when Remy did a cannon ball right next to me so I was soaking, so I went swimming in my cloths :). We ate crêpes for dinner and then went swimming again at 11pm.

Sunday, Claire and I made Clafoutis aux Ceries which is a type of baked dessert that turns out sort of like a giant, puffy crêpe with cherries.

Today was my last Monday ever at Lycée Lacassange! Tonight is our conseille de classe which is a meeting between the principal, all our teachers and two delegates from our class to talk about everything thats happened during the third trimester (grades, behavior, etc). After the conseille de class, no grades can be changed. Lots of times, students don't even go to school for the last four days because the teachers cant do anything about it. My friends, however, are good students (unfortunately :) ) so I will be going to school with them for the rest of the week, except maybe EuroAnglais which is tomorrow from 8-9 am and a very useless class, all we do is watch movies in English about outerspace, and Im sure no one will be going.

This afternoon I bought bread at the boulangerie (bread store) and then was really hot from walking so I went swimming!

This weekend is the last AFS weekend in Ardèche, but I will only be going to it for the last half because I have a dance performance Saturday afternoon, we are going to be dancing to Thriller by Michael Jackson, so I need to find a 'death' costume to wear.

La campagne = The country (side)

Last week on Wednesday Claire had to work late so Michel made dinner...we ate salad, shrimp, cheese, and strawberries :)

Thursday I was sick, so I didn't go to school. Michel made dinner again, we ate radishes, asparagus, and a salad of cartilage from a calf's foot...

Friday I got my history test back, I got 8,5/20! And for the SVT bac blanc that I took a while ago, I got 4,5/20 and the teacher wrote on my paper that I wrote my essay like a child!

Saturday morning I went to the country side with Ingrid, her mom and Chloé. Ingrid and her family have a house in Propières. We hung out around their house and walked around a little bit. It was really sunny and warm. We came back Sunday afternoon.

Monday was a holiday for lundi de Pentecôte, which is a religious event. I helped Claire cook and I wrote down all the recipes :) Victor went into the hospital for heart surgery in the afternoon. It wasnt critical, from what I understood, he has always had a problem, there were one too many electrical connections on his heart and if you excercice too much, your heart can beat too fast which can be dangerous. So, they detached an electrical connection and now he should be fine, he came home yesterday afternoon.

All weekend it was warm for the first time in a while, it was really sunny. Tuesday I went to school in shorts and a tank top all day, and I was still too hot.

Yesterday I got 20/20 in gym class for running and afterwards, Ingrid and I went to the Part Dieu.

I put up a picture of cherry trees when they were blooming earlier this spring, I think I may have even said that we have cherry trees. While I knew that, I didnt even think they would actually produce cherries because not many trees produce fruit in Alaska. The other day Michel told me I could pick cherries if I wanted to, so I went and looked and there are actually cherries!! Its so cool! Yesterday afternoon I picked a bowl full of cherries and ate them :)

Today I finished school at 12:30 when I normally finish at 6pm because some of my teachers are absent, and we switched things around a little bit to be able to go to a presentation about a university. It was really boring, they spend half the time telling us there werent enough girls at the school and not focusing on what the school actually offered...I still dont know. I have noticed (we have gone to presentations like this before) that lots of universities here in France offer study abroad programs, and they really push them on students, lots of times they are mandatory.

Pictures:

1), 2), 3): The country side near Ingrids house

4) Me in a cow pasture

5) Ingrid and I in a cow pasture

Huit Semaines = Eight Weeks

Last Saturday Laura and I met Annie and saw Iron Man 2, and then went to a restaurant called La Rue des Pâtes (The Road of Pasta/ Pasta Street). We ate pasta and drank wine, which I thought was very different from the US, and its even illegal for me right now in France because the age was changed recently from 16 years old to 18 years old, but all the restaurants and stores dont care, or check.

Sunday I went bike riding with Ingrid. Not even 10 minutes into it, I broke the chain on the bike. Since Michel is really into biking and loves his bikes, I was scared to tell him I broke his bike! But luckily it was the cheapest bike he has, and he didnt care :)

Sunday afternoon it rained, and we wanted to go to the movies. We were going to see Greenberg, but we got there too late and the theater was full.

Monday my class had a fieldtrip for SVT. We went to the Beaujolais region and looked at rocks. It was really boring. But it was sunny for the first time in several weeks. Two minutes before we got in the bus to drive home, it started pouring. We were outside for two minutes in the rain, everyone who didnt have an umbrella got completely soaked.

Wednesday I ran 34 laps around the soccer field for gym. I ate tacos with Ingrid and Chloé, which were not mexican tacos. They were big pita pockets filled with french fries, turkey/beef, tomatos, onions, lettuce, and sauce. They're really popular with the school kids. After we had an hour of history to make up for the day of the Ascension (I will explain). Then Ingrid and I went to Part Dieu (the mall) while waiting for Chloé to get out of school.

That night, I went to a soccer game (Lyon vs. Monaco, a small country inbetween France and Italie) with Ingrid, her two brothers, and a friend of her brothers. Lyon won 3-0. There were 38 thousand people watching the game in the stadium, afterwards all those people want to use the métro. So we waited at the top of the stairs for about 5 minutes right before the game finished. Right went the game finished, we sprinted down the stairs, down the hill, out the gates and for about 4 blocks. Really, it was like we were trying to race Usain Bolt. And we still had to wait in line for the métro.

Thursday was the day of the Ascension, which is supposedly the day Jesus ascended to Heaven. Since France is pretty religious, they give the day as a holiday to everyone. Then, because parents want to take their kids on a mini vacation, they 'faire le pont' or 'make the bridge' between Thursday and the weekend, so we have four days instead of just a day off and the weekend. But since Friday isnt a holiday, we have to make up for the school we miss, and because we dont have class Wednesday afternoon, we make up the last half of Friday the Wednesday before the mini vacation, and the morning of Friday the Wednesday after the 4 days.

So Thursday I went with Victor to Claires mothers appartment in Lyon. We ate lunch there with all the cousins born in the years '91 or '92 (there are too many cousins to invite all at once, so she does it by age).

Friday, I started working on my five French texts for the bac. Michel and Claire told me that I need to talk with my French teacher to see if she agrees with what Im doing, and then she needs to sign a paper that I will be able to show to the judges the day of the bac.

Saturday I went to the marché with Claire, we went to the butchers stand and bought a rabbit. It was a whole rabbit, just skinned. He cut it up with a real butchers knife, like you see in movies.

That afternoon I went shopping (appliance and grocery) with Claire.

Then we made lemon macaroons, and then Michel, Claire, Laura, and I went to the movies. We saw Lola, a Philipines/French movie, about two grandmothers reactions to their grandsons actions (on grandson kills the other), and how the grandmothers deal with it. Afterwards, we went to dinner at Vercoquin. Laura and my history teacher was there, who is also a friend of Claire.

This morning Claire and I made tarte tatin, which is an apple tart cooked upside down, then you flip it over and it becomes an apple tart. Its a very traditional french dessert. For lunch Claires mother and Michels mother both came over.

Fête Des Mères = Mother's Day

Tomorrow is not Mother's Day in France, its on the 30th of May, Im not sure why its different.

Victors party Saturday night was fine, I think he was happy to see his friends again.

This week just kind of flew by, I had a bac blanc on Wednesday, in place of my normal classes, and finished in 2 hours, I had to stay for three hours and then they let me leave.

I learned a little more about the oral bac test this week. For the written bac test, no one can really study, because we have no clue what the subject will be, but we can study for the oral test. Normally, students have around 23 texts to study. The texts can be taken from a book, or they can be poems, etc. The day of the test, the student meets the exam judges, who tell the student which text they will be talking about and ask the student a question. Then the student has half an hour to prepare their speech around the question, using just the text. I talked with Ingrid and Chloé and decided it would be pretty impossible for me to study and really know all 23 texts, so they helped me pick about 5 which I will study and ask to present. If the judges say yes, that will be great. If they say no, I will try with another text and probably last about 2 minutes :)

This afternoon Im going to see Iron Man 2 with Laura and Annie, another AFS student from Finland.

It was really warm for about three days last week and I went swimming in the pool twice, but this week has felt like winter again! I even had to get out my heavy coat :(

Muguet (de mai) = Lily of the Valley

Monday was a looong first day, even though I only had 3 hours of class, it was unbearably hot and felt like forever, I dont know how people with a full 10 hour day did it!

We got the date for the french bac, the written test is Monday the 21st of June (every student in France who is also in the year 'première' will take this test at the exact same time, on this day, from 8am - 12pm) , and the oral exam starts the week of the 28th of June. My history teacher said the oral exams could take three weeks, but other teachers say one week. The officials who oversee the exams, pick a letter out of a hat and then whoever has a last name that starts with that letter goes first, and then we all pass in alphabetical order. If they pick the letter G, and they exams take three weeks, I may not even be there to take my exam :)

Monday afternoon I took a long walk around the neighborhood and then sat by the pool, it was very sunny Monday - Wednesday, and then Thursday and Friday it cooled off and got pretty cloudy.

Wednesday was Victors return date, Claire couldnt stop smiling the entire day! :) They went to meet him at the airport at about 7:30 pm and we ate dinner at about 8:30 - midnight. Théo, Marie-Pierre, Eliane, and two of Victors closest friends ate dinner with us.

Today is May first. In France, it is the only day all year (this is what I was told) where nobody works, and if they do work, they have the right to ask for double what they are usually paid. It is also the only day where anybody can pick Lily of the Valley flowers and stand on the side of the street and sell them to passersby, so thats what I did this morning! Yesterday Victor, Laura and Michel went to pick a bunch of flowers in the woods while I still had class, when I came home I helped put them in bouquets (french word! :) ) and today I met up with Ingrid and we sold our flowers on the main street of our neighborhood for 2 euros a piece! It was incredible how many kids, and even some adults, actually sold the flowers, there were kids on every street corner! I made 28 euros in about 1 and a half hours! Then Ingrid and I decided to stop and dropped all the rest of our flowers off with Victor and his friends. The flowers are supposed to bring happiness (bonheur) to everyone who buys them.

Claire and Michel left this morning to go biking for the weekend because Victor is having a 'welcome home party' with his friends. Its tonight, and I invited Ingrid because I dont know many of his friends. I made a hundred chocolate chip cookies, and finally finished the bag of chocolate chips!

Je n'ai pas de titre = I dont have a title

Thursday night Marie-Pierre and Eliane took me to the area of town called Croix-Rousse and to a restaurant called La Famille (The Family).

Friday night Laura and Claire came home from Groix, and Saturday afternoon Michel came back from Greenland.

Victor comes home this Wednesday night, I think were going to have a party for him.

Its been warm lately, in the late 70°s. We've been eating outside and the pool is now warm enough to swim in.

Not many of the houses in Lyon have windows that are made for screens, meaning when someone leaves the window open at night, no one sees what comes in or out. I woke up this morning with a very cute cat sleeping on my bed, but it wasnt Mamadou...

Tomorrow I go back to school, though we only have about 8 weeks until the year is over!

maillot de bain = swim suit

This past week in the south of France it was hot enough for Ingrid and I to wear swim suits and go swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.

We left Sunday morning for Marseille where we were going to eat lunch. We couldnt find the park, took a wrong turn, and ended up on the freeway again. So we stopped instead, in a small town called Cassis (meaning blackcurrant in English). We took a boat ride and saw three mediterranean fjords which were really pretty.

During the week, we pretty much did something everyday. We went to two other towns: Hyeres and St Tropez. Hyeres is just a neighboring town, but St Tropez is famous because of Brigette Bardot, a French actrice who grew up there.

We went on walks/hikes. Once up to a war fort from a French war of the 1870 time frame. About three fourths of the way up, we were actually able to see the fort, so Ingrid and I decided to make our own trail straight to the top...through lots of thorny bushes while we were in shorts...

We went swimming once, then next time there was an overload of jellyfish...they were literally everywhere.

We tanned (I burned in funny patterns because of the way I put my sunscrean on).

We made croque monsieurs (which, in French class in Ak, I learned is very French, though Ingrid and her mom thought that was strange), they are basically a sandwich of bread, cheese, ham, and untradionally pineapple rings. If you add an egg, its called a croque madame :)

We made a cake (actually three by mistake..). Its called a 5 4 3 2 1 1/2 cake, because it calls for 5 spoonfuls of flour, 4 spoonfuls of sugar, etc (yes, the french use spoonfuls as a guide :) ) they also use grams, and Ingrid and I thought the 5 meant 500 grams, 4 = 400 grams, which turns out to be a lot more than 4 and 5 spoonfuls!

On Tuesday, the friend of Ingrids mom showed up with her daughter and her daughters friend (they were 11 years old) and they stayed until Sunday.

On Thursday, Ingrid and I walked to the marché in Carqueiranne, even though Carqueiranne is much, much smaller than Lyon, the marché was bigger than the marché in Montchat!

We drove back to Lyon a week after we left, last Sunday. It takes about 4 hours, that night I stayed at Ingrids house.

Michel was supposed to come back last night, but because of the Iceland volcano eruption, his flight was canceled.

I made raspberry macarons last night and Im going to fill them today :)

Pictures:

1) Balcony and view from their house

2) View from the road as we drove to Ramatuelle and St. Tropez

3)Ingrid and I at the top of the hike to the war fort

4)Eating tropeziennes

5) Swimming in a natural rock pool in the mediterranean sea

Cerisier et Nuages = Cherry Trees and Clouds

Pictures:

1) The bottom of La Meije

2)The very top of La Meije

3) Cherry Tree

4) Sunrise on Rue de la Balme

5) Spring in the backyard!

The cherry trees here are gorgeous when they are just beginnging to bloom in the spring.

Lately its been rainy and cloudy, not sunny at all.

For gym, we are finished with swimming and are now on to running. We play soccer and/or basketball for half the time, and then run the other half the time in a very small playground just behind the pool building.

SVT class is officially my least favorite class because now that I can actually understand people when they talk, I take notes on my own in class. But, the SVT teacher talks really fast, doesnt articulate, and doesnt repeat, though when he does, he says it even faster. Ive never been in a foreign country before or around people that dont speak fluent english much so Ive never noticed this, but it really does make a world of difference when people speak slowly and articulate.

For Easter weekend, we went skiing in the Alps. We got up at 6:00 am on Sunday morning. Claire didnt feel well, so she stayed home. We were five in the car: Michel, Léna, Théo, Julien (host cousin). The plan was to go to the mountain/ glacier (called La Meije, the upper part is a glacier, the bottom part is a mountain) right away, ski all day, and sleep at a cabin (le refuge) in the middle of the mountain. When we got there, there was too much snow to ski, the guides were afraid of avalanches. So we went to another ski resort for the day, and slept at a hotel that night. The next day we went back and skied at La Meije. It was really hard. There was one meter of snow that had fallen, and they didnt have a machine to pack it down! We went up to 3,560 meters and skied all the way down to 1,800 meters and then Léna and I stopped, and just sat at a café and waited for the others. Michel told me some Americans come to France just to ski at La Meije, and two days before we got there (Friday) there was a competition and the fastest person to ski down the mountain got down in around 5 minutes 30 seconds!! We came back to Lyon that night with everyone else who went out of town for the three day weekend, so we got stuck in a little bit of traffic.

For Easter, they do eat chocolate here, and hide eggs when they are little, but they dont eat peeps or dye hard-boiled eggs (or so the people I asked have said).

I have realized how difficult languages can be with 'gender words'. All nouns have genders in French. I can understand the words such as 'brother' and 'sister' having genders. They are obvious, 'brother' is masculine, and 'sister' is feminine. Though words like 'wall', 'grass' and 'computer' all have genders, and they are not obvious. Its something that has to be memorized.

I going to have a brother for three months rather than 10 days as I had previously thought. Victors return date is July 1st, though he had a problem with his family and wants to come home early instead of starting all over with another host family, so he will come back the 28th of April.

Michel left Thursday morning for Greenland to ski for a week and a half with some friends.

Today was my last day of school for two weeks. Sunday I leave with Ingrid for a town called Carqueiranna, in the South of France, for a week with her Mom and one or both of her brothers.

Claire and Laura also leave Sunday for Groix. Laura leaves after a week to meet a friend in Paris and then comes back to Lyon with her.

Its been more than seven months since I arrived in Lyon.

Easter = Paques

Friday night we went to a dance preformance again, though this time it was more like a 7 person circus. It was really cool though, they built a stage that tilted in all directions and did their acts on that. We went out to dinner afterwards with two of Michel and Claires friends, who Laura and I had met before at Groix.

Saturday I spent the day with Sophia, the other American who lives in Millery, about 15 km from Lyon. She came by bus and we went shopping for some shoes for her and then got lost walking to a movie theater. We asked about four different people for help and they either just kept sending us in circles around where the actual theater was, or we didnt understand them. We eventually got there and saw Alice au Pays des Merveilles (Alice in Wonderland) in 3D. After the movie I tried to take the 3D glasses I had to pay 2 euros for home with me, but usher made me give them back.

Yesterday I spent the majority of my afternoon trying to write an introduction and conclusion to my groups TPE presentation which is tomorrow. We all got together after school today and finished our powerpoint presentation.

Tomorrow is supposedly Michels birthday, but he doesnt believe in celebrating birthdays, so Im not really sure what were going to do...

Yesterday we had a time change, so now our clocks are one hour later. It doesnt make it easier to get up in the morning, but its nice at night when it stays light longer.

This weekend is Easter, and in France, they get Easter Monday because Christianity is widely practiced in France, so we get Monday off from school! So Michel and Claire always to go a certain ski resort during this holiday. Its actually a ski resort on a glacier, so were going there this weekend and there is a type of lodge on the top of the glacier where were going to sleep.

Ants = Fourmis

Friday I made brownies during my three and a half hour lunch break and took them to school for all the kids in my class. After school, Ingrid and I walked with Chloé to the gym where she does gymnastics three times a week, and it happens to be the same place where Ingrid and I take dance. Then Ingrid and I walked back towards Rue de la Balme.
That night, Claire and Michel took Laura and I to a contemporary ballet preformance, the dancers were actually American. Afterwards, we decided to go to a new (to Claire and Michel) restaurant, La Tâche, we got lost for about half an hour, when we finally ate it was about 11:45 pm. The restaurant served charcuterie, cheese, and wine, and that was it! It was really good!

Saturday morning I woke up with a bunch of ants crawling in my doorway and at the base of the wall next to the door! We swept up the ants and then sprayed a product, now I just find dead ants who made it about a foot away from the hole.
That afternoon, I went shopping with Ingird to find some more pants.
Saturday night I watched a rugby game on tv with Michel, it was England vs France. Michel told me France calls people who play sports from England 'roast beef' because they turn pink/red in the sun.

On Sunday, Claires mom and Théo came over for lunch. We drank champagne outside to celebrate the first day of spring, though they opened the champagne before someone realized we had something to celebrate... In the middle of our meal it started pouring rain, but let up just in time for me to going biking with Ingrid and Chloé to the movies to see a French movie called L'Arnacoeur.

I have started reading Harry Potter in French. It takes me about half an hour to read two paragraphs because I decided I am going to look up every single word I dont know, and then reread everything to understand!

Winter is officially gone...for Alaskans. I went to school in a t-shirt this morning, but everyone else I saw was still wearing their winter coats and scarfs...

France is currently having regional elections, my region is Rhône-Alpes. There are 22 regions in total. I went with Michel to vote yesterday, though it was similar to the way Americans vote.

Chaussettes = Socks

Tuesday Michel told me why everyone here wears shoes in the house: they believe wearing just socks ruins them more quickly and makes white socks dirty, so they either wear shoes, slippers, or go barefoot.

Tuesday after lunch and inbetween our two hours of French class, we sat in the sun outside the school and talked. It only got a little bit cold when the wind blew, otherwise it was almost like Spring!! I taught them American games, like Down by the Banks of the Hankypanks :)

Michel took Mamadou to the vet, they said shes hurting because of a disease, not because of a cat fight. I disagree, there is no way she could get that hurt overnight from a disease she has suposedly had for a while now. Were giving her anti-inflamatory stuff right now, and if that doesnt make her better...I dont know.

Today, Laura went to Turin, Italy. Just for the day! She went with her Philosophy class. Laurie and Anne-Sophie went also, but left last night and they are staying until Saturday, and they went to Venice. I think its cool how you can just hop on over to another country for the day :)

We found out today that the niece of Claire and Michel, and her fiancé will get married on the 10th of July, the same day Laura and I leave Lyon...so that should be interesting.

I just got back from dance class where we worked on Thriller by Michael Jackson (French people say Triller :) ) and were starting to create the costumes for our dances, so I need to find so things for that soon.

Our presentation for TPE got pushed back to the 30th, so we have an extra week, which is good because we havent divided up the topic yet and Im going to need some time to create what is supposed to be a 5 minute speach. Though if I talk really slow, which shouldnt be a problem, I probably wont have to say much at all! :)

After this week, we have three more weeks until the next vacation!!! Time flies here :)
Fyi, it was supposedly 19 degrees celsius here today (67 degrees fahrenheit!!!)

Les Hiboux = Owls

(Les Hiboux is a text we are studying in French class right now, and at first I didnt know what a Hibou was so the teacher tried to draw a very strange looking creature on the board, which I later found out was an owl :) )

The second week of school after the vacation went fine. I got my TPE presentation date, Tuesday the 23 of March! Luckily, I we dont have enough time to have a practice presentation so I will just be presenting in front of several judges, not a hundred other students too!

Mamadou (our cat) had a 'lovers spat' (thats what Michel is calling it) with a neighbors cat, and I think she may have broken her leg, so shes going to the vet tomorrow

Michel left on Thursday to go skiing for the weekend, hes going to Greenland in April to do a real ski tour, I booked his tickets because everything was in English..so I really hope I got the right flights!
Claire went to a friends cabin this weekend because Laura had her birthday party yesterday, even though her birthday was the 12 of February.

I got a 10/20 in geography and a no-grade in math because my answers were so bad....whoever said math is easier than a writing subject in a foreign country was sorely mistaken.

I used paragraphs this time because somebody (sister Anna) pointed out to me that my writing is usually just a big blog and hard to read. So I hope this is more readable now :)

Traduction = Translation

Ok this is what I said last time:
So this week was really great! My history teacher was absent all week, meaning I had three hours for lunch on Tuesday! Tuesday morning, I lost my keys and I didnt have time to look for them, so i had to jump our 7' fence twice! Once to go to school and once when I came home for lunch, though luckily Michel found my keys before I left again. Tuesday evening, Aliane, Marie-Pierre, and Théo came over for dinner because Aliane and Marie-Pierre had just gotten back from Argentina where they met up with Victor traveled with him during his summer vacation from school.
Wednesday, my gym teacher was absent, so I finished at 10am! I went to dance for the first time in a month, but I didnt miss a lot, we havent finished our dance to Grease, so we have one and a half dances down in about 6 months, and we have 5 more to go in three months...I dont think well get there. Right now Im working with a group of girls and were making up a dance by ourselves.
Thursday I got my SVT test back, I didnt get a grade because it was so bad :( I guess I should study a little bit more next time. In TP in chemistry, we did something with a battery that I didnt really understand, then I finished school at 4pm because the history teacher was absent. I decided to walk home because I didnt know the way and I though it would be interesting. I didnt get lost either, and I think it might even be faster than the bus...
Today I had English and chemistry/physics. Two and a half hours of chemistry/physics is unbearable! But luckily after that I was done for the day because we are done with TPE and just have to present it now, and my history teacher was still absent. Then I caught the bus home with Ingrid and then she came over because her brother had her key. After lunch, I made a chocolate cake from a French book of Claires. It was good :) Michel left in the afternoon to go skiing in the mountains in the south of France with some friends. This weekend Claire and I are going to make macaroons again and try to make them better than the last time!
Other things: it was nice and sunny this week, but really cold (its funny how its only been about 35/40 degrees and I still think its really cold!) I am also sick, each time I turn my head upsidedown, it really hurt, and unfortunately we did that a lot during dance class on Wednesday. Also, something I found interesting: on Thursday morning Ingrids mom took us to school and somehow we started talking about weddings, and they told me that in France, people can only get married in a place called 'la mairie' (mayor) which I think is the mayors office, and they cant have their wedding in a church or another place. They can have a after-party there, but not the actual marriage.
Thats what I wrote last time, since then, Claire and I made macaroons flavored pistachio and chocolate. Pistachio is like the gourmet French dessert color and flavor right now. I think they taste a little weird, but they dont have any holes in them like last time!!

Bonne Chance! = Good Luck! :)

Donc, cette semaine était trop bien! Ma prof d'histoire était absente tout la semaine, ça veut dire que j'ai eu trois heures pour le déjeuner mardi! Mardi matin, j'ai perdu ma clé et je n'ai pas eu le temps de la chercher, donc j'ai sauté la barrière deux fois :) Une fois pour aller au lycée et une fois quand je suis rentré pour le déjeuner, heureusement, pendant mon déjeuner, Michel a trouvé ma clé :) Mardi soir, Aliane, Marie-Pierre, et Théo, ils sont venu pour le dîner, parce que Aliane et Marie-Pierre, elles sont revenu d'Argentine où elles ont vu Victor pendant ses grandes vacances d'été. Mercredi, mon prof de sport était absent, donc j'ai fini à 10h! Je suis allée à la danse pour la prémière fois dans un moi :) Mais, je n'ai pas raté beaucoup des choses. On n 'a pas fini la danse de Greece, ça fait une danse et demi qu'on a fait, on a cinq danse encore de apprendre, je ne pense pas qu'on va arriver. Mais maintenant, je travaille avec un groupe des fille et on fait notre danse tout seule.Jeudi, j'ai eu mon control de SVT, le prof ma donné un non note, peut-être je doit étudier un peu plus pour le prochain control... :) En TP de chimie, on a fait quelque chose avec un pile, je n'ai pas tout compris...J'ai fini à 16h parce que la prof d'histoire était absente. J'ai décidé de marcher chez moi parce que je n'ai pas connu le chemin, et je voulais prendre un peu de l'exercice. Je n'ai pas été perdu non plus! En fait, je pense que c'est plus vite que le bus, parce que le chemin est plus direct. Aujourd'hui, j'ai eu les cours d'anglais et de chimie/physique. Chimie/physique pour deux heures et demi est insupportable! Elle nous a donné une petite pose, mais c'est horrible quand même! On a fini le TPE donc je ne l'ai pas eu cet après midi, et ma prof d'histoire était encore absente, donc j'ai fini à midi et demi juste après chimie/physique. Je suis rentré et puis Ingrid est venu parce qu'elle a oublié sa clé de sa maison, donc elle a attendu chez moi jusqu'à son frère est rentré. Après mon déjeuner, j'ai fait un gâteau au chocolat d'un livre français de Claire. C'était bon :) Michel est parti cet après-midi d'aller au ski dans les montagnes. Ce week-end, Claire et moi, on va faire des macarons ensemble et on va essayer de les faire meilleur que la dernière fois.
Autre choses, il faisait beau tout la semaine, mais il fait froid aussi :( Je suis malade, chaque fois je fait tourner ma tête, ça fait tellement mal, et on a fait ça beaucoup pendant le cour de danse mercredi...
Aussi, j'ai trouvé ça intéressant. Jeudi matin, la mére d'Ingrid nous a conduit au lycée, et on a parlé des mariages, je ne me rappelle pas pourquoi...mais ils m'ont dit qu'en France, tout le monde doit avoir leur mariage dans l'endroit de la mairie, ils ne peuvent pas avoir leur mariage dans un autre endoit. S'ils veulent, ils peuvent avoir une fête dans une église ou quelque part autrement, mais ils ne peuvent pas avoir leur mariage là.
Bon, je sais que ce post n'est pas en français parfait, mais vous voyez que, au moins, j'ai appris quelque chose depuis je suis arrivé!
Je vais écrire la traduction bientôt, je vous promets!

Le Printemps est là! = Spring is here!

Okay, I know I havent posted in a super long time, but I had a two week vacation and was without internet a lot of the time. The last time I posted, I think I wrote that I was having some friends over that night. I make cookies with oatmeal and raisins, and some with m&ms. I made crepes for dinner and a salad lyonnaise. My host family has this cool crepe grill that you can place in the middle of the table and it has small round indents that make little crepes and everyone can make their own crepes :) We played a game called taboo (I think theres a game in English like that too, but we played in French) and watched a movie called Burn After Reading...it was really strange. The next day Laura and I just kind of hung around the house getting ready to go to Champagny on Monday. Claire and Michel got back from the mountains Sunday night. Laura and I left Lyon with Michel at about 11 am Monday and stopped to pick up Remy (host cousin). We got to Champagny around 2pm after picking up groceries on the way. I wont talk about all the days at Champagny because they were all about the same. Wed get up about 9am, eat breakfast of cereal, bread, butter, jam, coffee, tea, get ready for the day and watch some olympics (we had a hard time watching the figure skating because it was always on at about 2 or 3 am because we didnt get the channel that played the delayed games, just the channels that played them live), eat lunch about 12:30 pm of sandwiches ( baguette buttered with fresh ham) or something else. Go skiing, or just walk around the town until about 5, come back, have a 'gouter' (snack) of tea or hot chocolate with cookies or bread and nutella. Then watch the olypics or news and then eat dinner about 8 or 9pm and go to bed around 10 or 11. We played scrabble with Claires mom a couple of times and it was hard! I kept seeing words I could make in English, but I completely forgot all the words I knew in French! I went skiing twice, once at Champagny and once at Courcheval. We came back to Lyon Sunday night (we spend 6 days there) and on Monday I made bugnes with Michels mom and Claire. They were good, and pretty easy to make. They are made with a dough that is rolled super thin and then cut into strips and cooked in oil. After that I got ready to go to Paris. Tuesday morning at about 10:10 we caught the bus to the train station and caught the TGV at 11:00 to Paris. The train broke down twice (once inside a pitch black tunnel!) but we finally make it there around 1:30pm. We went to a restaurant, called La Gazzetta, straight away that Michel had reserved. It served food kind of like Iron Chef American, we ate three small entrées (appetizers) of a small slice of gourmet pizza, a soup, and a spread to eat with bread. Then I chose the fish and the a dessert of orange genoise cake and rasperry icecream. After that we took the metro to our hotel. I was surprised that the metro was so beaten down looking. Its a lot less nice than the one in Lyon, though much older too, however we were able to get around on it without any difficulty. We stayed at a small hotel called Hôtel du Nord (Hotel of the North). Claire and Michel had already stayed there at least once before. Then we went to L'Hôtel de Ville where the mayor of Paris lives. After that we went to Notre Dame but arrived too late to climb up to the top, Michel said it was best to do it a different day anyways because it wasnt so nice out (though we never did go back, and that was the nicest day we had :) ) then some guy came up to get while I was waiting for the other to finnish walking through Notre Dame and asked me to put my finger through a hole in a string. I told him no thank, but he asked me again. I said ok because there were a bunch of other people walking around, and I was bored :) So he proceded to make a bracelet by braiding the string and then tied it around my wrist, Im sure he was hoping I would pay him for it, but I didnt because I didnt ask for it in the first place :) So after that we walked along the Seine and went to a large garden area. It used to be the place where all the farmers would go to sell their produce, but eventually there became too many farmers to fit there and the government turned it into a large garden and build a giant underground mall. Then we walked around until it was time for dinner, where we went to a restaurant called Le Baratin (sweet talk) where we met a friend of Claire and Michels I really liked there dessert it was called Chocolat au fondant, sort of like fudge, but softer, more chocolatey less sugary and softer. The next day we ate breakfast at the hotel. It was several slices of baguette and a fresh croissant with jam and coffe, tea or hot chocolate. Then we went to a free museum about the life in 'old France'. It was intersting, then we went to the Louvre (but not inside) just to see it, and the walked to a restaurant to eat, and then all the way down to L'Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees. Then we walked up to Sacre Coeur and another guy asked me to put my finger through his string, so I showed him my bracelet :) Then we went to dinner. The day after that we got up and first tried to go the museum de Picasso which Michel had found in his handy dandy guide. Though, his guide was published in 2005 and didnt mention the museum was under construction. So we went to the museum of Natural History, the history of how humans evolved from monkeys, though there were a lot of real sized fake animals that werent about the evolution of humans...then we found a Korean restaurant just around the corner and ate lunch, I thought it was very good. Then we got ice cream and then went to the 'Panthéon' though its not the one in Italy. There was a really cool thing inside that proved that the earth turns. It was a solid ball hanging from a string (rope) which swung by itself and there was a large solid gate around it with numbers, and if you stayed there long enough, you could see the the swing of the ball would turn (by looking at the numbers marked on the gate). Then there was a cellar/ basement thing where we saw the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau (which was intersting for me because we have been studying texts by them in French class), Victor Hugo, etc. After that we went and sat in a café and ate crepes (waiting for Michel to finish with the Panthéon :) ) and then went back to the hotel to get our bags, and then went to a restaurant near the train station and had dinner, and then caught the train at about 9pm and arrived in Lyon (with no difficulties this time) at about 11pm. We tried to catch the bus back to Montchat, but since it was later at night, we would have waited for 45 minutes, so we took the tram a little ways a walked the rest of the way. I think we woke up the whole neighborhood with the noise from our rolling suitcases on the road! The next day I slept in until about 11am :) It was so nice! Then I did basically nothing, but think about how much I didnt want to start my homework. Saturday I went to a movie with Michel, Shutter Island (it was in English!!!) and then ate dinner at Ingrids house with her family and watched a movie there called Le Dîner des Cons (The Dinner of Idiots) it was a old French movie about a group of guys who would host dinner parties and would invite people, whichever one of the guys invited the stupidest/most idiotic person won. It had no subtitles and I understood it!!! :) Then Sunday I finally started my homework. I wrote a four page (double spaced) French Paper on a play called Les Mains Salles (Dirty Hands) by Sartre. Today was the first day back from break, it was so loooong for me and I got out at 1 pm, I cant imagine what the other students who got out at 6pm were feeling! I finished my English homework when I got home. In Europhysique, were studying how football is like chemistry...my teacher is a little strange. Then I did my math, though not very well, and then I started writing this! All in all it was a very good vacation and really relaxing to not have to think about school work.

Its also been warm out lately, spring is here! When we went to make bugnes with Michels mom, there were tulip buds in her garden, and Claire told me they will flower in March!! Thats really weird! Claire told me we will be able to swim in the pool in May! Thats REALLY strange!

1) La Seine

2) Yummy Korean food!

3) Champs Elysees

4) Glass triangle at the Louvre

5) Notre Dame

School vacation : Vacances Scholaires, Happy Birthday : Bonne Anniversaire, Oatmeal : L'avoine

Sunday night Marie-Pierre and Aliane came over and we ate leftover cold meat from lunch and mayonais which they were really excited to eat, apparently it is a normal sunday night dinner. Monday was Théos 21st birthday (which isnt a big deal here, its the 18th birthday here thats the big one) and Claire was working late, so she asked me to make the mayo sauce and a cake for him. I made a really big mayo sauce from scratch and then added other ingredients into it in different bowls. I made one with a bunch of ketchup and a little mayo, one with some onion, parsly, and cornichons to make a tartar-type sauce, then one with a bunch of pepper, and another I forgot (all were Claires ideas), and they were all really good! Then I made a brownie cake. Claires mother came over, which made six of us, but Laura felt really sick so she went to bed right away. Birthdays here are done a little differently. We start by drinking Champagne in the living room (starting from about the age of 13 or 14, I think) then presents are handed out, then we eat dinner, and then we eat cake. Tuesday I got a geography test back, 7.5!!!! In addition, the teacher swore to me she graded me like everyother student in the class :) Then she told us our average for the trimester, I have a 9.2!!! (all the grades are out of 20, which sounds bad by American standards, but its actually fairly good here, at least for me :) )
I was also wrong about it getting warm, it got colder during the week and snowed a bunch, though it never stuck :( No snow days for us. On Wednesday I had an unusually long day, a two hour math test in the morning, and then no swimming because La Printemps de la Jupe (organization for the equality of men and women) came back. We watched a documentary and listened to some of their staff talk again. Then we had two hours for lunch and then had another two hour math test! How horrible. Then I didnt go to dance and took a nap instead :) And then went for a walk in a different part of the neighborhood that I have never really been to. Thursday was ok, we were supposed to have a class picture (they dont have school pictures for each student here, just one of the entire class) but for some reason it was canceled. Every time a teacher brings up the Bac in class (the huge test everyone takes at the end of senior year) it shocks me because they still have a year and a half until they will take it, though at least one teacher talks about it everyday, giving tips on how to take it, or something. Everyone talks about careers differently here too, people think you should study and get a job in the subject you are the best at in school, rather than what you love to do and what makes you happy as is usually the case in the US when deciding on a career. Friday we did practically nothing in school all day. We watched a really sad movie in English class for two hours called The Wind That Shakes the Barley. It was about the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War 1919-1923. There was a lot of killing, torturing, and decieving. Then we had 2 and a half hours of Chemistry and Physics where we took a test for 2 hours and then took notes for the last half hour, the teacher doesnt believe in ever slacking off, even before the break :(, then ate lunch and had our last session of TPE for the entire year. Good news: I will now have 2 and a half hours for lunch on Fridays, instead of just one half hour. Bad new: we have to present our project to the class (consisting of about 100 other students) and a panel of judges. We all have to speak about our subject for 5 minutes. Crap! :) The good news for this bad news is that my grade wont affect the others in my group, because it is individual grading. Then we had one hour of history and geography with the whole class, where some groups presented what they thought of a document we had analysed ealier in the week, but there wasnt enough time for my group. Then we had the last hour with the half group where we watched a movie. Then I walked to the bus stop with Ingrid. Though we were almost there and saw both the bus 25 and 28 drive past us (the only ones that go near where we live) so we ran to the next stop, but got there just as it left :( It was cold and the bus wasnt going to come for another 15 minutes so we went into a grocery store to warm up and look for oatmeal. They dont regulary have it in grocery stores here. Everyone thought I was crazy when I told them it is really go in chocolate chip cookies. They told me that here, its only for horses! Yesterday was also Lauras 18th birthday! Claire and Michel left to a go a friends house for the weekend, we will have a family celebration in Champagny next week, and she is going to have a party when the break is over. One of her friends came over and watched a movie, Dare Devil, with us. Tonight Chloé and Ingrid are going to come over and spend the night, Laurie was going to come too, but her dad just came to france from Portugal, so shes going to spend some time with him. One of Lauras friends with AFS just came over too. Tonight I am going to make crepes and a salade lyonnaise :) and maybe some cookies with oatmeal if I can find it in the store! Monday Laura, Michel, and I leave for Champagny until Sunday. Claire will join us on Wednesday because she has some work to do. Then we leave on Tuesday and take the train to Paris for three days and then spend the rest of the vacation here in Lyon.

The more the merrier : Plus on est de fou, plus on rit

This week went by fairly fast, and now I only have one week before I have a two week vacation!! :) On Monday Michel left for the week to ski in the mountains with a group and a guide. Tuesday I had a half day of school because all the teachers had a meeting to discuss the school reforms that are in the middle of being changed. I am not sure what they are, but Claire told me that they (if they pass) will greatly affect the kids going into highschool next year. Tuesday was also the Catholic holiday of Chandleur, which is when they eat crepes. So, Claire left me the recipe and I made the batter that afternoon and then we all ate savory and sweet crepes for dinner. I had always thought it would be way too hard to flip them because I thought they would stick to the pan, but they were very easy to cook! Wednesday I had math and then swimming. Its amazing how many kids get doctors permission to get out of swimming! Then I didnt have dance in the afternoon because my dance teacher was sick. Thursday was long:) and Friday was short! Our history teacher was absent, so I got out at 3:00pm, but my friends got out at 4:00pm because they have another language class (Spanish or Italian) they asked me to come back at 4:00 and take the bus home with them. So I took the bus to Montchat and walked to the post office and bought some stamps, then walked back along the bus route to the school, but decided to take some side streets because Avenue Lacassagne has a lot of traffic, and I had seen it all before (usually twice a day). I got a little lost and then found Ave. Lac. again and decided to stick to it since I was a little late. I made it in time, and we all took the bus back again, and then I went to the bank with Laurie. We made plans to go to the movie Invictus, and then I went home. I was walking out the door to meet Laurie that night when Michel got home. When I got to Lauries appartment, we had to wait for her brother to get home because he had forgotten his key and her mom had gone to see a play at a theater. Then we took a bus and tram to the movie theater. We got there too late and it was sold out. We took the bus back to her house. We borrowed a movie from Lauries friend (The Hangover, which strangely enough is ''translated'' into French as A Very Bad Trip, which is not actually in French...) then we made jello that I brought which my parents had sent me for Christmas and then watched the movie. In the morning we had jello for breakfast and chocolate cereal in chocolate milk :) Yum! Then I walked home through the Montchat market and sat through lunch with Michel and Laura, though didnt eat anything because I had just eaten breakfast. Michel had bought these pastries called Bugne which are made just around the holiday of Chandleur and are very Lyonnaise. They are good, and Michel asked me if I wanted to learn how to make ones that are 10x better...how could I say no to that?? :) So in two weeks I will be spending the afternoon at his parents house while his mother teaches me to make them! Also another food item (I know I talk about food a lot here, as Aunt Patti pointed out to me :), but it is a very big part of their culture, and mine too!! :) ) so I just made a cheesecake for Marie-Pierre and Aliane who will be coming over this evening before they leave for Paraguay to see Victor. They told me they really love cheesecake and carrot cake, so I hope it will turn out good, they dont have cream cheese here, so I mixed two types of cream cheese-type cheeses. Tomorrow is Théos birthday and we are going to eat what we ate for my birthday (the hot plate in the middle of the table, with different types of meat we choose, cook ourselves and eat with different types of sauces) and Claire has to work all day so I am going to make the sauces and a dessert.
Other news, the weather has been rainy, though it usually rains at night, and then is cloudy during the day. It is supposed to be warming up this week about 8-10 degrees Celsius, which is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. For the vacation, we are going to Champagny for a week, Paris for three days, and then the rest of the time in Lyon. Tomorrow is officially the half way mark of my trip, because at the AFS weekend the head lady told me we leave Lyon on the 10th of July, though she told me she will check to make sure. As of now, I am glad I decided to stay for a whole year, I have realised how many great experieces I have already had, and cant believe I have another 5 months of similar experiences ahead of me.

volunteer = bénévole

Galette de Roi with AFS initials on them.

The AFS weekend went well. We got to the train station by bus, and figured out how to use the ticket machines. The ticket machines only take credit cards, but not US credit cards, unless you have an updated version with the metal design on the front side of it. I only have the magnetic strip, so Laura used her card, and I payed her back. We found other AFSers in the station and grabbed a quick lunch at a stand. Even when you buy food at a stand it is good in France! They use real baguettes to make their sandwiches, along with good tasting cheese and ham. We took the train to a small town and then met up with other AFSers there, along with AFS volunteers (bénévoles! :) ) who drove us to the smaller town of Anjou. It was the same town we first went to, to meet our host families, and also for the 1 month meeting. We spoke french almost the entire first night, though around 10pm everyone started getting tired and spoke franglais (english and french, it just sounds better combined in french). There were also french kids there who are planning to go on an AFS trip in the near future. There was one girl from my class, Bérenise, there who is planning to go to Japan next year. In the morning, 6 new AFS kids arrived to join us who will be staying the remaining 6 months. The kids who stayed for the first 6 months left this past weekend on Saturday night. Sometime in the middle of Sunday, my AFS liaison found me and gave me my blue sweatshirt I lost at the same building at the after-the-first-month meeting!! It was very exciting, though I decided to wash it and not wear it today because I have no idea where it has been for the last four months! Before we left on Sunday, there was a talent show, which was mandatory for the AFS students. My group sang Frère Jacques (are you sleeping, are you sleeping, brother john, brother john, etc) in five languages. Other groups sang songs in Spanish, did traditional dances, or a skit about the first day in a new country as an AFSer (not understanding anything people say to you, etc). Then we ate dessert all the parents had brought with them, and then went home. Today I had classes like normal and should have gotten out of school at noon. Though my Physics/Chemistry teacher has decided that we dont understand Physics (which is definitely true for me!) so we are now having an extra hour everyother week when we dont have the english assistant. I think I would understand a lot better if we didnt take notes on everything. When I take notes, I am concentrating on that, and not on understanding the material. I got a french 'essay' (I only wrote about half a page..) back today, the teacher was impressed though, she told me she liked it, and wrote 'bien' on it, which is like saying well done. Tomorrow I have a two hour english test, wednesday I have a two hour math test, and thursday I have a two hour SVT test. So I should probably study a little bit!

Wimp = muaviett / poule moulée (wet chicken!)

I decided that I am going to start putting french words and their english translations that I learn in the title spot, that way you guys can learn a little french too! :)

Ok, correction: Printemps de la Jupe was not for engineers. I misunderstood. It was a once yearly thing to talk about the roles of men and women in society. I didnt really understand what this organisation does, but the meeting was really boring and I didnt really follow along...
On Tuesday from 8-10 am we were supposed to have the engineer meeting. However, the engineers werent warned, and thought they were teaching from 10-12. So we missed our first class (of Euro English, which is boring anyways) because it took us a while to figure out if the engineers were comming or not, and then we went to our second class of English for one hour until 10am and then met with the engineers. It was more interesting than the meeting on Monday, but they didnt give us any useful (in my opinion) information. They gave us the gender statistics for each job, and the time frame of work, but not what we would be doing everyday, or even the diferent types of engineers, ect. It wasnt a very clear presentation, though that could have also been because I didnt understand everything.
Wednesday was an eventful day. I took the bus to school with Ingrid and Laurie. What we got to the bus stop we normally get off at, another bus was there which has a stop closer to our school. We took it because it was cold, windy, and rainy outside, and then cut across a fenced-in park to get to school. The gate to the park was locked and we didnt have time to walk all the way around again. So we had to climb the 12 foot tall fence and run the rest of the way to school. We didnt make it. So we sat in detention for an hour, then had an hour of math class. After math on Wednesdays, we usually have gym (we are currently doing swimming) though this particular Wednesday we didnt have class, but we couldnt go home for whatever reason either. Laurie and I were hungry so we walked to a bakery and bought two brioche parline. They were really good! After, we sat in the detention room and just talked. Laurie, Anne-Sophie and I talked about what were going to do after highschool. Most people in the French school system have to make up their minds on a career, or a general area, at the end of 10th grade. The choose to go into a 'line'. Everyone in my class chose to go into the 'science line' which is where you can do the most things, or so I have heard. There are also the 'language line' and the 'economics line'. When you choose a line, you automatically get classes the next year (from 11th through 12th grade) which are geared towards that area of studies. Laurie and Anne-Sophie dont know exactly what they want to do, so right now they are both thinking of going to Italy next year for an exchange. After school, I went home and had lunch with Michel, Laura, and Claire, and got a package from Aunt Bonnie! Then I caught the bus with Ingrid to go to Place Bellecour to buy Bensimons. Bensimons are tennis shoes that are very popular in France right now. They come tons of colors and styles, I bought some blue ones! While we were at Place Bellecour, someone from Unicef stopped us and asked us to right the ferris wheel, and all the proceeds would go to Haiti. So we did, and then there was a groupe of college students waiting on the ground after who asked questions and taped our answers for a school project or something, though only Ingrid talked!! :) After that I came home and changed for dance class. At dance, we had a guest hiphop teacher who taught us a choreography of hiphop which we will somehow incorporate into a dance we do later on. It was fun, but really hard! He had us balance on our heads (though luckily no spinning!) and on our hands with our elbows supporting our legs. That night we ate dinner while watching the movie Les Choristes (The Chorists) which Ingrid lent me. It was a good french movie! It was about a boarding school for troubled-ish boys (Claire told me they had supposedly been to court and the juge referred them to this school, though only a few were mean in the movie) and a new teacher who liked singing. He had trouble controlling the boys at first, but eventually got through to them by starting a choir. The ending was a little abrupt, with the teacher being fired by the principal, and all the boys who had pretended not to like the choir throwing little paper airplanes out the window with nice goodbyes written on them as the teacher exited. All day thursday I was really tired, and I had class from 8am-6pm :( Though today I got to sleep in because my English teacher was absent, so I started at 10am! Then I had 2.5 hours of chemistry and physics right aways :( but then lunch, TPE, one hour of Italian (I dont really have this class, I just went with Laurie, Ingrid and Anne-Sophie for something to do, and the teacher is really nice and doesnt mind) and then one hour of History and Geography and then I finished at 5pm! Tonight, a Norwegian girl, Ingrid, is comming over to spend the night (she is with AFS too) and then tomorrow Laura, Ingrid, and I are catching the train to....I dont really know where, though its the same small town we went to after the first month here. Tonight, Claire and Michel are driving to a friends cabin where they are going to stay the weekend and snowshoe on a mountain.

Also, I realise that I make a lot of errors in my blog posts because I dont proof read them and I am slowly loosing my English, so Im sorry!! I hope you can still understand everything :)

Last week went by pretty fast, nothing much out of the ordinary. Everything is pretty normal now, no surprises, nothing really new, sort of feels like I could have lived here forever. Except for the language difference :) If I listen carefully in class, I can understand everything, but I still have trouble listening and writing at the same time. I will start to write down what the teacher is saying, and then when I listen again, they have started talking about a whole new subjet, which makes for funny looking notes, but I guess the point is to keep learning, not have perfect notes. My French teacher has this way of talking in strange sentences. which. dont make. sense because she. stops. in the middle. and stresses. sylables which. are not usually. stressed. It makes it a lot harder to understand what she is saying when I am trying to make sense of only half the sentence.
Anyways, this past weekend I didnt do much either. On Saturday night I went to see a movie called A Serious Man with Laura and Michel. It was in English!! But it still wasnt the best movie I have ever seen. Today I have to go back to school in half an hour to watch a presentation for the organisation Printemps de la Jupe (literal translation: Spring of the Dress...I have no idea why it is called this, maybe I will find out). This is a presentation for an engineering job, though even if you know you dont want to be one, you still have to go. I think it will be interesting, hopefully! This comming weekend we have the half-way-through weekend with AFS. It strange to think that I am already/only halfway through. I havent decided which one fits better. Im not really looking forward to it, other than seeing everybody, but we always have to play weird games, they never let us just talk. Ok off to see Printemps de la Jupe:)

Le Gourmet de Sèze

On Saturday I was supposed to be at Le Gourmet de Sèze at 9:00am. I took two buses and walked the rest of the way. Its not a very big restaurant, only about 15 tables. The kitchen was small too, but the area where the pastry chef worked was TINY! Though I guess it was big enough for her (the pastry chef) to work in. I arrived at about 8:45 am and everyone was already there. The Chef (aka owner, Bernard) gave me a chef shirt and an apron to wear. I helped the pastry chef all day, making bread dough, forming rolls, preparing dessert plates, filling small white chocolate shells with mousse, cleaning, ect. The restaurant is open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner, reservations only. There is an épicerie (small café) joined to the restaurant (and owned by Bernard too). In all, there was one girl working in the épicerie, one pastry chef, three regular chefs, Bernard (head chef), three servers, one dishwasher, and me. During the service time (lunch= 1:30-2:30, dinner= 9:30~11:30) the pastry chef and I prepared five desserts for each guest. They were all fairly small. The first one was a crème brulée covered with a little bit of chocolate ganache and topped off with a chocolate piece with cocoa butter writing that said 'Le Gourmet de Sèze'. The second was a fruit salad consisting of one small piece of each fruit; kiwi, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, mango, lychee, cranberry, prune, apricot, pineapple, banana, madarine orange, normal orange, and grapefruit. This plate was topped off with mint jelly, two small scoops of ice cream (a fruit one and vanilla bean/ crème anglaise) and a red fruit coulis. The third dish had a round biscuit base wrapped in a white chocolate shell. The shell was filled with pieces of lychee and then topped off with a passion fruit mousse. The garnish was a sprig of mint, a tiny scoop of ice cream, a vanilla bean, and a piece of apricot. The fourth was a cup of chocolate mousse with a small scoop of chocolate ice cream in the middle, then a small layer crème anglaise and a round piece of chocolate. The fifth was a hot dessert, molten chocolate cake with a sauce I forgot the name of, though its made from the root of an endive... :) Lastly, the guests were served a café with madeleines (small spongy cakes in the shape of a shell) we made. I made one mistake and one almost mistake :) The mistake was squirting the red fruit coulis on the fruit salad plate too sloppily for the pastry chefs liking, she yelled at me saying it was too ugly! Then I almost dropped the entire tray of crème brulée/chocolate ganache when I looked up to smile and say merci at the guy holding the fridge-room door open for me! After that I decided it would be better to look a little rude and not say thanks, than drop an entire tray of desserts!! :) I stayed from 9am to 3pm. Then took a tram and a bus back home, then Claire took me back at 5:30pm and I stayed until 10:30 pm, though it wasnt even the busiest time for the pastry chef yet, but I wasnt allowed to stay past then because I am a minor and apparently there are laws about that. Bernard also sent home some dessert with me, though it wasnt the same as what we had made. He sent ile flottant (floating isle, a dessert made of whipped egg whites floating in a crème anglaise sauce), a café crumble, and a chocolate cake-type thing. We ate the dessert after lunch and dinner yesterday, it was all really good. Yesterday I didnt do much, and today I went to Part-Dieu after school to buy a swim suit for gym this wednesday. In other news it rained for a couple days, and now all the snow is gone, which gives me the false hope that spring is right around the corner!

1) Snow in Lyon!!!

2)All the chefs and the girl who works in the épicerie.

3) Three of the desserts for two people; fruit salad on the left, then white chocolate and crème anglaise

4) Me with my very big shirt and apron on filling the white chocolate cups with passion fruit mousse over the chunks of lychee

5) Me plating the fruit salad

Small Update

I just got back from meeting with the owner of Le Gourmet de Sèze (a restaurant in Lyon). Michel told me it is very highly regarded. It is apparently one out of (a maximum, though not necessarily) 10 restaurants in Lyon which are awarded stars (called Etoilé Michelin) by the Michelin guide book. It has been awarded one star (out of three) since 2002. The owner, Bernard Mariller, was very nice and not intimidating at all. He was happy that I was so excited about baking and told me I could come in this Saturday at 9:00 am to work with them. He also said I could take notes and pictures if I wanted, and could come back in the evening!! I am excited, so hopefully it will be a lot of fun and a good experience.

§ µ £ ¤ € (some of the different symbols of a French keyboard)

Saturday night I went to Chloés for dinner with Laurie, Justine, and Ingrid for Claires goodbye party. We ate a lot of little appetizers for dinner, including Chinese Chips, which I had never heard of before, but they were big, fat, white crunchy chip-like circles that if you stuck them on your tongue, they acted like pop-rocks! So that was cool :) Then we ate pavlova which Claire made (apparently it is a very Australian dessert) and talked. Ingrid and I left at about 12:30 am and ran back to Rue de la Balme (we live on the same street) because it was snowing hard and there was a bunch of snow on the ground. Sunday I slept in and then after lunch we went to a museum in Lyon and then to the movies with Marie-Pierre and Aliane. That night for dinner we ate endives wrapped in ham, covered in a beshamel sauce and cooked in the oven. I usually dont like endives, but cooked like that they werent bad! :) Monday I finished school at 1:00 and went to Part-Dieu to eat lunch with Laurie, Chloé and Claire. We took the bus back, and Chloé and Claire wanted me to go to the film history class with them so I did that until 6:00 and then went home. Tuesday was normal, and in French class I got back my Bac Blanc test.......0.5/20! I guess that means there is only room for improvment :) Today I had math class (which I am actually sort of understanding now, since we moved on from derivitives to trigonometry) and then the last class of badmitton. Next week we start swimming, and I have to buy a swimsuit soon. Then I came back and ate lunch and then Laurie and Claire came over. Laurie wanted to make banana bread because she watches Desperate Houswives and there was banana bread in one episode, and Claire like to bake too (and really likes banana bread). It turned out good, we found semi-brown bananas, but not really good-ripe-brownish-black ones. Then I went to dance class. Today we finished our dance to Men In Black (still havent seen the movie), though each class the teacher sort of forgets what we have already done, and changes a lot of things. Its semi-confusing. Then we started another dance to a song in Greece (the theme is movie songs this year). We are supposed to finish 5 dances by the middle of June, and we have one and a half in 4 months! I dont think were going to get there... :) Tomorrow I have an easy day, I am not going to have my TP SVT class or my Hist/Geo class. Then I dont have Hist/Geo on Friday either. Today Michel called an aquaintance (the father, who owns a restaurant and specialises in pastry (!!) of a kid who used to play basketball with Victor) and asked if I could shadow him for a day. He said yes!! So, if I understood, I will be shadowing him this Saturday!! Also, I have decided that when ever I like something my host parents cook, I will take a picture of it, and write down the recipe, so hopefully at the end of the year, I will have a real French cookbook. But we will see if I actually stick to it... :)
Tomorrow Claire Leaves for Paris on a bus :(

Back from break

On Tuesday I ate lunch with Laurie. We cooked the macaroni and cheese my parents sent. She really liked it and kept the box:) On Wednesday I made chocolate chip cookies for my dance class because we had a New Years celebration afterwards, and no surprise, they really liked them. I guess they are not just Americans favorite cookies anymore! :) Wednesday Michel left for Paris for a meeting for his business. We ate dinner, and then after watched Slumdog Millionair in French, well part of it. Laura and I were too tired to stay up for all of it. We ate a Galette de Roi for dessert (King Wafer). Galette translated literally is wafer. Though this was kind of like a flat honey cake. Its a tradition in France to eat one after the New Year to celebrate the Three Wise Men who went to visit Jesus after he was born, in French, they are The Three Kings. The tradition is to cut it into pieces and the youngest person in the family (which is me) crawls under the table and tell the server which piece to give to whom (though I there were only three of us, so I didnt have to crawl under the table:) ). Whoever gets the small ceramic toy in their piece is crowned king. In a large Galette de Roi, there are two ceramic pieces. Though ours was small, so we only had one, but I got it in my piece. I am king!! :) Though Michel wasnt there, and he didnt know we had already done it, so today he bought a big one! Thursday it snowed some more, and on Friday, all of our classes were stopped at 4pm because the public buses were starting to shut down, and almost everyone in the school takes the buses, some take two or three to get home, and if there are no buses, its a problem. So normally I would have ended at 3pm because during the hour of 3-4pm I dont have a class, but Laurie wanted me to go to Italian with her, Ingrid, and Anne-Sophie, so I did, and Claire came too. It was cool, I understood when the teacher spoke French, and then could follow along a little bit in Italian. When we got out of school, everyone was throwing snow balls, even if they didnt know you, they still made you their target. So, I threw them back! :) Today it hasnt stopped snowing yet and there are about 6-8 inches on the roof! This is really rare for Lyon. This morning Michel tried to start a fire and thought he opened the damper, but he didnt. For about an hour we suffocated in smoke until I decided I was going to go for a walk, and let the smoke escape through the open windows. When I got back, Michel told me that in fact, the dampers werent open! Tonight I am going to Chloés house for a goodbye party for Claire, she leaves this Thursday to go back to Australia.