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!