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!