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.