Well despite the efforts of some, I'm pretty happy right now. It's Christmas, after all. I'm sorry if I offended anyone by saying that America has culture. I personally believe that America does have it's own culture. Of course France is rich in culture. As well as all countries in the world. I wouldn't have come here if I didn't want to participate in a cultural immersion program. Just because I don't like foie gras doesn't mean I don't appreciate the French culture. If you have read my blog, you should be able to tell that I admire French culture a lot. I think I've mentioned how much I love French art. And I really like French music. And French fashion. And a lot of the French food, just not pâté and foie gras. I'm really sorry that foie gras just doesn't taste good to me. And I'm sorry that I am American, and I still like my country even if I live in a different country. I think France is an amazing country. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think so. But I'm not pretending that I'm not American, because I am. I don't in any way think that the United States is a better country than any other in the world. Seriously.
So anyway, I got my SAT scores back yesterday. I went window shopping in Vernon. There were a lot of people shopping. Today I watched "Vicky Christina Barcelona" in French with Aubrée. Then I went to the bank.
The snow has melted, which is too bad. It might snow again though. So maybe I'll get my white Christmas after all. Well, that's about it for now. Happy Holidays to everyone!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Paris, je t'aime!
Bonjour tous,
So yesterday I went shopping in Paris with Sophie, Aubrée, and Romain. We left after lunch, at like 3. Driving into Paris we drove right past the Arc de Triomphe, which was as usual looking quite big and pretty. It didn't snow in Paris (it snowed in Vernon last week, about two inches). But it was cold. I didn't care, though. Paris can be cold, but it's still Paris!
We went to Les Halles, which is a famous mall in Paris. First we went in H&M, which was really really crowded. The line for the dressing room was ridiculously long, so I didn't try anything on. After that, we went to Starbucks. It's official: going to Starbucks every time I go to Paris is a tradition. I got a Chocolat Viennois Classic, which is basically a hot chocolate. I also got a Starbucks Paris Christmas 2009 mug with the Arc de Triomphe on it.
After that, the stores in the mall were all closing. So we went out of the mall to the shops on the streets, which were still open. We went in Sephora and I tried like 5 different kinds of perfume. Then we walked past the Louvre to the Champs-Elysées. It was dark by that time, and the Champs-Elysées was all decorated for Christmas. It was sooooooo beautiful. The street is lined with trees on both sides, and every tree was covered in white lights. There was a huge Christmas market lining the streets; it was like twenty times bigger than the Strasbourg one. At one end of the street was a giant Ferris Wheel, all lit up, and at the other was the Arc de Triomphe. It was amazingly pretty. There was also a Merry-Go-Round.
We went into the Gap Paris on the Champs-Elysées, and I got a new winter coat. It's super warm. That Gap store was the biggest one I've ever been in. After that we walked all the way down the street, and went into McDonalds for dinner. By that time it was after 9 o'clock. There were sooooo many people in McDonald's. We got a table on the second floor right by a window, so the view was good. There were American tourists sitting next to us and I was eavesdropping on their conversation. One guy said "There's actually French people eating at McDonald's. I'm shocked." I guess I didn't really think that French people ate McDonald's before I came here.
After we ate, we walked up close to the Arc de Triomphe and took pictures. You could see the Eiffel Tower from there; it was all lit up for Christmas. Then we went to find the car. It took awhile to find it. They had to ask this random Parisien who was roller-blading for directions to the right road.
We left after that, and got home at midnight.
I'm so glad that I saw Paris all decorated for Christmas. well that's all for now
au revoir!
Halle
So yesterday I went shopping in Paris with Sophie, Aubrée, and Romain. We left after lunch, at like 3. Driving into Paris we drove right past the Arc de Triomphe, which was as usual looking quite big and pretty. It didn't snow in Paris (it snowed in Vernon last week, about two inches). But it was cold. I didn't care, though. Paris can be cold, but it's still Paris!
We went to Les Halles, which is a famous mall in Paris. First we went in H&M, which was really really crowded. The line for the dressing room was ridiculously long, so I didn't try anything on. After that, we went to Starbucks. It's official: going to Starbucks every time I go to Paris is a tradition. I got a Chocolat Viennois Classic, which is basically a hot chocolate. I also got a Starbucks Paris Christmas 2009 mug with the Arc de Triomphe on it.
After that, the stores in the mall were all closing. So we went out of the mall to the shops on the streets, which were still open. We went in Sephora and I tried like 5 different kinds of perfume. Then we walked past the Louvre to the Champs-Elysées. It was dark by that time, and the Champs-Elysées was all decorated for Christmas. It was sooooooo beautiful. The street is lined with trees on both sides, and every tree was covered in white lights. There was a huge Christmas market lining the streets; it was like twenty times bigger than the Strasbourg one. At one end of the street was a giant Ferris Wheel, all lit up, and at the other was the Arc de Triomphe. It was amazingly pretty. There was also a Merry-Go-Round.
We went into the Gap Paris on the Champs-Elysées, and I got a new winter coat. It's super warm. That Gap store was the biggest one I've ever been in. After that we walked all the way down the street, and went into McDonalds for dinner. By that time it was after 9 o'clock. There were sooooo many people in McDonald's. We got a table on the second floor right by a window, so the view was good. There were American tourists sitting next to us and I was eavesdropping on their conversation. One guy said "There's actually French people eating at McDonald's. I'm shocked." I guess I didn't really think that French people ate McDonald's before I came here.
After we ate, we walked up close to the Arc de Triomphe and took pictures. You could see the Eiffel Tower from there; it was all lit up for Christmas. Then we went to find the car. It took awhile to find it. They had to ask this random Parisien who was roller-blading for directions to the right road.
We left after that, and got home at midnight.
I'm so glad that I saw Paris all decorated for Christmas. well that's all for now
au revoir!
Halle
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Strasbourg/SAT/Starbucks
Bonjour à tous!
So on Friday I didn't go to school, because I had to go to Strasbourg to take the SAT. I left Vernon at 11 on Friday, and got to Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris before 12. Then I had to take the subway to Gare l'Est to catch my train to Strasbourg. I was worried that I was going to get lost, but the Paris subway system is super easy to figure out, especially if you know French. So I got to Gare l'Est with plenty of time to spare. I bought a sandwich for lunch that was like amazing: half a baguette with cheese. They sell half-baguette sandwiched all over Paris, so if you ever go there you should definitely try one. And they aren't expensive, only like 3 or 4 euros. I was eating my sandwich and watching the screen where they put up the platform numbers, and this lady came up to me and asked me for money. I was like "I don't have any" but she was like "Yes you do, you're eating a sandwich", so then I was like "I don't speak French" to try to get her to leave me alone, and she was like "What?" in french, so then I just walked away. There are a lot of beggars in Paris.
So I got on the right train and had a window seat. The train a TGV train and it was really nice. On the TGVs they have first and second class seats; I was sitting in second class, but I saw the first class section and the difference is that in first class, the seats are more comfortable and there are TVs. But the seats in second class are comfortable, too.
The ride there was like really pretty, and the train was going sooo fast. The scenary went by so quickly. It was really sunny out, so everything was bright green and bright blue. Then as we got closer to Strasbourg it got cloudy. It only took two hours to get there, which is not a lot considering Strasbourg is basically in Germany.
Once I got to Strasbourg, I took the bus to the hotel and checked in. Then I went shopping. It was really cold in Strasbourg; in Paris it had been like 50 degrees but it was probably in the mid thirties in Strasbourg. The mall I went to wasn't too big, but there was an H&M, so I went there. I ate dinner at McDonalds and the guy I gave my order to thought I was French. Maybe because I was wearing a beret and a scarf and talking in French.
In Strasbourg I heard more German than French. German sounds really weird, I like French better. There were lots of German people like everywhere.
After I went shopping, I went back to the hotel. Then I went looking for a bank and ended up walking all the way back to the mall to find one. I passed a tanning-bed place, so apparently tanning beds are NOT illegal in France, as multiple people have told me.
On Saturday I ate breakfast at the hotel and then went to take the SAT. I took a taxi to the SAT site, and I got there and was like "hmmm, am I in the right place?" and then this lady walked up to the building and was like "You're in the right place" in English. There were probably 10 other kids taking the test, and most of them were French. There was one other exchange student taking it; she's not with Rotary and she's leaving in January.
After the test (the last time I'll ever take the SAT reasoning test!), I was going to go look for the bus stop so that I could get back to the train station. Then the other exchange student (Paige) asked me if I was going to the train station, because she was too and neither of us knew how to get there. So we were going to go look for the bus stop when another girl who took the SAT asked us if we needed help getting anywhere, and we were like "Yeah, the train station". And she said she had to go right past it, so we went with her. Her name was Jessica and I thought she was American and living in France with her family, because she spoke English perfectly with an American accent, but she was French and had lived in France for her whole life. Her mom was from Chicago, though, so that's why she spoke English.
We went and caught a tram. The trams in Strasbourg are like all glass and really cool, and they go through the middle of the city. We took one tram to the center of Strasbourg and passed through the nice part of Strasbourg, so I saw the famous cathedral and the Marché de Noël. Then we got on another train that went right to the train station, where we said bye to Jessica.
After that I got another baguette sandwich for lunch, with a brownie. Then I found Teen Vogue in the bookstore in the train station. After that I waited for like two hours for my train. I had two seats to myself on the way back.
I got to Paris and it was raining, but I had my umbrella so it was good. I had no trouble finding the right subway. When I got to Saint-Lazare I had like over an hour, so I went to Starbucks. It's kind of becoming a tradition that whenever I'm in Paris I go to Starbucks. But this time I actually sat there to drink my coffee.
I got back to Vernon at like 9.
The whole French train system is really good; it's too bad we don't have one like it in America. Because most people don't actually ride the AMtrack.
Well, that's all for now!
byeeee
Halle
So on Friday I didn't go to school, because I had to go to Strasbourg to take the SAT. I left Vernon at 11 on Friday, and got to Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris before 12. Then I had to take the subway to Gare l'Est to catch my train to Strasbourg. I was worried that I was going to get lost, but the Paris subway system is super easy to figure out, especially if you know French. So I got to Gare l'Est with plenty of time to spare. I bought a sandwich for lunch that was like amazing: half a baguette with cheese. They sell half-baguette sandwiched all over Paris, so if you ever go there you should definitely try one. And they aren't expensive, only like 3 or 4 euros. I was eating my sandwich and watching the screen where they put up the platform numbers, and this lady came up to me and asked me for money. I was like "I don't have any" but she was like "Yes you do, you're eating a sandwich", so then I was like "I don't speak French" to try to get her to leave me alone, and she was like "What?" in french, so then I just walked away. There are a lot of beggars in Paris.
So I got on the right train and had a window seat. The train a TGV train and it was really nice. On the TGVs they have first and second class seats; I was sitting in second class, but I saw the first class section and the difference is that in first class, the seats are more comfortable and there are TVs. But the seats in second class are comfortable, too.
The ride there was like really pretty, and the train was going sooo fast. The scenary went by so quickly. It was really sunny out, so everything was bright green and bright blue. Then as we got closer to Strasbourg it got cloudy. It only took two hours to get there, which is not a lot considering Strasbourg is basically in Germany.
Once I got to Strasbourg, I took the bus to the hotel and checked in. Then I went shopping. It was really cold in Strasbourg; in Paris it had been like 50 degrees but it was probably in the mid thirties in Strasbourg. The mall I went to wasn't too big, but there was an H&M, so I went there. I ate dinner at McDonalds and the guy I gave my order to thought I was French. Maybe because I was wearing a beret and a scarf and talking in French.
In Strasbourg I heard more German than French. German sounds really weird, I like French better. There were lots of German people like everywhere.
After I went shopping, I went back to the hotel. Then I went looking for a bank and ended up walking all the way back to the mall to find one. I passed a tanning-bed place, so apparently tanning beds are NOT illegal in France, as multiple people have told me.
On Saturday I ate breakfast at the hotel and then went to take the SAT. I took a taxi to the SAT site, and I got there and was like "hmmm, am I in the right place?" and then this lady walked up to the building and was like "You're in the right place" in English. There were probably 10 other kids taking the test, and most of them were French. There was one other exchange student taking it; she's not with Rotary and she's leaving in January.
After the test (the last time I'll ever take the SAT reasoning test!), I was going to go look for the bus stop so that I could get back to the train station. Then the other exchange student (Paige) asked me if I was going to the train station, because she was too and neither of us knew how to get there. So we were going to go look for the bus stop when another girl who took the SAT asked us if we needed help getting anywhere, and we were like "Yeah, the train station". And she said she had to go right past it, so we went with her. Her name was Jessica and I thought she was American and living in France with her family, because she spoke English perfectly with an American accent, but she was French and had lived in France for her whole life. Her mom was from Chicago, though, so that's why she spoke English.
We went and caught a tram. The trams in Strasbourg are like all glass and really cool, and they go through the middle of the city. We took one tram to the center of Strasbourg and passed through the nice part of Strasbourg, so I saw the famous cathedral and the Marché de Noël. Then we got on another train that went right to the train station, where we said bye to Jessica.
After that I got another baguette sandwich for lunch, with a brownie. Then I found Teen Vogue in the bookstore in the train station. After that I waited for like two hours for my train. I had two seats to myself on the way back.
I got to Paris and it was raining, but I had my umbrella so it was good. I had no trouble finding the right subway. When I got to Saint-Lazare I had like over an hour, so I went to Starbucks. It's kind of becoming a tradition that whenever I'm in Paris I go to Starbucks. But this time I actually sat there to drink my coffee.
I got back to Vernon at like 9.
The whole French train system is really good; it's too bad we don't have one like it in America. Because most people don't actually ride the AMtrack.
Well, that's all for now!
byeeee
Halle
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Some French Music
Some people have asked me if there's any good french music...
here a few couple of songs I like, and probably most people reading my blog wouldn't like them:
Coeur de Pirate - Comme des Enfants (this is my favorite song in french - for like the first two months it was always on the radio. youtube it - it's really good even if you don't understand the lyrics. the singing is not technically french - she's canadian)
Coeur de Pirate - Printemps
Coeur de Pirate - Ensemble
Tom Frager - Lady Melody (it's in French mostly)
Ocean Drive - Without You (perdu sans toi) - it's in English and French
those are all recent. but I like La vie en Rose by Edith Piaf, too, even though it's really old
here a few couple of songs I like, and probably most people reading my blog wouldn't like them:
Coeur de Pirate - Comme des Enfants (this is my favorite song in french - for like the first two months it was always on the radio. youtube it - it's really good even if you don't understand the lyrics. the singing is not technically french - she's canadian)
Coeur de Pirate - Printemps
Coeur de Pirate - Ensemble
Tom Frager - Lady Melody (it's in French mostly)
Ocean Drive - Without You (perdu sans toi) - it's in English and French
those are all recent. but I like La vie en Rose by Edith Piaf, too, even though it's really old
Friday, November 20, 2009
The French is Getting Better
Okay so I forgot to mention this... but like a week before Halloween I had a dream in French. It was pretty cool, I don't remember it all, but I know I said "Bonne chance" which means "good luck", so hopefully that's a good sign.
And also, I can understand my history class sometimes which is good. I took my first test in France on Tuesday, it was in math and of course I chose that day to forget my calculator, so I had to try to figure out like "4.5 percent interest rate, 10000 euros to start with, how much money do you have after 2 years? after 10 years?"... hahah, not good, but the test would have been ridiculously easy if I had remembered my calculator.
On Monday in one of my English classes, we were doing presentations on Shakespeare. I read something about "A Midsummer Night's Dream" outloud and I think maybe like one person in the whole class besides the teacher could understand what I was saying. I guess Americans talk fast too.
Today (Friday) I only had school until 12 because both my Physics teacher and my Biology teacher were absent, and in France when the teacher is absent, they don't get a substitute so you just get to leave.
Ludivine told me that my French has improved, so that's good. Now that I think about it, my French has definitely gotten a loooot better... I couldn't understand like anything anyone was saying at first.
I'm reading the last Twilight book in French... I've already read the first Harry Potter book in French. It was super easy... Twilight is a bit harder, but whatever.
Okay, that's all for now... Bon Weekend!
And also, I can understand my history class sometimes which is good. I took my first test in France on Tuesday, it was in math and of course I chose that day to forget my calculator, so I had to try to figure out like "4.5 percent interest rate, 10000 euros to start with, how much money do you have after 2 years? after 10 years?"... hahah, not good, but the test would have been ridiculously easy if I had remembered my calculator.
On Monday in one of my English classes, we were doing presentations on Shakespeare. I read something about "A Midsummer Night's Dream" outloud and I think maybe like one person in the whole class besides the teacher could understand what I was saying. I guess Americans talk fast too.
Today (Friday) I only had school until 12 because both my Physics teacher and my Biology teacher were absent, and in France when the teacher is absent, they don't get a substitute so you just get to leave.
Ludivine told me that my French has improved, so that's good. Now that I think about it, my French has definitely gotten a loooot better... I couldn't understand like anything anyone was saying at first.
I'm reading the last Twilight book in French... I've already read the first Harry Potter book in French. It was super easy... Twilight is a bit harder, but whatever.
Okay, that's all for now... Bon Weekend!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Handball! But at Least the French are Happy
Yeah, so for those of you who don't know, last night was like a really big deal in France because there was a soccer game between France and Ireland that France had to win in order to be in the World Cup. This type of thing doesn't happen often because normally France has no trouble qualifying for the World Cup - last time, they almost won it. So France won the game, but probably shouldn't have. Thierry Henry, France's best player, made the most obvious handball I've ever seen in my life and as a result, France scored a goal.
Even though it was pretty unfair to Ireland, I'm glad France won. I think a lot of people here would have been bitter if they had lost, and the World Cup really wouldn't be the same without France.
So anyway, last Saturday I went to Deauville for a Rotary thing. Deauville is this town on the English Channel that is famous for its casinos and annual international film festival. In the morning there was a big Rotary conference, and all the exchange students in our district had to be there. It was held in the movie theater of a super-fancy casino. Outside the movie theater there was a poster for a Johnny Depp movie, so Rebecca, Jessica, and I were taking pictures with the life-size Johnny Depp. Then there was a really big lunch; it was duck as the starter, which I did not eat, then really good fish, and apple cake for dessert. The bread was really good, too.
After lunch, Rebecca, Jessica, and I went shopping. We walked out of the casino and I was like "OMG, THERE'S A RALPH LAUREN STORE!!!!!!!!!!!!" and I was soooooo happy because like two weeks before I had checked online to see where in France there were Ralph Lauren stores and it said only in Paris and Cannes, so I guess the site was wrong. So of course, the store was closed for lunch, as were Louis Vuitton, Hérmes, Burberry, and most of the other stores (they were ALL designer brands). But then like an hour later they reopened, and so we went in Ralph Lauren. It turned out to be a major disappointment because everything was like twice as expensive than in the US, and you can buy the same things online for like half the price and have them shipped to France and they'd still be way less expensive. I'm not exaggerating; a polo shirt that I liked was 11O € in the store, which is like 150 dollars, but online you can buy the same exact shirt for 65 dollars and pay like 20 for shipping to France, thus saving like 65 dollars. So I didn't buy anything there or in any other of the stores, since every single one of them were trés trés cher (very expensive). Pretty much no one bought anything. But Rebecca and Jessica and I got to pet these two little Yorkie dogs with diamond collars that were in Louis Vuitton (their owners were a really rich couple who were actually buying things in Louis Vuitton, and not just keychains).
The Wednesday before that was November 11,which was the day that WW1 ended, so we didn't have school. I went with Sophie, Aubrée, and Romain to see "2010". It was pretty good, I think. It's about "le fin du monde" (the end of the world).
Tuesday night, I went to see "A Christmas Carol", the new one with Jim Carrey. It was to raise money for Rotary; all across France Rotary was having special showings of it. I thought it was going to be like "the Grinch" - with real people. But it was all animated, and since it was dubbed in French, it wasn't Jim Carrey's voice. It seemed okay; a lot of the Rotarians didn't like it because it's a kids movie.
Okay, that's about all for now.
au revoir!
Even though it was pretty unfair to Ireland, I'm glad France won. I think a lot of people here would have been bitter if they had lost, and the World Cup really wouldn't be the same without France.
So anyway, last Saturday I went to Deauville for a Rotary thing. Deauville is this town on the English Channel that is famous for its casinos and annual international film festival. In the morning there was a big Rotary conference, and all the exchange students in our district had to be there. It was held in the movie theater of a super-fancy casino. Outside the movie theater there was a poster for a Johnny Depp movie, so Rebecca, Jessica, and I were taking pictures with the life-size Johnny Depp. Then there was a really big lunch; it was duck as the starter, which I did not eat, then really good fish, and apple cake for dessert. The bread was really good, too.
After lunch, Rebecca, Jessica, and I went shopping. We walked out of the casino and I was like "OMG, THERE'S A RALPH LAUREN STORE!!!!!!!!!!!!" and I was soooooo happy because like two weeks before I had checked online to see where in France there were Ralph Lauren stores and it said only in Paris and Cannes, so I guess the site was wrong. So of course, the store was closed for lunch, as were Louis Vuitton, Hérmes, Burberry, and most of the other stores (they were ALL designer brands). But then like an hour later they reopened, and so we went in Ralph Lauren. It turned out to be a major disappointment because everything was like twice as expensive than in the US, and you can buy the same things online for like half the price and have them shipped to France and they'd still be way less expensive. I'm not exaggerating; a polo shirt that I liked was 11O € in the store, which is like 150 dollars, but online you can buy the same exact shirt for 65 dollars and pay like 20 for shipping to France, thus saving like 65 dollars. So I didn't buy anything there or in any other of the stores, since every single one of them were trés trés cher (very expensive). Pretty much no one bought anything. But Rebecca and Jessica and I got to pet these two little Yorkie dogs with diamond collars that were in Louis Vuitton (their owners were a really rich couple who were actually buying things in Louis Vuitton, and not just keychains).
The Wednesday before that was November 11,which was the day that WW1 ended, so we didn't have school. I went with Sophie, Aubrée, and Romain to see "2010". It was pretty good, I think. It's about "le fin du monde" (the end of the world).
Tuesday night, I went to see "A Christmas Carol", the new one with Jim Carrey. It was to raise money for Rotary; all across France Rotary was having special showings of it. I thought it was going to be like "the Grinch" - with real people. But it was all animated, and since it was dubbed in French, it wasn't Jim Carrey's voice. It seemed okay; a lot of the Rotarians didn't like it because it's a kids movie.
Okay, that's about all for now.
au revoir!
New Address/Host Family
Bonjour everyone,
I moved in with my second host family two weeks ago. Here is my address:
2 rue St Lazare
27200 VERNON
My new host family are the Ferrands; the parents names are Sophie and Stephan. I have three host siblings, but the oldest, Caroline, is in Australia on exchange for the year. At home there is Aubrée (14) and Romain (12).They are really nice, so I think this will be a good next two or three months.
I moved in with my second host family two weeks ago. Here is my address:
2 rue St Lazare
27200 VERNON
My new host family are the Ferrands; the parents names are Sophie and Stephan. I have three host siblings, but the oldest, Caroline, is in Australia on exchange for the year. At home there is Aubrée (14) and Romain (12).They are really nice, so I think this will be a good next two or three months.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Les Vacances de Toussaint
Bonjour tout le monde!
On Sunday I got back from Brittany - I was there a week for fall break, which they call "les vacances de Toussaint". I had 12 days off school, which was nice even if it is kind of random. So I went to Brittany, the northwest region of France. We were in the southern part of Brittany, so it wasn't very cold for the most part, and it was sunny most days. I was really happy because there are actual palm trees in Brittany, so it really felt like vacation. However, it was too cold to go swimming. We did go to the ocean three times. Most of the houses and buildings in Brittany are white with blue shutters and gray stone trimming. They are really pretty.
We were in a town called Crac'h. The house had no computer or television, so that was rough. Also, I couldn't call home because my cell phone can't make calls to the USA. And there are like no pay phones in France. Maybe there are a couple in Paris, but I haven't seen any yet.
On Saturday, the day before we left Brittany, we went to a town called Auray. It was really pretty and had some shops, so I went shopping for a little while. Since it was Halloween, I bought some M&M's. I also bought a t-shirt. There were some kids trick-or-treating around the town, but Halloween is not a really big deal in France I guess.
Today, I went to Paris with Marie-Violaine, Similien, Léonie, and one of Similien's friends. We left at like 9:30 so that traffic wasn't quite so bad. On the way there, Marie-Violaine asked me if I knew who the mayor of New York City is. Only I thought she was asking which ocean was close to NYC, since "la mer" means "the sea" and "le maire" means "the mayor". They are pronounced the same except for the le/la difference. So I accidently told her that the Atlantic Ocean was the mayor of New York, hahaha.
When we got to Paris, we took the subway to the Musée de quai Branly. It's a new museum that was built in the late 1990's and it's right next to the Eiffel Tower. So I got to see the Eiffel Tower up close again. The Musée Branly is a museum with all these old tribal artifacts from all over the world. Like 3000 of them. It was interesting, but tribal artifacts are not really my biggest interest.
After we went to the museum, we were either going to go in the Eiffel Tower or to the Champs-Elysees; they let me pick. I picked the Champs-Elysees since I wanted to shop a little bit and the weather wasn't good. It rained all morning and in the afternoon it was cloudy and gray - not the best weather to go to the Eiffel Tower in my opinion. We walked to the Champs Elysees and passed the houses of Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent, so that was cool. They are where the designers actually design the clothes; they aren't the same as the stores. So you can't go in them.
Then we got to the Champs-Elysees. It is well worth going to because the street is so pretty. It's lined with trees and French Flags on both sides, and at the end of it is the Arc de Triomph. The Arc de Triomph is waaaay bigger in person than I always thought it was. I thought it was kind of small, but it's realllly big.
The shopping on the Champs-Elysees was a definite disappointment. The stores are either ridiculously expensive, or really junky souvenir shops. There are no H&Ms or any reasonably-priced stores, and even the designer stores were a major disappointment. There is Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Cartier, and Kenzo Paris, but there was no Burberry, Ralph Lauren, BCBG, or Marc Jacobs stores. I went in Louis Vuitton, which was packed with tourists who were just going in there to say they went in there. So I went out of it after like ten seconds, and Kenzo Paris was right across the street. So I was like, "okay, I'll go in there". It didn't look crowded but I thought there would be at least a few tourists in there who were just looking around. Well, I was wrong. I walked in the door and in the front part of the store there were like ten employees just standing there, and there was no one else in the whole store. So I walked into the second part of the store to just look at the clothes, and a saleslady came up to me right away and was like "Are you looking for anything in particular?" and I said "No, I'm just looking, thanks", but she didn't walk away. Instead she stood there while I looked through the hangers on one rack, and when I paused for like a milisecond to look at one shirt, she picked it up and was like "Oh this is new, you can wear it with this (she picked up a hanger with a skirt on it) and then you can also do these jeans which are very cute, and this jacket here goes with it...". And I was like "seriously are you ever going to leave me alone?" because even if I had absolutely loved any of the things she was telling me I should buy, the least expensive of all of them was the shirt which was like 160 euros, so I couldn't have spent that on one t-shirt. Talk about high-pressure sales! I guess tourists don't go in there; probably the only people who do are really rich. So I guess I would not recommend going in Kenzo by yourself unless you want like 10 intimidating salespeople to stare at you while you're trying to look at clothes.
After that, I walked down the street and was trying to find a Gap - anywhere that sold clothes for under like 150€, but I didn't have much time left, so I went to Starbucks and got a tall iced mocha for 4€. Starbucks in Paris must make a fortune because it was sooo crowded. Then I walked up close to the Arc de Triomph and took a couple of pictures. After that I went to meet up with the Crestanis, and we took the subway back to the 6th arrondissment where we parked.
It was 6 p.m., so the traffic going out of Paris was horrible. It took like thirty minutes to go 5 miles, but once we got pass the suburbs it was okay.
Okay, that's all for now!
à bientot!
On Sunday I got back from Brittany - I was there a week for fall break, which they call "les vacances de Toussaint". I had 12 days off school, which was nice even if it is kind of random. So I went to Brittany, the northwest region of France. We were in the southern part of Brittany, so it wasn't very cold for the most part, and it was sunny most days. I was really happy because there are actual palm trees in Brittany, so it really felt like vacation. However, it was too cold to go swimming. We did go to the ocean three times. Most of the houses and buildings in Brittany are white with blue shutters and gray stone trimming. They are really pretty.
We were in a town called Crac'h. The house had no computer or television, so that was rough. Also, I couldn't call home because my cell phone can't make calls to the USA. And there are like no pay phones in France. Maybe there are a couple in Paris, but I haven't seen any yet.
On Saturday, the day before we left Brittany, we went to a town called Auray. It was really pretty and had some shops, so I went shopping for a little while. Since it was Halloween, I bought some M&M's. I also bought a t-shirt. There were some kids trick-or-treating around the town, but Halloween is not a really big deal in France I guess.
Today, I went to Paris with Marie-Violaine, Similien, Léonie, and one of Similien's friends. We left at like 9:30 so that traffic wasn't quite so bad. On the way there, Marie-Violaine asked me if I knew who the mayor of New York City is. Only I thought she was asking which ocean was close to NYC, since "la mer" means "the sea" and "le maire" means "the mayor". They are pronounced the same except for the le/la difference. So I accidently told her that the Atlantic Ocean was the mayor of New York, hahaha.
When we got to Paris, we took the subway to the Musée de quai Branly. It's a new museum that was built in the late 1990's and it's right next to the Eiffel Tower. So I got to see the Eiffel Tower up close again. The Musée Branly is a museum with all these old tribal artifacts from all over the world. Like 3000 of them. It was interesting, but tribal artifacts are not really my biggest interest.
After we went to the museum, we were either going to go in the Eiffel Tower or to the Champs-Elysees; they let me pick. I picked the Champs-Elysees since I wanted to shop a little bit and the weather wasn't good. It rained all morning and in the afternoon it was cloudy and gray - not the best weather to go to the Eiffel Tower in my opinion. We walked to the Champs Elysees and passed the houses of Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent, so that was cool. They are where the designers actually design the clothes; they aren't the same as the stores. So you can't go in them.
Then we got to the Champs-Elysees. It is well worth going to because the street is so pretty. It's lined with trees and French Flags on both sides, and at the end of it is the Arc de Triomph. The Arc de Triomph is waaaay bigger in person than I always thought it was. I thought it was kind of small, but it's realllly big.
The shopping on the Champs-Elysees was a definite disappointment. The stores are either ridiculously expensive, or really junky souvenir shops. There are no H&Ms or any reasonably-priced stores, and even the designer stores were a major disappointment. There is Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Cartier, and Kenzo Paris, but there was no Burberry, Ralph Lauren, BCBG, or Marc Jacobs stores. I went in Louis Vuitton, which was packed with tourists who were just going in there to say they went in there. So I went out of it after like ten seconds, and Kenzo Paris was right across the street. So I was like, "okay, I'll go in there". It didn't look crowded but I thought there would be at least a few tourists in there who were just looking around. Well, I was wrong. I walked in the door and in the front part of the store there were like ten employees just standing there, and there was no one else in the whole store. So I walked into the second part of the store to just look at the clothes, and a saleslady came up to me right away and was like "Are you looking for anything in particular?" and I said "No, I'm just looking, thanks", but she didn't walk away. Instead she stood there while I looked through the hangers on one rack, and when I paused for like a milisecond to look at one shirt, she picked it up and was like "Oh this is new, you can wear it with this (she picked up a hanger with a skirt on it) and then you can also do these jeans which are very cute, and this jacket here goes with it...". And I was like "seriously are you ever going to leave me alone?" because even if I had absolutely loved any of the things she was telling me I should buy, the least expensive of all of them was the shirt which was like 160 euros, so I couldn't have spent that on one t-shirt. Talk about high-pressure sales! I guess tourists don't go in there; probably the only people who do are really rich. So I guess I would not recommend going in Kenzo by yourself unless you want like 10 intimidating salespeople to stare at you while you're trying to look at clothes.
After that, I walked down the street and was trying to find a Gap - anywhere that sold clothes for under like 150€, but I didn't have much time left, so I went to Starbucks and got a tall iced mocha for 4€. Starbucks in Paris must make a fortune because it was sooo crowded. Then I walked up close to the Arc de Triomph and took a couple of pictures. After that I went to meet up with the Crestanis, and we took the subway back to the 6th arrondissment where we parked.
It was 6 p.m., so the traffic going out of Paris was horrible. It took like thirty minutes to go 5 miles, but once we got pass the suburbs it was okay.
Okay, that's all for now!
à bientot!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
J'adore Paris!
Hello everyone!
On Thursday, I went to Paris with my class for a field trip. We all met at the Gare de Vernon at 8 a.m. and took the train to the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. The ride was only like 40 minutes long, and the train stopped two or three times.
The Gare Saint-Lazare is really, really big. It reminded me of "Ocean's Twelve" because there's a scene in that movie where they're at the Gare Saint-Lazare. Anyway, we went out of the station and had an hour to shop on the Champs-Elysee, but all the shops were closed; they didn't open until 10. So I went to... STARBUCKS!!!!!!!
There are lots of Starbucks in Paris, but none in Vernon... however, that is definitely a good thing, because Starbucks in France is ridiculously expensive. My small mocha cost 4.60€ - that's about 7 dollars. For a small drink. I ordered in French, so I said "Je voudrais un tall mocha cappucino light glacée" to the guy at Starbucks, but I guess I probably said "tall mocha cappucino light" with a total American accent because he and the other guy working there laughed after I gave them my order. So I got my Starbucks; it was worth the seven dollars. Outside of Paris, they don't have anywhere like Starbucks in France. You never see French people walking around with cups of coffee like you do all the time in America.
At 10 the class met up and went into a "Métropolitan" stop to catch the subway to the Musée d'Orsay. While we were waiting for the train, we saw a group of people on strike. They had flags and were chanting and climbing on the ticket machine things. It was the first strike I witnessed in France... I'm pretty sure they're kind of common.
Once we got to the Musée d'Orsay, we stood around for a little while to wait to go in. There was this hobo begging for money; he went up to every single person in my class and was like "s'il vous plait, j'ai faim" (please, I'm hungry).
Then we went inside the museum... it's sooooo pretty. It used to be a really big train station, but they turned it into a museum. The ceiling is glass and there's a giant old clock at one end of the main part of the museum... I took pictures, as soon as I get them uploaded you'll see what I mean.
The Musée d'Orsay is known for its collection of Impressionist art (Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, etc.), so it was one of the places I most wanted to visit in France. I got to see one of my favorite paintings in the whole world by Renoir; it's really really famous - I'm sure you've seen pictures of it before, it's called "Bal du Moulin de la Galette" - I think in English it's called the Ball of the Moulin, or something like that. Anyway, it was amazing in person. I also saw Monet's really famous painting of a poppy field, and his famous painting of the cathedral in Rouen, and his most famous lily pond painting. I also saw Van Gogh's "Self Portrait", which is really famous, and one of Degas's ballerina paintings that we talked about in AP Euro. I also saw Degas's sculpture "Little Dancer, age 14", which is probably the third most famous sculpture in the world after David and the Thinker. It was so small and cute. I bought a compact mirror that's gold on the inside and pink on the outside, and it says Degas and has a picture of the statue on the front. I didn't even have time to look at a lot of the paintings; I ended up rushing past some amazing Monets and Manets and a lot of others, but hopefully I'll make it back to the Musée d'Orsay. Okay, so one more famous painting story; we walked into the Manet room and my class was looking at one painting (they were on a tour with a guide but I didn't pay much attention because it was all in French and I'd rather just look at the paintings), and I turned and saw the painting "The Balcony" by Manet that Mr. Peters (my APEuro teacher, for those of you who don't know) had a poster of that was literally right in front of my desk all of sophomore year. It was so funny to see it in person; I was like "APEURO!!".
So after the Musée d'Orsay, we had about an hour and a half to eat. I ate lunch on a bridge over the Seine with some of my class. For lunch I had a sandwich, bread, chips, and an apple (they gave us a picnic lunch). There were a lot of tourist boats passing underneath the bridge, and Charlotte and Anne (from my class) poured water as they were passing underneath.
The view was really good; I could see Notre Dame and the Grand Palais from the bridge. And the weather was really good all day; it wasn't cold and it was sunny.
After lunch we walked back to the subway station and went to the National Library of France to go to an exhibit about Eugéne Ionesco. We weren't there very long.
Then we went back on the subway to the Boulevard Saint Michel, which is a famous street in Paris. We had like an hour and a half to go shopping, so I went with Camille and Charlotte to look for an H&M. We didn't find one, but we went in a couple of other stores. I bought an Eiffel Tower shirt in one. We bought cookies (I got MINI oreos... I was so happy to find mini oreos!) and ate them. Then we went back to where we had to meet the rest of the class; it was in front of this amazing fountain called the Fountain Saint Michel, which is famous and sooo pretty. At like 8 p.m. we went down this really neat street to a theater that's been showing Ionesco productions for like 60 years. It was really, really small, and I was in the second row. We saw an Ionesco play; it was really funny even though it was in French.
When the play was over, we went to McDonalds (which they pronounce Mac-Donahlds here, lol). The McDonald's had three stories, but the food was exactly the same as in America, except they had a few different items on the menu. When everyone was finished eating we all waited outside for our teacher. Charlotte pretended to be a beggar and sat on the sidewalk with a hat; some guy put money in it, which was really funny.
At like 11 we went back to the Gare Saint-Lazare and caught the train back to Vernon. We got back at midnight, so I didn't get home until 12:15. But it was definitely a really fun day. There's a reason why Paris is called the most beautiful city in the world: it's true! Now that I know how easy it is to catch the train to Paris, I can't wait to go back.
The next day, I had to get up at 7 to go to school; that was not fun. That morning, the whole lycée ran through the forest for like an hour, and since my feet were already aching from walking around Paris all day, that wasn't fun. But we did get hot chocolate and snacks afterwords. Friday night, I went to dance class. Then today, I had dance rehersal for a recital in December. The theme is Pirates; we are dancing to the Pirates of the Caribbean music. It's really fun.
Tomorrow I'm going to Brittany for a week; it's fall vacation and I get twelve days off school! I'll update again when I can.
Au revoir,
Halle
On Thursday, I went to Paris with my class for a field trip. We all met at the Gare de Vernon at 8 a.m. and took the train to the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. The ride was only like 40 minutes long, and the train stopped two or three times.
The Gare Saint-Lazare is really, really big. It reminded me of "Ocean's Twelve" because there's a scene in that movie where they're at the Gare Saint-Lazare. Anyway, we went out of the station and had an hour to shop on the Champs-Elysee, but all the shops were closed; they didn't open until 10. So I went to... STARBUCKS!!!!!!!
There are lots of Starbucks in Paris, but none in Vernon... however, that is definitely a good thing, because Starbucks in France is ridiculously expensive. My small mocha cost 4.60€ - that's about 7 dollars. For a small drink. I ordered in French, so I said "Je voudrais un tall mocha cappucino light glacée" to the guy at Starbucks, but I guess I probably said "tall mocha cappucino light" with a total American accent because he and the other guy working there laughed after I gave them my order. So I got my Starbucks; it was worth the seven dollars. Outside of Paris, they don't have anywhere like Starbucks in France. You never see French people walking around with cups of coffee like you do all the time in America.
At 10 the class met up and went into a "Métropolitan" stop to catch the subway to the Musée d'Orsay. While we were waiting for the train, we saw a group of people on strike. They had flags and were chanting and climbing on the ticket machine things. It was the first strike I witnessed in France... I'm pretty sure they're kind of common.
Once we got to the Musée d'Orsay, we stood around for a little while to wait to go in. There was this hobo begging for money; he went up to every single person in my class and was like "s'il vous plait, j'ai faim" (please, I'm hungry).
Then we went inside the museum... it's sooooo pretty. It used to be a really big train station, but they turned it into a museum. The ceiling is glass and there's a giant old clock at one end of the main part of the museum... I took pictures, as soon as I get them uploaded you'll see what I mean.
The Musée d'Orsay is known for its collection of Impressionist art (Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, etc.), so it was one of the places I most wanted to visit in France. I got to see one of my favorite paintings in the whole world by Renoir; it's really really famous - I'm sure you've seen pictures of it before, it's called "Bal du Moulin de la Galette" - I think in English it's called the Ball of the Moulin, or something like that. Anyway, it was amazing in person. I also saw Monet's really famous painting of a poppy field, and his famous painting of the cathedral in Rouen, and his most famous lily pond painting. I also saw Van Gogh's "Self Portrait", which is really famous, and one of Degas's ballerina paintings that we talked about in AP Euro. I also saw Degas's sculpture "Little Dancer, age 14", which is probably the third most famous sculpture in the world after David and the Thinker. It was so small and cute. I bought a compact mirror that's gold on the inside and pink on the outside, and it says Degas and has a picture of the statue on the front. I didn't even have time to look at a lot of the paintings; I ended up rushing past some amazing Monets and Manets and a lot of others, but hopefully I'll make it back to the Musée d'Orsay. Okay, so one more famous painting story; we walked into the Manet room and my class was looking at one painting (they were on a tour with a guide but I didn't pay much attention because it was all in French and I'd rather just look at the paintings), and I turned and saw the painting "The Balcony" by Manet that Mr. Peters (my APEuro teacher, for those of you who don't know) had a poster of that was literally right in front of my desk all of sophomore year. It was so funny to see it in person; I was like "APEURO!!".
So after the Musée d'Orsay, we had about an hour and a half to eat. I ate lunch on a bridge over the Seine with some of my class. For lunch I had a sandwich, bread, chips, and an apple (they gave us a picnic lunch). There were a lot of tourist boats passing underneath the bridge, and Charlotte and Anne (from my class) poured water as they were passing underneath.
The view was really good; I could see Notre Dame and the Grand Palais from the bridge. And the weather was really good all day; it wasn't cold and it was sunny.
After lunch we walked back to the subway station and went to the National Library of France to go to an exhibit about Eugéne Ionesco. We weren't there very long.
Then we went back on the subway to the Boulevard Saint Michel, which is a famous street in Paris. We had like an hour and a half to go shopping, so I went with Camille and Charlotte to look for an H&M. We didn't find one, but we went in a couple of other stores. I bought an Eiffel Tower shirt in one. We bought cookies (I got MINI oreos... I was so happy to find mini oreos!) and ate them. Then we went back to where we had to meet the rest of the class; it was in front of this amazing fountain called the Fountain Saint Michel, which is famous and sooo pretty. At like 8 p.m. we went down this really neat street to a theater that's been showing Ionesco productions for like 60 years. It was really, really small, and I was in the second row. We saw an Ionesco play; it was really funny even though it was in French.
When the play was over, we went to McDonalds (which they pronounce Mac-Donahlds here, lol). The McDonald's had three stories, but the food was exactly the same as in America, except they had a few different items on the menu. When everyone was finished eating we all waited outside for our teacher. Charlotte pretended to be a beggar and sat on the sidewalk with a hat; some guy put money in it, which was really funny.
At like 11 we went back to the Gare Saint-Lazare and caught the train back to Vernon. We got back at midnight, so I didn't get home until 12:15. But it was definitely a really fun day. There's a reason why Paris is called the most beautiful city in the world: it's true! Now that I know how easy it is to catch the train to Paris, I can't wait to go back.
The next day, I had to get up at 7 to go to school; that was not fun. That morning, the whole lycée ran through the forest for like an hour, and since my feet were already aching from walking around Paris all day, that wasn't fun. But we did get hot chocolate and snacks afterwords. Friday night, I went to dance class. Then today, I had dance rehersal for a recital in December. The theme is Pirates; we are dancing to the Pirates of the Caribbean music. It's really fun.
Tomorrow I'm going to Brittany for a week; it's fall vacation and I get twelve days off school! I'll update again when I can.
Au revoir,
Halle
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Mont Saint-Michel!
Bonjour tout le monde! Sorry, it's been awhile, I've been busy. And you'll have to wait for an entry all about french food, because I don't have the time right now.
So on Saturday, I went to Mont-Saint-Michel for the first Rotary outing. We left at 8 a.m. and it took about two hours to get there. On the way there we stopped at a rest-stop that was really nice because it had like a café in it, but it was sooo expensive for a rest-stop! I got a lemonade (a real lemonade; they call lemonade citronnade and limonade is something like Sprite. So they do in fact have lemonade in France), and it cost 2 €, which is like two dollars and sixty cents. For a drink.
Anyway, we got to Mont Saint-Michel and there were already a lot of other exchange students there. We all stayed in sort of like a motel, except with cabins, but they were like motel rooms on the inside. They each had two beds, a bathroom, a TV, and heat and everything, so that was good. Because when I heard cabins I automatically pictured bunk-beds crammed into a room.
It turned out I was staying in the cabin right next to where Rebecca (from Charleston) and Jessica(from New Jersey) were staying with Pia (from Argentina - the one who loves Zac Efron). My roommates were a French girl and a Mexican girl, but I hardly saw them at all and I forget their names.
So once I put all my stuff in my room, Rebecca, Jessica, and I went to get lunch. They gave us two baguette-sandwiches, an apple, a banana, cheese, a stick of chocolate, a bottle of Evian, and an egg for lunch. We thought it was really funny that they randomly gave us an egg.
After lunch we walked to Mont Saint-Michel, which was like a mile from the hotel because it's basically an island. It's kind of hard to describe, but when I get pictures you will see what I mean if you don't know what Mont Saint-Michel is.
We got to where the exchange students were, and there were sooo many of them, from all over Northern France. Then we all had to take our shoes off and roll up our jeans so that we could all walk in the English Channel. Rebecca and Jessica said that they were told we would be walking for five hours, but none of us really thought that we would actually be walking for five hours. However, we did in fact walk in the English Channel for five hours without shoes. It was really shallow; that's why we could walk in the water. The weather was good, it was a little cold but the sun was out for awhile, so it was okay. Some of the sand was like quicksand. And some of it was like mud.
After that, everyone went to their cabins to change for dinner. Then they took some group photos, but Rebecca, Jessica, and I missed most of them because we were in the supermarket getting food for later.
For dinner we ate in a restaurant. Dinner was buffet-style, and it was all a bunch of really weird french food, like paté and cous-cous. Paté (I could be spelling it wrong) is the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. Especially salmon paté; it's sooooo fishy and gross. But the bread was really good. There was a cheese course, of course, and I tried some of this orangish cheese that was by far the most disgusting cheese I've ever tasted. Rebecca and Jessica tried it, too, and they agreed with me. I took a picture of the gross cheese. Dessert was some really good chocolate mousse-merignue thing.
After dinner everyone had to sing their national anthems. The Australians, Mexicans, Argentinians, Finnish, Japanese... etc. all sang their national anthems in groups while everyone else watched. There were a loooot of Mexicans, and also a looooot of Americans. The Americans were the loudest, I think. The French sang "La Marseillaise", which is what they call their national anthem.
After that, Jessica, Rebecca, and I went to their cabin to eat cookies, chips, and salsa and to basically just hang out. At like 4 a.m. I went to sleep, and then I had to wake up at 7:30. So I didn't get a lot of sleep that weekend.
Sunday morning we had breakfast; I had bread and cereal with tea. Then Rebecca, Jessica, and I walked to Mont Saint-Michel again. This time we went in the actual town and to the top of the mountain. Mont Saint-Michel is sooooo amazingly pretty. It's one of the nicest places I've been so far, for sure. We went into the enormous church that is at the top of Mont Saint-Michel. It seemed much more like a castle than a church. We spent like an hour and a half in it and didn't even stop that much. There were like dungeons and stone spiral staircases going up towers and stuff like that. The view from the church was amazing. There was also a bell-ringer like Quasimoto (I probably spelled that wrong; you know from the Hunchback of Notre Dame).
After that, we went in some of the gift shops in Mont Saint-Michel. Then we got this really, really good ice-cream. I got cappucino-flavored, and it was like a legitimate ice-cream cone; it wasn't pathetically small like the other ice cream cones I've bought in France. It was in a waffle-cone, too, and the ice cream was really good.
After that we took the bus back to the motel and went to lunch. Lunch was potatoes and lamb; I didn't eat the lamb of course. For dessert there was this English cream dessert thing. When lunch was over, we left and drove back to Vernon. But it was a really fun weekend.
On Tuesday I had a Rotary dinner; it was like the biggest piece of chicken I've ever seen in my life with ratatouille (which, by the way, everyone in America pronounces completely wrong. I tried to tell Marie-Violaine that I ate ratatouille and she was like "What are you saying????"). There were also these Indian dumpling things that reminded me of falafel. The dessert was like the weirdest thing I've ever tasted; it was like rice-pudding cake that was rose-flavored. As is the flower, rose. It was so weird. But it was good, I guess.
Today I had two hours of school, and tomorrow I'm going to Paris with my class. So hopefully I can update about that soon.
Ciao for now,
Halle
So on Saturday, I went to Mont-Saint-Michel for the first Rotary outing. We left at 8 a.m. and it took about two hours to get there. On the way there we stopped at a rest-stop that was really nice because it had like a café in it, but it was sooo expensive for a rest-stop! I got a lemonade (a real lemonade; they call lemonade citronnade and limonade is something like Sprite. So they do in fact have lemonade in France), and it cost 2 €, which is like two dollars and sixty cents. For a drink.
Anyway, we got to Mont Saint-Michel and there were already a lot of other exchange students there. We all stayed in sort of like a motel, except with cabins, but they were like motel rooms on the inside. They each had two beds, a bathroom, a TV, and heat and everything, so that was good. Because when I heard cabins I automatically pictured bunk-beds crammed into a room.
It turned out I was staying in the cabin right next to where Rebecca (from Charleston) and Jessica(from New Jersey) were staying with Pia (from Argentina - the one who loves Zac Efron). My roommates were a French girl and a Mexican girl, but I hardly saw them at all and I forget their names.
So once I put all my stuff in my room, Rebecca, Jessica, and I went to get lunch. They gave us two baguette-sandwiches, an apple, a banana, cheese, a stick of chocolate, a bottle of Evian, and an egg for lunch. We thought it was really funny that they randomly gave us an egg.
After lunch we walked to Mont Saint-Michel, which was like a mile from the hotel because it's basically an island. It's kind of hard to describe, but when I get pictures you will see what I mean if you don't know what Mont Saint-Michel is.
We got to where the exchange students were, and there were sooo many of them, from all over Northern France. Then we all had to take our shoes off and roll up our jeans so that we could all walk in the English Channel. Rebecca and Jessica said that they were told we would be walking for five hours, but none of us really thought that we would actually be walking for five hours. However, we did in fact walk in the English Channel for five hours without shoes. It was really shallow; that's why we could walk in the water. The weather was good, it was a little cold but the sun was out for awhile, so it was okay. Some of the sand was like quicksand. And some of it was like mud.
After that, everyone went to their cabins to change for dinner. Then they took some group photos, but Rebecca, Jessica, and I missed most of them because we were in the supermarket getting food for later.
For dinner we ate in a restaurant. Dinner was buffet-style, and it was all a bunch of really weird french food, like paté and cous-cous. Paté (I could be spelling it wrong) is the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. Especially salmon paté; it's sooooo fishy and gross. But the bread was really good. There was a cheese course, of course, and I tried some of this orangish cheese that was by far the most disgusting cheese I've ever tasted. Rebecca and Jessica tried it, too, and they agreed with me. I took a picture of the gross cheese. Dessert was some really good chocolate mousse-merignue thing.
After dinner everyone had to sing their national anthems. The Australians, Mexicans, Argentinians, Finnish, Japanese... etc. all sang their national anthems in groups while everyone else watched. There were a loooot of Mexicans, and also a looooot of Americans. The Americans were the loudest, I think. The French sang "La Marseillaise", which is what they call their national anthem.
After that, Jessica, Rebecca, and I went to their cabin to eat cookies, chips, and salsa and to basically just hang out. At like 4 a.m. I went to sleep, and then I had to wake up at 7:30. So I didn't get a lot of sleep that weekend.
Sunday morning we had breakfast; I had bread and cereal with tea. Then Rebecca, Jessica, and I walked to Mont Saint-Michel again. This time we went in the actual town and to the top of the mountain. Mont Saint-Michel is sooooo amazingly pretty. It's one of the nicest places I've been so far, for sure. We went into the enormous church that is at the top of Mont Saint-Michel. It seemed much more like a castle than a church. We spent like an hour and a half in it and didn't even stop that much. There were like dungeons and stone spiral staircases going up towers and stuff like that. The view from the church was amazing. There was also a bell-ringer like Quasimoto (I probably spelled that wrong; you know from the Hunchback of Notre Dame).
After that, we went in some of the gift shops in Mont Saint-Michel. Then we got this really, really good ice-cream. I got cappucino-flavored, and it was like a legitimate ice-cream cone; it wasn't pathetically small like the other ice cream cones I've bought in France. It was in a waffle-cone, too, and the ice cream was really good.
After that we took the bus back to the motel and went to lunch. Lunch was potatoes and lamb; I didn't eat the lamb of course. For dessert there was this English cream dessert thing. When lunch was over, we left and drove back to Vernon. But it was a really fun weekend.
On Tuesday I had a Rotary dinner; it was like the biggest piece of chicken I've ever seen in my life with ratatouille (which, by the way, everyone in America pronounces completely wrong. I tried to tell Marie-Violaine that I ate ratatouille and she was like "What are you saying????"). There were also these Indian dumpling things that reminded me of falafel. The dessert was like the weirdest thing I've ever tasted; it was like rice-pudding cake that was rose-flavored. As is the flower, rose. It was so weird. But it was good, I guess.
Today I had two hours of school, and tomorrow I'm going to Paris with my class. So hopefully I can update about that soon.
Ciao for now,
Halle
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Guess Who Made Page Six?
Yes, that would be me. And okay, it's only page six of the 'Paris-Normandie' newspaper, not the page six of the New York Post. But I was in the newspaper! There's a picture and everything. But more about that later.
Friday I went to dance after school. Once again, it was kind of hard, but that's okay. Amelia wasn't there because she was sick, but I talked to another girl in my class, Zoë (I think that is how to spell her name). After dance class I went home and ate dinner, not too exciting.
On Saturday I went to the Guérins' house to help sort through a bunch of rubbish that people brought for the flea market that was on Sunday. In Vernon on Sunday there was a huge flea market in the streets just like the one in Giverny last week except bigger. All the streets were shut down and it was like two miles long. Anyway, Rotary Youth Exchange had a table, with all profits going to our spending money that we get each month from Rotary. So on Saturday I helped Cathérine, Violaine, and Marcus sort through all the stuff and put price tags on everything. After that, I went with Marcus and three of his friends from school to get dinner. Their names were Marnie, Eline, and JB (I think, maybe those are their names, but I'm really bad at catching french names). We went to this kabob-restaurant that was really good. I talked to JB in English a bit and he asked me if I cried when Michael Jackson died. Also, Marnie and Eline asked me if I eat McDonald's all the time in the United States. That is the most common question I get from people here, besides "How do you pronounce your name???" and "Where are you from?". I said no because it's fattening, and they were like, "so? It's good!". French teenagers all love McDonalds a lot.
The giant flea market was on Sunday. I had to get up at 8, which was annoying. It was kind of cold in the morning, but then later it was really nice out. We sold a ton of rubbish, and really that's the right word for the stuff we were selling. At our table we had mostly old dishes, as well as three cases of California wine and three old bicycles. There were some old clothes and toys also. Joël and Cathérine told everyone that I brought the wine with me from California, so they sold like 30 bottles at 4€ each. It was probably not very good wine, but whatever. Marcus and Ophélie were wearing their Rotary blazers, which were all decorated of course with a bunch of pins from a bunch of different countries. I was wearing my Rotary blazer as well because they made me. This photographer from the journal Paris-Normandie came up to us and took a picture of us wearing our blazers, so that was how I got in the newspaper. So exciting, I know! (sarcasm) Cathérine made copies of the page (which really was page six), so I got one of those.
We had pizza for lunch and little cakes that some Rotarian gave us. Mine was like a strawberry shortcake... so good! In the afternoon I walked around for awhile to look at all the tables of rubbish, and I ran into Amelia, and later I talked to Ludivine for a couple of minutes.
The only things I bought at the market were pins for my blazer; Marcus found a guy selling these really good pins. So I bought 34 different pins... I got two Yves Saint Laurent pins, a Balenciaga Paris pin, a 100-year-anniversary of the Eiffel Tower pin, a bunch of different Coca-Cola and McDonald's pins, and a bunch more besides those.
We ended up making 475 €, which is very good considering we were selling junk that people gave us because they didn't want it.
On Monday I ate lunch at school with Julie, and I talked to her for like 45 minutes or longer in French, so that was good.
Tuesday after school I had a Rotary meeting, and I took some more packages of Nutella from the Hotel where the Rotary meetings are held. It's okay though, they don't really care.
Today (Wednesday) I only had two hours of school, which is always nice. I got the second and third Twilight books in English, so now I have something to read again during étude.
Okay, I have to go, but I am going to post again soon, maybe about la cuisine français (french food).
au revoir for now!
Halle
Friday I went to dance after school. Once again, it was kind of hard, but that's okay. Amelia wasn't there because she was sick, but I talked to another girl in my class, Zoë (I think that is how to spell her name). After dance class I went home and ate dinner, not too exciting.
On Saturday I went to the Guérins' house to help sort through a bunch of rubbish that people brought for the flea market that was on Sunday. In Vernon on Sunday there was a huge flea market in the streets just like the one in Giverny last week except bigger. All the streets were shut down and it was like two miles long. Anyway, Rotary Youth Exchange had a table, with all profits going to our spending money that we get each month from Rotary. So on Saturday I helped Cathérine, Violaine, and Marcus sort through all the stuff and put price tags on everything. After that, I went with Marcus and three of his friends from school to get dinner. Their names were Marnie, Eline, and JB (I think, maybe those are their names, but I'm really bad at catching french names). We went to this kabob-restaurant that was really good. I talked to JB in English a bit and he asked me if I cried when Michael Jackson died. Also, Marnie and Eline asked me if I eat McDonald's all the time in the United States. That is the most common question I get from people here, besides "How do you pronounce your name???" and "Where are you from?". I said no because it's fattening, and they were like, "so? It's good!". French teenagers all love McDonalds a lot.
The giant flea market was on Sunday. I had to get up at 8, which was annoying. It was kind of cold in the morning, but then later it was really nice out. We sold a ton of rubbish, and really that's the right word for the stuff we were selling. At our table we had mostly old dishes, as well as three cases of California wine and three old bicycles. There were some old clothes and toys also. Joël and Cathérine told everyone that I brought the wine with me from California, so they sold like 30 bottles at 4€ each. It was probably not very good wine, but whatever. Marcus and Ophélie were wearing their Rotary blazers, which were all decorated of course with a bunch of pins from a bunch of different countries. I was wearing my Rotary blazer as well because they made me. This photographer from the journal Paris-Normandie came up to us and took a picture of us wearing our blazers, so that was how I got in the newspaper. So exciting, I know! (sarcasm) Cathérine made copies of the page (which really was page six), so I got one of those.
We had pizza for lunch and little cakes that some Rotarian gave us. Mine was like a strawberry shortcake... so good! In the afternoon I walked around for awhile to look at all the tables of rubbish, and I ran into Amelia, and later I talked to Ludivine for a couple of minutes.
The only things I bought at the market were pins for my blazer; Marcus found a guy selling these really good pins. So I bought 34 different pins... I got two Yves Saint Laurent pins, a Balenciaga Paris pin, a 100-year-anniversary of the Eiffel Tower pin, a bunch of different Coca-Cola and McDonald's pins, and a bunch more besides those.
We ended up making 475 €, which is very good considering we were selling junk that people gave us because they didn't want it.
On Monday I ate lunch at school with Julie, and I talked to her for like 45 minutes or longer in French, so that was good.
Tuesday after school I had a Rotary meeting, and I took some more packages of Nutella from the Hotel where the Rotary meetings are held. It's okay though, they don't really care.
Today (Wednesday) I only had two hours of school, which is always nice. I got the second and third Twilight books in English, so now I have something to read again during étude.
Okay, I have to go, but I am going to post again soon, maybe about la cuisine français (french food).
au revoir for now!
Halle
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Ayo, I'm Not Tired of Using Technology
Bonjour!
After 17 years, 6 months, and 27 days, I have finally gotten a cell phone! Super exciting, I know. The best part about it is it has a radio in it, so now I can listen to music. I couldn't before because my iHome exploded (a small explosion, but still) and the computer is refusing to charge my iPod properly. So anyway, it is a good thing that I now have a phone.
Last week, Caroline, one of my friends at school, gave me the bookTwilight in English, so I had something to read last week. I actually liked it a lot.
On Thursday I walked to the bus stop in the morning and rode the bus to school, and when I got off the bus Marcus and Joël were at my school. So I was like, "Ummm, what are you doing here????". Well I guess I was supposed to go to the Guérins' house that morning instead of riding the bus, because Joël had to talk to the 9th graders at my school about Rotary Youth Exchange. Marie-Violaine forgot to tell me, though. So Marcus and I went with Joël to talk to the ninth-graders. After that they left and I went to English. I was sick that day and almost didn't go to school, and then I was going to go home but I didn't know where the nurse's office was and also I didn't know my phone number (they make you call home when you are sick, just like at Bay High). So Thursday was a bad day, but whatever.
After school on Friday I went to dance class again. About half of it was really hard, but it's okay. I was going to go to the post office on Saturday, but then I realized I had no idea how the post office works in France and I wasn't in the mood to try and figure it out, so I didn't go. Instead, I went shopping for a little while and then ate lunch with my host family. After lunch I went with Léonie and Marie-Violaine to the mall in a town called Saint-Marcel which is basically a suburb of Vernon I think. The mall was kind of small but there were a few good stores. I got a long sweaterish type thing and a scarf, and then I went to the supermarket that is in the mall. I wandered around for awhile looking for good snacks. Then it occured to me to look for American peanut butter, but I didn't have much time left before I had to meet Marie-Violaine. So I went down one random aisle which turned out to be where all the pasta and sauce was, so I was walking toward the exit of the supermarket when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a jar of Skippy peanut butter sitting randomly next to jars of spaghetti sauce. It wasn't supposed to be there; someone just stuck it there randomly. But I thought it was really funny that a jar of Skippy peanut butter appeared out of no where just when I was trying to find it. It was a small jar, like half the size of a normal jar, and it cost 3.50 €, but that's okay.
Later on Saturday I went to the library to pick out a movie, but even though the library is big they don't have a very good collection of movies. However, they had Gone with the Wind, which was good, so I watched half of that in French with English subtitles. The people doing the voices of Scarlett and Prissy were really good, but the guy doing Clark Gable's voice was kind of bad.
On Sunday, I went to Giverny again, but I still didn't go in la maison de Monsieur Monet because there was this huge flea market in the street. And I mean really, really huge. The main street in Giverny (called rue Claude Monet) is very narrow, but the flea market was like over a mile long and also took up this one field. People were selling like everything; clothes, toys, books, art, shoes, movies, records, etc. I got a croissant and cotton candy to eat, and I bought a pink ring that's really cute. I was going to buy Léonie one but they were all way too big for her fingers. As we were leaving Giverny, Philippe and Marie-Violaine ran into some people they knew, and then the lady started talking to me who is a teacher at St. Adjutor. She was talking in French and not talking slowly but I understood everything she said and only had to ask her to repeat once. So that was good because I probably talked to her for five to ten minutes.
On Monday my schedule at school changed; now I help out the Séconde troisiémes (9th graders I think) in English instead of a couple of classes. So here's my schedule; it changes every day but I'll write it all down in case anyone's interested (just skip ahead if you don't want to read it):
Monday:
8:30-10:30 Gym (ping-pong)
10:30-11:45 English with the Sécondes
11:45-1:30 Lunch
1:30-3:30 Study Hall
3:30-4:30 History/Geography
Tuesday:
8:30-9:30 English
9:30-10:30 Spanish
10:30-11:45 French
1:45-1:30 Lunch
1:30-3:30 Math
3:30-4:30 History/Geo
Wednesday:
8:30-10:30 English with the Sécondes
Thursday:
8:30-9:30 Spanish
9:30-10:30 History in English
10:30-11:45 English
Lunch
Lunch
1:30-2:30 History/Geo
2:30-3:30 French
3:30-4:30 English with the Sécondes
Friday: (I'm tired of writing the times)
English
History/Geo
English with the Terminales or Spanish
Lunch
Study Hall
Study Hall
English with the Sécondes I think
(finish at 4:30)
Okay, yeah, that's my schedule. The English teacher for the Sécondes is from England. We're trying to plan a Thanksgiving lunch for the class on Thanksgiving... we'll see if that happens.
Today (Wednesday), I went to school for two hours, then I went shopping. This afternoon I went to the Guérins because Cathérine had another group of Americans there. There were six from Texas and two from Kentucky. We were all having cider and cookies when all of a sudden there was this really, REALLY loud crashing noise coming from somewhere, and everyone thought that there had been a car crash or something right outside the house. It turned out that Marcus dropped the Guérins' giant dictionary on accident and it fell off the top of a bookshelf in the family room (which is one the second floor) onto this big glass table, completely shattering it. The table is waaaaaay beyond repair; I took a couple of pictures of it all broken. I couldn't stop laughing, but Cathérine was laughing too, she didn't seem mad or anything. It was an accident.
After that they gave me my phone :), and I went to buy more Coke Light.
Oh in case you're wondering about the title of this post, it's a reference to my recent acquirement of a cell phone. And the song Ayo Technology by Milow is popular here right now.
Well, okay, I have to go. More soon!
à bientot!
After 17 years, 6 months, and 27 days, I have finally gotten a cell phone! Super exciting, I know. The best part about it is it has a radio in it, so now I can listen to music. I couldn't before because my iHome exploded (a small explosion, but still) and the computer is refusing to charge my iPod properly. So anyway, it is a good thing that I now have a phone.
Last week, Caroline, one of my friends at school, gave me the bookTwilight in English, so I had something to read last week. I actually liked it a lot.
On Thursday I walked to the bus stop in the morning and rode the bus to school, and when I got off the bus Marcus and Joël were at my school. So I was like, "Ummm, what are you doing here????". Well I guess I was supposed to go to the Guérins' house that morning instead of riding the bus, because Joël had to talk to the 9th graders at my school about Rotary Youth Exchange. Marie-Violaine forgot to tell me, though. So Marcus and I went with Joël to talk to the ninth-graders. After that they left and I went to English. I was sick that day and almost didn't go to school, and then I was going to go home but I didn't know where the nurse's office was and also I didn't know my phone number (they make you call home when you are sick, just like at Bay High). So Thursday was a bad day, but whatever.
After school on Friday I went to dance class again. About half of it was really hard, but it's okay. I was going to go to the post office on Saturday, but then I realized I had no idea how the post office works in France and I wasn't in the mood to try and figure it out, so I didn't go. Instead, I went shopping for a little while and then ate lunch with my host family. After lunch I went with Léonie and Marie-Violaine to the mall in a town called Saint-Marcel which is basically a suburb of Vernon I think. The mall was kind of small but there were a few good stores. I got a long sweaterish type thing and a scarf, and then I went to the supermarket that is in the mall. I wandered around for awhile looking for good snacks. Then it occured to me to look for American peanut butter, but I didn't have much time left before I had to meet Marie-Violaine. So I went down one random aisle which turned out to be where all the pasta and sauce was, so I was walking toward the exit of the supermarket when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a jar of Skippy peanut butter sitting randomly next to jars of spaghetti sauce. It wasn't supposed to be there; someone just stuck it there randomly. But I thought it was really funny that a jar of Skippy peanut butter appeared out of no where just when I was trying to find it. It was a small jar, like half the size of a normal jar, and it cost 3.50 €, but that's okay.
Later on Saturday I went to the library to pick out a movie, but even though the library is big they don't have a very good collection of movies. However, they had Gone with the Wind, which was good, so I watched half of that in French with English subtitles. The people doing the voices of Scarlett and Prissy were really good, but the guy doing Clark Gable's voice was kind of bad.
On Sunday, I went to Giverny again, but I still didn't go in la maison de Monsieur Monet because there was this huge flea market in the street. And I mean really, really huge. The main street in Giverny (called rue Claude Monet) is very narrow, but the flea market was like over a mile long and also took up this one field. People were selling like everything; clothes, toys, books, art, shoes, movies, records, etc. I got a croissant and cotton candy to eat, and I bought a pink ring that's really cute. I was going to buy Léonie one but they were all way too big for her fingers. As we were leaving Giverny, Philippe and Marie-Violaine ran into some people they knew, and then the lady started talking to me who is a teacher at St. Adjutor. She was talking in French and not talking slowly but I understood everything she said and only had to ask her to repeat once. So that was good because I probably talked to her for five to ten minutes.
On Monday my schedule at school changed; now I help out the Séconde troisiémes (9th graders I think) in English instead of a couple of classes. So here's my schedule; it changes every day but I'll write it all down in case anyone's interested (just skip ahead if you don't want to read it):
Monday:
8:30-10:30 Gym (ping-pong)
10:30-11:45 English with the Sécondes
11:45-1:30 Lunch
1:30-3:30 Study Hall
3:30-4:30 History/Geography
Tuesday:
8:30-9:30 English
9:30-10:30 Spanish
10:30-11:45 French
1:45-1:30 Lunch
1:30-3:30 Math
3:30-4:30 History/Geo
Wednesday:
8:30-10:30 English with the Sécondes
Thursday:
8:30-9:30 Spanish
9:30-10:30 History in English
10:30-11:45 English
Lunch
Lunch
1:30-2:30 History/Geo
2:30-3:30 French
3:30-4:30 English with the Sécondes
Friday: (I'm tired of writing the times)
English
History/Geo
English with the Terminales or Spanish
Lunch
Study Hall
Study Hall
English with the Sécondes I think
(finish at 4:30)
Okay, yeah, that's my schedule. The English teacher for the Sécondes is from England. We're trying to plan a Thanksgiving lunch for the class on Thanksgiving... we'll see if that happens.
Today (Wednesday), I went to school for two hours, then I went shopping. This afternoon I went to the Guérins because Cathérine had another group of Americans there. There were six from Texas and two from Kentucky. We were all having cider and cookies when all of a sudden there was this really, REALLY loud crashing noise coming from somewhere, and everyone thought that there had been a car crash or something right outside the house. It turned out that Marcus dropped the Guérins' giant dictionary on accident and it fell off the top of a bookshelf in the family room (which is one the second floor) onto this big glass table, completely shattering it. The table is waaaaaay beyond repair; I took a couple of pictures of it all broken. I couldn't stop laughing, but Cathérine was laughing too, she didn't seem mad or anything. It was an accident.
After that they gave me my phone :), and I went to buy more Coke Light.
Oh in case you're wondering about the title of this post, it's a reference to my recent acquirement of a cell phone. And the song Ayo Technology by Milow is popular here right now.
Well, okay, I have to go. More soon!
à bientot!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Peanut Butter!
Hello everyone,
On Friday I went to school, of course. I ate lunch with Camille, Josie, and this one other girl who's name I haven't caught yet. They are all boarders during the week because they live too far away from Vernon to drive here every morning. They don't really speak English, so I talked to them in French for awhile before Physics class. My physics teacher knows some English, so every once and awhile he'll say something in English randomly. He had me write "magnifying glass" on the board next to the French word for magnifying glass, which was pretty random. I walked home from school, like I do every day. I guess when it gets cold, I'll have to take the bus. After school I went to a dance class. It was intermediate jazz, and since I've never taken jazz before, it was kind of hard. But it's the only dance class in like all of Vernon that fits into my schedule, so I'm going to try it for awhile. All of the girls in my class were really nice, there were probably like eight of them total. One girl, Amelia, speaks English fluently because her dad is British, and she was born in New York City and lived there until she was four. She goes to my school, but she is in Seconde, not Premiére. Anyway, I talked to her in English, and I asked her how many years of dance she has had, and she was like "6 or 7", and I'm pretty sure most of the girls in my class have had a lot more years of dance than I have, so I'll see how it goes.
After dance class, I went home and ate dinner by myself, which was nice. It was pizza, and it actually tasted like pizza, and since I was by myself I didn't have to eat it with a knife and fork. I also had a plain yogurt with sugar in it; it sounds gross, but it's really good as long as you use enough sugar. That's basically all I ever eat for dessert. After dinner, I met my host family at the arts center behind their house. We went to a jazz concert; it was good at first, but then I got really bored because it was all instrumental and it was like an hour and a half long. Once it was over, though, there were drinks and snacks, and they had... marshmallows and carmel popcorn! No one there (out of like 60 or more people) seemed to really like the carmel corn, so I ate like half a bowl by myself, haha.
On Saturday, I went to an exhibit about a French director named Jean Dellanoy at the Vernon tourism office. He lived near Vernon, apparently, and directed "Notre Dame de Paris", which was the original "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and some other movies that won some awards. The exhibit was all in French, though, so it was kind of boring. After that, I went to the medieval tower that is behind the Crestanis' house. The view was very good, and I took some pictures of Vernon and the Seine, as well as the Crestanis' garden. Then I went to the small castle that is in Vernon, and then I went shopping. One store was having a sale, and there were a ton of people in it, so it was very hard to move around. After that I went to get ice cream, and I tried to talk in French to the guy, but as soon as I said "two scoops" he was like "what flavor" in English. Later, after dinner that night, we went to the Vernon Museum which is a block away from the Crestanis' house, but we didn't stay long. It was some kind of special exhibit, so it was open until 10. I met some artist from Chicago who lives in Vernon, but I didn't get to talk to her long.
Sunday I went with Philippe, Marie-Violaine, and Léonie to a giant Chateau about 10 miles from Vernon. It is on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a town called Gaillon (I think that's it's name).There were a lot of people there because it's not open very often. My camera died after I took one picture of the outside of it, which was too bad because I would've taken a lot more pictures. We went on a tour of the chateau, which was built in the medieval times. We went up this tower that was sooo cool, it was like the Sleeping Beauty tower or something, with spiral stone stairs going up like five stories. The third room we went in had like a forty-foot high ceiling and stained-glass windows that were about fifteen feet high. In the 1600s, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who was the minister of Louis XIV (the "Sun King" who built Versailles), lived in it. We learned about him in AP Euro, so I thought it was funny that I was touring his house.
After we finished our tour, the line was like 10 times as long, so it was good that we didn't have to wait in it.
We went home after we toured the Chateau, and I got into the car and then Léonie got in and pointed to the seat, and there was this HUGE spider crawling right next to me on the seat. I screamed and then I tried to brush it away from me, but then it crawled on my leg, so I screamed again and jumped out of the car. It was the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life apart from a tarantula, and it was whitish yellow and probably poisonous and it was really fat. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was huge. So that kind of ruined the day for me, because I really hate spiders, and that is the second time that one has been in their car. That's a lot, considering I've only ridden in their car three times, so I was afraid that another one would crawl on me again.
Today (Monday), I went to school. First, I had two hours of gym, which was ping-pong, so that was really easy. After that, it was break, and one class was selling chocolate croissants that were really good. Then I had French for two hours, so I read "the Time Traveler's Wife" in English, before going to lunch. Today it was not very good; all I had was mashed potatoes and peas, and lunch is supposed to be the biggest meal of the day. After lunch I had two hours of study hall, so I read the whole time, and then I had one hour of History/Geographie, where I read the whole time again. It was really nice out today; actually, ever since my first week here it has been pretty nice every day. I walked home, but I stopped at the supermarket, which I had not been to yet, and I found... PEANUT BUTTER! I was so happy I could've thrown myself a party. So I bought some American bread and a Cherry Coke for good measure, and I went home and made myself PB&J. The peanut butter wasn't as good as JIF or Skippy, but it was still peanut butter.
Well, I have to go, I'm watching "The Big Sleep" in French.
au revoir!
Halle
On Friday I went to school, of course. I ate lunch with Camille, Josie, and this one other girl who's name I haven't caught yet. They are all boarders during the week because they live too far away from Vernon to drive here every morning. They don't really speak English, so I talked to them in French for awhile before Physics class. My physics teacher knows some English, so every once and awhile he'll say something in English randomly. He had me write "magnifying glass" on the board next to the French word for magnifying glass, which was pretty random. I walked home from school, like I do every day. I guess when it gets cold, I'll have to take the bus. After school I went to a dance class. It was intermediate jazz, and since I've never taken jazz before, it was kind of hard. But it's the only dance class in like all of Vernon that fits into my schedule, so I'm going to try it for awhile. All of the girls in my class were really nice, there were probably like eight of them total. One girl, Amelia, speaks English fluently because her dad is British, and she was born in New York City and lived there until she was four. She goes to my school, but she is in Seconde, not Premiére. Anyway, I talked to her in English, and I asked her how many years of dance she has had, and she was like "6 or 7", and I'm pretty sure most of the girls in my class have had a lot more years of dance than I have, so I'll see how it goes.
After dance class, I went home and ate dinner by myself, which was nice. It was pizza, and it actually tasted like pizza, and since I was by myself I didn't have to eat it with a knife and fork. I also had a plain yogurt with sugar in it; it sounds gross, but it's really good as long as you use enough sugar. That's basically all I ever eat for dessert. After dinner, I met my host family at the arts center behind their house. We went to a jazz concert; it was good at first, but then I got really bored because it was all instrumental and it was like an hour and a half long. Once it was over, though, there were drinks and snacks, and they had... marshmallows and carmel popcorn! No one there (out of like 60 or more people) seemed to really like the carmel corn, so I ate like half a bowl by myself, haha.
On Saturday, I went to an exhibit about a French director named Jean Dellanoy at the Vernon tourism office. He lived near Vernon, apparently, and directed "Notre Dame de Paris", which was the original "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and some other movies that won some awards. The exhibit was all in French, though, so it was kind of boring. After that, I went to the medieval tower that is behind the Crestanis' house. The view was very good, and I took some pictures of Vernon and the Seine, as well as the Crestanis' garden. Then I went to the small castle that is in Vernon, and then I went shopping. One store was having a sale, and there were a ton of people in it, so it was very hard to move around. After that I went to get ice cream, and I tried to talk in French to the guy, but as soon as I said "two scoops" he was like "what flavor" in English. Later, after dinner that night, we went to the Vernon Museum which is a block away from the Crestanis' house, but we didn't stay long. It was some kind of special exhibit, so it was open until 10. I met some artist from Chicago who lives in Vernon, but I didn't get to talk to her long.
Sunday I went with Philippe, Marie-Violaine, and Léonie to a giant Chateau about 10 miles from Vernon. It is on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a town called Gaillon (I think that's it's name).There were a lot of people there because it's not open very often. My camera died after I took one picture of the outside of it, which was too bad because I would've taken a lot more pictures. We went on a tour of the chateau, which was built in the medieval times. We went up this tower that was sooo cool, it was like the Sleeping Beauty tower or something, with spiral stone stairs going up like five stories. The third room we went in had like a forty-foot high ceiling and stained-glass windows that were about fifteen feet high. In the 1600s, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who was the minister of Louis XIV (the "Sun King" who built Versailles), lived in it. We learned about him in AP Euro, so I thought it was funny that I was touring his house.
After we finished our tour, the line was like 10 times as long, so it was good that we didn't have to wait in it.
We went home after we toured the Chateau, and I got into the car and then Léonie got in and pointed to the seat, and there was this HUGE spider crawling right next to me on the seat. I screamed and then I tried to brush it away from me, but then it crawled on my leg, so I screamed again and jumped out of the car. It was the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life apart from a tarantula, and it was whitish yellow and probably poisonous and it was really fat. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was huge. So that kind of ruined the day for me, because I really hate spiders, and that is the second time that one has been in their car. That's a lot, considering I've only ridden in their car three times, so I was afraid that another one would crawl on me again.
Today (Monday), I went to school. First, I had two hours of gym, which was ping-pong, so that was really easy. After that, it was break, and one class was selling chocolate croissants that were really good. Then I had French for two hours, so I read "the Time Traveler's Wife" in English, before going to lunch. Today it was not very good; all I had was mashed potatoes and peas, and lunch is supposed to be the biggest meal of the day. After lunch I had two hours of study hall, so I read the whole time, and then I had one hour of History/Geographie, where I read the whole time again. It was really nice out today; actually, ever since my first week here it has been pretty nice every day. I walked home, but I stopped at the supermarket, which I had not been to yet, and I found... PEANUT BUTTER! I was so happy I could've thrown myself a party. So I bought some American bread and a Cherry Coke for good measure, and I went home and made myself PB&J. The peanut butter wasn't as good as JIF or Skippy, but it was still peanut butter.
Well, I have to go, I'm watching "The Big Sleep" in French.
au revoir!
Halle
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Giverny, Nutella, and Chanel °5
Hi everyone,
On Saturday I went to the market, then I went to the grocery store to buy more diet coke. While there, I found Oreos!!! They come in a little box and there's only 16 in the box, but they're worth the three euros. Later on Saturday, I went to Giverny with my host family. We rode bikes there, which was kind of difficult because I had my purse and I had to ride one-handed. It was a really nice day, though. Giverny is soooo nice, even though it's really touristy. We didn't go in Monet's house, but I saw his gardens. There were sooo many flowers. I can definitely understand why Monet spent half his life there. We rode bikes home along the Seine, and then I went shopping for a little while.
On Sunday, I had a Rotary orientation in a town called L'Aigle, which is somewhere in Normandy. All of the inbound exchange students in Normandy, as well as the returning students, were there. Everyone exchanged cards and pins, but of course I forgot mine. It's okay though, bacause I'll see all of them again soon. After that, we ate lunch. I sat with Jessica from New Jersey, Scarlett from France (she went to Canada last year), and a boy from Brazil whose name I forget. Jessica asked Scarlett if she smokes, and she said "Of course, I am French". The French really love their bread, cheese, wine, and cigarettes. Just an observation. Lunch was some appetizers, then fries and veal, so I only ate the fries, and some fruit tart thing for dessert. There was bread and cheese, too. After lunch, we got information about upcoming events for the inbound students. The next one is at Mt. St. Michel in October, so I'm excited for that. We might also go to Disney Paris in December, which would be really fun.
After that, most people left, but the Guérins stayed to have wine with some other Rotary people. I talked to Rebecca from Charleston, who is staying in L'Aigle. We were talking about how we miss ice, pasta with tomato sauce, pizza, and peanut butter. Then Marcus, Pia from Argentina, Rebecca, and I sat in the room where the Rotarians were having wine, and Rebecca and I talked about college admissions for awhile (she is a senior, too). Then Pia asked me if I like High School Musical, and I was like "Um, it's okay", and she said she loves Zac Efron. She even had a picture of him in her wallet. I finally left with the Guérins at around 5:30 and went home.
On Monday, I discovered that the Crestanis get CNBC and two fashion channels that are in English, so I was really happy about that. Also, I watched the Simpsons and Friends in French. The people doing the voices on the Simpsons were good, but Friends was sooo weird in French. Rachel and Joey's voices are so different.
On Tuesday, I went to school. I read Harry Potter in French most of the time, but I kind of paid attention in History. The History teacher seems good, because she actually interacts with the kids in my class and there's a lot of laughing during that class. That day, she walked into class and was like "Patrick Swayze est mort" (Patrick Swayze died), except I didn't know what she was saying for a few minutes, because she said his name like Pah-treek Swaah-jze, but then I figured it out. They talked about that for a couple of minutes, and it made me want to watch Ghost. After school I watched the World Fashion Channel for a little bit, and then I went to a Rotary dinner with Joel and Marcus.
The Rotary dinner was good. First there was a meeting for like an hour, where this one guy in the club gave a presentation about how the USA is going to Mars in 2036. Apparently he works with French NASA or something. Part of the presentation was this film that NASA made showing how we will land on Mars, and all the animated astronauts had American flags on their spacesuits, which was kind of awkward. After that was dinner. I sat next to a guy who invented perfumes for Coco Chanel a long time ago. He helped develope Chanel °5. He spoke English really well, and also speaks French, Flemish, German, Spanish, and Greek fluently. He was really nice, but he is kind of deaf, so I couldn't really ask him questions about Coco Chanel. For dinner there was a salad with shrimp in it, then chicken and baked potatoes, and some kind of raspberry cake for dessert. We didn't eat until like 9:30, and we left at 11:00. The Rotary meetings are held at a hotel in Vernon, so before we left, I took some Nutella from the hotel. I just discovered Nutella; it's sooooooo good. It's chocolate and hazelnut spread, and I think you can find it at some grocery stores in the US.
On Wednesday I only had two hours of school, and all my class did was work on a project they have to do for the Baccalaureate. I read Harry Potter the whole time. After two hours I walked home. I watched the fashion channel for awhile, then I went shopping for a little bit. For dinner we had croque-monsieurs, which were really good.
Well, I have to go, but I will try to post again soon!
à tout à l'heure
Halle
On Saturday I went to the market, then I went to the grocery store to buy more diet coke. While there, I found Oreos!!! They come in a little box and there's only 16 in the box, but they're worth the three euros. Later on Saturday, I went to Giverny with my host family. We rode bikes there, which was kind of difficult because I had my purse and I had to ride one-handed. It was a really nice day, though. Giverny is soooo nice, even though it's really touristy. We didn't go in Monet's house, but I saw his gardens. There were sooo many flowers. I can definitely understand why Monet spent half his life there. We rode bikes home along the Seine, and then I went shopping for a little while.
On Sunday, I had a Rotary orientation in a town called L'Aigle, which is somewhere in Normandy. All of the inbound exchange students in Normandy, as well as the returning students, were there. Everyone exchanged cards and pins, but of course I forgot mine. It's okay though, bacause I'll see all of them again soon. After that, we ate lunch. I sat with Jessica from New Jersey, Scarlett from France (she went to Canada last year), and a boy from Brazil whose name I forget. Jessica asked Scarlett if she smokes, and she said "Of course, I am French". The French really love their bread, cheese, wine, and cigarettes. Just an observation. Lunch was some appetizers, then fries and veal, so I only ate the fries, and some fruit tart thing for dessert. There was bread and cheese, too. After lunch, we got information about upcoming events for the inbound students. The next one is at Mt. St. Michel in October, so I'm excited for that. We might also go to Disney Paris in December, which would be really fun.
After that, most people left, but the Guérins stayed to have wine with some other Rotary people. I talked to Rebecca from Charleston, who is staying in L'Aigle. We were talking about how we miss ice, pasta with tomato sauce, pizza, and peanut butter. Then Marcus, Pia from Argentina, Rebecca, and I sat in the room where the Rotarians were having wine, and Rebecca and I talked about college admissions for awhile (she is a senior, too). Then Pia asked me if I like High School Musical, and I was like "Um, it's okay", and she said she loves Zac Efron. She even had a picture of him in her wallet. I finally left with the Guérins at around 5:30 and went home.
On Monday, I discovered that the Crestanis get CNBC and two fashion channels that are in English, so I was really happy about that. Also, I watched the Simpsons and Friends in French. The people doing the voices on the Simpsons were good, but Friends was sooo weird in French. Rachel and Joey's voices are so different.
On Tuesday, I went to school. I read Harry Potter in French most of the time, but I kind of paid attention in History. The History teacher seems good, because she actually interacts with the kids in my class and there's a lot of laughing during that class. That day, she walked into class and was like "Patrick Swayze est mort" (Patrick Swayze died), except I didn't know what she was saying for a few minutes, because she said his name like Pah-treek Swaah-jze, but then I figured it out. They talked about that for a couple of minutes, and it made me want to watch Ghost. After school I watched the World Fashion Channel for a little bit, and then I went to a Rotary dinner with Joel and Marcus.
The Rotary dinner was good. First there was a meeting for like an hour, where this one guy in the club gave a presentation about how the USA is going to Mars in 2036. Apparently he works with French NASA or something. Part of the presentation was this film that NASA made showing how we will land on Mars, and all the animated astronauts had American flags on their spacesuits, which was kind of awkward. After that was dinner. I sat next to a guy who invented perfumes for Coco Chanel a long time ago. He helped develope Chanel °5. He spoke English really well, and also speaks French, Flemish, German, Spanish, and Greek fluently. He was really nice, but he is kind of deaf, so I couldn't really ask him questions about Coco Chanel. For dinner there was a salad with shrimp in it, then chicken and baked potatoes, and some kind of raspberry cake for dessert. We didn't eat until like 9:30, and we left at 11:00. The Rotary meetings are held at a hotel in Vernon, so before we left, I took some Nutella from the hotel. I just discovered Nutella; it's sooooooo good. It's chocolate and hazelnut spread, and I think you can find it at some grocery stores in the US.
On Wednesday I only had two hours of school, and all my class did was work on a project they have to do for the Baccalaureate. I read Harry Potter the whole time. After two hours I walked home. I watched the fashion channel for awhile, then I went shopping for a little bit. For dinner we had croque-monsieurs, which were really good.
Well, I have to go, but I will try to post again soon!
à tout à l'heure
Halle
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Shopping, Side-Bangs, and Smoke
Bonjour tout le monde,
On Saturday I went with the Crestanis to a party somewhere. We stopped at a chateau on the way there, but it was closed. Then we stopped at some little village and walked around for awhile, before driving to the party. It was like an hour away from Vernon, at a really old house that was built in the 10th century. The party was kind of boring because everyone spoke French, but there was a lot of really good food there. I finally found cheese that I like in France; it was some kind of goat cheese that was really good. They had two pizzas at the party, but I didn't get any because both of them were gone in less than 10 seconds.
On Sunday I went on like a two hour walk through a forest with some other people. Then I went back home and had lasagna for dinner, except it didn't have ricotta cheese in it so it didn't really taste like lasagna.
On Monday, I went to school. The history teacher was absent until today, so I got to leave at 3:30 instead of 4:30. I walked home because I didn't want to wait for the bus, and I didn't get lost. After school I went to a grocery store to look for peanut butter, but it didn't have any. Then I went to a different grocery store, and I looked for peanut butter for like an hour, but there wasn't any. I did find hummus, coke lite, and M&M's. The M&M's cost €3.50 for a small bag, which is like 5 dollars, but I bought them anyway. I also saw Ben & Jerry's ice cream at the store for €6 for one pint, which is like 9 dollars. So I didn't buy any.
On Tuesday, I went to my second Rotary meeting. They are okay because they aren't very long, and they have Tropicana orange juice there. I didn't get to eat dinner until like 9 though.
On Wednesday, I went to school from 8:30 to 10:30, and then I got to go home because my class has TEST on Wednesday for two hours, which I think is just one big test that they have every Wednesday. Joel wrote a letter to the principal, so I don't ever have to go to test. Which means that I only have two hours of school every Wednesday for the rest of the year. On Wednesday Ludivine and another girl, Annelise, were asking me what I was going to do when I got home and I was like "faire du shopping" and they said they had to do homework, so I am lucky. I walked home from school, which takes like 35 or 40 minutes by the way, and had lunch. Then I went shopping, but of course I forgot that I'm in France, so all of the stores in Vernon were closed from 12:30 to 2:30. I walked around instead, and I saw a bunch of American tourists. Then once the stores opened I went in a couple. In one I didn't know how to say "fitting room" in french, so I walked up to one of the guys who worked there and I was like "pardon, ummmm" and started gesturing towards the dressing rooms. Right away he was like "parlez-vous anglais" so that was good. He wasn't rude or anything, I think it is only the Parisiens who are rude. Anyway, I bought a trench coat and a scarf (they wear scarves here a lot). Then I went in a newspaper/magazine store and they had People magazine in English, but they didn't have American Vogue or French Vogue, which is weird. After that I went home, then later I went to the grocery store to buy more hummus because I ran out of it in like two days (it was a small container).
Today (Thursday), I had school from 8:30 to 5:30. It was soooo boring, but I had History in English because my 'specialty' is English (some people have like German or Chinese instead of two English classes). The teacher didn't really know English that well, she just copied everything out of a textbook, but at least I understood everything. The history teacher was finally back from maternity leave, and she was talking about America being a melting pot. She picked up her pencil pouch and pulled out a pen and was like 'hispanic' and then took a hi-liter and was like 'black' and a pencil was white, I think, and then she put them back in the pencil pouch, pulled one out at random, and was like " un Americain". That was the only part of class I understood really, and I thought it was funny. Then I had french fries at lunch today, which were good. They eat french fries with a fork here and they don't eat them with ketchup. Most days I don't really like the lunch, even though it's good food, because they don't have that many choices. There is no salad bar or snack bar, and the only drink they have is water in pitchers at all the tables. The French don't really drink much; at lunch they maybe have one glass of water, and maybe one glass at dinner. Or they have wine of course. But there aren't any drinking fountains in my whole school, and no one has bottles of water. It's really annoying.
The kids at my school dress so differently than Americans. They don't wear bright colors at all, like ever. Today I looked around and EVERYONE was wearing black, grey, navy blue, or white shirts. The girls almost always wear skinny jeans. All of the girls in my school except for maybe like two or three have side bangs. It's really quite ridiculous; I've never seen so many people with the same hairstyle. They carry their books in their purses from class to class; they NEVER carry them in their arms. It's very odd. Also, pretty much everyone smokes. It is really the dumbest thing I've ever seen. At the bus stop in the morning they all smoke, and after lunch they go off school property to smoke, and after school they smoke. So instead of being addicted to bottled water like Americans, the French are addicted to cigarettes. I think that teenagers here are just always trying to look older than they are, so they wear dark colors and smoke. They are successful most of the time; most of the students in my high school look like they are juniors or seniors in college, not in high school.
I ride the bus to school every day, but most of the time I walk home. The buses are really nice; the bus to my school is like a greyhound bus, with comfortable seats and footrests and overhead compartments. The trains here are really nice, too, even though I haven't been on one yet. I walk past the train station on my way home from school, and I can see that the trains are nice.
I tried to upload pictures, but the computer is old so it doesn't have a place for cameras and iPods to be plugged in. So I probably won't be able to upload pictures for a while. So sorry everyone, you'll have to wait awhile.
au revoir for now!
Halle
On Saturday I went with the Crestanis to a party somewhere. We stopped at a chateau on the way there, but it was closed. Then we stopped at some little village and walked around for awhile, before driving to the party. It was like an hour away from Vernon, at a really old house that was built in the 10th century. The party was kind of boring because everyone spoke French, but there was a lot of really good food there. I finally found cheese that I like in France; it was some kind of goat cheese that was really good. They had two pizzas at the party, but I didn't get any because both of them were gone in less than 10 seconds.
On Sunday I went on like a two hour walk through a forest with some other people. Then I went back home and had lasagna for dinner, except it didn't have ricotta cheese in it so it didn't really taste like lasagna.
On Monday, I went to school. The history teacher was absent until today, so I got to leave at 3:30 instead of 4:30. I walked home because I didn't want to wait for the bus, and I didn't get lost. After school I went to a grocery store to look for peanut butter, but it didn't have any. Then I went to a different grocery store, and I looked for peanut butter for like an hour, but there wasn't any. I did find hummus, coke lite, and M&M's. The M&M's cost €3.50 for a small bag, which is like 5 dollars, but I bought them anyway. I also saw Ben & Jerry's ice cream at the store for €6 for one pint, which is like 9 dollars. So I didn't buy any.
On Tuesday, I went to my second Rotary meeting. They are okay because they aren't very long, and they have Tropicana orange juice there. I didn't get to eat dinner until like 9 though.
On Wednesday, I went to school from 8:30 to 10:30, and then I got to go home because my class has TEST on Wednesday for two hours, which I think is just one big test that they have every Wednesday. Joel wrote a letter to the principal, so I don't ever have to go to test. Which means that I only have two hours of school every Wednesday for the rest of the year. On Wednesday Ludivine and another girl, Annelise, were asking me what I was going to do when I got home and I was like "faire du shopping" and they said they had to do homework, so I am lucky. I walked home from school, which takes like 35 or 40 minutes by the way, and had lunch. Then I went shopping, but of course I forgot that I'm in France, so all of the stores in Vernon were closed from 12:30 to 2:30. I walked around instead, and I saw a bunch of American tourists. Then once the stores opened I went in a couple. In one I didn't know how to say "fitting room" in french, so I walked up to one of the guys who worked there and I was like "pardon, ummmm" and started gesturing towards the dressing rooms. Right away he was like "parlez-vous anglais" so that was good. He wasn't rude or anything, I think it is only the Parisiens who are rude. Anyway, I bought a trench coat and a scarf (they wear scarves here a lot). Then I went in a newspaper/magazine store and they had People magazine in English, but they didn't have American Vogue or French Vogue, which is weird. After that I went home, then later I went to the grocery store to buy more hummus because I ran out of it in like two days (it was a small container).
Today (Thursday), I had school from 8:30 to 5:30. It was soooo boring, but I had History in English because my 'specialty' is English (some people have like German or Chinese instead of two English classes). The teacher didn't really know English that well, she just copied everything out of a textbook, but at least I understood everything. The history teacher was finally back from maternity leave, and she was talking about America being a melting pot. She picked up her pencil pouch and pulled out a pen and was like 'hispanic' and then took a hi-liter and was like 'black' and a pencil was white, I think, and then she put them back in the pencil pouch, pulled one out at random, and was like " un Americain". That was the only part of class I understood really, and I thought it was funny. Then I had french fries at lunch today, which were good. They eat french fries with a fork here and they don't eat them with ketchup. Most days I don't really like the lunch, even though it's good food, because they don't have that many choices. There is no salad bar or snack bar, and the only drink they have is water in pitchers at all the tables. The French don't really drink much; at lunch they maybe have one glass of water, and maybe one glass at dinner. Or they have wine of course. But there aren't any drinking fountains in my whole school, and no one has bottles of water. It's really annoying.
The kids at my school dress so differently than Americans. They don't wear bright colors at all, like ever. Today I looked around and EVERYONE was wearing black, grey, navy blue, or white shirts. The girls almost always wear skinny jeans. All of the girls in my school except for maybe like two or three have side bangs. It's really quite ridiculous; I've never seen so many people with the same hairstyle. They carry their books in their purses from class to class; they NEVER carry them in their arms. It's very odd. Also, pretty much everyone smokes. It is really the dumbest thing I've ever seen. At the bus stop in the morning they all smoke, and after lunch they go off school property to smoke, and after school they smoke. So instead of being addicted to bottled water like Americans, the French are addicted to cigarettes. I think that teenagers here are just always trying to look older than they are, so they wear dark colors and smoke. They are successful most of the time; most of the students in my high school look like they are juniors or seniors in college, not in high school.
I ride the bus to school every day, but most of the time I walk home. The buses are really nice; the bus to my school is like a greyhound bus, with comfortable seats and footrests and overhead compartments. The trains here are really nice, too, even though I haven't been on one yet. I walk past the train station on my way home from school, and I can see that the trains are nice.
I tried to upload pictures, but the computer is old so it doesn't have a place for cameras and iPods to be plugged in. So I probably won't be able to upload pictures for a while. So sorry everyone, you'll have to wait awhile.
au revoir for now!
Halle
Thursday, September 3, 2009
It's a Small World After All
Bonjour everyone!
On Monday I went with Marcus and his dad on a hike up to this cliff overlooking Vernon. It was really hot out, like 85 degrees, and the trail turned out to be really steep, so I thought I wasn't going to make it up. But I did finally, even though I had my purse with me which made it really difficult to climb. The view was really good, you could see the Seine, the castle in Vernon, the Cathedral, the Guérins' house, and even my school. After that, we went to a café to get drinks. I ordered lemonade and they gave me something like sprite; I guess they don't have lemonade here.
That night, we went to have dinner at my second host family's house, the Ferrands (I think that's their name). Their daughter Caroline is in Australia on exchange this year in the same town Marcus lives in. They were very nice and they showed me the room I'll be staying in.
On Wednesday I started school. It was only a half day since Wednesdays are half days, and I didn't have to get there until 9:30. Ophélie introduced me to my class. I am in Premiére (11th grade) Literature. In France, there are three different sort of tracks you can take in high school: Literature, Economics, and Math/Science. The classes I am taking are French, English, History/Geographie, Spanish, Phys. Ed, Math, and something called TPE. I think it is where they prepare for the baccalaureate, which they take at the end of Terminale (12th grade) and which they have to pass or else they repeat Terminale. I hardly understood anything the first day because the teacher just talked in French for like two hours, but Marcus told me that I probably wouldn't understand anything at school for awhile because it's so fast.
After school I moved in with the Crestanis. They live in a really, really, really old house in the middle of Vernon. The street they live on is very old. The basement of the house was built in the 12th century (!) and the rest of it was built in the 15th century. Yes, my house is older than my country.
The Crestanis have five children, three who live at home right now. Philoméne, the oldest daughter, leaves in a couple of weeks for the Ivory Coast to teach I think. Aubin is in Ohio on exchange this year. Léonie is eight and is very small; I am like two times as tall as her. They have a fourteen-year-old son but I don't know how to spell his name. They are all very nice.
After I had lunch with them, Marie-Violaine, my host mother, took me to some dance studios to try to find dance classes I can take. The first place we went had adult intermediate ballet on Tuesday nights, but I have Rotary meetings every Tuesday night for an hour. The other ballet class they offered was advanced, so that's not going to work. The other places we went didn't have ballet, so I don't know if I'll take dance in France. None of them offer des claquettes (tap).
While we were out, Catherine called Marie-Violaine and told her to bring me to their (the Guérin's) house. I got there and there were all these American tourists in their sitting room having apple cider and cookies. Apparently, a boat with American tourists comes down the Seine every 9 or 10 days and stops in Vernon so the Americans can see Giverny (Monet's house). It stays in Vernon for like a day so the tourists can see Vernon too. Catherine and Joel volunteer to go talk to them to help improve their English. Anyway, they were talking to these Americans and found out that they were on my plane from Minneapolis, so Catherine invited them back to the house for tea. Marcus says they do this sometimes. Catherine and Marcus found out that two of the tourists (there were like 10 or 12) were from Cleveland. So they called me to come talk to them. I got there and the one man from Cleveland was like "I know your principal, Mr. Cahoon" (!!!). I really couldn't believe it, but the man and his wife know Mr. Cahoon and his wife. Then I was talking to some of the other tourists (they were all retired and on vacation by the way) and one guy was like "You're my granddaughter's age" so I was talking to him about his grandchildren and he said one goes to Ithaca College. So I was like "I've been there a lot, my sister went to Cornell!" and he said he lives close to Ithaca. So then I asked him if he'd ever eaten at Joe's and he was like "all the time"! haha, I thougt it was sooo funny. I guess it's a small world after all.
The tourists stayed awhile; they were all very nice. It was really nice to talk to some Americans. They went into Joel's workshop and Joel was telling them how he restores furniture, and they all kept taking pictures. They loved Vovlie (the Guérin's dog). Then Catherine showed them the gallery, which is in the other part of their house (kind of hard to explain) and is where they sell some furniture. The tourists took a bunch of pictures. There was a little red velvet chair for sale for 3800 €, so everything is really nice and very old.
On Thursday, I had my first full day of school. I rode the bus; it was late so everyone was late to school. School was very long and boring since I don't understand what they're saying most of the time. There are no clubs or sports teams or anything. The walls are all very plain. School starts at 8:30 and ends at 5:30 on Thursdays and 4:30 every other day. I talked to three girls in my grade: Camille, Charlotte, and Julie, and they helped me find my classes. I stay with the same class all day. The only class I understood was English. They talk in English the whole time and the level is very high. They were talking about advertising all day today. The teacher has a British accent when she speaks English and she had me read something and made some comment about my American accent which was kind of rude, but she seemed nice other than that. I talked to a girl named Ludivine in French.
Lunch is an hour and wasn't very good, but everyone ate like every bite of theirs. In France they always clean they're plates of like every crumb; I don't know how they do it. It was mashed potatoes, some kind of meat, bread, yogurt, and fruit. I only liked the bread and the yogurt, but the meat looked gross and I couldn't tell what it was. I rode the bus home from school.
So far in France I really miss peanut butter, fresh milk, hummus, pasta, Reese's, Oreos, and bottled water. They don't drink a lot of water here, the milk is gross, they don't eat pasta by itself or with tomato sauce, and they don't have Reese's (I think I mentioned that).
Well, I have to go; I'm trying to figure out how to upload pictures in France, so hopefully soon I'll have pictures.
On Monday I went with Marcus and his dad on a hike up to this cliff overlooking Vernon. It was really hot out, like 85 degrees, and the trail turned out to be really steep, so I thought I wasn't going to make it up. But I did finally, even though I had my purse with me which made it really difficult to climb. The view was really good, you could see the Seine, the castle in Vernon, the Cathedral, the Guérins' house, and even my school. After that, we went to a café to get drinks. I ordered lemonade and they gave me something like sprite; I guess they don't have lemonade here.
That night, we went to have dinner at my second host family's house, the Ferrands (I think that's their name). Their daughter Caroline is in Australia on exchange this year in the same town Marcus lives in. They were very nice and they showed me the room I'll be staying in.
On Wednesday I started school. It was only a half day since Wednesdays are half days, and I didn't have to get there until 9:30. Ophélie introduced me to my class. I am in Premiére (11th grade) Literature. In France, there are three different sort of tracks you can take in high school: Literature, Economics, and Math/Science. The classes I am taking are French, English, History/Geographie, Spanish, Phys. Ed, Math, and something called TPE. I think it is where they prepare for the baccalaureate, which they take at the end of Terminale (12th grade) and which they have to pass or else they repeat Terminale. I hardly understood anything the first day because the teacher just talked in French for like two hours, but Marcus told me that I probably wouldn't understand anything at school for awhile because it's so fast.
After school I moved in with the Crestanis. They live in a really, really, really old house in the middle of Vernon. The street they live on is very old. The basement of the house was built in the 12th century (!) and the rest of it was built in the 15th century. Yes, my house is older than my country.
The Crestanis have five children, three who live at home right now. Philoméne, the oldest daughter, leaves in a couple of weeks for the Ivory Coast to teach I think. Aubin is in Ohio on exchange this year. Léonie is eight and is very small; I am like two times as tall as her. They have a fourteen-year-old son but I don't know how to spell his name. They are all very nice.
After I had lunch with them, Marie-Violaine, my host mother, took me to some dance studios to try to find dance classes I can take. The first place we went had adult intermediate ballet on Tuesday nights, but I have Rotary meetings every Tuesday night for an hour. The other ballet class they offered was advanced, so that's not going to work. The other places we went didn't have ballet, so I don't know if I'll take dance in France. None of them offer des claquettes (tap).
While we were out, Catherine called Marie-Violaine and told her to bring me to their (the Guérin's) house. I got there and there were all these American tourists in their sitting room having apple cider and cookies. Apparently, a boat with American tourists comes down the Seine every 9 or 10 days and stops in Vernon so the Americans can see Giverny (Monet's house). It stays in Vernon for like a day so the tourists can see Vernon too. Catherine and Joel volunteer to go talk to them to help improve their English. Anyway, they were talking to these Americans and found out that they were on my plane from Minneapolis, so Catherine invited them back to the house for tea. Marcus says they do this sometimes. Catherine and Marcus found out that two of the tourists (there were like 10 or 12) were from Cleveland. So they called me to come talk to them. I got there and the one man from Cleveland was like "I know your principal, Mr. Cahoon" (!!!). I really couldn't believe it, but the man and his wife know Mr. Cahoon and his wife. Then I was talking to some of the other tourists (they were all retired and on vacation by the way) and one guy was like "You're my granddaughter's age" so I was talking to him about his grandchildren and he said one goes to Ithaca College. So I was like "I've been there a lot, my sister went to Cornell!" and he said he lives close to Ithaca. So then I asked him if he'd ever eaten at Joe's and he was like "all the time"! haha, I thougt it was sooo funny. I guess it's a small world after all.
The tourists stayed awhile; they were all very nice. It was really nice to talk to some Americans. They went into Joel's workshop and Joel was telling them how he restores furniture, and they all kept taking pictures. They loved Vovlie (the Guérin's dog). Then Catherine showed them the gallery, which is in the other part of their house (kind of hard to explain) and is where they sell some furniture. The tourists took a bunch of pictures. There was a little red velvet chair for sale for 3800 €, so everything is really nice and very old.
On Thursday, I had my first full day of school. I rode the bus; it was late so everyone was late to school. School was very long and boring since I don't understand what they're saying most of the time. There are no clubs or sports teams or anything. The walls are all very plain. School starts at 8:30 and ends at 5:30 on Thursdays and 4:30 every other day. I talked to three girls in my grade: Camille, Charlotte, and Julie, and they helped me find my classes. I stay with the same class all day. The only class I understood was English. They talk in English the whole time and the level is very high. They were talking about advertising all day today. The teacher has a British accent when she speaks English and she had me read something and made some comment about my American accent which was kind of rude, but she seemed nice other than that. I talked to a girl named Ludivine in French.
Lunch is an hour and wasn't very good, but everyone ate like every bite of theirs. In France they always clean they're plates of like every crumb; I don't know how they do it. It was mashed potatoes, some kind of meat, bread, yogurt, and fruit. I only liked the bread and the yogurt, but the meat looked gross and I couldn't tell what it was. I rode the bus home from school.
So far in France I really miss peanut butter, fresh milk, hummus, pasta, Reese's, Oreos, and bottled water. They don't drink a lot of water here, the milk is gross, they don't eat pasta by itself or with tomato sauce, and they don't have Reese's (I think I mentioned that).
Well, I have to go; I'm trying to figure out how to upload pictures in France, so hopefully soon I'll have pictures.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Where the Streets Have No Name
Hi everyone, sorry I haven't updated, I've been busy.
For dinner on Thursday we (Catherine, Joël, Violaine, Ophélie, Marcus, Marcus's dad, and I) drove past Giverny up a hill overlooking Vernon, which is in a valley, and had a picnic. It was like eight o'clock when we left; they eat dinner kind of late here. Another family came; they are British and French, and their kids speak both English and French fluently. They have three kids I think, but I only remember one of their names which was Paisley. First they passed around bowls of chips (Lays potato chips, haha) and peanuts, and bread with pattè, which is duck liver or something. Then there was tomato and mozzerella salad and quiche that was really good, and after that bread and cheese. They eat bread and cheese after every meal (except breakfast). Then they had chocolate gateau (cake) that was sooo good, it didn't have icing on it or anything. After that we had these yellow plum things. They also had wine and apple cider (which is a Normandy specialty). They eat much smaller portions here, the quiche and the cake were cut into little slivers and everyone had one or two at the most. Dinner took over two hours, so it got dark and we could see the light pollution in the direction of Paris. They were joking and were like, "Look over there, you can see the Eiffel Tower", and when I looked they all laughed. On Friday I went with Catherine to the bank to open an account or something, and I successfully got money out of the bank. It was easy because they have different languages on the ATMs. Then we went to buy bread at the bakery; they buy baguettes every morning, normally three or four I think. After that we went home. A baguette costs .80€. Their house is right by the center of Vernon. There is a movie theater like a block away, and they are close to the Seine. Also there is a Chinese food restaurant on the street behind their house, I saw it when we drove by.
That afternoon I had tea with Ophélie and Violaine. They had coffee and bread with peanut butter (Marcus was in England and brought back a jar). They like peanut butter, but they don't like peanut butter and jelly. They don't have Reese's here or in England. They also were eating bread with butter and chocolate on it; I had some, it was good.
That night, the Chinese boy arrived. He goes to school in Vernon and lives with the Guèrins during the year because his parents live in Hong Kong. We ate dinner outside in the garden. We had bar-b-qued steak and sausages with rice and vegetables. They also had more of the plum things, and of course bread and cheese and wine. It was a very international table: Marcus and his dad from Australia/England (they moved from the UK to Australia a few years ago), the boy from Hong Kong, the Guérins from France, and I from America, so like 4 continents.
The next day, Saturday, Ophélie, Catherine, Violaine, and I went to St. Adjutor, my school, to buy books. There were a lot of people in this one hallway; everyone got numbers and had to wait in line until their number was called to go into a classroom and buy their books. We had to wait like an hour, and then we got our books. St.Adjutor is really nice and only has 300 students in the high school. Marcus doesn't go to the same school, he goes to the public school, which is the third largest high school in France and has 3000 students! We went home, and then I walked with Catherine to the farmer's market they have every Saturday in Vernon. It was a really good market and took up a whole street. There were lots of people there. At the market, there were multiple booths selling roasted chickens, and Catherine bought one. There also were booths selling fish with their heads still on, vegetables, herbs, fruit, meat, clothes, shoes, watches, and candy. It was like the West Side Market in the street, except it also had clothes and... LIVE ANIMALS. There were live chickens to buy, kill, and eat (!) and live baby ducks that people take home to get fat and then kill and eat (!!!) and... a LIVE BUNNY RABBIT that was for sale to eat (!!!!!!!!!). It looked like the rabbits that they sell at pet stores. Anyway, Catherine bought some more food and we walked down the road with all the shops in Vernon. There was a guy outside the market playing the accordian, next to another bakery (there are a ton of them in Vernon) that had a line of people waiting to buy their daily bread. There are lots of clothes stores in Vernon and none of them are American. We walked by the cathedral and the Hotel de Ville (town hall) and went into the Vernon Tourism Office where they gave me brochures about Vernon and Giverny. We went home and everyone ate chicken, potatoes, bread and cheese, and plums for lunch. After lunch Marcus, his dad, and I rode bikes across Vernon to Marcus's last host family's house for tea and coffee. Their house was soooooo nice, the nicest house I've ever been in. It was very old but they renovated it, and it is made of stone and has vines and flowers growing on it. The inside was really nice, and his host parents were really nice as well.
After we got back to the Guérins' house we left for their farm in the country. They have an old American WWII army jeep that was used on D-Day and still works, and we rode into the forest that is near the farm. Then we walked in the forest for awhile before going back to their farm. After that the people with the really nice house who we had coffee with earlier came to the farm and Marcus, his dad, and I went with them to their brother's farm in a little village about half an hour away for a party. The farm was really nice and was from medieval times but had been renovated. It used to be a monastary or something a looong time ago. They put up a white tent outside and passed out sausages and quiche and drinks. They had Coke Lite :) There were a lot of French people there and I talked to some of them. After awhile they all sat down under the tent to eat dinner; by this time it was like 9:30ish. There was soooooo much food, and it was all really good: pasta, steak, salads, bread, and more quiche. For dessert there was really good raspberry-and-apple crumble, lemon tart, and some other things I don't remember. The party was soooo French, they all were drinking wine, there was French music playing all night, some of them were smoking cigarettes, and it got cold so some people were wearing scarves. After dinner they all gathered around the fire and three guys began to play the guitar and sing; all of the songs were in english; I found out later they actually were a band but were also the friends of the people having the party. Everyone was singing along. I got up to get my camera from inside the house and I tripped over a rope holding up the tent; nothing happened but Marcus said they were all like "What is that American doing?" in French, haha. The band played Stayin' Alive (no one knew the words except for the chorus), Across the Universe and Help by the Beatles (eveyone knew the words), and some other songs. Then one of the guys playing the guitar was like "for our American and Australian guests" and played some of Beat It by Michael Jackson. After they finished the guitar-playing sing-a-long thing, Marcus and his dad and I were talking to the guitar-player who played Beat It. I had talked to him earlier in the evening in French and he asked me where I was from and I said Ohio, so he played Ohio by Neil Young and the French people sang along. Then we had to leave so we said goodbye.
On Sunday we went to a cheese factory/museum in Figarot to see how camombert is made. It took more than an hour to get there. We got to sample all this cheese; it reminded me of Madeline because some of the cheese in France smells like Helen's cheese in Madeline. After that we went to see some Normandy cows and saw baby pigs that were three days old. We ate bread, cheese, apple juice/cider, and cake at a farm (it was kind of a tourist attraction type farm). Then we went to Honfleur.
Honfleur was sooooooooooooooo pretty. We don't have any towns like it in the US. Lots of Parisiens and British people go there on vacation. It is on the English Channel and is basically perfect. There are all these little cobblestone streets and it's just sooo European. We had ice cream that was really good; I got Tiramisu flavored and it was delicious. We also went in shops; I took some pictures and will post them soon hopefully. Then we went home and had dinner. In the car I heard "where the streets have no name" by U2 and it seemed kind of fitting to my time in France so far, because while the streets have names, I don't know them yet. I may not remeber the names of all the towns and villages yet, or the people, but I do know that J'adore la France! (I adore France).
Well I have to go, but more soon!
Au revoir!
Halle
For dinner on Thursday we (Catherine, Joël, Violaine, Ophélie, Marcus, Marcus's dad, and I) drove past Giverny up a hill overlooking Vernon, which is in a valley, and had a picnic. It was like eight o'clock when we left; they eat dinner kind of late here. Another family came; they are British and French, and their kids speak both English and French fluently. They have three kids I think, but I only remember one of their names which was Paisley. First they passed around bowls of chips (Lays potato chips, haha) and peanuts, and bread with pattè, which is duck liver or something. Then there was tomato and mozzerella salad and quiche that was really good, and after that bread and cheese. They eat bread and cheese after every meal (except breakfast). Then they had chocolate gateau (cake) that was sooo good, it didn't have icing on it or anything. After that we had these yellow plum things. They also had wine and apple cider (which is a Normandy specialty). They eat much smaller portions here, the quiche and the cake were cut into little slivers and everyone had one or two at the most. Dinner took over two hours, so it got dark and we could see the light pollution in the direction of Paris. They were joking and were like, "Look over there, you can see the Eiffel Tower", and when I looked they all laughed. On Friday I went with Catherine to the bank to open an account or something, and I successfully got money out of the bank. It was easy because they have different languages on the ATMs. Then we went to buy bread at the bakery; they buy baguettes every morning, normally three or four I think. After that we went home. A baguette costs .80€. Their house is right by the center of Vernon. There is a movie theater like a block away, and they are close to the Seine. Also there is a Chinese food restaurant on the street behind their house, I saw it when we drove by.
That afternoon I had tea with Ophélie and Violaine. They had coffee and bread with peanut butter (Marcus was in England and brought back a jar). They like peanut butter, but they don't like peanut butter and jelly. They don't have Reese's here or in England. They also were eating bread with butter and chocolate on it; I had some, it was good.
That night, the Chinese boy arrived. He goes to school in Vernon and lives with the Guèrins during the year because his parents live in Hong Kong. We ate dinner outside in the garden. We had bar-b-qued steak and sausages with rice and vegetables. They also had more of the plum things, and of course bread and cheese and wine. It was a very international table: Marcus and his dad from Australia/England (they moved from the UK to Australia a few years ago), the boy from Hong Kong, the Guérins from France, and I from America, so like 4 continents.
The next day, Saturday, Ophélie, Catherine, Violaine, and I went to St. Adjutor, my school, to buy books. There were a lot of people in this one hallway; everyone got numbers and had to wait in line until their number was called to go into a classroom and buy their books. We had to wait like an hour, and then we got our books. St.Adjutor is really nice and only has 300 students in the high school. Marcus doesn't go to the same school, he goes to the public school, which is the third largest high school in France and has 3000 students! We went home, and then I walked with Catherine to the farmer's market they have every Saturday in Vernon. It was a really good market and took up a whole street. There were lots of people there. At the market, there were multiple booths selling roasted chickens, and Catherine bought one. There also were booths selling fish with their heads still on, vegetables, herbs, fruit, meat, clothes, shoes, watches, and candy. It was like the West Side Market in the street, except it also had clothes and... LIVE ANIMALS. There were live chickens to buy, kill, and eat (!) and live baby ducks that people take home to get fat and then kill and eat (!!!) and... a LIVE BUNNY RABBIT that was for sale to eat (!!!!!!!!!). It looked like the rabbits that they sell at pet stores. Anyway, Catherine bought some more food and we walked down the road with all the shops in Vernon. There was a guy outside the market playing the accordian, next to another bakery (there are a ton of them in Vernon) that had a line of people waiting to buy their daily bread. There are lots of clothes stores in Vernon and none of them are American. We walked by the cathedral and the Hotel de Ville (town hall) and went into the Vernon Tourism Office where they gave me brochures about Vernon and Giverny. We went home and everyone ate chicken, potatoes, bread and cheese, and plums for lunch. After lunch Marcus, his dad, and I rode bikes across Vernon to Marcus's last host family's house for tea and coffee. Their house was soooooo nice, the nicest house I've ever been in. It was very old but they renovated it, and it is made of stone and has vines and flowers growing on it. The inside was really nice, and his host parents were really nice as well.
After we got back to the Guérins' house we left for their farm in the country. They have an old American WWII army jeep that was used on D-Day and still works, and we rode into the forest that is near the farm. Then we walked in the forest for awhile before going back to their farm. After that the people with the really nice house who we had coffee with earlier came to the farm and Marcus, his dad, and I went with them to their brother's farm in a little village about half an hour away for a party. The farm was really nice and was from medieval times but had been renovated. It used to be a monastary or something a looong time ago. They put up a white tent outside and passed out sausages and quiche and drinks. They had Coke Lite :) There were a lot of French people there and I talked to some of them. After awhile they all sat down under the tent to eat dinner; by this time it was like 9:30ish. There was soooooo much food, and it was all really good: pasta, steak, salads, bread, and more quiche. For dessert there was really good raspberry-and-apple crumble, lemon tart, and some other things I don't remember. The party was soooo French, they all were drinking wine, there was French music playing all night, some of them were smoking cigarettes, and it got cold so some people were wearing scarves. After dinner they all gathered around the fire and three guys began to play the guitar and sing; all of the songs were in english; I found out later they actually were a band but were also the friends of the people having the party. Everyone was singing along. I got up to get my camera from inside the house and I tripped over a rope holding up the tent; nothing happened but Marcus said they were all like "What is that American doing?" in French, haha. The band played Stayin' Alive (no one knew the words except for the chorus), Across the Universe and Help by the Beatles (eveyone knew the words), and some other songs. Then one of the guys playing the guitar was like "for our American and Australian guests" and played some of Beat It by Michael Jackson. After they finished the guitar-playing sing-a-long thing, Marcus and his dad and I were talking to the guitar-player who played Beat It. I had talked to him earlier in the evening in French and he asked me where I was from and I said Ohio, so he played Ohio by Neil Young and the French people sang along. Then we had to leave so we said goodbye.
On Sunday we went to a cheese factory/museum in Figarot to see how camombert is made. It took more than an hour to get there. We got to sample all this cheese; it reminded me of Madeline because some of the cheese in France smells like Helen's cheese in Madeline. After that we went to see some Normandy cows and saw baby pigs that were three days old. We ate bread, cheese, apple juice/cider, and cake at a farm (it was kind of a tourist attraction type farm). Then we went to Honfleur.
Honfleur was sooooooooooooooo pretty. We don't have any towns like it in the US. Lots of Parisiens and British people go there on vacation. It is on the English Channel and is basically perfect. There are all these little cobblestone streets and it's just sooo European. We had ice cream that was really good; I got Tiramisu flavored and it was delicious. We also went in shops; I took some pictures and will post them soon hopefully. Then we went home and had dinner. In the car I heard "where the streets have no name" by U2 and it seemed kind of fitting to my time in France so far, because while the streets have names, I don't know them yet. I may not remeber the names of all the towns and villages yet, or the people, but I do know that J'adore la France! (I adore France).
Well I have to go, but more soon!
Au revoir!
Halle
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Bonjour from France!
Hi everyone, sorry it's taken me a couple of days to update.
I left Cleveland in the afternoon on Tuesday. Hanna (from Kirtland) and Anne (from Buckeye) were on my plane as well as Ingrid ( from somewhere in northeast Ohio). The plane was TINY; there were 11 rows and the ceiling of the aisle was 6 ft. tall and I'm not exaggerating. We sat on the runway for like an hour, and for like 40 minutes once we got to Minneanapolis. Hanna, Anne, Ingrid and I had 80 minutes to get to our gate, which was at the opposite end of the airport. We all were hungry so we stopped to get pizza to go. When we finally got to our gate they were halfway through boarding. There were all these Rotary students on our plane waiting in line to get on. Anne and I were talking a little in French and joking about how bad our accents were when we realized that basically everyone in line who wasn't wearing a Rotary blazer was French. We got on the plane; my seat was only four rows back from first class. I sat next to a French girl who was probably like 10 at the most. Everyone around me was French except for two Rotary students a couple rows ahead of me.
The flight was long but it took only 8 hours. I didn't sleep at all; that was not fun. There was a French flight attendant who looked like Jess from Gilmore Girls except he had a mustache. They passed out copies of Le Monde to the French people but I took one and tried to read it. Dinner wasn't too bad: pasta, salad, bread, cheese, and a brownie that I still have in my purse. After they showed the first movie they put up on the screen that we were over Northern Canada and it was -56 degrees farenheit outside. The plane was freezing cold, if you ever fly to Europe, bring sweaters and Tylenol p.m. After awhile it showed we were over the Atlantic and it was dark out. About two hours later I thought we would still be over the ocean, but we had flown over Dublin and London and were over the English Channel. After that the plane went from 40000 feet to 8000 in 20 minutes and my ears were popping ridiculously much.
We finally got to Paris, but we didn't fly over it because Charles de Gaulle is outside of it. The flight attendant wished all the Rotary students luck over the speaker and everyone who understood English cheered. We all got off the plane; no one knew where to go. I finally found customs and got through in two seconds; they didn't search anything or ask me anything, and I didn't have my Rotary blazer on (Hannah, Anne, and I were the only ones who didn't wear ours at all, they were a pain so we stuffed them in our carry-on bags in Cleveland). I got my bags and went out to look for my host family. There were lots of host families with signs. Mine didn't get there until about half an hour later, so I waited with Hanna and Anne. Hannah taught me my new favorite phrase--"Oh mon dieu" which means "Oh my dear". Finally they got there, and Ophélie told me that we were going to Paris to meet Marcus (from Australia) and his dad. We drove into Paris and passed the Eiffel Tower twice and the Arc de Triumph three times. The city was not crowded except for the tourist spots because most Parisiens are on vacation for the month of August. We parked at the Louvre and went into the courtyard where the glass Pyramid from the DaVinci Code is. The Louvre is ridiculously beautiful in person, it doesn't even look real. All of Paris is that way really, it is much nicer than I thought it would be. We met Marcus and his dad at the Louvre and walked to a bridge over the Seine that had all these gold statues on it. They all ate half-baguettes with cheese. Then we walked to the South bank of the Seine. There were all these houseboats on the Seine that people actually live in and are very expensive. One had hundreds of rubber ducks in the windows of all different colors, which was very weird.
We met Camille (whose name is pronounced Ca-mee, not Ca-meel). She is the oldest daughter and she lives and works in Paris. We all walked to Notre Dame, where there was a huge line, but we didn't go in. I could tell a lot of Americans very easily because they were the ones wearing shorts, fanny packs, and white tennis shoes. We went back to the Louvre; I still was carrying my purse that was very heavy from the plane; there were venders selling bottled water for 1€ at the Louvre. We drove out of Paris past the Arc de Triumph again and went on the highway to Vernon. I heard Billie Jean, Wakin' Up in Vegas, I Got a Feeling, and I'm Yours on the radio to name a few American songs. I'm staying with this family for a week, then I go to the another.
They have a dog, Volvie, who they don't let in the house. She is a golden retreiver except she is very small, a little bigger than a beagle; they found her in the South of France one year. Their house is 100 years old and is very big. The ceilings are about twelve feet high and there are 3 1/2 above-ground stories. One room on the ground floor is their store where they sell refinished antique furniture, and they also have a studio attached to the house.
All the houses in Vernon are gated with walls. Today I went with Ophélie, Violaine, Marcus, and Marcus's dad to drive by my school. It is very pretty and the Nazis lived in it during WWII. We drove around Vernon; the streets look like the Madeline street from the movie Madeline, and the houses look similar to the old house covered in vines that Madeline lived in. I'll post pictures soon hopefully. There are separate rooms for the bathtubs/showers and toilets. They don't have fans or screens on the windows.
Lunch today was pasta with mushroom sauce, bread, really good cheese, and then dessert. Dessert was plain yogurt with sugar and raspberry jam. Eveyone else ate it, but I thought it was... interesting.
They do not have fresh milk like us, so the milk tastes very weird. The water also tastes weird. There is a HUGE chateau in Vernon. There is also a small castle and a big cathedral. We drove into the country to my host families' farm where they keep tons of antique furniture. It is very pretty and we passed at least two chateaus on the Seine.
Okay, I have to go, but I'll post more soon.
Au revoir for now!
I left Cleveland in the afternoon on Tuesday. Hanna (from Kirtland) and Anne (from Buckeye) were on my plane as well as Ingrid ( from somewhere in northeast Ohio). The plane was TINY; there were 11 rows and the ceiling of the aisle was 6 ft. tall and I'm not exaggerating. We sat on the runway for like an hour, and for like 40 minutes once we got to Minneanapolis. Hanna, Anne, Ingrid and I had 80 minutes to get to our gate, which was at the opposite end of the airport. We all were hungry so we stopped to get pizza to go. When we finally got to our gate they were halfway through boarding. There were all these Rotary students on our plane waiting in line to get on. Anne and I were talking a little in French and joking about how bad our accents were when we realized that basically everyone in line who wasn't wearing a Rotary blazer was French. We got on the plane; my seat was only four rows back from first class. I sat next to a French girl who was probably like 10 at the most. Everyone around me was French except for two Rotary students a couple rows ahead of me.
The flight was long but it took only 8 hours. I didn't sleep at all; that was not fun. There was a French flight attendant who looked like Jess from Gilmore Girls except he had a mustache. They passed out copies of Le Monde to the French people but I took one and tried to read it. Dinner wasn't too bad: pasta, salad, bread, cheese, and a brownie that I still have in my purse. After they showed the first movie they put up on the screen that we were over Northern Canada and it was -56 degrees farenheit outside. The plane was freezing cold, if you ever fly to Europe, bring sweaters and Tylenol p.m. After awhile it showed we were over the Atlantic and it was dark out. About two hours later I thought we would still be over the ocean, but we had flown over Dublin and London and were over the English Channel. After that the plane went from 40000 feet to 8000 in 20 minutes and my ears were popping ridiculously much.
We finally got to Paris, but we didn't fly over it because Charles de Gaulle is outside of it. The flight attendant wished all the Rotary students luck over the speaker and everyone who understood English cheered. We all got off the plane; no one knew where to go. I finally found customs and got through in two seconds; they didn't search anything or ask me anything, and I didn't have my Rotary blazer on (Hannah, Anne, and I were the only ones who didn't wear ours at all, they were a pain so we stuffed them in our carry-on bags in Cleveland). I got my bags and went out to look for my host family. There were lots of host families with signs. Mine didn't get there until about half an hour later, so I waited with Hanna and Anne. Hannah taught me my new favorite phrase--"Oh mon dieu" which means "Oh my dear". Finally they got there, and Ophélie told me that we were going to Paris to meet Marcus (from Australia) and his dad. We drove into Paris and passed the Eiffel Tower twice and the Arc de Triumph three times. The city was not crowded except for the tourist spots because most Parisiens are on vacation for the month of August. We parked at the Louvre and went into the courtyard where the glass Pyramid from the DaVinci Code is. The Louvre is ridiculously beautiful in person, it doesn't even look real. All of Paris is that way really, it is much nicer than I thought it would be. We met Marcus and his dad at the Louvre and walked to a bridge over the Seine that had all these gold statues on it. They all ate half-baguettes with cheese. Then we walked to the South bank of the Seine. There were all these houseboats on the Seine that people actually live in and are very expensive. One had hundreds of rubber ducks in the windows of all different colors, which was very weird.
We met Camille (whose name is pronounced Ca-mee, not Ca-meel). She is the oldest daughter and she lives and works in Paris. We all walked to Notre Dame, where there was a huge line, but we didn't go in. I could tell a lot of Americans very easily because they were the ones wearing shorts, fanny packs, and white tennis shoes. We went back to the Louvre; I still was carrying my purse that was very heavy from the plane; there were venders selling bottled water for 1€ at the Louvre. We drove out of Paris past the Arc de Triumph again and went on the highway to Vernon. I heard Billie Jean, Wakin' Up in Vegas, I Got a Feeling, and I'm Yours on the radio to name a few American songs. I'm staying with this family for a week, then I go to the another.
They have a dog, Volvie, who they don't let in the house. She is a golden retreiver except she is very small, a little bigger than a beagle; they found her in the South of France one year. Their house is 100 years old and is very big. The ceilings are about twelve feet high and there are 3 1/2 above-ground stories. One room on the ground floor is their store where they sell refinished antique furniture, and they also have a studio attached to the house.
All the houses in Vernon are gated with walls. Today I went with Ophélie, Violaine, Marcus, and Marcus's dad to drive by my school. It is very pretty and the Nazis lived in it during WWII. We drove around Vernon; the streets look like the Madeline street from the movie Madeline, and the houses look similar to the old house covered in vines that Madeline lived in. I'll post pictures soon hopefully. There are separate rooms for the bathtubs/showers and toilets. They don't have fans or screens on the windows.
Lunch today was pasta with mushroom sauce, bread, really good cheese, and then dessert. Dessert was plain yogurt with sugar and raspberry jam. Eveyone else ate it, but I thought it was... interesting.
They do not have fresh milk like us, so the milk tastes very weird. The water also tastes weird. There is a HUGE chateau in Vernon. There is also a small castle and a big cathedral. We drove into the country to my host families' farm where they keep tons of antique furniture. It is very pretty and we passed at least two chateaus on the Seine.
Okay, I have to go, but I'll post more soon.
Au revoir for now!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Au Revoir Bay Village!
I'm leaving tomorrow at 1:30ish from Cleveland to Minneapolis. Then I fly straight to Paris and I'll arrive there at 9:15 a.m. Paris time, which is 3:15 a.m. Cleveland time. I will update as soon as I can. It might be a few days...
Feel free to e-mail me while I'm in France :)
au revoir
Halle
Feel free to e-mail me while I'm in France :)
au revoir
Halle
Monday, August 17, 2009
City and School
I will soon be leaving to live in Vernon, Normandie, France. Vernon is about 40 miles from Paris and is on the river Seine. The city is most known for Giverny, where Monet's house, gardens, and famous lily ponds are. The population is 25,ooo.
A map of Vernon/Giverny
A picture of my school, Saint Adjutor
My school is called Lycée Saint-Adjutor. It is a private Catholic school, but there is no uniform. School is Monday-Friday, with Wednesday afternoons off.
A map of Vernon/Giverny A picture of my school, Saint AdjutorBienvenue!
I leave in eight days to spend a year as a Rotary Exchange Student in France. I'll try to update this blog on a somewhat regular basis... but I'm not promising anything!
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