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