Blog Entry #1 I Made It!

So I made it to France! In one piece and everything! Yay. It has been two days since I arrived and I have finally made time to start this. And already I have learned and confirmed 3 things about France: 1. People who drive Vespas really are crazy. They drive absolutely everywhere and veer in between and all over the place. 2. Most all French people do smoke. 3. And the bread? Holy…heaven in my mouth. J

So I guess we’ll start at the beginning. Monday August 27 I woke up at 3:08 to leave for Kelowna at 3:30 -__- yuck. So pretty much I got dressed said goodbye to Kyte, that was hard, loaded up my bags and were off. We made it to the airport, (Dev, Mom, Dad and I) without too much excitement but I really didn’t suspect it to be at 4 in the morning. We got to the airport at about 5:00 and we got into the lineup so I could drop off my bag. I have one big bag, a carry on and a backpack.  I put my bag on the scale and of course, it was 2.6lbs over weight. Great. So I moved a couple of things from my bag to my carry-on so it worked out okay. We now headed over to security. This is where I had to say goodbye. And it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

After I made it through security with no problems and headed off to my gate to wait for my plane. Here I met up with 2 other exchange students: Eamon from Vernon and Terry from Kelowna. The plane came none of our seats were together but at least it was a fairly fast plane ride. We made it to Seatle with no problems and our only problem now was the 5 hour layover that we had to occupy ourselves for. During the 5 hours we met up with 4 other exchange students. Chelsea from Kamloops, Hannah, Sarah from Alaska (she is in the same district as me) and another girl who I don’t remember her name. It started with an L…. It was a long day okay?! We passed the time by playing cards and wandering around ect. Our plane to Detroit comes at 1:55 and we leave 20mins late which worries me a bit because at our connecting flight from Detroit to Paris we only have 45mins and then because we left late we now have 25mins and we don’t even know where our gate is. On the Detroit flight I had a well-earned nap for about 2 hours. We landed in Detroit only to run to our next plane. So really in total we had an 11 hour flight because we went right from our Detroit flight of 4 hours to our Paris flight of 7 hours.

The Paris flight sucked. Sure the food was fine and they had movies but I just didn’t sleep well on it at all. SO that sucked. We finally make it to Paris and we have a 4 hour layover to my flight to Marseille. Here we kinda split up a bit. 3 other exchange students and I are heading to Marseille, 3 to Nice, and a few who are getting picked up at the Paris airport. We say goodbye to each other and best wishes ect. On my flight to Marseille I go with Sawyer, Sarah and Clay. They are all in my district and the best part is we all get seats together! Finally! Out of all my 4 flights this is the only one I actually get to sit with other exchange students. This flight is also a pretty short flight and I spend most of it reading and being slept on. Clay is the oddest sleeper. Haha We make it to Marseille and as we land I start to get real excited. This is where we are to meet our host parents and Rotary club! Woo! My host Mom is only there for me but it was okay because she was very welcoming. I was greeted with a kiss on each check and then we went to get my bag. I got my bag with no problems. Clay wasn’t so lucky and all his baggage was lost. Poor guy. L We took some pictures afterwards with our flags and then we each went off to our separate houses.

                                        We had nothing better to do for 5 hours in Seattle.

Eamon fell asleep in the Seattle airport. 

Flight to Marseille 

My host house is wonderful. Like most homes here in France it’s made out of stone. It’s not super big but I really like it. Plus there’s a pool. XD My room is upstairs and I’ve got a door to outside on the balcony. The view is beautiful! We had a dinner of Eggplant, peppers, and pasta with a tomato basil sauce. C’était très bon! :) 

                                                        This is the view from my room. :)

I slept really well till about 12. I was a tired girl! For the day my host mom and I went to my school to organise my classes and then we went to the bank. And to her surprise they have the perfect bank account for foreign students! So I’m now in the process of doing that. That evening I went with my family to a dinner at my h.mom’s sister. It went very well for the part that I understood. :P Everyone was talking pretty quickly for the most part and I would only understand parts of it. But it’s okay, because the food was really good. On the way home we drove through Aix-en-Provance at night and it is beautiful! Today we are going to go walk through it today and check it out.

                                                 Went to a Boulangerie with my h.mom :) yum!

                    

These are everywhere! You can buy bread and pastries here.

My second sleep wasn’t as good as my first night but no worries. And so now we’re almost caught up. I woke up this morning and had an apricot and a hardboiled egg. AND it’s raining today! Apparently it hasn’t rained in months so this is probably good for all the plants and such. I think we’re still going to go for a walk around Aix even though it’s raining. And so as I eat my chocolate croissant and look out at beautiful France, I will sign off et parlez-en à vous bientôt! J