French Alps

Well I figured it was about time that I updated this. So I have been in France for almost 3 weeks now and have done a week and a bit of school. School is incredibly boring. It has only academic classes. WHICH in my opinion is poop. It is possible for people to learn in different ways! Oh well at least I get plenty of drawing time in my classes.

This is one of the entrance ways to my school

Like Spanish for instance, I don't speak Spanish and the rest of my class has been taking Spanish for 4 years so this means that for 1 hour two times a week I am submitted to the horror that is translating English to French from French to Spanish. As I said, I don't know Spanish so this is very difficult.
Then there's Philosophy. The people who actually speak French don't understand this class so I don't see much hope for me. Good thing I have a whole whopping 4 hours of it a week! -___-
And then there's lunch. My favourite part of the day. They have a cafeteria where I've got this little card I swipe and get a lunch. I actually don't mind the food there. But maybe that's just because I don't have to make it. either way its the almost only part of the day when I can actually talk to the other kids there without being subjected the the glares of teachers.
Since all my classes are with the same group of students I like to think I've made a couple friends and I eat lunch with them everyday and follow them to my next classes because I don't really know where any of them are. Frankly I don't even know how they know where they are because it seems that everyday they have been moved to a different room. I don't get it. But if I every show up late I just do the exchange student act and tell them I was lost. :p
I get to school by taking the bus or walking. It's a pretty long walk of 45mins but I don't mind I like doing something. In my opinion though the bus schedule is weird and they come at awkward times but I make it work by walking or bumming around till the bus comes.

So even though school hasn't been great I got to look forward to the Rotary weekend I had coming up. It was a 3 three day event in Briançon in the French Alpes, which by the way are B-E-A-UTIFUL!  And they reminded me of home. Good ol' BC :) I got to skip out on school on Friday to catch the bus and we picked up the rest of the 13 exchangers along the way. In total we had 7 Americans (all from different states), one Mexican, a Bolivian, a boy from Japan, a girl from Korea, a guy from Brazil and then one other Canadian. We stayed in a hostel with one room for girls and one for boys. The first night we just got to know each other and stayed up late talking. We pretty much became instant friends because the amount of understanding we have with each other is amazing. The next morning we were going river Rafting and then going to some hot pools in the afternoon.

All of us suited up for rafting! :)

Sarah (Alaska)

Cathy and I. From New York

This is where the hot springs were

Model of the hot springs

Walking to the high ropes

High ropes

The Rafting was super fun and we had 3 boats, a couple over-boards, lost paddles, lost shoes :p, and a whole lot of fun. I have to admit after I had a couple of warrior wounds. After we had lunch then headed to the hot pools and they were VERY welcome after our crazy rafting. That night we exchanged cards, pins, and met our Rotary district president and a few other Rotarians. We took some nice pictures with our blazers and flags. That night we stayed up late again of course. :) The next and last day we walk over to a place called Adventure Parc which was a high ropes course. It was great! They had a whole bunch of zip lines and even a bike! That was in the sky! :O I know! So cool! All in all it was a wonderful weekend where I met some of the most wonderful people and we are planning to get together at the end of October because we can't wait till the next event so we're going to plan one of our own!

You're pretty much all caught up now. I'm back to school, blah and I'm missing my exchanger friends but still look forward to making some friends here too.
Nothing too exciting is planned till not the following weekend but the one after. I'm going to Paris with my family! It should be lots of fun and I'm very excited!
So till next time!
Bisous,

Rebecca