Paris, Noel, Très occupé

Coucou readers!

Sorry I haven't written anything in like a month...my computer had a virus and wouldn't let me log on. I finally got rid of it, YAY!
Before going off to Paris with Rotary I attended my second Rotary meeting with my club. This time there was I few more Rotarians than the first time I went. The meeting was pretty much the same as last time. I chatted with a few Rotarians then we ate lunch. Which was a three course meal and yummy as usual. Some people talked about club projects etc. and then it was mine turn. I give everyone an update about how my exchange is going etc. I brought my laptop so I could show some of the many pictures that I had taken. It went well. After the meeting I went with one of the Rotarians to E.Lecric, where he works. Its kind of the equivalent to a Super store; He owns the whole thing and they're in the process of building a new building with parking etc. I got to have a tour and then learned all about the inner workings of the store. It was pretty interesting. I had a hard hat and everything!

Since I last wrote nothing really exciting has happened, just school. Then on the, 16th I think it was, of December I headed off to Paris with Rotary. I met up with the other exchange students at the TGV station (Train de Grand Vitesse) in Aix and it was wonderful to see everyone. The train ride is about 3 hours and we arrived in Paris on Friday around lunch and stayed till Sunday afternoon. On Friday my district (15) and I went to have our bagged lunches and drop off all our stuff at the youth hostel we were staying at.

                                                             Canadian exchangers! <3 font="">

 After that we walked to the subway and made our way the Garnier Opera. This is the Opera that the phantom of the Opera took place in. We even got to see the phantoms box! We had a whole tour of the Opera and it was really amazing. In one of the halls there was a bunch of mirrors and I didn't even realize until I took a second glance. I just thought the hall was huge!

After the Opera we went to Les Galaries Lafayette. Which is pretty much a huge HUGE shopping mall compiled of multiple floors and some wonderful Christmas decorations. When we walked to the centre there is this huge Christmas tree that's covered in sparkly lights that change colours. It really felt like being surrounded by light because all the walls we gold and also covered in lights. It was really beautiful.Then we headed back to the hostel to have supper and then spent the rest of the night talking, playing cards and hanging out. Hanging out with exchange students is always a fun time. :)

The next morning we got up and had breakfast in the hostel and then walked over to Le Cité des Sciences, which is this science centre that has a Divinci exhibit that was kinda neat with models, demonstrations, videos and such. After doing this we met up with another district of about 40 exchangers. It was really wonderful to meet some other exchange students. We all had lunch together and then we headed to the IMAX theatre that is right outside of Le Cité Des Sciences and we watched a movie about Polar Bears and it was good. Although I did feel as if I needed wrap around eyes to be able to properly see everything the screen was so big!

We then all piled into two buses and were off to Le Chateau de Versailles; Walking up to the gates was awesome. There were exchangers taking pictures and posing with each other all over. It was a big open cobblestoned space that lead up to these big gold gates with the castle behind them. First we all headed to the back and took a ridiculous amount of picture before we went inside to start our tour. In the back was this big open space that lead down to some gardens and a great big pool with a fountain in the middle. After that you could pretty much see out a long ways. There was no buildings or mountains or anything; Just these endless gardens.
                                                      We are one good looking district!

Once we made our way inside we were outfitted with a headset and then we were off on our tour. The castle was made up of a whole bunch of richly decorated rooms with painted ceilings and gold encrusted crown molding. All the while the view was out onto the gardens. We got to go through some crowning rooms, receiving rooms and some bedrooms too. The bedrooms were ridiculously lavished and the beds were at least as tall as me if not taller. There was a little set of stairs to get onto them. After the tour we all piled back onto the buses and set of to Montmartre which is on top of this hill that looks over Paris. We took quite a few stairs to get to the top of it. But the view was worth it. You could see the Champs d'elysee and the Effile tour too. We headed through this little village past their Christmas market to the restaurant we were eating at. I think one of my favourite parts of the evening was the singing of 'Happy Birthday' during the weekend there were a few birthdays so we sang happy birthday. BUT the best part was we didn't just sing happy birthday in French, no. We sang in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean  Italian  Indian and Mandarin. After dinner we had free time and lucky for us it POURED. We were all wet rats by the time we made it back to the bus.On our way back to the hostel we drove down the Champs d'elyse~~~~ to see all the Christmas decorations. 

That night all 60 of us went back to the youth hostel and we did like a little gift exchange thing. And best of all the oldies (exchangers that start and finish their exchanges in January) were giving away some of the stuff that they weren't taking home with them and I scored some clothes, jewellery, and the first Lord of the Rings book! :D 
The next day was the Eiffle tower and a boat tour on la rivière Sienne. It was a beautiful day out with blue sky with little white fluffy clouds. We took lots of pictures and chatted with everyone and had a great day. It was sad to have to say goodbye at the end of the weekend. it was a rushed goodbye because my district was running late for the train. We RAN through the station to catch it. Turns out we can down the wrong train docking station so we had to then run back the other way. All 15 of us. People were looking at us in the station. Haha but we did make our train on time so no worries. I think traveling is deffinietly one of the big ways we exhcnage students bond. Our train ride was to be about 3 hours long but they was some problems so we actually took closer to 6 hours to come home. Which I actually was nice for us because we got to spend that luch longer together. :) We sat around and talked, played cards, ate and all in all enjoyed each others company. 

It was great after my weekend in Paris I only had one more week of school and then it was les vacances! I got off school on the 21st of December (the end of the world). That day I planned to go to see The Hobbit in Aix with Danika (exchanger from Australia). We decided if the world was going to end we needed to see The Hobbit first. I spent the night at her place and had a really fun time. We made Pancakes in the morning. 


Christmas! Joyeux Noel!

I had a very nice Christmas here in France. I'm going to be honest and say yeah it was a little hard being away from my family during the holidays but, my family here is really wonderful and I still had a good Christmas. Since we were going to family's for Christmas I thought it might be a nice to bring some of my Christmas tradition too. So, I made a whole bunch of sugar cookies with coloured icing, sprinkles and the rest of the whole 9 yards. The cookies went over really well and everyone loved them. Except I'm not too sure how little cousin Maria felt about them. I think she just liked the icing since she would just lick all of it off and then put the cookie back in with the rest of them.... -__- On the 24th we drove to Marielle's mom's home in a town about an hour away from Fuveau. When we got there Marielle and I set the table and it looked awesome! After about an hour the rest of the family started arriving. Marielle's brother and sister and their families. We then had a dinner which of course was compiled of wine, champagne, lots of bread, and a Christmas tradition of fois gras. Which is essentially the liver from a diseased duck. It was pretty good. Definitely something that I haven't ever eaten before! After, there was smoked salmon, potato's, and more bread. Then we had their family's Christmas tradition of the Santa appearance. In their family they have one small cousin, Maria, so we did it for her. And this year is was my host brothers honour, Noé, to be Santa. We distracted Maria and Noé went upstairs to get changed. We turned off the lights and the everyone started singing "petit papa Noel" and then Noé came down the stairs with an armful of presents. This is about the time when little Maria started balling her eyes out. It was pretty comical to watch. Then Noé left out the front door and Maria's dad pointed to the biggest present and said "that one's yours!" Maria instantly stopped crying and pretty much dived on the pile of gifts to get hers. Which by the way was bigger than her! She had received a fairly large doll and I think for her, the fright of "Santa" aka Noé was worth it. Afterwards we had bouche, which is also a Christmas tradition, a kind of rolled up pastry with a cream chocolate filling. It was really yummy. After we opened some more gifts. I gave Marielle a clay pressed maple leaf and a painting, Noé a calender of British Columbia, and I gave Remy a pate knife with an Inukshuk on it. There is also a French tradition that when someone gives you a knife as a gift you have to give the person that gave it to you a euro so as to not "cut" the friendship between you. So I found myself one euro richer! And from my host family I got a make-up bag, a sweater and some chocolate cover marshmallows! After that everyone went to bed since it had gotten quite late and the next day it was off to Marielle's dad's house for Christmas dinner round two! Everyone got up pretty late and then around 12:30 we left for Grandpa's. This meal was fairly similar to the meal we had the night before with fois gras and smoked salmon but this time we also had some chicken. And for desert we had a type of ice cream cake. After that we hung around and chatted a bit. I played Marielle's brother's guitar that he brought with him. Which was really nice seeing as in my host house the only guitar they have is miniature and meant for little kids who are learning to play guitar. But it's better than nothing! Before leaving Christoph surprised me by lending me his guitar until I change host families on the 3rd. I was so happy and have been playing lots! We're now back at home and its been pretty quite. 

Tonight I'm making perogies as a thank-you meal for my host family and then this weekend we're off to do a couple of outings as a family, then New Years, and then I'm off to my next host family. I have really enjoyed my time with this family and I will be sad to go but I also do think its good that I will be able to experience another lifestyle.

Well folks, that's all for now. Sorry this has been so late in coming.
à bientot, 
Rebecca