The first Saturday of vacation I went over to a friends house (Anais) and her, another friend (Lucie) and I made cookies (chocolate chip canadian style of course)! They turned out really yummy and I probably ate a ridiculous amount of them. It was really nice way to start off mes vacances! Plus what's even better is that they live in Fuveau which is the town I will be living in for the last 3 months. Woo!
The first Sunday of the vacanes Fabienne(h.mom), Clemetine(h.sister) and I loaded up the car and left for Beaufort-Arches ski station in the Alps about a four hour drive north of here. The station is about halfway between Lyon and Switzerland. I spent the drive half sleeping because lucky me the morning of leaving I had the beginning of a cold setting in. When I wasn't sleeping I read, took pictures or chatted with my host family. The terrain slowly became more and more mountainous and when we stopped to have lunch there must of been at least 30cm of snow on the ground. For lunch we had ham sandwiches and some fruit.
Fun fact: french people
normally don't like sandwiches and I have learned why, they really have
no idea how to make a good sandwich. Because when I make a sandwich I
go the whole 9 yards with veggies and meat and cheese and sauce and
heck half the time its toasted! But with french people you're lucky to
get meat AND cheese. They simply have no sandwich pride. 
After
finishing our picnic lunch we got back into the car to complete our
journey. We arrived around 2 o'clock and got moderately set up in
our apartment was fairly small and cute and was wonderfully located in
regards to the chairlift. We weren't starting to ski until Monday and
we skied all the way till Saturday to depart Sunday. For the rest of
the afternoon we checked the weather, purchased our lift passes and
walked around the town. On all mountain sides there were little wood
cabins that were really homely and cute. We even went on a short nature
walk to a stream and through a little part of the village. Later that
evening there was tubing planned along with hot wine and chocolate so
we stuck around to check it out. The tubing was set up on a little
slope and Clementine and I did a few slides, drank some hot chocolate
and then it really started getting cold so we headed back to the warmth
of our apartment. The evening was spent relaxing and hanging out with
an early bedtime for the early wake up the next morning for skiing.
The
next morning was SKIING! And holy was it ever a beautiful sunny day. We
got all set up and off we went. The station is set up in two different
section parts. Planey, where are apartment was, and Arches, where the
village technically is but both are accessible by skiing but getting to
Arches took a little since it kind of is on the other side of the
mountain. We skied the Planey side in the morning where the sun was and
the Arches side in the afternoon to stay with the sun. The first day
was awesome and it was so nice to be back boarding since I normally
board all winter and here I hadn't gotten to yet. The evening was again
a fairly quiet one because my cold was still taking its toll on me
after our early morning and full day of skiing. Tuesday and Wednesday
followed along the same lines with the same wonderful weather.
Wednesday evening there was a descent au flambeau with fireworks a DJ
and hot wine and chocolate. A descent au flambeau is when a bunch of
skiers with torches in their hands come down the mountain on skis in a
line making s patterns as they come down. It was really neat to see.
After was the fireworks and I thought they were really well done. I
enjoyed all of this while sipping on my hot chocolate and then after we
danced for a while out in the snow to the DJ music with lights and the whole schbang!. It was a nice way to end a great
day of snowboarding. 
Thursday is when Cyril, my host brother who is going to school in Paris, arrived. Too bad for him the nice weather was only to be nice in the morning while he was with us. He arrived just after lunch and joined up with Clem and I for the afternoon of skiing. After skiing we went to check out these things that are called Yooners, which are these weird little sled things that you actually get going pretty fast on and I almost plowed this poor dog that was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time! I raced hy host siblings and won! Wooo go team Canada! And of course this was accompanied by hot wine and hot chocolate.
That evening we played a large
amount of a card game called Waitai which involves everyone playing at
once and trying to be the first one to get ride of their whole stock
pile. We also played a game called Jungle Speed which sometimes gets a
little violent. The goal is to be the first to grab the totem if your
card matches someone else's It was a really nice evening and for supper
we had a Raclette which is kind of a mountain tradition where you melt this special cheese and put it on top of potatoes and fried meat. And it is super yummy.Friday was of course more skiing but today we had lunch on the slopes in a restaurant instead of at the apartment. The view was awesome from the restaurant and the food was really good too. And that night, lucky us, we got to have Raclette again because there was still some left from the night before.
Finally Saturday had come and our last day of skiing. And for breakfast I made pancakes! Which turned out really well and everyone really liked them. By now I pretty much knew how to get to anywhere on the mountain which was nice but also sad since it was our last day. Nearing the end of the day a fog had set in that made it hard to see and it had started to snow. So we turned in just a little earlier than normal because they had to close the chairlift because of the fog. The evening was spent playing more card games and we watched a movie.
As I have mentioned to al of you before there is another exchange student from New York who is living in Apt and it was planned for her to come and stay with me for a couple of days. She arrives Monday afternoon and I was soooo excited for her to get there! When she got there we ended up getting dropped off in plan de campagne, which is pretty much a town that is ONLY for stores/ We spent a few hours there looking around and hanging out in a little café. We had so much to catch up on!
Tuesday afternoon we went to Marseille to see a church and the vieux port and to hang around a bit. The church is set on top of a hill and gives a great view of Marseille and the sea. After we headed down to the port and here Cathy and I went off to do our own thing while Fabienne and Clementine went to meet up with some friends. My h.mom gave us very...vague, directions to this old hospital that is now a museum that was just on the other side of the view port. We wondered around quite a bit and ended up having to ask directions on how to get there but we finally made it. It was kinda cool but we didn't really stay for long. Instead we went and got tartes from a café across the way :p The time we had set to meet back up with Fabienne and Clem was coming up so we started making our way back to the view port. Of course neither of us really remembered how to get back because in getting to the museum we went through a whole bunch of tiny roads and back alleys and we were soon lost. Finally we asked someone how to get to the view port we had to go right. Of course we had gone left and we ended up being slightly late for our rendez-vous but at least we finally got there alright!
That night we played a few games of Waitai and I wiped the board with my h.family and Cathy. So that was nice :)
Thursday was Cathy's last day and we didn't really do too much. Simply enjoyed each others company and talked and talked and talked until her yeo (youth exchange officer) came to pick her up late in the afternoon. The days went by so fast and it was awesome having Cathy over and I'm so grateful to my h.family for hosting her for a few days.
Friday I was planning a nice quiet day. Maybe going for a run and cleaning my room and watching a movie but of course that didn't happen. Thursday night I got a phone call from one of my friends at school asking if I wanted to going skiing tomorrow. Of course I said yes! So Friday morning they picked me up and off we went. The station was a fairly small one just beside Gap. It was a pretty nice day and surprisenly warm!Saturday night I went to a Rock concert with Fabienne and Clemintine where 3 bands were playing at. The first group, The Funky Monkeys, really reminded me of my brothers band. They were about the same age, played the same type of music and had the same type of energy. The were really fun to watch and I even saw the bass players bum (he was wearing a kilt...) and the lead singer crowd surfed!
The second group was called Soma and they really rocked it! They had everyone dancing and I'm really happy to have seen them. I discovered a new band!
The third band was not the hit band of the evening and we ended up leaving about half way through their performance which was probably a good thing since it was getting late and we had plans for the next morning.
Sunday was the last day of the vacances and I really was not looking forward to having to go back to school. But I was looking forward to seeing all my friends. Sunday my h.family decided to go to a carnival in Nice. It was an absolutely gorgeous day so we had a picnic lunch on the beach.
And that's where we saw all the floats coming around the corner to get set up for the parade. After eating we headed over to where the parade was going to pass by. There was a ton of people, confetti and silly string. The theme this year was international relations and there was a least 15 floats. There were floats representing many different countries, people dancing in cultural dress and did I mention confetti? There was a hell of a lot of confetti... Its been a week and I keep finding it in the strangest places. In my bathroom drawers, in my purse, in my bed!
The parade really was amazing and really well done. There was music the whole time and there was always something surprising and breath taking to see. I used up my whole memory card and battery on my camera taking pictures. Good thing Clemitine brought her camera too, which also happens to be a much better camera than mine, and she took some awesome pictures. I'm really glad we went because it really was a nice (haha get it? We were in Nice) thing to have seen and experienced.
These vacances were absolutely wonderful and I never had a dull moment! As I've probably mentioned many times over time is flying past and you now all can mark your calenders because my flights have been booked and I'm leaving the 27th of June at 6:10am and will be arriving in the Kelowna airport the same day at 11:51pm.
So until then,
Gros bisous à tout le monde,
Rebecca
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