N'importe Quoi

Helllllo et bonjour!

I know I've done a horrible job of keeping up with my blog...but its been a pretty busy past few weeks.
First there was Paris, then Christmas  then New Years, then meeting my 4th host family, then changing host families, then running a race, then school and now I've finally been able to start even thinking about my blog! Then I had to catch up on all the blogging I didn't do...bref, I'm getting around to it now.
Anyways, I hope people received their postcards! There was hours of work that was put into those. And if you didn't get one its probably lost or its coming. I had to go and buy more postcards because I didn't have enough...Thats what I get for having a huge family. 

Wow I'm forgetting about a whole bunch of things I did. Note to self, don't wait so long to write my posts...So the weekend before New Years Marielle planned a full packed weekend. Saturday we went to Cannes, Nice and Monaco. It was a nice sunny day out and when we got to Cannes we drove right beside the ocean all the way to Nice. 

Right beside the French Riviera aka le marche des anglais. It was so pretty with a beautiful blue sky, the palm trees, the sun and the ocean. Once we got to Nice we parked the car and walked into the town to get some lunch. 

We went to this strange little café that was okay. Their buns were really good though! After we walked through this market called la marché des fleurs (the flower market). There was flowers everywhere!

 There was also quite a few paintings and you could also buy a lot of dried fruits which are a speciality there for this time of year. After that we all piled back into the car and starting making our way to our last stop, Monaco! On the way Marielle pointed out that there was lemon and orange trees all over the place. I was really amazed and asked if we could just pick them right off any of the trees and eat them and she said yes. I asked if the next time we passed by a tree if we could stop so I could pick one. When we did Remy pulled over, I jumped out of the car and practically climbed this tree on the side of a fairly busy road. I got a bunch of weird looks and these two gentlemen told me that the oranges wouldn't be very good. I said I didn't mind. I grabbed and hopped back in the car and off we went, with a huge grin on my face. I had just picked my first orange ever! 

Driving to Monaco was so cool because the road followed the ocean the whole way. It was so beautiful and I can not imagine who ever decided it was even possible to build all the buildings pretty much on the side of a cliff. After a quick stop in Monaco it was starting to get late and we left to go home. I slept most of the way. It had been a long and wonderful day. 

 Next day was pretty much the last free day I had before I was going to change my host families so we went on another day trip but this time we went west instead of east. 

We were going to go to Les Camargues. Here its kind of like these flat plan marshes that meet up with the ocean. Its here that they make lots of salt. Its also where there are a lot of horses, taros, and flamingos. 

There we stopped to walk out to part of the salt production places and the sun was blazing. Remy said that in the summer it easily got up to 40 degrees out. We had an AWESOME lunch in Saint-Marie de la mer and I got this really yummy fish soup. 

After eating we walked around the town. We went to a church and there was a little parade happening through the street with people playing drums and all dressed up in these really cool costumes.

 After we left we went to a fortified town which is this town that is completely surrounded by these castle walls because way back when the water actually came all the way up to the castle walls. 
After our last stop was in Arles to see the arena. Arles used to be inhabited by the Romans so therefore they had this huge arena right next to a theatre. After that we made our way back home. 

It was a really awesome day and I saw and did some really neat things today. I think it would be really nice to go back to Les Camargues again and maybe do some biking or horseback riding. But I will have to see I suppose. 

So back to me. I last left you all off after Christmas. Next up was New Years! I was invited to a party by Imelsy (exhcanger from Mexico). Her host sister was having a party with a bunch of people so I went along with a few other exchangers. I spent the 31st in Aix with Danika (Australia), Dylan (Canada), Lucca (Brasil) and Clay (USA). We lost just bummed around and hung out. We sat in a little café restaurant for a while, had ice cream and then just walked around and took silly pictures. Later in the evening we got a bus to Celony which is I guess like a little region of Aix. We were some of the first people to arrive. We met up with Ime there. We had paid 10 Euros for the party all the food and drinks etc. After people started arriving that's when it started to get really fun. We started playing music and they even had laser lights set up with a smoke machine and everything! I'm guessing at the peak of the night there was probably at least 50 or 60 people there. All night there was dancing and talking, eating, hanging out and having a generally good time. We stayed there for the night and then the next morning we made our way back to Aix. We were all pretty tired and headed our separate ways there. I had to get back home because later that day I was going to meet my 4th host family. 









A couple of hours after I got home Marielle and I left to go and meet my 4th family. I will be staying with them from the end of May till when I leave. I was pretty excited and I suppose a little nervous too. But I know meeting my other host families went well so I figured this one would go just as well. They live pretty near to the centre of Fuveau in a big beautiful housewith a pool in the front and the most wonderful huge fluffiest dog ever. I already love the dog so much. She really reminds me of Kyte actually. Her name is Crystal and she is awesome.  In this family I will have a younger host sister, I think she's 16 or maybe 17; And I will also have an older host brother.Since we were visiting on the 1st of January there is this french tradition that starts this day where you eat these cakes called les gateaux des rois; What they do is when they bake them inside the pastry they put a little clay thing and if in your piece of cake you get it you become le roi (the king) and then you get to wear a crown. And guess who got it? ME :) The family was really nice and we sat around and talked and ate cake for the afternoon. We ended up on the topic that I like to go running and was thinking of signing up for the Fuvelaine which is a race that happens in Fuveau. And the host dad said that he knew the course and that if I want he would show it to me before the race. Of course I said yes and we organized a day during the week to meet up. Marielle and I left late that evening and I was really pleased how everything went and I am really looking forward to living with them in June. 

I spent the next two days packing, doing last minute laundry and all that. I definitely have more stuff now than when I came with but I think I sshhhoouulldd be moderately ok for when I come back because I won't have any of my host gifts any more  I left Marielle and the family on Thursday the 3rd. We loaded up the car, her little french car was rather full, and we headed off to my new home with the Calsats. On the way we talked about how it wasn't really goodbye because I would still see them thought the year. We arrived at the Calsat then unloaded all my stuff. Only my host siblings were there. Clementine (15) and Cyril (21). My host dad was having a surgery done on his back that day and wasn't coming home till Monday and my host mom was out. Until my h.brother, Cyril, left to Paris on the Sunday for University I stayed in my host sister's room. Marielle stayed for a little while until Fabienne, my second h.mom got back. We sat around and talked and then Fabienne arrived and we went and sat out on the terrace. And yes it is January and we had lunch outside. It is just too weird for me to even think about doing it. And we did it multiple times!! Finally Marielle had to leave and we sad out goodbyes. It still was a little sad knowing I wouldn't be seeing her all the time. I'm truly thankful for what she has done for me. 
The evening of my arrival in my second host family I went to see The Hobbit with my h.brother and sister. The next few days went pretty normal. We went to Marseille to visit my host dad a couple times as well and spent an hour sitting by the ocean because it was crazy warm out!

 On the last Saturday of the vacances I went to Aix to send the day and say goodbye to Danika (Australian exchanger). Since her exchange started in January when I arrived her her exchange was about half way done. I was really sad to see her go because she was an awesome friend to have and we spent some awesome moments together. I will miss her and for sure will be looking her up the next time I'm in Australia. 

Then that night I went with Cyril to meet up with some friends and we went and played laser tag which was pretty fun! And on the Sunday Cyril was leaving to head back to Paris which meant that I could move into my room! Its a pretty cool room too. its got a desk set up which the bed is over top of. I also have a couch :D And the room is in this kind of turret part of the house so half the room round out like a semi circle. Its also nice because it is the only room upstairs besides the bathroom so I have a little bit of my own space which is nice to have everyonce in a while.



So I set up my room when I got back from going to Fuveau and runing the Fuvelaine. Which was a race of either 6km or 13km. I did the 13km in an hour and fifteen minutes which I was pretty happy with. 

I really enjoyed doing the race and I am keeping my eye out for anymore that come up in the area! 

On Monday school started back up and the week went fairly normally. Clementine syncronize swims so I went to the pool to watch. its really awesome and if I ever get the chance in Universaity to do it I'd really like to. We also asked her instructer if it would be alright if while they practiced I swam laps on the side and it was! So once a week I swim at the pool and watch Clem swim.

It's been amazing really how easy it was to integrate in with my new h.family. Definitely way easier than the first because there wasn't any problems or worries about language or culture or anything because I've already learned most of that.

 This was my h.brother trying to write my blog: (I mostly think it was a nice attempt :p )
"I see a tv show that sucks. People who play in are nervous, I don't know how French can see that." -Cyril
And he also has decided that my host sister is crazy. Crazy = foulle Clem = foulle

I also realize that this write up has been also a little bit of a long time in coming. BUT here it is :)

ALSO so everyone knows today is my brothers birthday HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEVAN! <3 nbsp="">
(by the time I actually added pictures and posted this it isn't actually my brothers birthday anymore...) :P



Bisous,
Rebecca

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

C'est la vie

Nov. 26 2012

Salut tout le monde!

I am now back in school and I am counting down the days until the next vacation, which starts on the 21st of December. The world is suppose to end that day but I hope it doesn't because I would like to enjoy my Christmas break.

I left off last half way through my last vacation. The 2nd week of my vacation was pretty calm but the Wednesday to the Friday I had my friend, Thibault from Lyon, come and stay. For those of you who don't know he was the exchange student in my town last year and we became very clost friends so it was wonderful to see him again. We didn't do anything too crazy but we did make some Eggers with REAL bacon. Happiest girl. Also the neatest thing was that because he's fluent in english and I'm pretty fluent in french our conversations switched back and fourth and it was totally awesome.

Eggers are wonderful... yum :)

                        I love this kid <3 nbsp="nbsp">

 School started up again and I got sick on Tuesday but that was okay because Tuesdays are my least favourite days and so instead I spent my day sleeping and hanging out. I was really looking forward to a mountain climbing expedition I was going to do with the school the Wendesday of the first week back but of course I get to school Wednesday morning to find that it was cancelled because of a bus driver strike. Cool. -__- 

The weekend came with a very laid back Saturday and a soccer game on Sunday in Nice. It was great because another exchange student from Vernon BC, Eamon, lives pretty close to Nice so he was planning on coming to the game to take pictures. But of course the bus was late, he went to the wrong stadium and he missed the game but we did end up meeting after the game briefly. We found each other in the funnest way too. After the game I called him and we tried to figure out where each other was to see if there was any chance of meeting up. We were pretty much only able to meet up because an ambulance drove past him and then ended up coming to the stadium I was at! So he just followed the ambulance and we were able to find each other! Crazy. 

The day ended on a sad note though. My family decided that we were going to put down our dog, Kyte. It was a really tough decision but she was old, the arthritis in back legs was so bad she couldn't walk and there were lumps on her body that may have been cancerous. We had the vet come to the house so I was there over skype. It was really tough. We had her cremated and when I come back we are going to spread her ashes. She was an amazing dog and I will miss her dearly.

Every year my h.mom, Marielle, takes her class to vollunteer with the food bank and my Rotary club gathering food for the bank so on Friday I went with Marielle to help out. It was actually pretty fun plus I didn't have to go to school =D yay

And yesterday I had another soccer game and I got put in net. We lost. Haha I only played 1 half but I tried my best! I was even doing pretty well till my own team somehow scored on me... -__- Haha

So you're pretty much caught up on my life. In two days with the school I'm going to go to a cross country race thing and I don't think its too long so I'm hoping to do pretty well specially because I've been running pretty often on my own. Souhaitez moi bonne chance! Everything is going well and I'm getting pretty comfortable with my french. In 2 days I will have officially been here for 3 months. Time is flying. Also I think I should mention a very neat thing that happened to me today. I found out there was an English club at school and  figured I should probably go and check it out being an anglophone and all. After getting to the meeting and talking for a bit I had that strangest realization that I didn't want to speak English! I was so used to speaking French with French people that speaking English seemed just wrong. I think the French-ness is starting to seep into my blood and I gotta say I don't hate it.

Hope all is well from where ever you are reading this from!

Gros bisous from France!
Rebecca Howes

1ère Vacances :D

Salut tout le monde!

So I guess I have moderately gotten into a habit of writing here every two weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up. I have decided that the best part of the schooling in France is that every 6 weeks you get 2 weeks off which I am most definitely a fan of. The last week of school went by fairly quickly and I signed up to go mountain climbing the Wednesday of the week I got back to school school and in my very last class on Friday, which was my english class, I did a presentation on Canada which went really well. I did it partly in English which was good for the rest of the class and partly in Franch which was great for me. Afterwards some of the students came and said the presentation was great and they really enjoyed it which was wonderful to hear. I look forward to doing it again in some more classes. During the last week I also got to meet a guy from England who is an assistant at the school in the English classes and we had a nice chat.

Now, I am pretty much done my first week of the 2 weeks of Vacation but it has been well spent thus far. The first weekend I went to a soirée at Bobby's, an exchange student friends house in a neighbouring town called Monfort, that is about an hour from me. The party had 8 exchange students and then a couple of his friends from school. It was a wonderful night and everyone brought food to eat and it was great. All the exchange students slept there and then next day we hung around, talked, laughed etc.

On Monday I went for a run and tried to find a trail that I ran on with my host dad a couple of weeks ago but obviously that didn't work out so well because I ended up getting lost for 2 hours and ended up in another town. -__-

Tuesday it was Ime's birthday (exchanger from Mexico) so we met up in Aix and hung out which was nice. On Wednesday moi et Ime met up again at my house and made nachos and watched a movie. It was really rainy that day so walking to my house we got a little wet. There were literally river on the streets. On Thursday I went with my host family to Dignes-les-Bains for my h.mom's dad's birthday. It was kinda cool because I got to met pretty much all the family of my host mom. We ate and sat around and talked and it was nice. And, finally almost all caught up, Friday I went to a friends house from school. We went biking and saw a great view and I hung out with her family etc which was wonderful. I stayed the night and then the next morning I made pancakes. It was really awesome and her family is very nice.

   Getting all ready to go! :)

At the very top ^ :)

Then off we went!

For the next week I have a soccer game tomorrow and then on Wednesday my friend Thibault from Lyon is coming to visit me! He was the exchange student in my town last year and I'm looking forward to seeing him again. And then on Friday I'm getting together with a bunch of friends from school to go shopping and then after either seeing a movie, going bowling, or playing laser tag. My heart says laser tag but my wallet says bowling. :p But I guess I'll just have to see how much money I spend shopping because I really need a jacket because I didn't bring one.

SO,
à la prochain,
gros bisous,







Rebecca