C'est la Vie

So I'm writing part of this blog to you while I sit in a courtyard in Aix en Provence. It's a large area in the newish part of Aix. There's a whole bunch of benches all around the outer edges of it. I'm thinking that maybe they have performances in the center of this courtyard because it's huge and would be an ideal place for a dance or music act. There are lots of people walking around and going about their daily...Aix day. So like shopping and eating and rendezvous-ing. 

Street performers

Random mob for something

More performers these guys were awesome!

So I'm sure some of you were expecting this blog to about the lovely time I spent in Paris but, it's not going to be for one fairly good reason. In my h.moms job every 5 years or so someone comes in and evaluates her while she's working and if she does well she gets benefits and a raise etc. So for this she had to prepare a lot of paper work. Which there was a lot of. I didn't see her all weekend! :P So unfortunately I didn't go to Paris but, fortunately my h.moms job thing went really well and we moved our Paris trip to the 19th of October.

It has now been over a month that I have been in France. Holy. My french is coming along well (at least I like to think) and I'm starting to get used to everything. How lunch is the biggest meal of the day, how everyone drives crazy and how everything has a chocolate version. I seriously mean EVERYTHING. I am also happy to report that school is getting betterish too. I talked to a counseller person at school and we organized my schedule around a bit so it's more beneficial to my...situation. I substituted my math classes for history/geography classes and my uncomprehensible Philosophy classes for French classes. So school is a little more enjoyable now. Bellow I've posted photos of my walk from school. It's only the 2nd half of my walk seeing as I only decided to do it half way home.

This is my bus stop! :)

You go right here to get to my house

Mount Saite Victoire in the background

My chemin

My house is kinda on a hill

this is it!

Voila!

So since my last blog post I spent one day of one weekend in Aix with Imelsy (exchange student from Mexico) and Bobby (also an exchange student from California). We walked around and saw the market got some yummy lunch then hung out with some ice cream. After we decided to go to the theatre to see what movies were playing. When we got to the theater we found out that there was another 2 theaters. We can a program and then found out that they even played movies in English with French subtitles so we decided to do that. Everybody's buses were leaving around 6 so that narrowed our selection of movies to one. Killer Joe. And if you're wondering how it was DON'T see this movie. It was a really weird movie that I'm not even going to try to describe because I don't even think I would be able to. That it was pretty much time to go and get on our buses. Imelsy and I said goodbye to Bobby and then her and I got on a bus to go to her place because I was going to spend a night at her house. The bus ride was maybe half an hour and then we were in her town called Rhonges. When we arrived we waited at the bus stop for her host dad to arrive. He came and picked us up and then we were on our way to her house. After stopping to get bread of course. The drive through Rhonges was short and it is a really charming little town. We made it to her house and I met the rest of the family and they were really nice. Shortly after arriving I found out that tomorrow (sunday) they were going to marsielles and then to the islands just off shore and if I wanted to and was allowed I could go with them!

 

This is the market

lunch time!

We made it to the islands fine without any problems. There were multiple little islands one had a prison on it, one a hospital and one mostly just had little cafés. (the one we went to).

We spent more of the time on this kinda like beach thing, went swimming it was a little on the not warm side but have no worries, I'm Canadian and had no problems. Ime on the hand who as I mentioned is from Mexico...bref, you get my point. (Side note: bref is a french term technically meaning brief but when used like this is kinda means etc, in short) After the beach we promande around a bit and it was suuuuppper windy at the crest of the island. Good thing I wasn't wearing a skirt this time... -___- 

I also went to my first Rotary meeting finally! The meetings are on Tuesdays at lunch and because the meetings in another town and my h.mom works during the day and can't give me ride I got to skip out on school and go to her job with her. She's a teacher at a school in Vitrolles. It was organized for me to go into the English classes at the school where I did a presentation on Canada that I made. It went really well and I did two different presentations. Just before lunch on of the Rotarians from my club and picked me up from my school and took me to the Best Western hotel which is actually right by the Airport I arrived in. My whole club is men but they were all very nice. I told everyone a little about myself and then I gave everyone a pin and one of my travel cards. Lunch was wonderful with 3 courses. A salad, a main course and then a desert. It's unfortunate that I'm apparently not going to another meeting till December because I was hoping to go at least once a month. Oh well maybe that'll change. I just go with it.

 This was desert and it was yummy

The following weekend it rained a lot! And I had my first soccer game! The soccer games here are set up a little different because at the beginning the starting line-up forms 2 lines and follows the refs out and then we shake hands before the game, do and cheer and then we go. We didn't win but that's okay because I had fun :) 

Also you may have noticed I'm skipping over the week days but that's because most happen in the same manor, school, soccer Wednesday and Friday. 

The next weekend I finally got around to going for a run! I went with my host dad who goes fairly regularly, about every other day. And we decided that we are going to try to go together more often which will be good I think! It'll be nice to keep running plus it'll keep me in good shape for soccer. Later that day I went to Aix: see far above. Then Sunday I went to the Gardanne market with my h.parents and then had another soccer game, we tied 2-2 against Marseille. (I have pictures from the market but I've already got about a million on this post so if you feel so inclined to see them they are on facebook)

This was the weekend that would have been Thanksgiving and I missed having turkey and seeing all my family but I did get to have a nice Skype chat with a pretty good lot of my family because lots of them were together for dinner. So that was really nice. 

You are now caught up! Next weekend holds a trip for me to Dignes-les-Bains where I'll get to see a friend from Rotary! YAY! And then the weekend after Paris! It has been a long time in coming and I look forward to it!

ps thanks for sticking it out till the end of this extremely long post. 

Oh well,

c'est la vie! 

Bisous to all,

Rebecca 

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