Toulouse, Paris and all the Spaces in Between

Sorry I haven't written in a long time, its almost been 2 months now and a lot has happened.

Life here has become more routine now, I've almost mastered the public transportation system, learned that Tiger isn't a nickname, wasted a lot of Euros on ridiculously bad movies, got in a fight with the pepper shakers in the canteen with a guy who looks like a Jonas brother, found out that Parisans aren't french they are Parisains, witnessed some crazy union stirkes and the initiation of first year university studnets, been in a minor bus accident, eaten really stinky cheese, started to have anxiety if there isnt' a baugette in the house, memorized all the european countries and their capitales in french, met the South african rugby team and watched them lose to france, dreamt in french and made horrible errors while speaking in English, met Mickey Mouse and saw the Eiffel Tower. Also spent 3 days in a haunted mansion in the country and insulted Australian rugby team by mistaking them for a soccer team and come to realize that my english teacher cannot speak english.

At the begginning of October my host dad ran a 100 km marathon, which was being held in Millau, where there is a bridge I believe its or is one of the biggest bridges in the World, unfortunatly I only had the chance to see it at night so I have no pictures but it was huge!

Earlier that day my host mom took me to see the caves in Roquefort where as many as 1, 400, 000 loaves of cheese are moulded to perfection in one season. None of the cheese that I saw was real becuase the sheep don't produce milk again until february but the genourous people at the Societie cheese company still had samples at the end of the tour, from mild to strong. The cheese sampling went kinda like this...

I also gave my first Rotary Presentation about Canada all in French, after just 5 weeks of being here. It was a lot of stress expecially after my entire slideshow was deleted at 10 o'clock the night before my presentation so my host parents stayed up with my until after midnight re writing it all. It was stressful enough trying to make a good first impression on my Rotary Club while still understanding practically nothing and then having to speak about my country in a language I didn't know, I was horrified that the stress of public speaking would make me mis-prounounce ''host'' infront of everyone, it would be the ultimate embarrassment, but I couldn't not thank my ''host club and ''host family'' at the end of my presentation. I realized there was no way that I could avoid saying ''D'accueil".....On the way to my presentation I quickly erased ''d'accueil'' off of my speech and re-wrote, Fabrice and Regine Achotegui and the Rotary club of Balma. Little did I know that my third host family was also going to be present for my slideshow. And it was only when standing infront of my entire club and my families that I realized what I had done....I hadn't even mentioned my other families I had specifically thanked my first family and none of the others, and I had only met my 3rd host family once and couldn't remember thier last name. So after already mangaling the french language for about 10 minutes I got to the thank yous and improvised with what little french I knew, and tried to make 'my host families' into the plural tense. After I asked my host mom if I had said 'host' or 'testicles', she only said that I spoke very well! It wasn't until the next day that I realized I had used the informal 'tu' instead of the polite and formal 'vous' with every single person at my rotary that night....awesome.

The next weekend my host dad and sister took me to Carcassonne. Carcassonne castle and the city is built inside the walls of the castle, it is really really old, the romans began to fortifize it in 100 B.C.The day we were there, there was a celebration that I still don't really understand but they were celebrating a donkey, so everyone was dressed up in medevil costumes and marched around through the streets and parade the donkey with them, while they fed it packages of white sugar, and a marching band following the whole time, then they would at every bar in the city and drink. We also ran into the Australian exchange student who was visiting the same day with her Rotary Counseller. Her counseller told my host dad that she was staying with them all weekend and they were making her try escargot, beef toungue and frogs legs. After that conversation its all my family wanted to do, make weird food. This is the parade behind me.

This is Carcassone.

That same week was class picture day at school, which anyone could have walked by and mistaken for halloween. Infact I saw more people dressed in wacky costumes for picutre day then on Halloween. But picture day was when one of the Science teachers took his job to a new level by standing outside the church all day arranging each class of students, all with a theme and some even with their own song, into rows.

I was expecting to be a little bit homesick on Thanksgiving but I wasn't at all, I got to do my favourite thing that day! Grocery shopping!!!! It is so much fun I get to build up my vocabulary, try really interesting cheese samples, and get freaked out by the pigs in the meat department. And on the thanksgiving shopping trip, which actually isn't celebrated in France and I'm sure my host parents had no idea it was a canadian holiday, they asked if I would like to eat escargot for dinner. Ever since we were in Carcassonne, my host family has been trying to find really wierd stuff for my to eat. Becuase the Australians host counseller had told my host dad that they were making her try, escargot, frog legs and beef toungue....mmm...so with no polite way to say no, I agreed to escargot. At dinner everyone was waiting for me to try and see my reaction, I didn't think it would be that bad, but once you realize that you have a snail on the end of your fork and you start thinking about it, its juuuust not that appetizing. My host dad kept mimicing the snails antennas and we all just kept laughing becuase I could not put it in my mouth. And everytime I came close he would start mimicing the snail again. But after maybe 5 mintues I gained the courage, and it was surprisingly good. It just tasted like a lot of garlic, after though I realized that something was stuck in my tooth and I was sure it was an antenna but my host family tried to convince me that they always remove those.

I've gotton used to a lot of the food here now. Including eating practically raw meat. One night for dinner before I had visited Roquefort my host mom made what looks like a normal hamburger pattie but a little thicker. But when I cut into it it was bright red and I really didn't want to be rude so I just started eating. Then they started putting melted cheese on the steak so I thought, oh thank god now I won't notice that I'm eating raw meat, it tasted really good with the cheese, when I had finished my host dad got up and got the dictionary out and started looking something up, then he got something out of the fridge and explained to me through bursts of laughter that the cheese I had just eaten was mouldy blue roquefort cheese. Another time they bought some goats cheese covered in pieces of fruit, and everyone killed themselves laughing when I drank the entire pitcher of water trying to get the taste out of my mouth.

Strikes in France are not an uncommon thing. And when the french strike everyone pays. There was one strike that I didn't totally understand, something about the price of milk and the government not paying the farmers enough, so the farmers seriously drove their tractors everywhere. There was one scene on the news from Paris where the entire highwas was blocked with tractors driving like 5 km and everyone trying to get to work was stuck behind them. Then they rolled out massive round bails of hay in the streets and dumped truckloads of apples on sidewalks and started throwing them at government buildings.

These was the farmers driving thier tractors through Toulouse...

about a week after the farmers strike the city cleaning people went on strike. I don't know what their reason was maybe the wage, once they went on strike becuase they wanted new brooms. Their job is to go throught the city and clean up the dog poo on the sidewalks and the all of the garbage and they wash the sidewalks and gutters and stuff. When they went on strike they dumped every garbage bin in the city out and the streets were filled with garbage for days. This maybe wouldn't be such a problem if it had been in any other city, becuase in France there are people on practically every corner handing out advertisment flyers that no one wants. So pretty much all the garbage was these papers and a lot of wine bottles. I still dont' know how I went 3 days without stepping in dog poo.
The Garbage Man Strike

In October we had the vacations for a week and a half. On the first weekend the I went with my host Aunt, Grandma, Sister and Brother to Paris for 3 days. We rented a little house really close to Euro disney and spent one day in the Disney Parc and the other in Disney studios and the first day we visited Versailles. It was a really amazing trip, I went on my first roller coster which had 360 degree turns and the tower of terror which drops like 13 stories. I was so excited to meet mickey mouse! I had to wait in line for like 45 minutes everyone else was under 7. All the little kids were like running to Mickey when it was there turn and giving him a big hug, so I was joking that I was going to do the same thing when it was my turn and they just started making fun of me. They got out the video camera and everything for when it was my turn and filmed it all. I think my host brother was kinda embarressed I actually did it. Versailles was sooo pretty, it was amazing to see it everything was so old and some of the stairs were almost impossible to walk up because the marble had been worn down so much that they weren't even flat any more they were curved from the erosion of so many people walking up and down them. And I saw the door that Marie Antoinette escaped out of during the revolution, the history is so amazing. The second night after a full day at walt disney parc we drove through Paris and saw the eiffel tower. It was the best part of the trip for me. We didn't go up becuase it was after midnight and I think it was closed. but they had a huge light show on the tower with music and stuff. I still can't believe that I was actually there. You see the Effiel tower in so many movies and pictures but it really doesn't compare to actually seeing it in person.

Versailles Hall of Mirrors.

I spent the rest of my holidays hanging out in Toulouse with my South African friends. And as hard as it was we had to say goodbye to Mbali on the last weekend of the holidays. After that I spent 3 days in the country with Amber the other South African. The house was super super creepy and super big and old, Amber and I had the entire upstairs to ourselves. And the walls were so thick that we had to use our laptops downstairs becuase the internet connection couldn't even get through them, and as much as I enjoyed my time there I was relieved to come home to Castelmaurou were I could actually feel safe sleeping at night. I just never shook the feeling that there was something inside the early 19th centuary baby carriage outside my room.

The Country House.

The best things happen when on exchange. The other day after school I met almost the entire South African Rugby team, the team that won the World cup here in France in 2007. The next night I went with my host fam to see the game between France and South Africa, I was really scared for the french team because the players I had met the night before were absolutley massive! But France won 17-14 in the end! I also got to hear the South AFrican national anthem which is sung in 9 different languages, and I heard the french anthem for the first time!

I'm proud to say I know have an official metro card with my picture and everything and I can stop using the disposable paper cards! I thought I had really got the hang of the bus systems here. Like when you get off the bus you must say 'Merci, Au Revior', and I dont' forget to press the button anymore so the bus will stop at my stop, I learned the proper edicit for the escalaters, you always stay to the right unless your walking up and down. But just when I thought had started to look like I knew what I was doing I was yelled at by some crazy french bus driver. I was waiting alone at my stop and didn't wave him down. I never have to because only bus 75 stops there its not like i could be waiting for anyother bus becuase no other bus stops. Some stops have more then one bus stopping so you have to watch for your bus and wave it down. So this particular bus driver whom I've never seen before started yelling at me when I got on the bus for not watching for him and said the next time he would just drive by becuase he doesn't know to stop. Well that was three days ago, and tonight when I took the bus, I had the misfortune of again being greeted by this crazy new bus driver who clearly doesn't know that he MUST ALWAYS stop.

I'm really getting sick of the public transportation. Taking the metro was fun for a while but now I hate the somedays almost 1 hour commute to and from school. A few days ago I was 20 minutes late becuase some car hit the bus, it just nicked the back and kept going but the driver insisted on waiting 10 minutes in the middle of the road for the preson to come back and when they never did he decided to phone the bus company people to come chek out the bus.

Since being here in France I've been noticing things about languages alot. Like when someone is speaking english to me I don't have to concentrate on what they are saying and when I speak back I don't have to think about the words first in my head first what I want to say just comes out, and learning french has made me realize that this is pretty amazing. At a rotary dinner on the weekend the exchange students were talking and we all realized that the hardest thing to do is eat and understand french at the same time, even for the students from the Southern Hemisphere who have already been here 9 months. I am also now aware of how often I say Eh!? Mostly becuase the person I talk to is looking at me like, 'haha its true canadians do say Eh all the time' or they just laugh. Now my accent has become some where in between South African and canadian and I can't say sarcasm anymore without a Chicago accent! It's amazing though when some french people speak English, I met this girl who's accent was more English than the queens and she thought I was so dumb becuase I thought she was an exchange student from England, and then I asked how long shed lived in France for. Turns out she really was french but she spent 2 summers in England studying and came back with their accent. I also heard a french Rotarian speaking with a really thick Boston accent but he has lived in Toulouse his whole life.

Saturday night the Rotary district was having a international dinner, and the inbound exchange students were asked to make a dessert from their country. Which turned into a lot of fun. First Regine took me grocery shopping for the ingreidents and instead of doing it the old fashioned way we got this cool scanner at the entrance and scanned everything and packed the grocery bags as we went. We ended up finding all the ingreidents for both recipies and they insisted that I make both Nanaimo Bars and the Maple fudge stuff. So I tried. The nanaimo bars looked disgusting and my host dad couldn't stop making fun of them but everyone brave enough to try them really loved them. The Maple fudge on the other hand turned into a crumbly mess of maple flavoured powdery sugar. I don't know how it happened I thought something was maybe wrong when it kept rising out of the pan when I stopped stirring, and my host dad kept sayign 'ITs ALIVE" then they left it sit on the counter for 2 days and just made fun of it! Now the my Rotary club has asked me to bring the nanaimo bar recipe to the next meeting!

The weather here is still really good the other day it was 21 degrees but its usually about 15 or 16 during the day. Unfortunatly Toulosue is full of these special kinda of trees that were given to the city by Japanese, and from October to April is when they release there disgusting odour. It really smells like dog poo all the time. The city won't cut them down becuase they are rare and expensive. All of these trees except the one by my school are planted in the city squares, I gag everytime I get off the metro and walk through the squares but during the day they are filled up by old people sitting on the benches and they stay there all day, I don't know how they deal with it!

School has been going okay, still have to go on Saturdays, One saturday I had a four hour french literature test where the teacher made it simple for me by asking me to read 4 different texts and then write which one i liked best and why....now it only takes me about 30 minutes to read one page in Harry Potter, and she was askign me to read 4 texts, which aren't even in real french its like the kinda french that Shakespeare is to English, but the nice thing about french schools is sometimes they cut you a break like one week 5 hours of History classes over the course of 3 days was cancelled becuase the prof was absent, they don't have substitutes here! The only class I actually enjoy is English, and not becuase I understand, but because the prof is crazy and has really bad English. The other day she became really frustrated when the class wouldn't stop talking and she said, I quote, "Why did I make so long studies to become English teacher to talk to you who don't care." Definetly the best class ever!

Bisous

Language Misfortunes

Right now learning the language is my biggest concern, everyday it seems to get a little easier and a little harder at the same time. I try and talk only about the present becuase I don't know any conjugations for the past or future. And when I have to talk about the past or the future I just say word conjucated normally in the present and then flail my arms like a complete idiot behind me or infront of me, to refer to the past or the future.

What I don't understand about french though is even the french have books about conjugating verbs....

I'm at a point where I see people talking to their dog, or their 2 year old and I get really frustrated becuase even a dog and a 2 year old can understand french and all I can do is sit there and look up words in my dictionary. There are only so many things that I can talk about with people becuase my vocabulary is kinda limited so usually I just talk about the exchange program, Canada, school, and a horrible movie called 'District 9' that I wouldn't reccommend to ANYONE.

For some unknown reason, the most common questions I get asked are about my host family, I don't know why everyone asks me, maybe its becuase they are generally curious, or MAYBE its becuase they somehow realized that I can't say 'host family' in french and they are using me for their own entertainment. I recently was informed that when I say, 'famille d'accueil' I haven't actually been saying 'host family'...I can't say it right so instead, I have been telling everyone that my 'family has 2 balls'....and it wouldn't be that bad I guess if the word was reffering to basketballs or soccerballs...but noooo it has to be the other kind...

Now I'm even more embarrassed becasue I'm just remebering now that some people told me to say corrospondant instead, but I really thought this was a stupid way to say 'host family' and I should stick to the normal translation. Perfect....for 3 weeks I could have been saying 'corrospondant'.....


There are a lot of ways to learn the language here:
The other day I found Harry Potter in french in a market with used books, It took me 3 hours to translate one page...
If I write the word I'm more likely to remember it. So I started to write the words on my hand, but then I become so dependent on the notes on my hand...which wash off...that I can't remember them when they aren't there...
There are only so many words I can copy from a dictionary....I think 5,894,789 is my limit....
At all the metro stops they hand out free newspapers so everyday I get a few on my way to school. I think about trying to read them...but then I get to school and all my ambition is gone becuase well its a newspaper, and newspapers are boring. So now I just come home everyday with a whole bunch of unread newspapers stuffed in the bottom of my eastpack.

I am starting to think that the best way to learn words is to say them totally wrong, be completely humiliated, let people correct me, and then I'm sure to never ever ever forget...


I am really thankful becuase everyone in my class encourage me to speak french and they are always trying to help me, my friend even saw me reading the same page in Harry Potter for an entire day of classes and offered to bring me some picture books for children!


Yesterday I went and saw the movie 'Inglorious Bastards' staring Brad Pitt, (he's kind of a big deal here) I don't know if you've seen that movie, its an american movie but they talk in French, German, Italian and English. So the only parts I understood were the english parts, and the German and Italian parts had french subtitles. That was the best 4 Euros I've spent so far.


When I talk to people I never acually know what all the little words like le, un, a, de, du, ect, ect so I just add them randomly in my sentences, soon I hope that I can stop speaking 'Franglais' and start speaking normal french.

The Problems with French Schools

Sorry it took so long for me to update this page! I have been very busy and when I'm not busy I just am too lazy to update it. I usually come home with a headache because its so hard to focus on speaking french all the time!

Barcelona was really really awesome we were camping like 45 minutes outside of the city right near the beach so I was able to go snorkeling and cliff jumping in the Medditeranean Sea, which was actually colder than I thought it would be! The day before we drove into Barcelona for the day and had a tour of the city on the 'Touristique bus'...Barcelona is the craziest city ever, they have a lot of really unique architecture which was really cool. We got to take a tram to a Montjuïc Castle located on top of Montjuïc Mountain which overlooks the entire city and the sea. Barcelona is absolutly massive, its the biggest city I have ever seen.




Above is the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família. It looks really cool at night becuase its all lit up, Its absolutly massive and from the fort on top of the mountain (where Larry is pictured below) you can see the city and this cathedral towers over all of the buildings beucase its so big!

Larry also was in Barcelona and here he is at the Montjuïc Castle.



I was really enjoying the summer holidays here in France my family was keeping me busy with all kinds of things like bowling, ski nautique, swimming, rugby games and random things like the game pitanque. Then school started......its not that bad except that I have to go on saturdays from 8-11, but today I found out that the parents of the kids in my class have started a protest type thing and they are trying to get the classes changed so hopefully it will work. I haven't actually gone to a class on a Saturday yet becuase of legitimate excuses but I still don't look forward to the occasional Saturday that I am unable to get out of becuase If I want to make it to school on time I must take the bus at 6:55 AM to be there for 8:00.

I'm slowly learning how the bus systems work....I usually miss the bus and end up being late and once I got on the right numbered bus but it didnt' go to the metro it went to some random school parking lot and let every single person on the bus off. It's times like those where I wish my french was better.

I dont' have a lot of classes on average its like 4 hours of classes a day and finish at 11, 12, or 6 the schedule really varies. On mondays I only have 2 hours of PE at 10. So I really love mondays and I hate fridays becuase I have classes from 8-6 But I only have like 4 classes so its not that bad. In my spare time I go with my friends to walk around the city or sit by the river....most of the time we go shopping though. When I discovered Zara my entire 'savvy-spending-in-Europe' stratagy kinda went out the window....


I was starting to develop theries on why the french are so skinny...when I ate at the canteen for the first time, everything became a little clearer for me, the food in the canteen is not actually edible, so I think this is a contributing factor, also EVERYONE in France smokes. Non-smokers don't exist, even if people say they are non smokers it just means that they only smoke at parties or occasionally have a 'social' smoke or whenever they can get a free ciggarette from someone. The German exchange student in my class always carries around a pack of ciggarettes and a lighter because people always ask for a smoke or a light and she has figured out that its a convient way to meet people and make friends.

I however handed out pencils with the canadian flag on them to some of the people in my class. The first few days were really hard to talk with people becuase none of the french kids knew eachother either. I kinda felt like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls on her first day of school, except that there is no way I would hide in the washroom. Its kinda a general rule that the washrooms in Fermat are to be avoided at all costs, or I kinda go by that rule anyway becuase there are no toilet seats, soap, paper towel, the hand dryers are broken, most of the time no toilet paper and worst of all they are co-ed....which reminds me of another really different aspect of France...a lot of guys just go in the streets and i know that it never rains in Toulouse so I always watch my step!

English is the best class, even though the teacher has a lisp and is sometimes hard to understand. But the stories and things that she teaches to the class are ridiculously funny. School here is really really really hard to get out of. They make you carry around a book with notes for lates, absences and visits to the sick room, if you dont have them filled out then you cna't go to class and along with the note you need a letter from your parents. They also won't let you into the school without the book. they call your parents for everything. At the canteen I have to swipe a card to get my tray and if I dont' go to lunch there they will know and they will phone my parents to tell them I didn't go to the canteen that day! The school I go to is one of the most prestigous high schools in the south so it is very very strict because they have to maintain their reputaion.

Last weekend I travelled to the city of Cahors with all of the exchange students in my district. It was a really fun weekend, and I met some amazing people! We had a tour of the city, which is nearly 2000 years old! Its really amazing to stand in a street knowing a little bit of the history, and then think of all of the of people from every time frame in the last 2000 years who have walked through those streets. When the guide was explaining the history of the city it I was almost unable to comprehend how old the city acutally is. We stayed in sort of a really sketchy hostel while the rotarians all stayed in a fancy hotel down the street. The next day we went canoing down the Dordogne river in Souillac. We had a picnic on the beach, flipped 2 canoes and floated halfway down the river in life jackets!

School is getting easier now becuase I'm starting to understand more french everyday and my firends at school are always helping me with it! Its sometimes hard becuase there is an Australian in my class and today I was hanging out with Mbali my friend from South Africa so sometimes I am speaking more English than french! But yesterday I was watching the movie 'Chicken Run' in french to build my vocabulary up, and I speak only french when I'm at home so that is when I learn the most french. I'm really excited becuase I found out my school ahs a volleyball team so I can play and isn't a seasonal sport like in canada it goes all year long! It should be starting in the next few weeks! So I can't wait to meet more people and have something to do afterschool, pretty much all of my friends from school go home and study and do homework right afterschool so it will be nice to have something to do outside of school.

PS. I'm sorry that my english is getting worse and I really cannot remember how to spell theries right now....

Bisous

Things I Forgot!

Yesterday when Laura and I were in the city she showed me this store, and she said that if you want to shop there or go in and look you have to ring the doorbell, and if they don't want to serve you they just don't answer the door! She also showed me the square where thousands of students go and party every friday and saturday. There is a bar there that Laura says is the best in Toulouse, inside there are no places to sit just tables against the wall to stand at becuase on those nights there are so many people you can't even move. You have to tell the person infornt of you what you want who will tell the person infront of them, ect then you pass your money forward like that and then your drink is passed back to you!
Tonight I am going to dinner with Laura and her friends and after I will go to Remy's house with Laura becuase his sister is having a birthday party. So it will be fun to test out my non existent french that everyone thinks is so good! HAHAHA!

Bisous

Women Changing Tires and French Cuisine

Bonjour!

So I made it to France!!! It took a long time and was very confusing at times but Eliza and I found our way through Seattle after realizing that we weren't actually lost or going to miss our flight we had simply mixed up the time of our flight! I wasn't really nervous or excited or anything the whole way here not even really when I got off the plane. Its hard to explain but I didn’t really feel anything, because I didn’t know what to expect. My host mom, sister and brother, Regine, Laura and Nicolas met me at the airport with the South African exchange students and some rotarians! Only my host sister, Laura, speaks English, and I speak no french so my first day was one big vocabulary lesson en francais! My family lives in Castelmaurou a suburb outside of Toulouse! Regine had a flat tire so Laura had to drive her car to the airport, on the way home we stopped to pick up a....baugeutte! Its awesome we have bauggettes at every meal and if you want some you just pick of the loaf and break a piece off. There is none of this cutting business. So on my first day we sat outisde and talked and then Cedric, a cousin, came over and Fabrice, my host father came home and then we made dinner! It was totally cool. The have this really awesome stone thing its like an open fire kind of, but its the french version of a BBQ! My family is so nice I really love them, and my house is so nice! Every home here has shutters instead of curtains, like some rooms have curtains but most just shutters. Also there are french doors which open and they have shutters as well. Its hard to explain but I will post pictures. My room is soooo cool, its two floors! The bottom is like to study and has a couch and stuff and the upstairs is just my bed and a TV.

Today is my second day, and I am already understanding more french. Nicolas had to wake me up at 12:30 today the jet lag really really sucks! When I woke up Laura explained to me that she was leaving for a bit and she would be home for lunch. That was like my first moment when I thought ‘Oh my god, I am all alone now’ because Laura is my translator its very hard for me to communicate without her. But when she left it was like I understood so much more, and I was talking a little with Regine and we could understand eachother, I was so surprised!

So we had lunch and then Laura took me into Toulouse! Its actually like the best place ever, its so pretty and everything is like brick and the streets are stones. I'm slowly learning to pick up my feet when I walk I seem to trip all the time on things like the corners of the cobblestones! We waited like 2 hours for this tourist bus to come so we could get on and have a tour of the city. But while we waited I got to sit in a cafe on the terrace like the real french do it was so cool! There are so many young people in this city I can't believe it, I see a few older people like people over 30 but mostly everyone I saw today is between 15 and 30. We went to Wilson Centre and its a big Rotary (round about) there is like a carousel and stuff and its sooo cool. There are a lot of Rotarys here, its like the build a road and then it doesnt matter really if its straight or anything they just put a rotary in. Also everyone here drives really really really crazy I would like to see Officer Ken Henderson try and give these people a speeding ticket, this woman today was doing like at least 90 km on a street in the city center and Laura just walks right infornt of her and I was so scared I would be hit, even thought the streets here are so narrow its like 2 steps across. The metros, look like roller costers!

I learned a lot about France just from going to the city. There was a guy my age facing me on the metro and beside me was his friend who was like 12 and later Laura was telling me about them , so I said ‘you mean that little kid beside me on the metro’ and she explained to me that, ‘that little kid’ was one of the most dangerous things in the city. Becuase there are no consequences in France to people under 16 who break the law, they can sell drugs, steal, anything and nothing will happen to them. So this is why they are so dangerous because they can literally get away with murder. I got to see my school today and its so cool...Its right downtown, there is so much shopping and cool stuff to do, its pretty much like going to school on Robson Street! And Laura showed me the cheap stores with are well not really any different from Canada, except for better stuff! Laura showed me this store that makes perfume and different products out of the (I dont' know how to say it) like the representitive symbol of Toulouse...like the dogwood or wildrose...But of toulouse, and I was really creeped out becuase the logo for the company is the flower that I draw on everything, all my papers in school and when I doodle I draw the exact same flower. So I thought that was weird that I always draw that flower and I didn't even know its the symbol of Toulouse!

The first things that I noticed about France was that, everyone has shutters on every window, the toilet paper is scented and coloured, the toilet is separate from the bathroom, and the shower doesn’t exist its just a bathtub with a portable type of shower head. Also everything here is very small, like the little coffee cups it would be like a shot glass size in Canada. Also they dont’ have closets in their bedroom. There is a laundry room and everones clothes are in that room on shelves, kinda like closets but bigger and divided. And the actually do the kissing thing as a greeting, its kinda hard to get used to because i’m really not used to it and then people just come up to me and then in my head ‘i’m like what the heck is going on??’ and then like 2 seconds later its like ‘Wow you are an idiot this is normal here’ because I either move away or go to shake there hand when someone comes near me so yeah haha.

When Laura and I went to Toulouse today we got off the metro and this lady handed us a magazine. So Laura jokingly passed it to me and asked if I wanted a condom. I was so confused because I thought the word for magazine was condom, and she explained ‘No. Look there is a condom in here.’ In the magazine it was plastic wrap of the magazine was a condom, after that everywhere I looked there were magazins lying around the city center...but no condom! We walked by Saint Sernain a church right beside my school and I saw a stick fall from the building and then get caught on a brick and then it fell again and again....then I realized its a LIZARD! They move so fast and yeah they are everywhere her apparently. Later and dinner I hear a noise in the bushes and I turned around and everyone was like oh...LIZARD!

When I got home Regine and her friend Patricia were changing the flat tire on Regine’s car. They were working so hard. When I went inside Fabrice was there! So I said ‘uh, why is Regine changing the tire on the car?’ And he laughed and said that all he does is run and swim and eat! And tonight he is cooking. Two hours later Fabrice’s specialty appears on the table, it was like 4 bags of Macdonalds! Here I am not very hungry, I don’t know why I just don’t have an appetite and I have to force myself to eat. And they complain I don’t eat very much, Fabrice tells me I have to eat more so that I can have enough energy to change the next flat tire and do yard work hahaha! Patricia and her kids stayed for dinner too. And Patricia makes teeth as her job! (Like dentures, but I told her that it sounds really cool if she went around saying that she makes teeth!)

The language is starting to come a little bit. Every day I learn new words and it gets easier, Patricia and her kids told me they are surprised by how good my French for the second day! HA HA HA...I am surprised to hear that! But its getting easier! Except that Laura and I spoke English the entire time we were in Toulouse! This morning I was talking to Regine, before Laura left, and I said ‘Je suis chaud’ and they laughed and were like oh k you can’t say that and I couldn’t understand them. But Regine says ‘Garcon’ and points to all around her and laughs some more. I didn’t know how to ask for them to explain it but they tell me to say ‘J’ai chaud’ instead, which translates to I have hot, where as ‘Je suis chaud’ is ‘I am hot’. So later when I was in Toulouse with Laura I asked her what it means and she was trying to explain it and it basically translates to ‘I have to have sex right now’ so.....NEVER say ‘Je suis chaud’

This weekend I get to go with them to Barcelona for a few days because Fabrices mom owns a ‘mobile home’ there....I saw pictures and whatever it is its the farthest thing from a mobile home haha its so nice and I’m so excited to go. Fabrices mom and sister will go with us too!

On Monday I will get to meet my third host family who are friends of the Achoteguis, the family I am staying with now. They have two daughters one is seventeen and the other is fifteen. So I am very excited to meet them.

I am having so much fun here and its hard for me to write this blog when I know all of France is right outside my door, and I feel like I am wasting my time, but I know it’s important to keep in touch. So I hope this was enough of an update for you....KAYA! (I wasted like an hour of my precious sleeping time so now you will have to waste you german time to read it hahah just kidding.) There is so much that I want to say and remember but everything is so new that its like impossible to remember it all and super impossible to write it all down. And I didn’t go through to edit it so I hope there is not a lot of mistakes...I kinda feel like I’m cheating on the French language right now by writing all this English. But now it’s one in the morning and I am messing up my normal sleeping times even more! So I have to say Bonne Nuit!

Bisous


PS. Marnie, I tried goat cheese, I hope your happy becuase it smells like feet....

Lost in Seattle

So the adventure began today, Eliza and I flew from Kelowna to seattle at 6:00 this morning only to be harrassed about poutines and called ''typical canadians'' (which wasn't meant as a compliment). The plane ride was pretty awesome, the lady who was supposed to 'read' the safety measures was on some kind of happy pill on steroids becuase she decided to SING the safety tips instead, AT 6 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies and rock'n'round the christmas tree. The US customs wasn't as scary as I thought it would be but after we had gone through customs and securtiy we got lost trying to find our next gate...only becuase we hadn't printed our Seattle to Frankfurt ticket in Kelowna...and its pretty hard to find a gate without a boarding pass. So we wandered around pretty much doing circles in the airport! When we finally found the Lufthansa ticket counter there was a sign displayed saying they don't open until 11:15!!! Good thing we realized that we weren't leaving at 9:55, instead we had messed up the times and our flight to Frankfurt is actually at 2:55! So now we are chillin in front of the ticket counter making use of the free internet connection and studying the 'Lonely Planet French Phrasebook'!

This didn't post when I wanted it to becuase I lost the connection and now I just found it saved on my computer so here it is!

The Woman Without A Face

So it's official, I recieved my French visa in the mail yesterday! Finally, all the time that I spent filling out stacks of paperwork and getting signatures and statements paid off. Glued to page 9 in my Canadian passport is a little piece of paper that states I'm a 'mineur scolarise', with my picture and some official looking stamps on it! It's all thanks to a woman in Vancouver named Caroline, who I have never met, but did an amazing job by making it possible for me to get my visa in a week and a half! As soon as I recieved my visa I phoned Caroline to thank her, and then the travel agent, MJ, to let her know that she could book my flight! She informed me that she would email me my travel information, which I still haven't recieved...it's a good thing I'm not impatient....