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....