April Vacation!!

Hi! So sorry I havn't posted in while!! I've just been super busy! The past two weeks were April vacation here in France! The first week, my family and I went to the Pays Basque, which is a region in the south west of France along the Atlantic coast that then goes down into northern Spain. Everything there was absolutly geogreous, except for the weather. We were supposed to go scuba diving but since the "mer" was "trop agitée" we didn't get to :( It rained almost everyday we were there, which kind of sucked. None the less, we still got to do quite a bit of sightseeing; we visited Biarritz and the Musée de la Mer or Ocean Museum, St Jean de Luz, Espelette, the Chocolate Museum in Biarritz which had probably the best gift shop eva, and two cheese places one of which had won the "Best Cheese in the World 2011" award (impressive), St. Sebastien in Spain and we also got went on a hike the only nice day! While I was there, I saw a lot of old Basque guys wearing berets, which was nice. I took lots of pictures of all the things we saw and did, here are a few:

My room!

The beautiful country side right near the gîte

A traditional Basque house

Me in Biarritz, it was quite windy out

Biarritz, la ville! (the city)

Piment d'Espelette ice cream!! not spicy enough in my opinion...

A famous hotel in Espelette with the Piment drying on the walls, also an expcetional exhibit of Basque architecture

A road in the village of Espelette

The trail we hiked on

Too bad the whole week wasn't as nice as that one day!!

Malia à la frontière!

A street in St. Sébastien, Spain

 When parties held in this square the balconies are rented out

The reason we didn't go scuba diving

The next week, we went up to Paris for 5ish days. I absolutly love Paris!! Even when the weather is bad! Unfortunetly my camera was low on battery so I tried to economize my photos. We visited the Musée d'Orsay, the Galleries de Louvre (an underground shopping center) Versailles and Euro Disney! We also walked around Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter of Paris where we found a really, really cool old English book store where I got The Catcher in the Rye, and then we got to feed birds right out of our hands in front of the cathedral!! Also, while I was in Paris, I got stuck in the Metro doors which is probably one of the scarist things that's ever happened to me. I was busy giving some lady directions in English and the train was there. I wasn't looking at what was going on or something and then the doors closed right on me! I had, like, half of my arms in the subway car and also part of my bag. It was as if the world stop turning for a few seconds and all I could think about was how my bag was going to rip right off the strap. Somehow, my host brother managed to pull open the doors to let me in. It was sooo scary!! My arms hurt for about four days after and people kept brushing into them when we were at Versailles which was really annoying. There are always a ton of people there and tour groups always get in your way. My host mom explained to me how at other museums, like the Louvre, they are putting in place a bunch of rules to make tour groups less annoying for people not in them. Good riddence, I say! Other than that, the whole vacation passed "sans problem!" Actually just kidding, we had quite the scare when we left the Versailles tickets in the apratement but we were able to print them out again at some internet café and then half way throught the trip my metro ticket decided to stop working, cool! but we were able to get that fixed too :) and then also the weather wasn't so hot again and it rained on and off when we were at Versailles. But those things are just a part of the experience! I got the chance to eat some traditional French things like Confit de Canard which was very good, pain au chocolat and pain au raisin which were both delicious, of course!! Since I'm talking about food, I might as well add that I've learned to make real Frenh bread, crêpes and cannelés a Bordeaux specialty! I ate at my first real restaurant  while in Paris and ordered with out a problem!! Here are some pictures I took in the city:

Musée d'Orsay

A big, glass clock at the museum that you could see the city through, amazing!

l’église Sacre Cœur and the Opéra with the green roof as seen from Musée d'Orsay

The front of the Château, it was really quite something

Marie Antoinette's bedroom with the door she escaped through the night of the Revolution, it leads to the King's bedchamber

View of the gardens, they are free except when the fountains are on

Since it's a traditional French garden, everything is symmetrical, on the other side, it was exactly the same

Marie Antoinette had a little farm thing built for when she got sick of the French court

Apparently she asked for the staircase to be made of rotten wood

Euro Disney!!!!! even though I'm not a big fan of amusement parks it was nice to hang out with my host family there :)

Also, before vacation I had the chance to do some sight-seeing and to take a few pictures of some places around where I live. I went to Arcachon and the Dune de Pilat, which is the largest sand dune in Europe. I went there like a month ago and still find sand in my shoes and bag. Also I got a few pictures of Bordeaux, the big city only 30minutes away from chez moi where all the shops are at.

Flash mob!!!

Place des Girondins

Bordeaux along the quais

The coolest of the old doors from when the city was walled, its name escapes me at the moment...

The Dune went right into the pine forest, just like that, it was pretty awesome!

Dune de Pilat again

A cool fishing village, very pretty

Arcachon!

Skiing in Les Pyrenées

My two week Febuary vacation has started!  And to kick it off my host mom, host brotheres and I went to les Pyrenées for 5 days of skiing and other winter sports. The trip was organized by the kayak club of one of my host brothers. Each day a different activity was planed so I got a quite good sampeling of winter sports and got to see a lot of the Pyrenées. On the first day, we had to wake up really early and drive about 4 hours to get to the gîte we would be staying in. The gîte was set up like this: Each floor was seperated into wings with about two bedrooms containing between 4 and 2 beds. The people in these bedrooms then had one bathroom that they would share. I was in a room with three beds that I shared with 2 girls who go to my lycèe and are my age. Meals were held in a big room on the bottem floor with everyone from our group. There was also a room on the ground floor with a ping pong table and a fooze ball table, so when we were not running up mountains or setting the table we were there.

The back of the Gîte and the ski station. The baby slope is surrounded by orange and the Green slope is on the left. The tire fesse is the 2 metal things on the left. Read on to learn more about the significance of these things!

After getting settled into the gîte we hopped back into the cars and vans for the first activity of the trip; climbing up Pibeste. In the kayak club and also in my track club, kids are put into levels or groups based off their age. Since I am 15 I was in the group "Compétition". Since we are older, the people decided that instead of hiking up the mountain we should run up it. And run we did not. The two other girls and I started walking pretty early on. We quickly lost sight of the group and had no idea which trail they took. Luckily we found two other kids from our group who had also started walking. None of us knew which trail the group had taken, so in an attempts to catch up to the others we ended up off roading it. As we were hiking up what looked like trails we came across a  dog that started following us. Since everyone knows Pyrenéen dogs are never lost, we took it as a good sign. As it turns out, the dog really did know the path! We rejoined the group and continued our hike with the others. The closer to the summit we got, the more snow there was. The hike was absolutly beautiful, the scenery, the views, everything! Unfortunetly I forgot my camera so I dont have any pictures that I took of the hike but here is the link to one  I found off the internet because I can't get it to paste into this document:

http://www.jpdugene.com/images/photos_rando/pibeste/20_sommet_du_pibeste.jpg

At the summit, there was an abandon château thing that we walked around. The descent was pretty easy because you basically just slid on your butt. That evening, the "Compèt" group went to the pool, which was pretty fun.

The next day was alpine skiing. The station we went to, Hautacam, was a lot bigger than Yagoo in RI but I guess it was actually really small because my host mom said she didn't even know stations that small existed. I had been skiing before this but I was not confident in my ability, so I decided to go with the beginners or "débutants". This was kind of a mistake because it was reeeally easy. We stayed on the baby slope the whole morning. After a satisfying lunch of pasta salad, we graduated to the Green Slope. To get ot the top of this one there was something called a "tire fesse" or butt pull. Basically, it was a a disk attached to a cabel that you would put between your legs and let it pull you to the top. The supervisors of our group were making a big deal out of riding it but since the morning was so incredibly easy I kind of just blew off what they were saying. When it was my turn at the "tire fesse" I quickly learned why it is called that. It literally pulled my butt right out from under me. Well, that's just what happens when you get cocky. I took some time to recover from my fall and then slunk back to the baby slope. After regaining my confidence, I tried the tire fesse again and held on to the cable for dear life! and I made it to the top WITHOUT FALLING!!!!!!!!!!! of course the descent was another story, I fell plenty of times but it was still fun. You can see a picture of the ski station next to the one of the Gîte at the top of the page. I don't know why it's next to that one like that but I can't move it so I'm leaving that picture there.

All the skis!

The view at the base of the ski station

On Day 3, we drove to hike to the Pont d'Espagne, which is not in Spain. The hike was absolutly gorgeous! The trail followed a river with many waterfalls or "cascades". The snow and ice made it a true winter wonderland! We got to walk around the Pont too, which I think was in the Parc National des Pyrenées but I'm not sure. For some reason I didn't take any pictures of it, but if you type "Pont d'Espagne" into the Google you can see what it looked like. The park was situated in a valley with the river in the middle, along the banks there were trails for hiking or cross country skiing. The mountains rising up on either side were just fantastic. While the younger kids got to make snowmen, the "Compét" group ran down the trail. It was actually a lot of fun because the trail turned a lot and was slippery, so on each turn I would slip and slide a little. After that gorgeous hike, we got to go ice skating! I had only been once before, so this was kind of new to me. It was very similar to rollar skating, so sinceI've done that plenty of  times I had a good base for learning. The whole hour and a half I did not fall, yay me!
 

View of mountains at the Pont d'Espagne

Patinoire means ice skating in French, fyi

The rink

For the last full day in the mountains, we did "ski de fond" or cross country skiing. This was completly new to me and I would definetly like to try it again! We went to the same facility as we did for downhill skiing but higher up and on different trails, obviously. The sport was a lot like running but you never fully took your foot off the ground, just your heel which was not attached to the ski. The only thing that was kind of annoying was that on every decent of the first 10km loop I fell at least twice. So by the end of the 26km we did in total, I was pretty beat up from all the falls. For lunch that day, we had tuna salad. I don't like tuna but the truth is I've never actually tried it (even though I'm from the Ocean State). Since I was so incredibly hungry I just shoved it in my mouth anyway. It really did taste like the chicken of the sea! That day was a day of firsts: first time XC skiing and first time eating tuna!

View for the trail

Line of skiiers!

Me! skiing!

On the last day, we visited a cheese place which was awesome cause I am literally in love with French cheese. You really can't find it in American because it's illigal to import. I didn't really understand much of the process but the cheese was absolutly delicious! It was really funny, at the end the guy let us buy cheese and literally everyone who brought money bought some. In America, kids buy stuff like sweatshirts and postcards as souveniers, in France they buy cheese.

Church in the charming mountain village the cheese place was in

Sign for the cheese

"I'm just crackers about cheese!"-Wallace

After that, we went back up to the ski place to lunch and then we either could go sledding or go back down the mountain to run. Since I have to run a 10k on Sunday, I went with the running group. We ran along the Gave de Pau and it was so pretty! We only ran for 30min because everyone was so sore from the intense week. The drive back home was a lot of fun with my new friends! Although I was sad such a great vacation was over, it felt good to be back home in the calm.

First Week!

Before departing for France, there was an orientation in New York City for all kids going to certain countries in Europe on foreign exchange for one semester. My mom drove me down to NYC right after I took my Global and Chemistry midterms. Let me tell you, studing for exams while preparing to study abroad is not easy! In New York I finally got to meet all the girls going to France. It was really nice to be able to talk to other people who are sharing this experiance. The orientations were pretty boring but they did cover some helpful material about going abroad.

AFS-USA going to France

The Plane Ride: At the airport, it really started to sink in that  I'm not going to be in the US again for another 6 months. The plane ride was pretty rough. It is so hard to get comfortable in those seats! Tip for the Future Exchange Student (TFES): really try to sleep on the plane, it helps alot with jet lag. Upon arriving in CDG airport, I think eveyone was pretty tired. After meeting up with some New Zealanders and Argentines we were driven via bus to our hostle.

Airport bound!

The Hostle was kinda scary. Even a few of the volenteers told us it was in a bad part of the city.  The food was subpar and the top bunk was really shaky. Also, they didn't provide towels so a bunch of people including myself, just used a shirt to dry themselves. TFES: bring a towel!  Despite this, it really wasn't as bad of a place as it sounds. There were beds, food and it was heated. Also, we had a lot of fun playing cards, talking and meting people from all over the world!

My room in the hostel

Look! A sink!

Audree, one of my roommates, chillin in our room

Paris Orientation was very helpful. They told us about getting to our host communities and French people were there to answer all of our cultural questions. We had a lot of fun in Paris walking around La Tour Eiffel and seeing all the sights in our tour bus.

AFS-USA in Paris!

La Tour Eiffel et moi

Yes, Remy the rat from Ratatouille was saved here.

Meeting My Host Family: I had to wake up at 5:30 to have enough time to have breakfast and get my baggage ready to leave Paris for my host family. My sleep deprivation form the past few days was not bothering me because I was so excited to meet them! As I was getting off the train, my host dad just kind of appeared and took my bag. Then I met my host mom and only one of my host brotheres because the other was at a kayak competition. Things hapened pretty fast: off the train, host family, in the car, at the home. Their house is really, really cool and they are very nice.

I get my own sink!

Look who's in the garden!

The view outside my window

First Day of School: Pascale drove me to school at around 8:30 to meet with my Prof Pricipal and with some of the administators. After that I got to meet the girls in my class! They were all so nice, I had talked to a few of them via e-mail prior to my departure and it was so nice to meet them! They showed me the school and we walked around the town a little too. Throughout the day, they made sure I was introduced to the teachers and had someone to sit next too. The first day was a lot easier than I had expected, the hardest part was remembering everyones name! TFES: smile a lot and talk on the first day, make a good first impression!  Usually, I wake up at 6:30 (half an hour later than in RI!) to catch the bus at 7:10. School starts at 8:04 and finishes at 5:11. I have to walk to the middle school to catch the bus that get to my town at around 6:00. One thing that really surprized me about the school is the amount of kids smoking. I knew smoking was popular here, but when school is over there is literally a crowd of people outisde the lycée smoking. In America you hardly ever see young people smoking so openly.


Track Practice: After school, my host brother who does track came to the lycée to get me. We walked to the track and I met some other people on the team. I don't mean to brag or anything, but the practice was really easy, except for the running drills which I couldn't get right; the coach pulled me aside to show me how to do them properly, haha

The rest of the week went very well. My host family is nice, the kids at school are friendly and all the teachers are nice to me. It's kinda funny actually, a few of my teachers are a little "spécial" (as the kids at school tell me) and they have trouble controlling the class. So someimes they'll yell at everyone and then come over to me and make sure I understand everything and are all nice. Oh, the preks of being an exchange student! On friday, some girls from my class and I went to the Bar à Pâtes for lunch. At the restaurant they offered nutella paninis.... I love France. That evening I ate there again with the track team. So much pasta in one day! On Saturday and Monday, Pascale and I went running together with the dog. The country side here is absolutly beautiful. Next time I go running I'll be sure to bring my camera because no amount of descriptive language can possibly convey the beauty of this place to you, dear reader. The reason I was able to go running on Monday was becuase school was cancelled due to snow even though there is only like 2" on the ground. For the rest of the week the buses didn't pass because the roads are bad. The snow hasn't melted because it's so cold out.My host mom tells me as long as they have live in Léogeats they have never seen temperatures this cold.