christmas!

Does not feel like Christmas! But it'll be fun anyway. Big meal with extended family tonight, and the exchange of presents. I've already got a few presents - a watch from the Rotary and gorgeous bracelets from a host family. Also a pretty journal and some vietnamese crystallised ginger.

School is finished! Got to experience a real French strike, the school kids got angry about new reforms and decided to block the school for three days which was nice for a few days off as well as getting to yell some fun political chants and having people give me the 'dirty communist' look. This just doesn't happen at my school in Australia! We also had lots of going away cakes. The best ones were the German ones... I want to go to a German Christmas market. Will have to save that for another year. I'll also ski, since I haven't had the chance to even see European snow yet, except the time it almost snowed.

Eleven sleeps left... kinda terrifying.

London!

Got "permission". Bought flights. Gave the school a note. Packed. Said my goodbyes.
Car, train, walk, bus, plane, train, train, walk... and there I was at Dominique and Andrew's house in Fulham, London. It was so easy, and I was so excited. I drank a cappucino with real milk in it. Met Oliver, Ben and Nanny Iris. Lovely people. Andrew and I watched Four Weddings and a Funeral after eating steak sandwiches... it was such a nice change, I was rather ecstatic with the beginning of my voyage to London. Everything was British and novel.

Day two saw a trip to a park with the boys, where bikes were ridden, deer seen and ice cream eaten. That night I went into town with Dominique on a red bus, saw christmas lights and Piccadilly Circus, enjoyed a nice glass of wine and did a bit of shopping. I was shocked to see that it gets dark at 4.30 up there! Still, I suppose it gives you more night time to see the Christmas lights.

Sunday we enjoyed a roast with yorkshire pudding in a pub. I spent my week exploring London. Went to the Natural History Museum with Ben and Dom to see the dinosaurs, and also saw some exhibitions about things like volcanoes. I took myself to the Tate Modern, St Paul's, Buckingham Palace... touristy things like that. I probably didn't take enough photos, but I'm always too lazy to take photos of things I know a million other tourists have already captured from exactly the same mediocre angle.

Thursday I saw Claire, the cousin of the Faures where I was staying before. That was sympa, we went to the Camden markets where I bought some sunglasses that don't actually protect from the sun, but look pretty cool in photos. We ate lunch in a Japanese restaurant and later strawberries on sticks dipped in chocolate. Yeah hardcore.

For my last day we took a ride on the Thames, then rode the London Eye. The weather was a tiny bit FREEZING but lovely and clear, we had fantastic views. We then ate pizza and all was well.

My stay in London made me want to go back there. I didn't even do all the touristy things, kind of passed Trafalgar Square by, but still found the city great. En plus I was with fabulous people, nicest hosts ever. Was such a change from the life I have here in France, and in Australia of course. London is pretty awesome, and I will be going back.

Here are just a few photos, there are many more on Facebook!!

T-minus 5 weeks

The beginning of the end is getting a bit scary!
Before I was really sad to be going home, but now I'm almost looking forward to it. Just to seeing all my friends and family and having summer and Australian things... it'll probably be kinda novel. Still, there are so many things I'm going to miss about this exchange...

So, since my last blog, I've been to school and to London, I'll write a blog about that as soon as I've finished this. School is good. I should probably work a bit more, but it's hard to be motivated when you know it doesn't count. Also, only doing half the tests occasionally lets me get good averages... I somehow am equal top in my literature class, after having done a couple of little things about Romeo and Juliet, and not doing the holiday homework. Oh la la.

I've also planned a party and had to cancel it, and now will be having a tiny going away party just with cool people who live in the 17. Wish I could invite everyone but with the house and all... not very possible.

It's almost Christmas! There are two stockings hanging from the mantelpiece for my host sisters... Mum, I expect you to hang one chez nous and fill it with my favourite hairspray (I can't even remember what brand it is) or something like that.

So, mixed feelings. Excitement for the end of school, for seeing all the Rotary kids again, for Christmas and New Year. Sadness to be leaving all this. Apprehension about going back to Australia. Stress about insurance forms. Annoyance about the cold that's not quite gone. Bit scared about year 12... But can't wait to see the Australians again. I do love life, after all. And this year has been unforgettable.

i donated to wikipedia!

vacances are finies!

and they were crazy/beautiful.

It started with my last ever 1690 weekend... which was pretty great. I love the people here. So many countries, languages... we all get on so well! I'll miss these people like fish.

Norway, Sweden & Finland

Me & fire extinguisher in small train in Condom

After this weekend I changed families. I'm now back in my very first one and will be staying here for the rest of my year, which is two months. I'm going to be home on the 5th of January! This is such a crazy feeling.

After spending the first few days of my holidays slightly bored and alone at home, I got networking and organised to go see a few exchange friends in Bordeaux and other small towns... Had a good weekend!

Drinking lukewarm chocolate with Rachel in Rochefort... not rotated...

When Norwegians, Brazilians and Australians play pool together...

Jess and I in Bordeaux

Me and one of Angouleme's lampposts.

So. Yeah. Bonnes vacances. See my Facebook for heaps more photos!

life...

I'm watching Aussie songs on Youtube... Khe Sahn! Run to Paradise! Reminds me of deb balls.

France is going really well. Not too much has been happening, just good old school. I got the german teacher to teach us 99 Red Balloons, which is exciting. Only 6 days left until holidays! There's another Rotary weekend and I'll hopefully be seeing les chateaux de la Loire. Lots of pretty castles!

I love pasta. Went to the pasta shop the other day. The lady got chatting and I found out she was an ex Rotary exchange student. It's always exciting to meet people who've been on exchange. This was one of those ladies who knows the whole town... she knew that my little host brother had bought carbonara pasta three times in the last week.

I should go to sleep now. School tomorrow... yawn. I may possibly fall asleep in philosphy again. Actually it's really interesting at the moment, we just started language. Since I want to do linguistics this is good.

Goodnight!

Frogs

As you can see, I'm super cool. These super attractive glasses got broken at Morgane's party...
Exchangies are cool.
Check out the brilliant Aussies of 1690 and our fabulous blazers...
GREEN TEAM DREAM TEAM.

Today we had a fire evacuation drill in the rain.

Convenient!

School has taken up its rhythm... sigh. I do like it but getting 14/20 in English is somewhat discouraging when it's my native language. Philosophy is getting harder and harder to understand. 'Je vois des chapeaux et des manteaux...' Thanks, Descartes and Merleau Ponty.

Yes, I'm aware that my blog writing is turning into some kind of strange abstract thing. I blame school.

The other weekend we had our first Rotary meeting with all the exchangies from this district. The newbies are seriously cool, I love them all already and am kind of cut to be leaving in less than three months. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in Australia and eating Mee Goreng noodles but there's so much here that I'll be leaving behind! Never realised it was going to be quite like this.

However, I'm going to make the most of the rest of my time here.

Regular week.

The cleaning lady came into my room. I can tell because EVERY SINGLE OBJECT IS PERFECTLY NEATLY ARRANGED IN ANALLY STRAIGHT LINES. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate having a clean room, but she really didn't need to arrange the three bobby pins that I left on my bedroom table perpendicularly. The stack of magazines is now nice and straight. My souvenir can of Foster's is aligned with the purple cup. My camera charger's cable is neatly rolled. My glasses and sunglasses are next to each other, facing the same way.

I assume she has too much time on her hands.

This morning I had toast for breakfast.

I have a lot of homework and feel like I should actually do it but really would prefer to stay in bed all day. The teachers consider me like a normal student - the philosophy teacher even asked me to read some of Freud's writing out loud. I shook my head.
'Why don't you want to read, Holly?'
Obvious answer! ACCENT. But I just said 'because' and he was satisfied. Marion read, and she reads well.
Now we have an essay to write. Apparently I have to find a paradox in one of the questions 'Does one choose one's friends?' or 'Is there an object of desire?'
Both of these questions seem a bit... hmm.

I had a good couple of weeks hanging out with the Finnish girls, Emma and Katariina. They're leaving this weekend!

Insurance is not an appealing thing to occupy myself with. I really should go and see the blood test people. Ninety euros just to find out that I'm O+. I can take anyone's blood but only other O plussers can take mine. I feel a bit selfish really! Does one choose one's blood group? The answer is no.

Busbusbus.

Changement de famille

Well, here I am in my 4th family in seven months. The Penavyres.
The two parents are really nice. It's their second marriage so it's a kind of Brady Bunch... he has two sons and a daughter, she has two daughters.
The house is HUGE and so is my room. I've taken over the room of one of the sons who I've never met. He's twenty and collects lighters. There are HUNDREDS in the bedroom. I must post a photo. The other son is Edouard, who is turning eleven on Friday. He likes cats and rugby and Renan Luce... we spent a couple of hours together this afternoon. I'm less scared of little boys now. He tried to impress me by jumping down seven stairs at a time.
Two of the girls are called Charlotte, and one of them is at home now. She's 20, really nice, cool bedroom. The other girl is in some other country - she seems to spend her life overseas. She even lived in Australia.

Today I thought I'd lost my phone for a few hours. Turns out it was just hidden in one of my school folders, and kept hiding until I got my literature homework out. I think they're actually expecting me to do homework this year... damn. I already summarised each scene of Romeo and Juliet in year 10! Why should I do it again now?

It's really cool having other exchange students here, even if they're not staying very long. I made friends with some Finnish girls, Emma and Katariina. Trop cool. There are also two Germans who both seem to be rather shy. But still! I'm not the only foreign person!

There was a really weird man on the bus the other day, yelling at the kids up the back about the dangers of alcohol. It didn't look like he took his own advice.

Languages are cool.

School's in

The new school year has officially started. Yay! I wasn't looking forward to it, and the first day wasn't promising, but today was actually really good. My class consists of about 26 girls I don't know, three boys I don't know, and Marion. Marion and I both changed from the science to the literary stream so we're clinging to each other in this ocean of novelty. Neither of us are missing physics and we're both loving philosophy. It's seriously interesting. Maths seems relatively possible, and the history program looks good. We had a history test to divide the class into three groups... don't think I'll be in the best group. The teacher thought I was ridiculous for guessing that JFK's middle name was Francis. It's Fitzgerald, for future reference. And IDH stands for indice de developpment humain.

SUMMER

Well, my first French summer is just about over and I figure I probably should blog about it. So, let's go in chronological order.

Le Bateau Albina

Inside of boat with Anastastia, 15 year old host sister

Here is the boat that I went cruising in with the Giambiasi family for the first half of July. It's a 15 metre long Jeanneau 46 with three rooms and things like that. I'm not too much of a technical boat master myself but it's a nice boat. Motor, goes really fast... Yes.

We went from La Rochelle to Brest, stopping on the way at the Ile d'Yeu and Concarneau. It would have been more pleasant if the weather hadn't have been cold and grey but it was still pretty cool to be on a boat. Novelty!

Our cabin

Coming into the bay in Brest

Once we had arrived in Brest, we went to the Maritime Festival... thousands of gorgeous boats everywhere! There was one huge Russian boat that Anastasia in particular loved, seeing as her mother is Russian and she could eavesdrop on the conversations of the russian sailors...

Anastasia and I

Part of the Russian boat during a light show...

The pretty Brittany coastline

Halfway through the boat trip I returned to Rochefort so I could go on the Atlantic Youth Rotary Meeting with all my southern hemisphere buddies in the south west of France. It was pretty awesome, we're like a little family...

Me at Marqueze, an old style Landais village

A Beach

We were rowed about on a lake

And much wholesome family fun was had by all.

The trip ended up more dramatic than we expected with a car accident in the Pyrenees. The driver managed to make the car flip over while asleep at the wheel. Although Maree from New Zealand was taken in a helicopter to hospital which was pretty damn scary, we thought she had spinal injuries, she's okay now. The driver and the passenger were both fine. Personally I broke a little bone, the 4th Metacarpal in my left hand. Little bone needed operation so now I've got 4 screws and a metal plate, as well as a cool story about an ambulance ride and hospitalisation in France.

A dodgy photo of the xrays from the day of the operation. The white blobs are the plastic thing that I have instead of a plaster.

Since coming back to Rochefort, I've spent the month of August doing not much... there was the operation, then I went with my host family to their holiday house in Fouras, a nearby small town on the beach. It was good, if not just a little bit slighty boring... I passed the days reading Enid Blyton books and playing Brain Training on the Nintendo DS (my brain is 22 years old). The nights were spent hanging with my host sister Marie Charlotte and her friends, which was sometimes great fun and sometimes booo-ring. Depended on who we were with.

Lea and Marie Charlotte waiting for the train

Karena and I on this train

Bensimons, France's favourite tennis shoes...

So there's a really short and incomplete summEry. School goes back in a week's time... not the thing I'm most looking forward to!

Lots of love to everyone, looking forward to seeing you all when I come back in only 4 months!

Look, I'm wearing a hippy costume!

Yep. Voila me and Cecile at a par-tay. We're having another one tonight, and there are 16 bot

tles of chamapgne in the frigo. This is because Cecile got AWESOME marks for her 'bac', like the VCE, and also she's going to Mexico. Good luck Cilou!

July...

Hallo everybody!

News: I just moved house. My new family is pretty cool... the house is big. There's even a dance room, and two kitchens.
On Monday we're going on a boat cruise for a couple of weeks. Then I come back to good old Rochefort, then go away again on a trip.

The point of this blog is, I'm won't have much internet access during July and August. I've got my phone... but I'm not really at houses for a couple a months.
I promise there'll eventually be blogs!

Brittany

Sometimes even little trips can be really awesome. I just spent three days in Bretagne in the north of France and it was a great holiday. It started off rather horribly with a five and a half hour train trip spent with Hanna, Alain's Polish wife. The only time she talked was to complain about people talking too loudly. They were talking at a normal level, but I felt obliged to nod and agree that they were ever so annoying. Luckily after this train trip, Alain picked us up from the station and we had the best crepes of my life... made up for the torturous trip.

We stayed in a cute little village house with a slate roof with Alain's lovely talkative sister. She was really nice... so nice that she inisted on giving me her old clothes.
'What do you think of this one?' she asks, holding up a hideous striped knitted jumper.
'Well, it's not really my thing,' I say.
'Yes it is! Try it on!'
I don the large floppy woolen thing and it really does not look good.
'Oh, that suits you so well! What do you think?'
'Um, I'm not sure...'
'I'm glad you like it! It's a present for you, have it!'
This is nice, but now my suitcase has a few extra ugly garments to weigh me down. Actually she also gave me two really nice bottles of wine cos I mentioned how I wanted to take some home for my Mum... yep, that's right Trish, french wine for you.

Things I did on the trip include seeing cute villages, overhearing conversations in Celtic, fishing in the English channel, going to a giant aquarium in Brest and spending a day in Jersey. Ever heard of Jersey cows? I saw lots of them. We took the boat to Jersey in the morning, and I totally wasn't seasick. We then hired a car and drove around. I had tea and scones in an English cafe. They all spoke English, it was so exciting! Understanding the conversations of passers-by was quite novel. They had amusing accents.




Eurotrip blog + photos coming soon!

Chronic lack of internet!

Hi everybody! I just got back from the Eurotour last night and am on the internet for the first time in two weeks. I'm gonna struggle to reply to everyone's emails and comments on Facebook etc because tomorrow I go away for another week to Bretange with Alain from my Rotary club. So I'm not going to try and write a Europe trip blog today cos It'll take a while... you guys can wait a week or two. Suffice to say that it was pretty fantastic...

Right now I'm chewing on a mintie sent to me by my fantastic family... I missed these delicious lollies. Seriously, they're good. Then you rip ûp the wrappers to make them loooong.

Will put up a real blog soon.

My class, 1s1.

Less than two weeks left until summer holidays! Eurotrip! Camping! Boat voyages! Parties!





So, lately. What has Holly been up to?





Yesterday after school I took the bus home with Cecile and her friend Alice. We bought some cookies then went to the Rock School where Cecile and Alice sing, and I watch. Then we returned home and Mr Henry from the Rotary came to visit with a large bag full of clothes he thought I might like. The purple singlet is okay... the red, yellow and brown frilly full length skirt isn't quite my style, nor is the beaded top. After eating dinner we headed to a play, La Mouette (The Seagull) by Tchekov. I found two and a half hours a bit hard to sit through... I don't speak French. Not Russian style.

Last weekend I took the Transporter Bridge. On rollerblades. Look it up on Wikipedia, it's thrilling. Also went to a party which wasn't fantastic but there was lots of cake and a guy who danced an awesome version of the Tecktonic.

I got 12/20 on a physics test! I was impressed with myself. It was a test that simply required memorising, but still... not the worst mark in the class for once.

That's all for now. Bisous!

PARIS blog

Finally writing a blog about my trip to Paris. Sorry about the lateness... computer troubles.

Ready yourself for excitingness.

Cecile (my host sister) and I took the train to Paris on Thursday morning. Good old train trips. As long as you have an iPod, a phone, at least two books and two different kinds of biscuits, you’re right. So I was fine. We were picked up at the Gare de Montparnasse by her uncle Pierre who showed me the Eiffel Tower (bigger and browner than I’d imagined) then drove us to his apartment on the Seine where we met Cecile’s aunt Catherine and had lunch. As this lunch took place in France, we didn’t finish the coffee course until five o’clock, when we took a walk along the river to see Notre Dame cathedral and Paris in general.

They then introduced me to Paris’s best ice cream, Berthillon. Pretty amazingly delicious, even if two euros only gets you a tablespoon of ice cream. La vie est chere a Paris. That night after dinner we had a two hour long argument about school uniforms. Pierre has a very strong opinion about uniforms. ‘Us French could never wear a uniform. It’s just not in our culture. Imagine... everyone dressed the same’. I couldn’t quite see the point of this argument, but we didn’t get to bed until well after midnight.

Friday morning we decided it was necessary to climb the Eiffel Tower. Cecile and I made our way there on the Metro, waited an hour or two, then eventually caught the lift to the top. I wanted to take the stairs up, but considering all the walking and stairs that we did in Paris, it’s probably a good thing that we only took the stairs down the tower.

After lunch we went to the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the Champs-Elysees. I decided not to buy the 49,000 euro watch. That evening we went out to eat with Pierre and Catherine. They’re on first name terms with all the cafe owners in the 12th arrondisment, so it was pretty cool getting to talk with the proprietaire. I ate my first crème brulee, and it was awesome.
Saturday we started with the Louvre, where everyone is a tourist and nobody speaks French. Saw the Mona Lisa... at the same time as about 341 other people. It was still cool. The Louvre is a gorgeous building, just like every building in Paris. Seriously, everywhere you turn your head there’s another cool apartment or church or statue or obelisk or tower...

Saturday afternoon we met up with some of my awesome Aussie friends in Montmartre. They also happened to be hanging out with some Mexicans who are on exchange in Switzerland but were on holiday in Paris. So we looked around the Sacre Coeur church with our large group of assorted foreigners, then wandered through Montmartre (home of Amelie) which is gorgeous. Everyone wants to sketch your portrait for large amounts of money. After Montmartre we headed to Notre Dame again, then an Australian themed pub called Cafe Oz where we enjoyed such delicacies as the ‘Oz Splice’ cocktail and a pint of Foster’s. Australians are awesome.

Saturday night we went with Cecile’s aunt and uncle to see Fame. Yeah, the musical. Totally translated into French! It was extremely amusing. They didn’t translate the famous ‘Fame! I’m gonna live forever’ song, which was probably a good thing. It gets stuck in your head though, we were singing it all of Sunday when we went to see the castle at Versailles. Versailles! Really really giant one that Louis XIV built as a show off piece. It was a very nice castle, but we did get rather sunburnt spending an hour queuing outside in the sun to get in. It was really hot the whole time we were in Paris! Hot! Like, it made it to 29 degrees. I was impressed. The gardens of the castle were also amazing. There are over 300 fountains. One of them had dragons in it. All the French people I’ve talked to a very proud of this castle... the most beautiful in the world, they call it. OK... I haven’t seen a better castle, it’s true.

After walking around Versailles we realised it was 3.30 and we hadn’t eaten. We hunted for quite a while to find food, considering it’s a tourist hub. One place we went to was out of sandwiches. What is that? We did eventually find food, don’t worry. Food and ice cream.

That afternoon in Paris we went to see a movie with Cecile’s aunt and uncle. I can almost understand movies in French now... not everything but I’m pretty amazed. Wish I could speak better French though. After dinner that evening, Pierre took us for his ‘Paris by night’ tour. The city really is even prettier at night! We watched the Eiffel Tower do its light display at 11o’clock, drove around to see the sights, then watched the tower sparkle again at midnight from outside the apartment. Didn’t really appreciate it the second time, the tip of a tall glittery structure isn’t that exciting when you just want to go to bed.

Monday morning was nice and tranquil... after quite a sleep in, we headed for a walk around the gardens of the Tuileries, where I was privileged enough to see a crow EAT a sparrow. That was extreme. For lunch we met up with Cecile’s grandmother and great grandmother, who are 70 and 95 respectively, and both rather cool. Great grandmother ate nine oysters. The restaurant was one of those fancy ones where the waiters hover around in yellow ties, pouring you more water when your glass is empty. We had a lot of conversation about Australain cuisine.
‘So what’s your national drink?’
‘Um... beer?’
‘Not tea, like the English?’
‘Well, no, not really... we don’t have a national drink in Australia’
‘How about vegetables? What kind of vegetables do you have?’
This is where I tried to explain the concept of snow peas in French. ‘
Peas... that are flat and long... well actually it’s not the pea itself that’s flat and long, but a... thing... with little peas inside...’ I think they might have understood...So it was a good lunch.

That afternoon after the world’s best blood orange sorbet and a water fight on the streets of Paris, we took the train home. The End.

Today is Monday

I don't have conjunctivitis today! This is important because I did have it on Saturday. Walked around with a half closed eye then woke up the next day and it was glued to itself. Yes, lovely details. I seriously thought I was going to die! Luckily I haven't yet. A French lady told me it was most likely the wind that caused it. I nodded in agreement. The same lady also told me over a Rotary lunch that you shouldn't eat onions because they make you fat. I made a point of eating the onions.

The Rotary lunch was in the pretty town of Biarritz in the south of France at the district 1690 conference. Even if we did have to leave at 4.45 am to drive there, it was really good catching up with the other exchange students and enjoying the HOT day. It was seriously HOT! And I saw Spain. Didn't go there, but saw the Pyrenees in the distance which is totally part of Spain. I'm hoping to go there sometime.

Today I am angry at the physics teacher.

Springggg

G’day everyone!
You should have seen the super blog I wrote yesterday. It was really good until I put it on a USB stick which then decided to break, leaving me blogless and devastated. We’re totally going back to the place where I bought the offending USB stick and demanding a refund. Or asking politely. It’ll be fun.

Me looking at a building in Bordeaux

So, the last two weeks! Summing it up, I had a really good school holidays. I last left off at the day in Bordeaux. Well, after that I did various things such as staying at the grandparents’ large house with a spiral staircase and circular windows with a sea view. I also went to horse riding, where I actually rode a horse. Not just any horse, a French horse.
Marie Charlotte and cake

I spend lots of time getting mud on my red converses

So there I was taking a selfie and suddenly, there was a horse in the photo

Marie Charlotte had some friends to stay and we made beautiful crepes, and I also had a good night out in La Rochelle with my fave French girls, Marie Charlotte, Gaby, Morgane and Solene, and we were joined for a while by an Aussie mate Aysha.

Gaby, Solene, Marie Charlotte, Morgane

Soso and Momo

And then he accidentally spilt a glass of beer on her jeans

Me and Aysha discussing French grandparents who store the bread in the rifle cupboard

Good times were had. After staying at Gaby’s house we gave Solene a super makeover.

Solene during haircut/makeover

Half an hour later

Last Wednesday I moved to my second host family, the Faures. The parents are really really nice and so are the four girls. They travel heaps. Emilie who is 5 just got back from a trip to the north of France. Marie who is 14 is currently in Amsterdam. Helene, 11, is going to England next month. The parents leave for Turkey in a couple of weeks. Cecile, 17, is going to Mexico for a year. There’s also a family summer holiday planned. So yeah, I’ve landed in a good family. Cecile and I are going to Paris for five days, I’m pretty excited about that.

Yesterday we got back from a weekend in Poitiers where we spent a day at a theme park called Futuroscope... my favourite attraction was Danse avec les Robots. You got to go upside down and all spinny around in a giant moving arm thingy to loud Bee Gees music. The other highlight of Futuroscope was making the park guide man laugh in the middle of his important safety announcement by walking around like crabs.

Hélène and I with super cool 3D glasses

Exciting night time spectacular

The rest of the weekend was spent eating... I seriously gained three kilos this holidays. Nutella! Cake! Bread! More nutella! Tart! Pie! Ice cream! Creamy pasta! The food doesn’t stop. We did go and see a really cool castle in Chauvigny where my host family used to live. And a glass blower... he makes small glass pigs and cats in less than a minute! I also saw an Iguana’s tail dangling from the upstairs window of a Medieval creperie.

Holly, castle, town, distant black birdInterior of unconventional church

School started again today, hurrah! It was nice seeing all the people again, but it was less nice having one hour of maths, two hours of physics, two hours of biology (that was good) and then from 4-6, a maths test. I decided not to hand my pitiful excuse for a test in... I’ve kind of given up on maths lately. I’m looking forward to getting my history test back though. History in English, that is. Although we have the most boring teacher in the world, it’s a good subject. Well, it’s nice being able to understand. My French in general is getting better. Today I copied down a whole definition in biology. However, my speaking is still very lacking. I am probable speak like zis and making the peoples mock of mine accent who is not a good accent as of I am not being able to make the R like a France. That’s how I assume my French sounds to native speakers. They seriously do mock my accent.
‘Hey Olly, say Rhododendron!’
‘Rododondrrrn’
‘Ahahahahhahahhahahahahha. Now say...’
Yeah. I’m learning to get over it. I assume eventually I’ll learn to speak like a pro. For now I’m dealing with the language thing.

France in general is going awesomely. I like it best when I’m travelling around and not sitting in physics class, but for the most part, I’m all settled in and having a good time. I’m loving my new family and counting down for the Eurotrip (42 sleeps!). I’m also going to hopefully take up badminton and have bass lessons, so life will be nice and busy and I won’t have time to write fantastic amazing blogs like this one.

Well, love to everyone. I’ll write again soon, promise!

bloggyfish

G’day chums.

Today I went to BORDEAUX with my host family! It was pretty awesome – quite the shopping trip. All I bought was a tshirt and some sunnies to replace the ones I lost last weekend (sniff!), but the car boot was overflowing with shoes, jeans, leather jackets, candle holders, wall hangings, etc. Unfortunately they bought no chocolate... some people don’t have the same sweet tooth that I do. They also didn’t buy any wine. Just wait til I’m 18 (two months!), I’ll be buying those seven hundred euro bottles by the dozen.

Bordeaux is a beautiful city. My family were arguing over whether it’s more beautiful than Paris... they didn’t come to a conclusion. I’ll see for myself next week when I go to Paris! Anyway,Belle Bordeaux. None of the streets seem to be parallel and the buildings are tall and straight with gorgeous facades and balconies. It was more shopping than sightseeing so I’ll have to go back with someone who wants to take a million photos and visit the galleries. Any volunteers?

Yesterday I didn’t go anywhere, except for a short run from the Royal String Factory to the horribly ugly Transporter Bridge that is featured on at least ten different ugly postcards of Rochefort, my town. What a lovely landmark. Look ‘Transporter Bridge’ up on Wikipedia and you will see why I think the postcards shouldn’t exist.

Anyway. Yesterday, as they often do, my host family entertained guests. These ones had children, two little girls who are cousins of my host sisters. Emma is 4 and would prefer that we referred to her as a boy, not a girl. Johanna is 6 and made sure I knew that Emma wasn’t a boy but actually a girl. We spent a long time playing with bouncy balls until I decided it would be a good idea to play hide and seek (I knew the French word for it!). The cute little girls decided they loved me and both wanted to hide only with me. We hid in a crafty group of three. We played hide and seek for a looongggg time. Their parents spent hours over lunch, hours. We watched a movie. Surf’s up. Cody didn’t win the big surf contest. I was totally disappointed. Johanna informed me that the point of the movie wasn’t winning, but that the little penguin was happy. She is wise. When we cleaned out Marie Charlotte’s rabbit cage. Johanna told me I had a Spanish accent. I took it as a compliment. She hadn’t heard of Australia, so I gave her and Emma a small koala each. Now they know Australia exists – score! I informed French children of the existence of my country. Australia is great, go there. I’ve invited a lot of people to stay at my place...

In other news, I’ve now eaten a Nutella, Apple and Banana pizza. It was even better than it sounds.

Love from Holly.

Best weekend ever!

Yep. Last weekend was the Rotary Journées Pour La Paix, where a couple of hundred exchange students from around France got together to create world peace or something. It started with an all-Aussie car trip with some of my awesome district girls, then we wandered into a huge UN-style peace conference full of old men making speeches in French and intelligent exchange students answering questions in microphones on cameras. They thought my first name was Holly-Joyce, the crazy French. After that we mingled over delicous patisseries and realised that there were a hell of a lot of Australians. It was a pretty exciting realisation... got to speak ENGLISH, and not just in a kind of 'I come with you and we makes something' way. The night was fun, getting lost in a large maze like caravan park, but eventually finding stuff & people, and losing my favourite new french bag... sniff!

The second day we did a 'March for the Peace'. This involved getting up too early, then waiting a few hours in the rain for the sea to go down so we could walk from the mainland to an island. We did this walk... my shoes got rather wet. I didn't get the message about bringing gumboots to walk through the sea. Not sure how all this promoted peace, but yeah. We walked to an island. We then ate lunch, got on buses and drove home over the convenient nearby bridge.

That night was a pretty awesome dinner. They should never let a group of Australians near a paper tablecloth, especially with water... I think the waiters ended up really hating us. We had an awesome time though, doing a bit of the old AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE! OI OI OI! Three days later and I still sound a bit like a man. The Mexicans challenged our awesome Aussieness with some kind of song and a conga line... they're pretty cool, the Mexicans. Two of them were called Jesus! One of the Jesuses likes my hair. I feel blessed. That night we played hide and seek, and listened to quite a few stories beginning with 'this one time, i was really fucking drunk...'

The next day we built a giant sand sculpture and a giant mosaic. I also made a paper crane who made risotto with Michael's grue, and ate some cake without hands or cutlery. It was lovely, thanks for asking. In the afternoon I trekked to the next town with Charlottle, Alex and Lloyd to visit the supermarket for essential supplies which had to be hidden where the Hippos ride Bikes.

Saturday night was a giant spectacular soiree where I danced the Tecktonik (look it up on Youtube, it's the coolest dance in France... and i, ME, danced... I'm NUL in dance!), sung spontaneously with all the Aussies, and got to watch some awesome acts including Alex on the piano (he deserved the 300 person standing ovation) and the Haka which was magnificent. That night was awesome... first French all-nighter! The next day was kind of a blur as I slept in the car and arrived home muddy and unslept to find the whole family sitting at a big lunch for Léa's 12th birthday. I was lucky enough to skip lunch and just sleep... yeah.

Well, apart from the awesome weekend, it's been school. I realised I kind of have a group now. Every day I hang with Marion, Drissilia, Julie, Johan, Marjelene and Charlotte. They're pretty cool. Marion likes emo boys, Drissilia is extremely nice, Julie asks a lot of questions, Johan sometimes straightens his hair, Marjelene is glued at the lips to her boyfriend who I guess is by default part of the group, and Charlotte has cool fashion sense. 'Where'd you get your cool overalls, Charlotte?' 'Oh, I picked them up when I lived in Paris.' They are a great group of people, and Marion will be in my class again next year when I change from Science to Literature. School is nothing like in Australia... I got 4/20 in maths and was really excited to get 7.5/20 in biology.

Well, that's enough for now. I'm now starting to like Facebook so if you feel like it, drop me a wall post. Or a myspace comment. Or an email. Or a letter. Or a text, I've got a phone now! +336 66 37 14 67 is the numero. Easy as fish!

Love from Holly the master tecktonicker.

100percent family friendly

Update time! The Swedish are long gone now, but it was a great week. Spoke ENGLISH... they really are amazingly good at their second language, the Swedes. They were all cool, and we went to an Aquarium! Luckily I knew the Swedish word for fish so I could understand half their conversations. Unfortunately I can't go to Sweden on the exchange with my class... I was disappointed.
There's me wearing my disappointed accesories/expression. I suppose I save 400€ and get a week of no school. Still... Sweden! I could have seen Swedish things!

So lately I've... been to school. That's about it. The maths teacher expects me to understand when he explains things. 'What is it that you don't understand, Holly?'
'Well, um... maths?'
Yeah. He also expects me to do the tests. Luckily none of the other teachers do, so it's a-o-k. This year doesn't count hurrah. Only two weeks of school left until the next holidays. Monday is a public holiday for Easter... but Good Friday (which was yesterday) isn't! There were easter eggs with lunch but I have not seen one single hot cross bun in France. I'm looking forward to hiding bunnies in the garden tomorrow... then eating them. As well as bunnies; the Easter bell is popular here. Yep, the easter bell.
Regard the easter bells next to the gold rabbits.

There's a lack of Cadbury here... but here's the first Cadbury product I found in France!

Luxury cookies! They were good. Also ate some Cadbury Fingers with Rachel. Sorry for making horrible jokes about fingers, Rachel! Really.

Here is a cat with two different coloured eyes. It was on an island that we went to.

Here is a car the same as Claire's Dad's. I was excited...
Here's Léa's favourite new hat. Un ananas.

There are my current host parents, Christophe and Isabelle.

There's Marie Charlotte wearing my sunnies, which the French love. Score!
Here's one of the two cats. Osiris. He's pretttty cool.

The local rope factory (now a museum) calles La Corderie Royale. When the French people in my class tried to translate the name into English, they called it The Royal String Factory. Hahaha string. Large string. The factory is really long so they could make long rope. Why not just fold it?

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=35715766&albumId=10064

There are my myspace pictures. Look at them! If the link works that is. Try myspace.com/endocringe if not.

Tonight I'm going to a party... my first French one. They just don't have parties like us. Maybe in summer... who knows.

Lots of love from olly.