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.