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.