Adventures in France!

well i’m home

i gotta say, im super happy to be back.  it does not feel like ive been gone for three months.  walking into my house after a nice car ride with my mom with my dog and cats and dad was so great.  it was even greater sleeping in my bed last night.  i do miss people, but now im just so happy to be back.  im excited to go to school tomorrow and see all my friends, and go to band and jazz band and everything.  so yeah!

thanks to everyone for following me and keeping up with my adventures while i was in a whole different country!  not going to be updating this blog anymore obviously.  bye all!

i had to sit on my suitcase to close it

and it took me a good 2 minutes

but its still under 25 kg!  go me!  :D

so wow, paris!

was super great!  it rained all week and i was sick for half of it but it was still fantastic.  im not going to make a huge long post with all the pictures because a) too many pictures, b) im tired and c) im lazy.

i saw all the classic things like the louvre, arc de triomphe, sacre coeur, eiffel tower, champs elysees, etc.  we walked a ton, took the metro a ton, got rained on a ton, and had a ton of fun!  im exhausted from a week full of doing things but it was quite enjoyable.

so i got back, unpacked my bag, skyped my parents, had dinner, and packed my bag for canada.  yup, thats right.  i packed all of my clean clothes, gifts, shoes, and other such things in my suitcase.  it wasnt that difficult!  granted i have a lot of clothes in the wash, but still!  plus after zipping it all up i weighed it and its around 18 kg, and my limit is 23.  insane!  i have more room too because the suitcase is expandable, and i have vacuum bags i didnt use.  the rest of my stuff is going in my backpack and my purse.  i seem to be having less trouble packing to go back than i did coming here, despite the fact that ive acquired rather a lot of things.

its strange packing up whats been my life for the past three months.  i cant say as i like it.  its hard because its actually hitting me that im leaving in two days.  i dont want to leave but i have to.. its super sucky knowing i wont see the people here i love for at least another year.  life will go on but its not very fun right now.  

i just have to profit as best i can tomorrow on my last full day and look forward to when i’ll come back! 

heading off to paris tomorrow until saturday!

bye everyone!  :D

quoi de neuf?

yesterday i went to verdun with etiennes class!  i got up at 4:00 in the morning, woo.  we left at around 5 in the morning, and got to our first little place at 9ish? idk i didnt find it that interesting, i didnt pay attention much.  we went to this huge place that was a memorial to the 130,000 people that died, that place with all the crosses in rows and rows and rows.  i dont know the name of it because as i said i didnt listen much xD 

this thing.  we also went to an underground cathedral, and there was a tour thing where you sat in a little cart and got taken around, where there were projections of actor doing scenes and stuff talking about different aspects of the war and life in verdun.  it was cool o:

after that, we had lunch and then went to the coolest thing of the day, the trenches!  it was a section of land where the ‘mining war’ took place between the french and german; they each tried to dig under the other and put a shit ton of explosives and then run away, to explode the enemies above them.  the french dug 45 miles below the surface, the germans 100.  and this is rock that you get through about a mile a day.  it was super cool to explore some of the routes!  like, ive seen replicas and such, but this was the real deal.  this is where there were people actually fighting the war, and everything was still in crazy good conditions. there were bats too!  they were just hanging there sleeping, but like one of them was a foot away from me, it was really cute.  there were huge spiders too but that wasnt fun.  there was even moss and fungus growing around where the lights were hanging o: but yeah, it was super interesting.  my back hurt from crouching down so much, the ‘ceilings’ were super low.  at least i had a helmet for every time i hit my head (more than 10 times)

above ground, when looking across the landscape, it was crazy how much destruction could be seen.  there were mounds of earth everywhere, huge hills and huge depressions scattered about.  even driving along the roads, on either side you could see the same thing through the trees.  its like the ground was water and there was a storm and it was all wave-y but then stayed that way.  its super impressive o:

so that was that.  we got back at 8:30 at night, we came home and ate, played catan (etienne, lucas and i), then i went to bed.

then today i went to a fromagerie!  i got up at 8 which was kinda sucky but because i was so tired from yesterday i slept really well.  

the place was super cool!  since its saturday there werent that many people working, but we got a tour nonetheless.  it was super interesting to see how much care and precision goes into the making of cheese.  afterwards, we got to taste some of their cheeses, 6 different types eaten in order of weakest to strongest, with a nice red wine and delicious bread.  

theres me having wine at 10:30 in the morning!  ahaha mom and dad, arent you glad im being responsible here?

so thats what ive been up to lately.  tonight etiennes having a party, sunday i chill and pack for paris, monday-saturday is paris, the sunday after that i re-pack to go home, and then i leave.  wow.  9 days.. let’s not think about that, its too sad.

but yeah!  that was my life over the past two days.  fun fun!

new skirt!  you can kinda see my outfit too, just a plain white tank top and my blazer.  i also wore my black heels today.  got so many compliments!

look how pleated it is!  :D so preeeeeeeeetty

alors, j’ai passé mon dernière jour à l’ecole.

it was super sad, but also super fun.  i spent all day with my french friends, except for like half an hour when i talked with bri and luisa.  i spent a long time correcting a whole bunch of written assignments my classmates had in english, which was actually fun, i was super popular all day because of that, ahaha.  i got to talk to a lot of people while doing it, it was nice.  

our two hour math class at the end of the day was kinda insane today.. my friends organized a ”goûter” for me, a little snack in the middle of class, because we have a 2-5 minute break.  there was tons of candy and pop and such, and everyone was happy and all crowded around our desks and it was wonderful.  the teacher got kind of annoyed it was taking so long, so she told us to start class again, but we sure as hell didnt get less crazy.  people kept passing candy all around the class when she wasnt looking, in little plastic cups.  everyone was hyped up on sugar, and multiple people got sent outside for part of the class.  i also passed around a little book i bought for people to write in, and a ton of my friends did.

i have honestly the sweetest notes in it.  everyone told me to come back some day and that theyre going to miss me so much.  valentin, a guy i dont talk to much, wrote lyrics from a song by Patrick Bruéf that say ”On se retrouverat dans 10 ans, même jour, même date, même lieu.” (we’ll find each other again in 10 years on the same day, same date, same place).  agathe, my closest friend, wrote that right from the first day they noticed i was different and thats what completes my charm.  she said that being my friend was like having a sister, and she’s super sad her sister of the heart is leaving.  lucie really liked the drawings i gave her, and she gave me one of her rings i really liked, a little owl.  marie-fleur wrote a super long message, and alexandra did too and gave me a drawing of a flower.  everyone wrote such nice things.. agathe also gave me presents; two rings, a necklace, and some lip balm.

im so happy i met so many incredible people, and i really, really hope i get to see some of them again some day.

I’m so sad I have to leave so soon… tomorrow’s my last day at school.  I’m writing my closest friends little notes that I’m going to give to them and I’m almost crying.  Okay I am crying a bit.  It’s ending too soon, I don’t want to say goodbye to everyone.  I’ve made so many amazing friends, and I don’t want to never see them again.  This town, this country, is practically my home now, and I can’t stand the thought of not being here in two weeks.  I want to live here for so much longer.. three months is a long time, but it’s not long enough.  It’s far too short for me.  I’m realizing how soon I have to go, it’s becoming too real.  I don’t want to be torn away from something I love so much.

leaving is gonna suuuuuuuck so hard

my friends in my class keep telling me how much theyre going to miss me, especially lucie.  even the ones i dont really talk to all that much.. they keep saying im such a part of their class and their lives now and itll be super weird not having me around and askdhas im going to miss everyone so much

like i just started getting closer with others in my class besides agathe, marie-fleur and alexandra (my three closest friends).  im talking with others more, like lucie, loris, emile, marwha, marie-sarah, antoine, alexandre… almost everyone!  nooooooooo i want to stay so much longer this is so sad D:

so aline keeps being just about the nicest person ever :)

this morning when she was driving me to the bus stop, i mentioned that tulips are my favourite flowers.  she just called me down to the kitchen, where she showed me a bouquet of tulips in a vase.  she asked our neighbour if she could have some for me to put in my room.  isnt she the best?!

its gonna suck so bad leaving this house and this town and this country and this continent alkshjdalksjhda D:

francois is blasting indian music

this is fun..?