Happy Thanksgiving (Just a Little Late)

I’d like to start by wishing everyone a happy thanksgiving(just a tad belatedly.) I hope the turkey and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pies(or whatever your particular thanksgiving traditional foods might be) were wonderful. Personally, it wasn’t the food I was missing so much but the atmosphere and the day of being with my family. I was sitting in class at 4:30pm on Thursday afternoon and thinking...not counting the differences in time zone, what would I be doing right now if I were back home? Well, the truthful answer is that I didn’t really know. I find that my family is somewhere different practically every year for Thanksgiving. But, I’m always with my family. Being so far away and really thinking about the celebrations happening without me was kind of tough. I can only imagine that Christmas and my birthday are going to be impossible because I have traditions associated with those holidays that I have had since I was one year old.

But, I survived Thanksgiving. I survived being in school all day and all week while my friends back home are on vacation. I survived not having every person I met on the street not wish me “Happy Thanksgiving.” And I survived not eating until my stomach hurt, taking a break, and then coming back for pie. To celebrate Thanksgiving, I made peanut butter cookies that I shared with my host family. They don’t really have anything to do with Thanksgiving, but they kept me occupied in the kitchen and doing dishes after dinner, so it sort of felt like Thanksgiving all the same.

My Happy Thanksgiving Peanut Butter Cookies

Actually, speaking of Thanksgiving, Thursday was the first day when the Christmas decorations really started to appear. Lights have been hung around parts of downtown and wreaths are beginning to appear on doors. A nice pine tree has been placed in the recreation room at our school. Now, why are they allowed to put a Christmas tree in the school? Oh yeah, it’s a catholic school. Having gone to public school since first grade, it still weirds me out to be walking down the hallways and see posters saying “Buy tickets to go see the play” and the next to it “Join the prayer group, in the chapel at lunch on Tuesdays.” But, it does bother me a bit that all of the Christmas preparations began before Thanksgiving and before December 1st. That always drove me insane back home in the states, but I guess here I can forgive the lack of respect for Thanksgiving’s right to be a holiday and have it’s time, considering it doesn’t exist here.

Now, on to my week(since I’m sure all of you Americans sitting around celebrating vacation are dying to hear about how I had to go to school. It’s ok, you can admit. I gloated when I had 10 days off for All-Saint’s day, so you can gloat now. But be warned, when I get two weeks in February and two weeks for Easter, then we will see who’s laughing.)

My AFS orientation was...well, good. It actually sort of turned into an AFS weekend since I hung out with some AFS friends before. Saturday, I hung out in town with Federica and our friend Ragnhild. We shopped and wandered around the mall for a while. I even managed to find peanut butter that wasn’t too expensive so i could make my peanut butter cookies. The skippy was ridiculously expensive so I had to get another brand, but it was pretty good. Then, went for hot chocolate. The store was a little cafe that was trying to be a Starbucks. there was even a sign outside that said “The American Way of Life.” And the logo looked like the Starbucks logo. We chatted and just hung out in the coffee shop until it was time for Ragnhild to take the train back. Then Federica and I took the bus to my house. I pointed out all of the “interesting landmarks” along the way. Thierry drove us to Federica’s house where I was going to be spending the night so Federica’s host mom could take me to the AFS day the next day. I made another batch of amazing chocolate chip cookies that night, but they weren’t quite as great. I overworked the dough so the butter was runny. The cookies flattened in the oven before they had time to rise, so they were really flat. But, they still had a good flavor and were happily devoured the next day at the AFS orientation. Federica made an Italian bread from her grandma’s handwritten recipe and I couldn’t wait to try it the next day. It was great, and it also promptly disappeared as we sat down for lunch the next day. 

Raghnild, Federica, and me in downtown Valenciennes

My freshly purchased peanut butter. not as good as Skippy, but decent all the same.

L'American Way of Life. Yep, imitation Starbucks.

The orientation was your typical AFS orientation, lots of sitting around and talking, drawing curves with our mental happiness fluctuations, taking lots of pictures, and hanging out with friends. It was just the 8 girls of our chapter with our volunteers, instead of all of the kids of the north. We have become a really close group and have a lot fof un hanging out, even when that hanging out involves talking about the AFS rules. Of course, we had to have time for snacking on cookies, plus a really nice lunch. When the host parents came, the students were kicked out to go for a walk, so we strolled around in the nice weather(probably one of the last days of nice weather.) We came back, everyone hung out and talked for a while, coffee and dessert was served, and we all just chilled some more. But eventually, even though know one was really ready to go home, the fact that it was Sunday night and we all had school the next day kicked in. We headed home to our respective host families to get ready for the week.

The AFS orientation and our chapter of girls

I learned a few things at the orientation. For one, it sounds like sunday dinner is pretty low-key, leftovers or take what you want all over france. In my host family, sunday dinner is early and we eat waffles in front of the tv. the other exchange students said that in their host families, it is kind of every man for himself. The host parents explained that Sunday afternoons, french families usually eat lunch together and really take the time to talk and relax. so by sunday evening, no one is super hungry for a big dinner, and you don’t want to spend too much time at the table since you have to get ready for school or work.

I also heard the french point of view on the 35 hour work week and the “french are lazy” stereotype. I was told that yes, the french have a 35 hour work week and lots of vacation, but that it is necessary because when they are at work, French people really work. It isn’t 15 minutes of work, chat with your neighbor, 15 more minutes, coffee break, 15 more minutes, make some phone calls, ect.” It sounds like work is really stressful and people are actually really productive at work. It surprised me to compare the french 35 hour work week but 9 hour school day with the american 40 hour work week but 7 hour school day. It seems like it would be the opposite. But, i learned that as the French get older, the day gets sorter but more stressful. The young kids are at school for a really long time, but they have fun. As they get older, they have less hours of school, but they have more work to do at home and more stress during class. And the principle applies into the working world too.

So on to the school week. Not a great week for me. I got sick on Monday and had to go home early(probably the first time I have left school early because I was sick since about 8th grade.) Back home, i always found I got more stressed and more sick the longer i stayed at home because catching up when I got back was so hard. But here, I decided it was better to go home and sleep and try to get back in form that struggle to stay when I didn’t really understand what was going on anyway. I was still sick throughout the week but i got a bit better each day. Unfortunately, Wednesday was the regional cross-country meet and I was still pretty sick. I had a really hard time running and was proud of myself for finishing and not giving up, rather than proud of my bad placement. It was unlucky timing and I didn’t qualify for nationals, but that’s ok. It was still a fun experience to go to the 2 meets and walk the course beofre-hand and eat my sandwich and cheer for the others from the school.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, which I talked about above.

Friday was a typical Friday, nice and short. I brought some leftover peanut butter cookies to my friends at school, and a few people at school said “Oh, yesterday was Thanksgiving, wasn’t it?” Lunch was pretty funny. The cafeteria had a Swiss Animation. Apparently, multiple times per year, the cafeteria does these country animations. They hung strings of Swiss flags and flags with skiers on them all over the room. They had quilts of skiers hung on the walls. There was Swiss music playing as we walked in the doors. The cafeteria people were dressed in traditional Swiss outfits. We had some kind of Swiss food, but it was better than the normal food at the cafeteria(which is already pretty good) so that was cool. There was even a fake goat at the top of the stairs. At one point during the meal, i was sitting downstairs and glanced up the stairs. I saw the goat, thought it was real, jumped in my seat and had to explain my behavior to my questioning classmates.

As I explained before, Friday was the start of my weekend. I got home and just had time to pack and jot out my tiny blog post before getting picked up by Federica’s host mom. She took me to her house, where we got ready for the theater we were going to that night. We drove off to the town about 20 minutes away where the theater was. It was a group, and one of the AFS host fathers was acting in the show. It was really confusing for me at first, but by the second act, when i had taken the time to read the program and understand the characters, it was really funny. I was even able to understand some of the jokes that involved plays on words. In a foreign language, I think that’s pretty impressive. Some of the other AFS students who also came to the show fell asleep during the show, but I kept my eyes open and kept following along. It was frustrating when I would understand a whole speech someone said and then I wouldn’t understand the last line, and then everyone would laugh. But, it was still fun.

By the end of the show, around 11:00 pm, I was really hungry(having eaten nothing but a clementine since lunch.) I didn’t know what the plan for food was, or if there evn was one, but being the guest, I just waited patiently. After the show, we all went into the lobby and talked and talked until 11:30 pm. At that point, I was reaching the point of being too tired to be hungry. We finally left the theater and got into the car, and I was thinking, “Ok, we are heading home, right?” Well, not really. We drove into Belgium and went to a friterie with Clara and her host family, in addition to me and Federica and Therese. We were sitting around eating fries in Belgium at 12:30 am. That is definitely something I had never done before.

When we finally left, we drove back to Federica’s house and collapsed into bed. The next morning, I had breakfast and then got to work. I was making cookies to take to Nicole’s 18th birthday party that night. I pulled out the trusted, and now very dirty, chocolate chip cookie recipe and set to work. But, I decided to tweak it a bit, since all my AFS friends had already had my chocolate chip cookies just the weekend before. I added peanut butter too. I ended up with 60 cookies, a very nice number, sampled just one or two(or maybe 4 or 5) let them cool and then boxed them up with my other presents. While I was slaving away in the kitchen. Federica was at her flute lesson, where she is playing beatle’s songs. When she got back. Therese made us spaghetti with pesto. Well, I was a bit nervous, since I have never like pesto. But, I was playing tennis with Federica and the boyfriend of her host sister that afternoon, so I needed to eat something besides cookies(even if i do claim there is protein in peanut butter.) Well, it turned out that the pesto sauce was great and I ended up taking seconds.

After lunch, Federica and I changed into our tennis clothes(including high-topped hot pink converse for me since I had left my tennis shoes at my host family’s house) and then we headed off to play tennis. We played “indoors” but it was technically walls with a tarp-like tent as a roof. So, needless to say, being the north of france, it was very cold. The fact that I was in pants not having brought shorts for the weekend was a plus, rather than a minus. It was really fun to be back on the court, even a weird French clay court.

When tennis was over, we went back to Federica’s house and showered for the party. For me, getting ready meant showering, putting my hair in a ponytail and putting on clean clothes. For Federica, it meant a dress, make-up, and straightening her hair. So, we can already see some different personalities. Didn’t matter. There were 6 very very different girls at Nicole’s house and we all managed to have an amazing time. That’s what I love about AFS. Our chapter of girls is so close that we can come from all over the world and have a fantastic sleep-over together.

Sorry to everyone I have ever had a sleep-over with before, but this was definitely the best sleep-over of my life. That is a major accomplishment considering how many awesome slumber parties I have hosted and been to.

It started the way all of our AFS activities do: everyone coming in, doing the bisous, and then posing together for pictures. We sat around and chatted about how things are going at school and with our families and with life in general, glad for the chance to catch up, and happy to be talking to people who could understand us even when we had to think for 30 seconds to find the word we wanted. The cookies appeared on the table as Nicole started opening her birthday presents from us. One of Nicole’s presents was a journal for us to sign and write notes to her, so we passed it around and munched on cookies and chips until dinner. Dinner was amazing. Nicole’s host mom had made 3 different kinds of pasta(pesto, butter and cheese, and bolognese tortellini). We all sat at a table with Nicole’s host family and really talked about how we are all having the same difficulties. It was really cool that even though there were a lot of us eating together, we were having one conversation that everyone was participating in, instead of lots of little conversations. It was a real french dinner of sitting around talking long after the forks had finally been set down. I talked to Nicole’s host parents about my opinion of Obama, people compared their classes and grades, everything. We were like a group of normal teenagers just hanging out and enjoying being together, not worrying about the fact that we were all a long way from home and family. Here, we have each other as our loving AFS family.

Nicole with her happy birthday journal. Tita drew a picture with all of us at the party. It was amazing how she was able to really capture our personalites with just a little stick person, but it is true. Nicole especially looks just like her. If you can't read it, from left to right: Sylwia, Federica, Nicole, me, Ling, and Tita. 

I think we finally got up from dinner around 10:30 pm, and then the next traditional slumber party item came out: the karaoke. We sang some greenday, some beatles, and some french songs. Let me tell you, it is weird to hear someone singing Greenday perfectly but with a very strong Italian accent. I can only imagine how bad I sounded singing “Toi + moi” with Nicole’s host mom. That song is really hard because it is really like he never breathes. We both ended the song literally panting and I had to get some water. When we had sung ourselves out and finally had room in our stomachs, probably around midnight, we ate dessert. I wasn’t the only one who had brought a dessert. Nicole’s little host sister had made chocolate macarons (super yummy), I had made my peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, Nicole had made crepes and sugar tarts, and Ling had brought custards. Nicole’s swiss family had sent her candles that spelled out “happy birthday” so we lit the sugar tart and sang “Happy Birthday” in 7 different languages before Nicole was allowed to blow out the candles. We stuffed ourselves with dessert and then split into a few groups. Some of us played some violent spoons with Nicole’s host siblings, culminating in a tug of war over the last spoon. Some nail polish and hair braiding began. Nicole and Sylwia took a break and laid down for a bit, but still laughed at us as we played.

All the girls at the party posing in front of the birthday cake, plus Nicole's host brother, Theo, who was dragged into the picture. We were told that he was overwhelmed by all the girls. Apparently in the years past that Nicole's family has hosted, there has always been a boy or two in the group.

I’m not exactly sure when Nicole’s host parents went to bed, but I’m guessing they didn’t have much luck sleeping. At some point, Nicole and I started singing random songs, starting simply with “Bingo” and “Old MacDonald had a Farm” and ending with High School Musical, obviously effects of drinking coca cola at 1:00 am. Slywia, Theo(Nicole’s host brother), Loulou(her host sister), Nicole, and I played a trivia game on the TV, and one of the categories was American Sports. I totally rocked the category, although I missed the question about some famous hockey player. I think everyone was in bed around 2:30 am, but we weren’t sleeping. Federica and Tita and Louise were laughing constantly about something or other all night. Nicole and I stayed up until 4:00 am just talking. Talking about life and troubles here, and ending with college systems in our home countries. When we finally did fall asleep, it wasn’t for long. My host family was coming at 10:00 am to pick me and Sylwia up, so we had to get up and eat breakfast and get ready. The last of the 60 cookies were eaten, as well as the left over crepes and tart from dessert the night before. Of course, there had to be some chatting before we could leave, so while the adults were talking, Nicole and I epically failed at playing billiards(but she eventually beat me) while some of the other girls played on the piano or took pictures. When we left the party, the car ride home was very quiet. Both Sylwia and I were too tired to really say anything.

Playing( or failing at playing would be the more accurate term) billiards at Nicole's party. I succeeded in getting the white ball into a pocket 5 times, but I was having lots of trouble getting the colored balls in.

I got back to my host family’s house and started working on homework for Monday. After a little bit, my host father came over and said they were planning to go to the cinema and did I want to go. I said “oh yeah.” Going to the movies here is so cool because it’s a chance to get out of the house, to practice my french, and to having something to talk to other people about at school. So, even though I was running on 4 hours of sleep, i went to the movie. We went to see “Intouchables,” a new and really popular movie. The showing was sold out. Some of my school classmates saw me at the theater and told me at school monday that they had wanted to see it, but it was sold out so they had to go to Twilight instead. I really, really liked the movie. It was a happy, feel good movie, but based on a true story. When we got home and were eating our Sunday night waffles, there was an interview on the TV with the people who inspired the movie, so that was perfect timing. I headed to bed soon after, completely exhausted from my awesome weekend.

3 more weeks until Christmas vacation. Lights are going up in Valenciennes. Ads for Christmas gifts are all over the TV and billboards. Everyone(including me) is counting down until the holidays. But, I do have a few plans before then. I’m going to make Christmas sugar cookies for my host family. I’m going to help decorate the house. I have an AFS activity in Lille so we are going to go and look at the decorations and go to a christmas market, too. And there is some talk of doing charity work selling christmas candles to raise money. As long as we don’t have to go caroling, I can handle it. I will sing karaoke at 11:00 pm with my friends if I have had enough sugar and not enough sleep, but besides that, singing is not usually my preferred activity.

Well, I know there are a lot of random details here. When I see my friends back home after a long time of being apart (or maybe even just a weekend) we talk about what we did. My mom once asked, “This is what you guys do when you get together? 'Here, let me read my diary to you and then you read your diary to me?'” referring to the fact that we just go through what we did. But, I think my activities this weekend and my details are pretty cool, so I’m going to share my diary with all of you. I hope you enjoyed this very detailed snapshot of a weekend in France with friends from around the globe.

Patience is Key

Sorry, but the blog post for this week has to be put on hold. It is a work in progress at the moment, but I'm leaving for an awesome weekend in 20 minutes. I will have so much to write about when I get back, so I promise: your patience will be rewarded. Sorry, I know you have all been checking each day to see if I posted. Sorry, sorry. I promise, there are some great pictures to come too, but I don't have time to upload them right now.

Have a good weekend everyone and I'll be writing soon.

Getting Chilly

Well, another week completed. All that remains for my school week to be finished is Koh Lanta, which is 2 hours from now. Its getting intense since its down to 8 or 9 people. I don’t know if it’s a result of improved french or just caring more about the show, but im following the strategy better. I also understood what was on the radio this morning, instead of having it sound like mush, so that must mean progress, too. I think the thing about improving steadily because you have no choice, with anything but especially with language when you are totally immersed, is that you dont really realize how much you are improving because you get just a bit better each day. It’s like when you are young and you are growing taller. You don’t notice it, but then one day you look around and realize you are almost as tall as your mom. You just have to step back a little bit to see where you started and see where you currently are, and then the distance in between is pretty incredible, especially because you didnt really see it happening. So i think my french probably is improving but its just that there are still so many challenging new things to learn so it is still difficult.


I had three days without any homework this week. It was great. i came home, watched TV(which is sort of homework for me since it's in french) knitted and hung out with my brothers.  Although I am sometimes frustrated by being bored, I do really enjoy having nights with no homework except to study(but, i dont stress about studying for DS's too much since there are other parts to the experience.)

I used Skype for the first time on Thursday. It really is pretty cool that I can be all the way in the north of France and thanks to a free computer application and an internet connection, I can see my mom in the office back home. I know a lot of the other AFS kids have been using skype a lot to communicate back home, but I wanted to wait until I was a little bit more comfortable here. I talked to my mom for a bit about random things, and then Matthis came home. He was fascinated with the webcam and wanted to talk to my mom. So, i ended up playing translator while he and my mom talked about school and his favorite flavors of ice cream. But, because i was still using my french, i didnt have to feel guilty about losing french progress because i was spending time speaking english.

I met another american from Louisiana on Saturday. He is doing the language assistant at a high school program. Basically, it is a program where college aged kids from foreign countries come and live in French high schools. They teach a few language classes at the school and I’m not really sure what else they do. At my school, we have an English assistant and a spanish assistant. My group has classes with Thomas(the spanish assistant) every other friday with just 10 kids. It is cool because we laugh and joke around and everyone(including me) has to participate. Having never taken spanish(except a few years in elementary school where we learned the same 10 things every year) you can imagine that spanish classes are tough. But, I took a stab at reading a paragraph out loud and I dont think it was that bad. And, Im clearly becoming frenchified because when i messed up the spanish pronunciations, it was because i was using french phonetics instead of spanish ones, rather than making mistakes by using english phonetics.

Anyway, back to my encounter with the american guy. We started talking in english but i kept making mistakes. It was like my tongue was fighting against the harsh english sounds. I remember my first “Journée toute en Français”(all day in french) at the alliance Française in sacramento. When i left, my tongue felt like mush and wanted hard english words to chew on. Now my tongue is rebelling against the english sounds. So I talked to the american guy for a bit about how we liked france and all of the typical conversation starters. He would sometimes try to translate for the french girl listening to our conversation. It was nice to hear someone else speaking french with a very obvious american accent and made me feel less self-conscious,(especially because i think my french was better than his.)  But i felt really self-conscious speaking english, like he was going to judge me. And i kept saying things in the french way, like putting my adjectives after the nouns instead of before. Everything i said just felt really awkward and I was sure there was a better way to say it but I couldn’t think of it. Even in english class at school, I have a hard time getting the proper words out.

Remember my amazing chocolate chip cookies from last week? They were so well received that when there was just one left, the boys played rock paper scissors for it. Now that is a nice compliment, especially considering we have a cupboard of store-bought cookies they could have eaten.

I raised my hand and answered a question in SVT the other day. I got the answer right, although it was a very simple question. But it still kind of felt like everyone was saying “Wow! She answered a question.” And when I went to the knitting store today, my friend told the lady I was American so she could help by translating a bit. The lady took that took mean I didn’t speak any french at all. She would talk directly to my friend and when i responded because i had perfectly understood the question, she would say “Wow, you understood.” And when the knitting lady did talk directly to me, she talked really slowly and loudly and got louder each time. By the time I paid and left, she was practically yelling.

My homeroom classroom has some personality now, although it is one of the only rooms in the school with personality. The chem lab has some periodic tables posted around, but no jokes about what makes for a good chemist (writing the report before doing the lab) or bumper stickers about “Honk if you passed P-Chem.” (If you have ever had Mr. Montbriand, you will understand the references. If not, sorry.) My homeroom is also the classroom where the majority of the german classes take place. There are posters with little saying and pictures in german on them, things like “How do you say ... in French/German?” and “Would you open the window, please?” We also have the trophy our class won for being best placed out of the 7 première classes in our classroom. So, now it at least has more personality than a chalk board and some desks surrounded by 4 walls.

I really hate the way math is taught here. There is a specific system that has to be followed and the teacher says things like “You don’t have to know this but I’m required to show it because it is part of the program.” The government sets the standards and the teachers don’t really have any power to do anything differently.

The first trimester ends in a week or two. We have two DS’s next week: 4 hours of french and 2 hours of math. French will not be fun. Last time, i didn’t even understand the text we were analyzing so i really couldn’t respond to the question. I just wrote about the differences in schooling systems and tried to practice my french. i did actually pass a recent french test, though. I got 11 out of 20 on a vocab test, which is not great, really not even good, but it was a pass. But still, i should probably think about another topic to amuse myself with and write about in french during the 4 hours of being trapped in the testing room.

Tuesday was the last day of the ping pong sequence for sport. We move on to basketball for the next section. But unfortunately, we will be stuck taking the french DS so we wont get to have sport next week. Those are some of my favorite 2 hours of the week, so that’s disappointing. But, oh well.

The regional cross is on Wednesday. If I qualify, I will get to go to the national meet. But, I don’t know whether I will qualify. I haven’t been doing much exercise recently so I’m sure I’m even more out of shape than I was for the department meet. We’ll see.

Today I went shopping with a friend after school. It has gotten really cold here, and I needed to buy a coat to keep warm. Luckily I already have a scarf(thanks to Karina) so i fit in perfectly with my scarf wrapped around my neck. I first went to my favorite bakery and got a palmier(elephant ear) to supply me with energy during the exhausting process of shopping. We went to the yarn store next, since I though it was most likely to close first. I got some yarn to start a sweater, my next project once I finish my scarf. Then we went to the book store to buy the book I have to read for French class. I probably won’t understand it, but at least I can try. Maybe later in the year when my french is better, i can try again to read the book. And then we went to look for a coat. it was really frustrating for me. My broad tennis/basketball shoulders made finding a coat that fit almost impossible, and I was starting to get really frustrated. But I finally found a nice wool coat with enough room to put some other layers underneath. And then, to finish the afternoon, I got two amazing café expresso chocolates. It was a pretty fun afternoon, but it got dark so early that I had to come home before I would have wanted to.

Going to town after-school on a friday is like going to Loehmann’s plaza on a Thursday afternoon: you are basically guaranteed to see other people from your school. Walking around town we ran into lots of little groups of other people from our school. It’s like that is what people do on Friday night, they walk around town. And that’ my week. Nothing earth-shattering this week and no pretty pictures. Sorry. I’ll post some pictures of my new coat soon. 

i have my second AFS obligatory weekend coming up, but it's only one day. i think it will just be some more repetitive activities, reminders of the rules, and talking to our support liasons. But, it will be so much fun to get to see my international friends. I love the fact that my chapter doesnt have any other american AFS students so I dont have to worry about cheating my international experience by hanging out with them. I'll let you know how my weekend goes. 

Thank Goodness for Chocolate Chip Cookies

I want to start my blog post for thanking Ruth Graves Wakefield for accidentally discovering chocolate chip cookies in her attempts to make chocolate cookies by just putting chunks of chocolate in vanilla cookies. Chocolate chip cookies have saved the day. And a big thank you to Aunt Lisa for my birthday present a few years ago: my baking book thicker than my calculus textbook and full of amazing recipes. I just made the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had(even better than those from Napolitos) using the recipe from my baking book that I photocopied and brought.

I will admit it, I have had a really rough week. I had a whole lot of downs and not as many ups as I would hope. But this afternoon, chocolate chip cookies came to my rescue. Alexis and I made them together and they just totally brightened my day. They dont have chocolate chips here, so i had to chop up a giant bar of high quality dark chocolate, but it made them so much better. Some of the shavings flavored the cookie part, and some of the cookies have big chunks of chocolate. They are so great. No more store bought low quality chocolate chips for me when I get home. Plus, I now have the confidence to bake in metrics and i can use the oven, so now im ready to move on to bigger and better things, as well as starting to learn some french things. Watch out Edith, I might be invading your kitchen pretty soon.

I even got my brothers to help me cook. They helped me with clean up...why? because it meant licking the dough off of the spatulas and beaters. So, here you can see the uncooked but beautiful balls of dough, and then the perfectly golden cookies fresh from the oven. I was actually really scared to make this recipe, since it makes a ton of cookies. If it didnt work, I would have wasted a lot of ingredients. But it turned out perfectly and I was practically jumping up and down with happiness. My french kitchen confidence has sky-rocketed today.

Some funny stories from the week. We had a fire drill at school on Tuesday during my lab class. We had to leave the classroom and go into the courtyard in our lab coats and latex gloves. We looked so funny. And the fire alarm sounded like really bad and loud bagpipes. I was laughing because the noise was so funny and not fear inducing at all. But, it was definitely not as annoying as the rio fire alarm. 

In SVT this Tuesday, we moved on to our second dissection: pig eyes. Our pig eye was huge! And it was covered in fat. But it was so cool to see all the different parts of the eye and separate them, once you got past the fact that you were pulling the fat off of an eye that had been pulled out of a pig head. We even shaved a piece of the cristallin and looked at it under the microscope. And when I plunged the scalpel into the eye the first time, it made a squishing-sucking noise that sounded just like when Cyrus(my dog) chews on his squeaky ball in the backyard. My group of three burst out laughing and we were laughing so hard that our teacher came over and demanded to know what happened. And one group was pulling to try and get the fat off, and they squeezed to hard and the eye popped out of their hands and rolled across the room(which our teacher had warned us might happen just two minutes before.)

This was the first week of the school year that we didnt have french fries at the cafeteria. My friend and I clinked our glasses to “Santé” or “health,” celebrating the fact that we were eating potatoes boiled and coated in butter, rather than fried in oil. And another funny "la cantine"or cafeteria story...On thursday, i got to the part of the lunch line where you choose which meat you want. One of the choices was "Une brochette" (a shish kabob) or some sort of hamburger. When the lady asked "Une brochette ou un steak?" (steak haché meaning hamburger) i thought she said "...chat ou steak" which means "...cat or steak". I thought the shish kabob had chunks of cat meat on it! So i pointed to the other thing, which was some sort of hamburger patty and said thank you. When I got to our table, I asked my friends what the shish kabob was and they said "une brochette" and i asked what kind of meat it was and they said they didnt know, but probably beef. And i told them i had thought the lady said "cat" and they burst out laughing, saying only the chinese eat cat. They said "we eat frogs and snails, but we dont eat cat. we aren't that crazy." And then we proceeded to have a conversation about whether we would eat a cat if we were starving and had nothing else to eat. it was pretty funny. 

I ran in the department cross-country meet on wednesday and came in 4th in my division(birthdays in 1995-1996). But we ran at the same time as the 93-94 people, and I came in 6th overall, so if I had been older, i would have been third and medalled. It was very frustrating. But, I qualified for the regional cross-country meet in 13 days and if i do well enough, I will qualify for nationals. Plus, my team(the top five girls in my age group from my school) won our division. We actually had two teams in our division qualify from our school, since the top 4 teams qualify for regionals and we were 1st and 4th. So a lot of us get to move on.

Our team got a trophy for coming in 1st, plus medals for each individual. I decided to take the trophy home and take a picture with it before bringing it back and leaving it at school. My backpack was really full on thursday so i couldn’t put the trophy in. I had to ride the bus carrying it. And when I got on the bus and took a seat next to a little elderly women, she said “oh, you have a trophy. why?” and i explained about the meet and had a little conversation on the bus with a random french woman. I think that’s pretty cool.

Me with the team trophy from the department cross, my gold medal from the department cross, and my gold medal fromt the school cross.

I went to lunch with my AFS volunteer today. We ate at a really cute little italian restaurant which was super yummy. I got spaghetti and it was great. When we got to the restaurant at 12:15, there was absolutely no one there, but when we left, it was practically full. And then I got home and made chocolate chip cookies and made my day a million times better.

Everything is gearing up for christmas here, even though it is still early november. Without Thanksgiving as the holiday the grocery stores are advertising, all of the “Ideas for christmas” ads start now. Decorations are starting to appear. Ads on TV for the playmobile advent calendars. Aisles of the grocery store dedicated to christmas decorations and candy. So grocery stores here also go from one holiday to the next, but with less holidays, the ads start sooner. It is weird for me to hear all the talk about christmas when for me, this is thanksgiving gear-up season.  

Sorry that my post isnt very long this week, but I just had a kind of slow and pretty tough week, so I dont have that many things to write about.

Alexis being, well, Alexis. I tried to take a picture of the construction in the house, but he really wanted to be in the picture.

Edith made min-croissants for appetizers last week. She got the idea from the 8 hour luncheon where the appetizers were mini-croissants, and they were so good that she decided to recreate them for just us at home.

Well, here they are. I know you have all been waiting for it. Escargot! Edith and Thierry ate snails for appetizers last week.

A Laid Back Vacation

Well, we are home and vacation has come to a close. 6 weeks until our next vacation. I have also hit the two month mark, Halloween being the 2 month mark from the day I got on an airplane and flew away in search of new adventures. It has been quite an interesting two months, with a lot of ups and downs, but I can’t believe I only have 8 months left. So anyway, having missed last Friday’s post due to lack of internet access, it’s time to get you all acquainted with what I have been up to for the last two weeks.

I wouldn’t say I have been busy, but I wouldn’t say I have been bored. I have been riding that line the way you only can when you are on a nice, low-key vacation. It was quite a change from my normal style of vacation where every minute of every day is planned and action packed. Take a look at my last summer vacation, where i went to hawaii the week before i left, leaving myself only two days to pack for France. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We didn’t head to the Vosges until that Tuesday, and vacation started Friday, so there were a few things in between.

Sunday morning was the final of the rugby world cup. France lost 7-8 to New Zeland, but they fought valiantly. And really, if the New Zeland kicker had even made 50% of his attempts, the score gap would have been wider. i won the betting, since I was closest to the actual score. I said NZ would win 27-21, and the only other person who said they would win was Alex, and he said it would be something ridiculous, like 60-12. The whole family sat in front of the TV and watched the game, eating freshly bought croissants and baguettes.

Monday, I went to town with my friends from AFS. We went shopping and walked around a bit, and they spent the whole time telling me how lucky I am that I live within walking distance of downtown Valenciennes. The clothing shopping lasted a bit too long for my taste, but we also hit a bakery and I went to a chocolate shop in the mall. Oh man, that chocolate was great. I got a chocolate espresso cream and a caramel truffle, and both were fantastic. I’m afraid I might find myself going back very soon.

Me and Nicole in front of the city hall of Valenciennes.

I didn’t do anything for Halloween this year, since it is not a big holiday here. In France, November 1st is the national holiday, and it is All-Saints’ Day. However, Fête des Morts, or Holiday of the Dead, was on November 2nd this year, and I guess they normally come together. I’m not exactly sure. But, my pocket dictionary with some cultural information informed me that people normally visit graves of relatives on Nov. 1 to lay down flowers, so I’m guessing the two holidays are often sort of squished together. My host family made a Jack-O-Lantern as their tribute to Halloween, but we didn’t dress up or trick-or-treat or anything. Actually, at a family lunch with relatives one day of the vacation, Trick-or-treating was abused as an American tradition and the person didn’t think the french should be doing it, since it is not a part of their traditions. Anyway, the pumpkin was carved before we left for vacation and stayed to guard the door while we were gone.



We packed up my host mother’s mini-van with all the luggage and left around 230 pm on Tuesday to go to her parents’ house in Joinville, a small town in the Lorraine region. I think it was about 3 hours to Joinville from Valenciennes. When we got there, my “host grandparents,” as I will call them, were in the process of making quiche lorraine for dinner. I love quiche lorraine, and I had 4 pieces(which, I must admit, equates to half of an entire quiche.) But it was so good. We also had apple tart for dessert. For anyone interested, here’s how you make an apple tart in their style. You get your pastry crust from the store out of the refrigerator and put it in the tart pan. Then, you peel some apples. Then you slice the apples and put them in the pastry shell and put it in the oven. When it is done baking, you can sprinkle some sugar on top if you want. Ta da! Super simple. I think we had 3 during our 4 day stay since it was so easy to make and was good for breakfast the next morning too.

Apple tart and a freshly bought baguette. My host grandma walked to the bakery every morning to buy the bread so it was always super fresh.

On Wednesday, my host brothers, host mom, and I walked to the 16th century castle in Joinville, Château du Grand Jardin. Castle of the Big Garden is not the most exciting name for a castle, but it was pretty cool. It was more of a big house then a castle, but it had some really cool gardens. We walked all the way to the top floor and I took bird’s-eye view pictures of the gardens so that you can see the designs of the gardens. After the castle, we walked back through a park, and we all indulged in the chance to act like little kids. The sign on the playground said it was reserved for kids aged 8-12, but that didn’t stop us. We played on the teetor-totter and climbed up and down the slides. Basically, we goofed off and had a lot of fun, although the other kids in the playground gave us some funny looks.

This was my favorite garden at the castle, but there were some other nice ones too. And, the caste had a moat, which was awesome, but there were permanent stone bridges over it, rather than drawbridges. There were some huge fish in the moat and Alex and Matthis had fun pointing them out.

New York may be the real "Big Apple" but you can find big apples lots of the places. They were preparing for an exposition of local, seasonal crafts and products coming up that Sunday, and this was one of the icons of the exposition. You can see from the size of the castle behind me that it is really more just a big manor, but it was still super cool. The walls were about 5 feet thick of pure stone!

Playing on the playground was fun, but we had to find ways to make it more exciting. Lucas climbed across the top of the monkey bars and claimed it was a Koh Lanta challenge.

During the time at my host grandparents’ house, I got my first introduction to legitimate, slow paced 4 or 5 course meals. We would start with an appetizer and sit around eating it and talking for a while. Even after everyone was done with the appetizer, we would just keep sitting there. Finally, we would clear away the appetizer dishes and move on to soup. After soup came the main dish. After the main dish, the salad, closely followed by the cheese. And then the dessert. The cooking was really good in general, although I could not handle the cow tongue that we had for lunch Thursday. I took one bite and had to leave the rest of my piece on my plate. Luckily, the side dish was mashed potatoes, so no chance of me going hungry.

Our days with Edith’s parents were very laid back. Basically, i got up when i felt like it and had some breakfast. The boys would roll out of bed and into the kitchen for breakfast when they got around to it. It was a bit interesting sharing one toilet and one shower between 8 people, but we managed. Thank goodness the toilet is in a separate room from the shower, though, since sometimes four people in a row would be in line for a shower, and if you had to wait to use the toilet, there might have been issues. After breakfast, we would do homework or read or play games or just relax until lunch. Matthis had to memorize poetry for his homework, and by the time he learned it, the whole family had learnt it. Especially since after he knew it, he took pleasure in reciting it to everyone we talked to. Kathy and JD, this part is for you. Remember when we went to the close-up magic show on the cruise and we learned that trick with the two rubber bands? I taught Matthis, and he did it for every family member that we encountered during the rest of the week. The problem was, the only rubber bands we had were my hair ties. At one point, i had my ponytail all formed and I was ready to grab the rubber bands off my wrist to tie it up when I realized that Matthis had them because he was performing his trick. So, I had to stand their holding my ponytail until he was done and gave me my rubber bands back.

Lots of time to just chill and hang out during this vacation.

After lunch there was usually an outdoor activity, whether a walk to town, biking along the side of the canal, or a walk in the forest. The forests were absolutely gorgeous with all of the leaves changing colors in fall. There were so many different colors all around, it was amazing. One day, we drove to a hike which was actually a sort of trail with activities along the way. So, you walked or jogged along and then when you came to an activity, there was a sign explaining it. We did chin ups and jumped over logs and other random things. It was pretty fun. After the time outdoors, we would head back to the house and play more games and whatnot until dinner, although there was usually a snack involved immediately after the return home.

The Parcours de Santé and Alexis lifting Matthis up so he can reach the bar. What a nice brother, right? Well, that is until he pulled down Matthis's pants as he was hanging on the bar.

My long awaited photo of the stoplights for pedestrians telling you when you can walk. I think the little people are so cute.

One day, Alex and his grandma and I made a biscuit roulé, or what I would call a log cake. It was cool, since I had never made one before but I like to get a log cake from Baskin Robbins for my birthday. We used apple jelly for the filling, and sprinkled powdered sugar on top. It was my first time using metrics while baking, so that was a bit interesting. Most things are down by weight, rather than by size. For example, you use 100 grams of flour, rather than a cup of flour. We used a little electric balance to measure it. I’m thinking I will need to invest in a balance for my kitchen back home in the USA if I want to make any of the recipes I have been collecting.

Me and Alex making our biscuit roulé. Notice how I'm the one doing the actual manual labor and he is just waiting around to use the electrical machine.

After dinner, which was often a lengthy affair, we would watch TV and talk until bed. Edith and her dad played scrabble a few times, which was funny for me, since that is what my mom and I do a lot when we go on vacation. Except it was weird that the letter had different point values than I am used to. Like a k, which is, I think, only 4 points in american scrabble, was worth 10 points. Actually, that’s not surprising, since a lot of english words with k use q in french. Like risk is risque, so it makes sense that k would be 10 points and q only 3 or 4. I watched some random stuff on TV during that time after dinner each night. One night I watched a movie with Lucas about Europe losing all power and how people had to fight to survive and everything started to break because the back-up generators didn’t last long enough. It was quite odd, but I was proud to have mostly understood it. And another night during vacation, I watched a movie about Spanish women who rent rooms in France on the 6th floor of a rich man’s house to work. One of the women becomes his and his wife’s maid/housekeeper, and he ends up falling in love with her and his wife kicks him out so he takes a room on the 6th floor. Again, a little random, but I understood the movie, so that’s good. It is weird for me to be watching as much TV as I do here, having grown up with 3 channels and no time to watch TV. I think about seeing cartoons with Anti-TV sentiments(like a big guy with a tiny head sitting in front of the TV and a caption saying “Read more”) but for me, TV here means improving my French, so I don’t have to feel guilty.

Just for you Kathy, King's Corner has now traveled all the way to France.

My host father joined us in Joinville Friday night after work, missing only the first couple of minutes of Koh Lanta. We were all sitting at the table eating dinner and watching the show. But, my short-term traditions here are getting messed up. We didn’t have pizza friday night(my 1st friday without pizza) and we didn’t have waffles sunday night(again, 1st sunday here without waffles.) Plus, my school schedule is getting messed up. Before vacation, weeks when I had English Wed morning, I had ECJS thursday morning. But since I start again on thurs, we will have ECJS, but our wed english will be next week, so It is messed up. Luckily they did give us a paper with when we have all of those classes, so I dont have to keep track of it. Sorry, I started rambling off topic there. 2 people were eliminated this week in Koh Lanta, and it was the merge, so things have gotten interesting.

Saturday morning after breakfast, we packed up and headed to Gérardmer, a town farther East, where my host family has an apartment. Thierry’s family lives in that area, so we stayed in the apartment and visited the family at their different homes. The first afternoon we were there, we stopped for a while at Thierry’s aunt and uncle’s place, and they talked and had coffee. Then we drove to Thierry’s sister’s house, where we were going to have dinner. But first, we drove with her to look at her son’s house, which he has been working on. For dinner that night, we had rabbit, another first for me. I was not a fan. First of all, it was quite hard to eat since it was practically all bone. And secondly, I just didn’t really like the taste. But, there was pasta too, so all was good. And for dessert we had a really good chocolate mousse and ladyfinger cake, so that was cool.

I think my details may be getting a bit excessive, but I guess that’s ok, since this is sort of a record of my experience for myself too, as well as a blog for my readers.

The next day was the day of the 8 hour lunch. We went to Thierry’s brother’s house and lunch started around 1215. We didn’t leave until 815 pm and basically that whole 8 hours was spent at the table. There were 21 people there, and I was able to amuse myself for some time just trying to figure out who belonged to whom. It was my brothers’ cousin’s 20th birthday, and so they celebrated with a puff pastry cake, very traditional for birthdays and weddings. But yeah, it was a really long 8 hours for me, since I didn’t understand much and didn’t really know anyone. But, I did find it pretty funny when all of the adults started complaining about their GPS’s, since I think that is a pretty common table topic in the USA, too.

When we got back to the apartment, we made crepes since we (the kids) hadn’t eaten much at the luncheon. I had fun making the crepes on the cool 6 at a time machine, but I wasn’t actually that hungry. And we watched Shrek 3 that night. It was really weird when the credits came on and it was different people. But, with an animated film, if someone does the voice in a different language, they are the only actor for that part.

I don't think this really needs a caption, but I had a lot of fun making crepes and watching Shrek.

Monday, we played host to a different brother of Thierry and his wife, who came for dinner. They arrived at the apartment after lunch, and then we went for a walk/hike. We walked from the apartment to the Gérardmer ski area. It was so funny. The ski hills were just grassy slopes, and the grass had even been mowed. We hiked up what would be a nice, long, easy blue run to the top of the mountain where there was construction going on. They were building an artificial snow factory at the top, and there were lots of trucks in the process of working on a giant hole, which will be the reservoir to hold the water that will be turned into snow. After the hike, we went back and had pasta carbonara for dinner, which was super yummy.

This is the ski slope that we hiked up. It looked like a nice run, except it was covered in grass instead of snow. Still, I bet it is nice during the winter.

The next day, Tuesday, was All-Saints’ Day, and I decided to go to the mass just to see what it was like. The church was almost completely stone and there were pillars all over. There was a pillar in front of me such that I couldn’t see anything that was happening in the front. It was a huge church, and it was completely full. I’m not sure, but I have a feeling people might go to mass on All-Saints’ Day even if they don’t go the rest of the time, like the way we talk about Christmas-Easter Christians as people who only go to church those two days. But, that is all speculation. I was just surprised to see how full the church was. Between stuff being said in French and the mushiness of the sound coming out of the speakers, I understood absolutely nothing, but that’s ok. After the service, we walked to Thierry’s mother’s apartment and had lunch with her and his sister and his aunt and uncle. And then we drove home. I think we ended up driving through Luxembourg to go back, but I’m not exactly sure. I slept through most of the 5 hour car ride, so I don’t really know where we went.

However, I did notice a few things throughout all of the driving we did during the trip. There is a whole lot of open space in France, or at least in the part of France we were in. We would drive through miles and miles of green fields with a few cows roaming around here and there. There were hills covered in gorgeously colored trees. We might drive for an hour without seeing a house. It was so beautiful. Another thing I noticed is that single story houses are very rare. Even if it looks like a house is one story, it is probably built into a hill and has a basement garage and laundry room. In general, it seems that the houses are rather square with 2 stories, instead of bigger but only one story, like my neighborhood back home. It does make for more efficient usage of space to build up instead of out, but I personally prefer single story houses.

And now I’m home, blogging because I don’t want to do my homework for school which starts again tomorrow. I have a 3 hour History-Geography test, which I’m pretty sure I have zero chance of passing. But, that’s ok. Its about the experience, not about passing school. I’m learning a lot of things about myself that have nothing to do with French or schoolwork, but they are still valuable lessons. To be honest, I have actually been a bit disappointed with my improvement in French. I don’t feel like I’m getting much better. It is frustrating because there is so much English here. On the radio, I hardly ever hear songs in French. On billboards, there is usually an English translation. I have too much access to English, and I think my French is suffering because of it. I try to think in French when I am alone, and I slip almost immediately back into English. I guess there are more important aspects to this experience, but it is frustrating when I hear other exchange students talking about how much their french has improved, and I feel like I’m still stuck at the same level.

That's all for now. I really enjoyed my 2 day long week, but it's back to the regular schedule next week. I really liked going two weeks without school Monday or Tuesday, since those are my super long days.