Bonne Année!

Well, happy new year everyone. I have certainly had a pretty bright start to my New Year and I hope it is going just as well for all of you.

With finals coming up for Rio kids I'm sure there are some stressed kids out there, but the joys of the French trimester system mean that I don't have finals. I just have a really important 4-hour test each week. So, a lot of my classmates are super stressed too.

So, I'm sure you are all wondering how New Year's is celebrated in France. Just like with Christmas, it depends on the family. Some of my friends hosted New Year's eve parties with lots of kids. Others, like the family where I was staying, just made a small affair out of New Year's. I was with Nicole and her host family. Since we had celebrated Christmas with the host father's side of the family, we celebrated New Year's with the host mom's side of the family. The party was at Nicole's house, meaning Nicole and I had the freedom to get up from the table and play billiards when we got really bored. The meal passed in much the same way as for Christmas, but on a smaller scale. There were 12 of us, 5 under the age of 19 and 7 over the age of 19(well, a bit more than just a few years over the age of 19). So, it was more calm than the other party with 10 kids, aged from 2 to 19. We started around 10 pm, ate the main dish starting at 12:50 and ate dessert around 2:00am.

The menu consisted of seafood appetizers, followed by salmon on toasts. After appetizers came the main dish: a giant chicken and potatoes. Dessert was ice cream log cakes, one chocolate and one vanilla. I have noticed that at these parties, the appetizers are the most complicated with overlapping flavors. By the time you get to the main dish, it is simple but hearty food.

We didn't really do anything at midnight. We turned on the TV to find a channel that would give us the countdown, but it was a minute off, which as frustrating. You don't really watch TV on New Year's here. It isn't like in the USA where even if you live in California, you turn the TV on to watch the countdown in New York, and they show pictures of the celebrations all over the US and all over the world. Even though thousands of people were expected to be on the Champs Elysées to celebrate, the TV channel we turned on didn't show them at all. At midnight, we all did the bisous and said "Bonne Année." And then we just went back to our dinner.

Nicole and I had used up all of our stamina for Christmas, and since we were at home, we didn't make it past 2:30. I actually fell asleep on the couch from 12:20 to 12:50 when I was woken up to eat the main dish. After dessert, Nicole and I just went to bed, only managing to talk until 2:30 am when we fell asleep. Apparently the guests stayed until 4:30am, but we were not aware.

The real New Year's day was much like the real Christmas day. We spent the whole day in our pj's just recuperating after the exhausting evening before.

So, on Monday afternoon, I moved to my new family.  So far, everything is great here. I now go home for lunch, which is nice. It is a break from school and when I go back after lunch, it is almost like starting the day fresh again. If I had a difficult morning, when I go back after lunch, I can imagine it as a new day.

Going back to school was pretty tough after two weeks of chilling out with Nicole and doing practically whatever we wanted. But, I made it through Tuesday just fine. Today was Wednesday, meaning 2 hours of French in the morning, my favorite!(not) This afternoon I had a math DS(nice welcome back, huh?) But, it's over and done with and it was fine. But it still bugs me when I have to reread the problem 10 times before I understand what the question is asking.

So, that's my update. More soon.