Enfin, en France!

Wow -SO much to tell. I'm in France now and the family I'm staying with are fantastic! Their house is amazingly colorful and eclectic, like an attic (and Anna, the girl I am staying with has a great sense of style -I'm wearing her hat and scarf in the photo above), they are all very creative and dramatic and interested in lots of things, and there are always people being invited to stay and eat -sound familiar? (that's probably why I'm not homesick yet, it's hard to be when I feel so at home!) It's amazing the length of the meals -I'm really enjoying sitting down to eat for at least an hour and half, laughing and talking together, especially now I understand a bit more. 


Language is such a beautiful thing! It was a little weird for me at first, not being able to express myself, and I realised how much of me relies on what I say! It's a good experience for me being the dumb foreigner for once!! To tell you the truth, it's a little weird writing in English when I've been experiencing everything in French and haven't even considered the English word -I'm tempted to put French expressions in frequently. It's tiring speaking French all day (at first with the jet lag I would forget and speak English out of the blue for a second!) but I am already forgetting that I'm surrounded by a foreign language all the time... I'm looking forward to French next year!

Their church is lovely -it's nice and small, and it's really nice having the Bournes there -they make me feel at home and are really nice and especially Laura, who's Anna's best friend, has been very good at speaking French with me! I take the tram to school every morning (it's great the tram system; it goes right down the middle of the street and everyone uses it) -it's usually dark and the photo above is of us waiting at the tram stop.

I take the tram usually four times a day because we go home for lunch, which is nice. The school is very grand and old, and it's lots of fun waiting outside the school before and after (with the -many- smokers!) and talking, and of course there's lots of kissing! At first it seemed a bit hopeless, just listening to the teacher and not understanding much but Lenart, the German exchange student of Benoit, Anna's brother said it definitely gets easier, and so did Paula, a German exchange student who I went to see the Christmas market with one afternoon Anna had a music assessment. She's really nice and it's great because we can speak slow French together!) Anna's English teacher is lovely, but my favourite class suprisingly is German because I can actually understand most things! (I was surprised I could actually translate things from German into French!) To mark the beginning and end of each period, all French schools play music (a kind of fanfare), which I think is a great idea!

I was thinking I would have to buy heaps of new clothes here, but everyone pretty much wears the same things as me (basically, babeing it ;)

We eat at the school canteen twice a week, which is really cool -you scan your canteen ID card on a gate and it lets through a few students at a time, and there are several choices for each course -it's very sophisticated and puts our school canteen to shame!

I have quite a bit of free time (not having any home work) and it's a little odd being so independent, again because I'm used to having so much to do (not just a suitcase full of things!) at home.

Nantes, the city where I am, is very cool -there's billions of delectable bakeries and chocolate shops, and there's a very Moroccan/Arabic influence, so lots of kebab shops. I sometimes forget that I have ages to see everything! I think I will get used to it fast, though -to the French, France isn't a strange country, New Zealand is!