One Month Later...

Has it really only been a month??? It feels so much longer than that. I feel like Ive been in school for a month, let alone Europe. School is great. Ive made some good friends with kids in my class. The one kid who sits next to me speaks at least 3 languages and he translates the important stuff for me. I think Im doing a decent job of keeping up considering my french is terrible. I can tell its getting better tho. I can understand most of other peoples conversations now a days. I remember when I was sitting on the plane on the runway facing Belgium the directions were in English first then French, and I still couldnt catch anything. But now its better. I just need to work on the speaking part. Theres so many extra little words like la, de, and un in sentances and I have no idea when to use them and when not to. Its technical-grammer-crap. But other than that everything is great. I got new batteries for my camera. Its insane that I lasted this long on only one set! Insane.

School

So yesterday was the first day of school. Im not really sure how it went since it was all in french. The school is huge but it covers middle school and elemantary school. Either that or 6th graders are tiny! Im in the same room with the same people all day. The teachers move around which is the total opposite of Minerva. I also have a different schedual everyday. Friday was religion, economy, gym, and spanish... thats right... spanish. The teacher is really sweet tho. She made me do the same assignment as the rest of the class except I wrote a paragraph in French instead of Spanish. and ive made friends!! Some of whom live in my town so its all good. This morning (saturday) I went to my host-dads bagpipe practice. Imagine... 4 bagpipes, two field snares, and a base drum in the same smokey room. It was still sweet tho, even tho 6 hours later my head is still ringing. And great news... I could possibly become the drumish-major of the Drum and Bagpipe Core here! How sweet would that be!?!? (kilt and all)

My Birthday...

I woke up to my family singing Bonne Anniversair outside my tent. Its a tradition of my family to cook whatever the birthday gal/guy wants. I wanted chicken fingers. we searched for chicken fingers. Super markets dont carry chicken fingers... so instead, we bought cheese and turkey patties. they wernt bad at all. my sister got me a cd which she wrapped in crépes. and my family got me a necklace and two t shirts form britagne. The campsite neighbors baked me a lemon cake and sang happy birthday to me in what i think was english ;) it was a good time.

Camping!

it was great... i had a tent to myself... one that set itself up! our camp site was rite on the ocean, if it wernt for a very thick hedge between us it would have been very easy to fall off the cliff into the waves. The dangerous animals from before: snakes.... vipers to be exact. i didnt see or hear anything tho. I did see jellyfish, star fish, and crabs. we went diving for shells that we were going to eat but we didnt have the chance to cook them in time. I tried some very strange foods: raw oysters, giant shrimp things, a spaggetti- chicken- salsa dish. I got to make a crépe... it turned out pretty bad. way more crunchy than the proffesionally made ones. Europe has the best hand dipped ice cream i could ever imagine! beyond your wildest dreams lies europes ice cream. I went to a Fest Noz party thing. it was a very interesting version on line dancing. thats the closest i can describe it... youtube it. The pizza is pretty crummy. when you order a pizza here they bring you an entire 12 slice pizza... WAY too much for one person... but they finish it.

I,m here!

it is taking me about seven times as long to type this post because french keboards are very screwed up. the a and q are switched as are the z and the w. any way... my family is wonderful. they are doing wonderful job of being patient with me. already i have learned some french. tonight we leave for france to camp. my host parents just finished explaining dangerous animals that live there also. it will be a good time.

Goodbyes to my friends...

Last night, me and my two very best friends stayed up til 5 watching the meteor shower. It was a good way to say goodbye. The one girl had to go to band practice so she left super early, well, 8. But still. So Kass and I hung out til noon. Then I was going for the quick-like-a-band-aid theory. but it failed. we said goodbye for about 45 minutes. Now I'm all alone. I won't have my cell phone in only 12 more hours. Its a bitter sweet feeling. :)

This is it!

I'll be flying away tomorrow morning! :)) I'm super excited. It feels like it isn't really happening, like I'll snap out of a day dream and go "ha! ya right. me fly to Europe by myself. thats funny" but its all coming together (Praise God!) I'm packed, My room is Jakes, and I need to shower but I don't actually have enough clothes unpacked to last me until I arrive at my first home. This will be an interesting 2 days.