Breathe In..Breathe Out

Everyone knows that vacation means relaxing and going to do something that you really like. Well my four day weekend turned out to be quite the opposite. Monday started out with school and Tuesday I had school too. Tuesday I got the really great news that my gym teacher would be absent the next day. For those of you who don't know, in France on Wednesday, school is only from 8am to noon. My classes for Wednesday are gym and TPE. TPE is a class where the students prepare for a huge test at the end of the year. I am not taking the huge test, the BAC, so I usually look up French words that I don't know. Wednesday rolled around and my host mom told me that I don't need to go to school because it would be pointless. Ya-hoo! Five day weekend for me!

Wednesday I slept in and then I went to my friend Sophie's house to make cupcakes with our friend called Hugo. That was very fun. These cupcakes turned out real weird because we only had baking powder, not soda. Therefore, the cupcakes were really dense. Sophie and I couldn't find cupcake wrappers at the store so we went without. Cupcakes aren't the same without them. Oh well! They still turned out really cute and yummy. Walking through the aisles at a French supermarket makes you realize how different countries can be. The everyday things that people buy are so different. Milk comes in boxes, everyone buys Nutella, and everyone buys bread. Lots and lots of bread. I had dinner at Sophie's and then I came back to the house. When we drove up we noticed that thre were about fifteen cars infront of the house. I was thinking this is odd..whats going on? I walked in to see thirty people seated around the kitchen table having dinner. Ack! For some reason I didn't get the message that my host mom was having a dinner that evening. I am not a big fan of large groups of people so this was not really my deal. I couldn't access my room because there were so many people that were blocking my door.(My bedroom door connects to th kitchen.) I had to walk around the house and come in through a different door and weave my way through the back of the house to get into my host brother's room. (My host brother's room connects to my room.) Quite a long trip!Thirty some adults can make a suprising ammount of noise and since my room is connected to the kitchen, I didn't get to sleep until 3am when everyone decided to leave. Yes, my dear readers, French people eat dinner really Really REALLY late. I think they started dinner at 9:00,finished at around 10:30, and talked for a long time. Very intersting experience to say the least.

Thursday I slept in again and it felt great. I pretty much spent the day lounging around the house and helped clean up. Oh but wait! Another suprise! Two of my host parent's friends were going to stay the night and spend the next day with us.  I am a person who likes planning things in advance and a warning five minutes before doesn't really do the trick. I don't know if I mentioned that this whole time, staring from Thursday morning, my host brother has had four of his friends over and that they are staying for the weekend?  Yes, a group of five 17-20 something year olds are "sleeping" right next door to me. "Sleeping" is a loose term for singing, laughing histaricly, and playing music loud enough to wake the dead. Wake the dead or wake me up from a great night of sleep at 2 o'clock in the morning! Oh well.

Friday I slept in again, but I was awakened by my host brother and his friend's loud music in the next room over. Friday I stayed at home. Thats about it. I finally got a good quiet night of sleep because my host brother and his friends went and spent the night in Toulouse.

Saturday. Well I had many new experiences yesterday. I got to take the train all by myself. I got to get lost in the train station all by myself. I got to call a whole bunch of people who didn't pick up..all by myself. I got to hyperventilate all by myself. Some guy asked me the directions to some place that I didn't recognize.. all by myself. And I got to figure out where I was..not all by myself. Thank goodness that after twenty minutes of panicing, the Rotary guy that was coming to pick up me and some of the other exchange students finally found me. Yaay! Afterwards we all went to go tour Toulouse for a bit because we had two hours to spare. I got to see a lot of really beautiful sights! Unfortunatly in my mad rush to leave the house, I forgot my camera on my desk. Oh well, I am sure there will be many more opportunities to go and visit. Last night we had a lovely dinner with the other exchange students and their host families. Everyone brought a dessert from their country. I made brownies, but other people made..Ninimo bars from Canada, sticky rice from Japan, sweet rice from Mexico, lemingtons from Australia, coconut cookies from Mexico, and some lovely Russian cookies. It was really intersting to see what the typical dessert is for a whole bunch of countries. After trying all those desserts, I felt so full, but I had to try them all!

After my great night of getting to speak in English for the first time in two months with a real human, I was feeling pretty good. All until my host mom came up to me at the dinner and told me that I can't go to the concert that I had already bought my ticket to and that she and I had agreed upon, that I am in detention this coming Wednesday because I didn't turn in a science homeowork that I didn't understand, and that I am required to go to TPE now because it will build character. Well that bummed me out a bit. I am  trying to immerse myself here,  my Rotary counselor told me I could go to the concert a long time ago, and he told me that homework is not required. However, he is making me go to detention. I already had the arrangements set to go to the concert and they were approved. Who knows. Hopefully I can get this sorted out.

Today is Sunday and I slept in for the last time until next weekend. Today I am going to visit my second host family and discuss our winter vacation plans with them. Believe it or not, I am moving families in three weekends! I think I looking forward to it. I have had a lovely time here, but I would like to see how other families live.

Have a great week everyone!