Un Peu de Paris

My host mother Pascale had the genius idea for me change my classes that honestly, were a joke. This include English, TPE (research things), and maybe french I'm still working on that one. You may think that french helps me, but really it's just analyzing 400 year old poems and then copying down what the teacher says. So instead I'm talking Italian and philosophy. Both classes are great! I got to pick olives because pretty much everyone has them and so it's sort of a tradition. Bobby's family has a lot of trees so we went there and got 120 kilos (250 pounds I think), but believe or not that's not a lot for them. One year there was 1000 kilos (too many pounds.) That was nice, we just let them fall onto a net that we changed every tree.

My English is slowly getting swallowed by French, and talking the Italian and Spanish just makes everything a bit more confusing, but I think I can manage. Last week was exciting, my host mom left for Paris for a bit so I went to stay with Bobby for a bit, and then with Michael, a friend from school. Him and his family are just the bomb. We had Thanksgiving, and wanted to buy a turkey, but there weren't any so we had tiramisu, but that was delicious! This weekend I went near Paris with the family of Bobby, I got to ride the TGV (really fast train), it goes across the country in about 4 hours, not bad! I went to see Paris play in a handball match, went to see the Champs-Elysee a bit + L'Arc de Triomphe and after that we went to a birthday party, where I got to eat french foods, serve champagne, and best of all show people how to dance Gangnam Style.

I still do miss hanging out with my friends, and ofcourse being with my family but hey I knew exchange would be hard, and I'm going to enjoy it the most I can! À bientôt -Clay

Plus de Vacances et L'Ecole

So I had my 2nd week of vacation, and is was nice, but there were always visitors in the house, so now it's nice to have a relaxing life, as the trees on the hills of Provence turn colors, red, yellow. My host brother Quentin has left for South Africa for work for a month and half, so that's a bit sad, but I can't wait to hear his experience. Things are finally getting very normal, and this place isn't so much exotic anymore, though it's still so beautiful with autumn. I really like how so many of the cities are placed in Provence, on hills with gorgeous views. I saw a prehistoric museum, the red/yellow rocks they use for pigments again near Apt (just an hour away) an got to hang out with some exchange students in Aix, I really like Aix because of how beautiful it is, and it's not too big, you can walk all around it easily.

School started up, but more than half my teachers aren't there right now, so this week is more or less a chill week (today all I had was 2 hours of English.) I've been listening to a lot of new music, but not so much French music, there's not too much and a lot of rap. As far as clothing, sometimes it can be difficult because there is so much with random British or American places and dates, it's pretty funny, but there's a store called H&M. Who ever made that place, knew what they were doing. I got a haircut, and they did it super short, but I kind of like it. I've got signed up for my trips here later in the year, one is Europe the other is France and Spain.

I want to start learning how to cook a bit, want to learn the ukelele, and sign up for tennis ping-pong. Also reading Harry Potter in French and a lot of the names are hilarious :) Hope everyone is just splendid, it's also very cold here, more cold than I thought. À plus!

Vacances de la Toussaint

Sorry for the late post, I've been quite busy these past few weeks. Went to do golfing, it was awesome, might want to continue it later. Switched families a week before the 2 week vacation, called, "les Vacances de la Toussaint". My new family is the Subtils, they live just down the street from my old home, and have a very nice house. I stayed just one night here before going to La Rochelle, which is basically central west France. It was a 12 hour car ride, but I got to see a lot of France, light Arles (with coliseums and the city of Van Gogh) Bordeaux, and Toulouse. We went there to visit celebrate 2 birthdays of family, and it was awesome! Lots of people, good food, and after we went to a small town near Limoge (2 hours east of La Rochelle) to visit the parents of Pascale (host mom.) There we I became a real man workin' and got to see kept bees. I also saw the a small city that was destroyed by the Nazis in world war 2, it was hard to believe. Got to go home with some fresh honey. When we came back I had the pleasure of going to Bobby's Soirrée, he's the exchange students from California, that was very cool, because it was a mix of exchange students and french people, so there was french, english, franglais. These past few days I've been hanging out with Dylan from Canada, Lucca from Brazil, and Bobby. We went to Marseille, bowlin', movin' and Risk. In my new host family we have a ping pong table here so I'm gonna be getting my skills on. Also there's a pool, but it's freezing cold. Pictures will come. -Clay