Quatre Semaines!

I'm finally getting caught up to today in what I've been doing, this time it's after my Mom left in May. Martin drove me back to Isabelle's from Paris then I just got back into the habit of school just as normal. I've always found it funny that I will just dissapear for like a week or two and literally no one notice, and they'll just act like I've been there the whole time.

Anyways my Mom had put my in just a great aura/state so I was juts having a great time, the weeks where passing really fast, I was playing volleyball, badmitton, rock climbing, we even had an outing with the volleyball/rock climbing people to a super beautiful place near these big gorges and just basically eat spagetti with olive oil and played volleyball and rock climbing. I prefer volleyball because I suck at rock climbing and this time it scared the bejesus out of me because it was super windy in the gorges.

On the 25th of May there was our first Rotary meeting since December I think with all the exchange students. We just got to eat things and see each other, plus coach a bit the outbounds, the french people who are going all over the world to be us next year. They were all pretty chill, and there were a lot of people going to the US even one to Iowa.

On the 30th there was an outing of SVT or Biology to these big colored rocks of red, yellow and white that were used to make things like pigment. We were studying rocks to that was good, we even collected old fossils and such, they were just on the ground, actualy shell fossils! (Because the area was part of an ocean couple years back) We had pigment battles.

In school all the kids were getting ready for the Bac (the test at the end of 11th and 12th grand on everything they've done) which every studies a lot for. Honestly in school I would just always try to learn everything I could each class I went to, (I was in classes of 10th 11th and 12th grade which in France is super bizarre). I would never do the homework, so I'm curious to see how much I've learned and can apply to my senior year at Sheldon.

Will post soon about what I've been up to un June, and today officially marks 4 weeks left! I swear just yesterday it was 6, then 5, it's just counting down! I'm really excited to go back, but I feel there's a lot I'm going to miss that I don't realize in France, all my host families, exchange students, bread, sun, views, bread, all that stuff!

Stay classy San Diego,

-Clay

Momma Whipp

Just to clarify I'm talking about stuff that happened inbetween April 26th - May 13th.

Literally just after EuroTour, my mom came at met me at the train station in Paris with Camille! It was a double shock with the end of EuroTour, but yet it was so normal so quickly, just there were times the first couple days where it was just not real, and I felt like it must be the year before in the US. Camille was really nice and we got to stay at her appartement which was lik in the straigh up center of Paris! We could easily take the metro to go anywhere, so I gave my mom my tour of Paris, and we didn't do too shabby, in two days we saw pretty much every major attraction!

After that we descended to my hometown of Chateau-Arnoux/Montford, Quentin drove us back. My mom and Pascale got along really well and liked to just talk for hours alone. I showed my mom my life, I didn't really care about showing her the attractions, just my school, a few classes, and my host families and I think she had a good time seeing all that.

After chilling at Rebecca's house, my mom and I took a train back up to Brusselles in Belgium! There we hadn't really planned anything, but had a great time taking a tour or the centre ville, buying chocolate, beer all that good stuff. We even found ourself in the plain middle of a bustling gay district, with a lot of men with shaved heads. Everyone Belgium spoke so many languages, English was a necessary, that there were Dutch and French speakers. Our hotel happened to be in an Arab neighbourhood, so we had Arab cuisine which was delish. We also had the some classic Belgium dishes which all included fries, I'm kind of just sick of them now, too greasy.

Next was Bruges which was a chique small Venice, where one can rent a bike eat a waffle then just bike around chilling with nature and geese. Very sweet town. We trained back to Brussells, saw the Atomium a huge building, and little whizzer!

From there was London where we stayed in a straight up prison, with a huge wave of young energy, people just always going in and out, it was like an international University. We got hooked up with a great tour, saw the classics, the Churchil War rooms, and had some classics, most of which we had heard the name but didn't actually know what it was. Also we went to Buckingham Palace just randomly to see the Queen, Royal Family and hundreds of horses! The red guard did hours of ceremonies as well. The hat is actually made of bear fur if I heard right.

I really liked organizing just was we were going to do, eat or where we were going to stay, we really hadn't planned a thing! We stayed the night on the coast in the far south to take an early ferry to Normandy to see Pascale's (my host mom) sister and parents. We stayed in her sister Marie-Claire's beautiful house and saw le-Mont-St-Michel. That was an interesting sight, however the weather wasn't with is as always in Normandie. Martin was nice and drove my mom to Paris, then took my home to he south, a long ride! It wasn't too hard to say goodbye to my mom because I knew I'd see her soon, know it's only one month it's crazy! All in all I think the trip was just superb.

EuroTour

OK so EuroTour actually took place Between the 15-26 of April, and I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to write about it.

We had about 10 people from our district to go up to Paris to meet all the other exchangers, we will 50 in total like in Barcelona! This time there were a fair amount of people from the Nice distrist, which is on the coast south of us. There were also quite a few people who I knew from Barcelona on the trip.

We did an afternoon of Paris, then played ping-pong in transit to Strasbourg. The next day in Strasbourg which is right next to Germany, we eat sausage and sauerkraut, took a boat river tour of the city, then climbed up the local cathedrale ridiculously fast, giving me one of the best thigh work outs I've had in some time. It was a very nice town.

Day 3 was Nurembourg in Germany, where the famous Nazi trials were. We saw the stadium where the Nazis would come to discuss what they were going to do for the next year, plus a place where Hitler would give speeches. We eat Wienerschnitzel.

Days 4 and 5 were Prague, where we had guides who had lost their voices, and a currency that no one understood because the ratio was so weird and it changed I swear. There we shopped, Lucca and I eat "Old Prague" which was just a bunch of meat and things with SO MUCH FLAVOR. There was this clock that every hour or days or something did some little dance thing, because it had all these moving parts. Yuto (Japan) and Jerry and Cliff (Taiwan) and I were like the 14th floor of our hotel so it made it super hard when we were late in the morning because the elevators were always full because there was an Italian school in the hotel.

After that was Vienna in Austria! I loved this town as far as a town I might live in, and we went on a Ferris Wheel! Now that I think of it maybe if was here we eat Wienerschnitzel, in any case one can't get enough! After that we took a tour of the town.

We took one day just to drive until Italia! There we arrived in the afternoon in a place called Lido de Jesolo (which is where you had to stay if you're going to Venice) We played kites and frisbee on the beach and it was sweet.

Next morning was Venice, we took the boat there and unfortunately it was raining, but that was ok! We eat expensive pizza, and even took a gondola ride! I thought that was magnificent.

Next comes Milano, a very fancy city with the 1st ever Prada, and a cathedrale that is just ridiculously big and amazing. Here I had the chance of buying a 8 dollar can of coca cola, more pizza, and a tour of an old building of Milano, I think it was a building of Royalty?

The EuroTour was coming to an end as we reached Switzerland, but quickly switchd to France and saw the breathtaking city of Chamonix right near Mont Blanc, there we chilled, eat subway, then saw the ice caves which were magnificent! However it's amazong how fast they're melting, but it's seriously caves made of ice! That night there was a carnival was went to.

The 2nd to last day was Geneva, another international classy town with really good chocolate. The best thing here was we got to see the United Nations! Rooms where people from all over the world were having discussions about todays issues, that interested me to maybe do that as a career.

 The last day we were just in the bust going back to Paris and some people cried when we all left, it was pretty sad. It was a pretty crazy day because after that I saw my mom for the first in 8 months in Paris!

P.S. To see all of my photos, I made an album on my Facebook.