PARIS BARCELONA!

Bonjour tout le monde long time no see!

I've been busy this bustling month of February, the months seem to speed by at this point. First I went to Venice pour le Carnival! This was very cool because I'd never heard of celebration of such a thing besides Marti Gras, and there were many a people and beautiful sites in Venice! And...gelato, and pizza! Delicioso! That was with my school and was très sympa we went with various kids of Italien classes.

We had quite a bit of snow and so forth my host brother Quentin and I played in the snow and luged with fire and marshmellows!

There was also a day of Carnival at school, and normally no one dresses up, but this year there were a BUNCH of people! I don't really know what I was, a sports guy or something. Anyways I would say it was the best day of school for me.

And now I just returned from a Paris Barcelona trip with around 50 other exchange students from around France, but who were really from all around the world! It was the best week of my exchange, I love Paris more every time I go, I tried macarons, saw the Louvre again, went to the very top of la Tour Eiffel!

After that we had crazy bus rides, went to Carcassone! (look it up) and then Barcelona, where I got to see the Sagrada Familia again and the Park Guil? and then in all just made so many good friends, got post cards, bracelets, clothes, and memories!

Still have another Rotary trip in April and I'm SO EXCITED!!!

Talk to you all later!

P.S. If anyone when I come back wants to see the pictures from my exchange I have all of them on my computer organized and a friend is going to try to make a presentation !

Sincèrement,

-Clay

Les Rendres Visite de la Famille

Bonjour tout le monde!

Hope the Januaries of everyone are going just swell, here in France there are many people going in and out of the house. My uncle Sheridan came from Cyprus last weekend and I really enjoyed that because I hadn't really got to talk to him before, so to really see a Whipp for the first time in a while did some good. He just game for the weekend, but we managed to show him a fair amount of stuff, and know I'm looking to forward to going to visit him in Cyprus when possible! We also have Caroline, a Brazilian who's staying for a few weeks because she was visiting Europe with her boyfriend, and she went on the US trip with Quentin my host brother when he went on his exchange 6 years ago! She's been great and we've also done some visiting of things with her. Yesterday I hit the half way point of 5 months in my exchange! The year seems to be slowly gaining speed, I'm not sure how January went by that fast and I haven't even started to go on the Rotary trips I have :)

 Next week I'm going to Venice with my school and I'm supa excited! Carnival will be also going on there. Lately I've been doing quite a bit of paper work for that. I went ice skating again, and saw Django which was straight incredible!

I went to the Monte Carlo Rally near my school in Sisteron, which is basically an extreme car race where the cars go on all these twisty roads, and this race was international so that cool there were all these license plates from Spain and Italy.

I also learned to sew for the first time because I had some patches to put on my blazer. I'd say it was a hair above disaster, but now everyone can see it has a "Clay" touch.

As far as trips go I also signed up for one in Tuscan Italy where I go there for a week in a host family and then I get an Italian student for a week. I'm super stoked for that as well and emailed the Italian student today!

Will now try to wright weekly! P.S. Took the practice Bac (Bac Blanc) (super scary test at end of highschool) and if you don't pass the Bac you have to stay back a year, so there are some kids who are 19 or 20 in highschool.

À bientôt!

-Clay

New Year's Ski Hunting!

After Christmas, Quentin and Camille came back to the house, and it's great to get to know them more, because they are awesome people! Quentin and I went skiing, here it's a lot like Eugene in that there's Ski about an hour and a half and 3 hours away. I hadn't gone downhill skiing in a while so I was pretty nervous, and we were skiing with some family that were all super good, and the on the 2nd run we went on a ski path with a big "WARNING NOT FOR BEGINNERS" sign, so I was pretty hesitant. In the end it was really fun, and the view was AMAZING! It's hard to pay attention to what your doing when there's these immense mountains right in front of you! For le Révellion (New Year's Eve) I went with Dylan, Lucca, Imelsy, Rebecca and Danika (Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Australia) to a party of the host sister of Imelsy which was great! It feels a bit weird now that it's 2013. By the way Christmas was weird, I was really happy to be with a great family and I got some great presents (a watch, some perfume, a polo) I felt kind of bad that I didn't get more presents for my host family, so I'll make sure to get them some more in the future! After New Year's I went to a small town near Mont Blanc called Mègeve (near Switzerland/Italy!) to visit Pierrick my french exchange students that I had in the US for a few weeks last summer and I got to go skiing with him for a few days. The town was very elegant, with a bunch of wooden cabins, but it was REALLY chèr (spendy) because Mègeve is where all of French's most famous go to ski (we're talking like 200 euro scarves) and again the view was great! It was nice to meet Pierrick's family! In school I've finally changed all the classes I wanted, and now I'm taking Italien and Philosophy! Also my uncle Sheridan and I have organized for him to come visit at the end of January for a weekend! I'm excited for that! On a final note I watched a friend from school in hunting and though we didn't see anything I got to eat the meat+fat+skin of la tete de sanglier (hog's head!) Will post again soon!

Stay stellar everyone,
-Clay

Paris + Noel

Here in France it's super cold, though I'm in the south I'm in the mountains, and it snowed at school, and my friends and I made a french snowman. A few weekends ago our district of about 15 exchange students went to Paris to chill with the district of the far north of about 50 students to see how beautiful Paris is. It was maybe the best weekend of my exchange, and this past week I was super tired because of it. We see the Opera Garnier, which was just really fancy opera, and just when you're in Paris the detail of all the buildings are amazing, there are a lot of tourists as well. We also saw le Sacré Coeur, a big church, and Versailles which was Louis the 14th's Palace, that was also amazing. We finished with a boat tour of the Seine, and I met some really cool people, I want to go visit them in Lille! Also I want to see Notre Dame! In school I've been drifting in and out of various classes that some friends take and with Pairs I haven't been doing so much Italian, but in the near future I want to do more! Also I think I'm going to get Rosetta Stone for Spanish, because sometimes after school I don't have much to do, and it would be nice to improve my Spanish. Right now I'm back in Limoges for Noel or Christmas, and I'm really excited to open my care packages tomorrow! A lot of Pascale's family is here and I've gotten to see Quentin and Camille for the first time in a while and that's really nice. We're going to go do some ice skating for the first time, and I'm going to be passing New Year's with some exchange students. Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année à tous!

Also, in France for Christmas, the light weren't quite up to par with the ones in the States, except for a bit in the big cities, and I like when they outline the castles and fancy buildings with the lights, but even still. Atleast in my family what we did is we went to mass at around 10pm, then came back, eat dinner and forgot Santa  (Père Noël) and opened our presents at midnight. I was really happy with the watch and the perfume, and a cool polo from South Africa that my host brother got of the rugby team, and some nice angora socks that I got, but it was kind of sad not to have a Christmas tree, though normally people have them, just not too much real ones. Also I got myself signed up for a trip in Italy in Venice during the carnival and I'm super stocked! À bientot -Clay

Christmas Video!

This is video that my family and friends made me for Christmas for anyone who wants to see it, for me it's really touching! I swear I will post soon! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LRYeZyy6lHE

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

Cathèdrales

          Last friday night I went to a friend, Tom's birthday party, and got to eat cat food, unknowingly. Wasn't too bad! Saturday got up early to go see the cathedral in Embrun near Briançon, which was amazing ! They had the preserved clothes of the priests since like the 11th century ! We saw another cathedral, this one was constructed by monks who used the golden ratio because they didn't have Arabic numerals. Pretty amazing. Sunday got to catch up a bit with Lucca and Dylan, (going to see them this weekend for golf) and  I got to see Digne-les-Bains...in a fashion that wasn't me getting lost on the bus...and I got to meet Isabelle's awesome friend Martine, who had turtles, cacti and good food :). There we also saw a nice museum with a lot of cool art, and a lot of art that I didn't understand. In school I'd like to say I'm doing good in phyiscs and SVT (biology) and even math...in fact better than in English. I got 8/20 on my first English verb quiz, my worst grade yet, go figure! On Wednesday I had my first volleyball match, and we went 2-0, we beat the Digne team and the other Sisteron one! Today I did Escalade (rock climbing) for the first time, that was very cool, and made me realize how weak my arms are. Shout out to Matteo (I think) for helping me learn the knots, he's a solid man! I'm thinking about starting up tennis, and if possible I want to take the local baker into letting me help him make bread one morning.
            Some differences about France: Almost everyone in school wears the brand "Eastpack" (EVERYONE), and it's weird because it's an American brand, but I didn't know it existed. A lot of things are a bit more expensive (80-100 euros for jeans) BUT there's always cheap bread, cheese and cookies :). Cars don't really have a trunk here, they do but it's so dang small. people drive faster here than in the US, if your j-walking, don't be an idiot. Questions? Ask 'em ! and bonné journée à tout !
P.S. Some day I will send Braden his cheese and post pictures

La Vie Française

What's up everyone! Here in France the weather has been not so good a lot of rain, but today was blue skies so I'm looking hopeful. In some classes I can kind of take good notes and follow what's going on, and then in ones like French I just try to translate the gist of the old poems we study. I'm going to start doing rock wall climbing instead of volley ball, and I want to start doing something after school, but I'm not quite sure what, maybe ping pong? I'm trying to get my mom to send me my ukelele. Couldn't go to Marsatec :( but there will be other music festivals. Instead I got to do some promenadin' and got to see "les fruits confits" which are basically fruit filled with syrup covered in pounds of sugar, it was a bit too much even for me. But they looked very cool, like Willy Wonka! Last weekend I ran a 11km race, which was like going from nothing to max, it was really hard and I'm still sore. But won a medal and some good food and drinks for trying! Bobby and I showed everyone the "american" way of handball. Some differences about France that I'm not sure if I've mentioned : Everyone does the "bises" which is 2 kisses on the cheek nearly EVERY time they meet. There are no hugs. No one chooses their classes in France and you are with the same group of kids all year all day. Everyone takes every core subject every year. Sports are not that big at all in school, there's no mascot, no rivalry. It's popular here to wear closes with english writing. I've seen multiple kids wearing straigh up american flags. Today I wore my Olympic bright red USA long sleeve. I was feeling pretty good about that. I swear everyone has better style here, I'm trying to get into the scarfs. Also in my family, we had bread and cheese EVERY lunch and dinner. How cool is that? Hope everyone's great and I'm continuing on my quest to meet up with the exchange students. Bonne journée!