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.

Catch Up!

Bonjour tout le monde!

I know it's been a huge amount of time for updating my blog and I have a big of excuse for that for being so busy with EuroTour and my mom coming but still I have been putting it off.

So! Just a quick sum up of events before EuroTour. On the 30th of March I went to Arles which is about 2 hours west where they have the Roman Colliseums! There was a big festival there that included bull fighting, actual bull fighting, I was not a big fan.

The next day was Easter, and my host mom Pascale planned a radical extreme hunt, where we hunted the eggs in the dark near the caravan (which my host brother Quentin build, it's like a little house 5 minutes away a bit in the woods) And we listened to Batman music super loud while doing it.

See you in a few seconds!

-Clay

Buonjourno di Italia!

Ciao everybody! Hope everyone having a great march, getting ready for Easter, spring break?

Here in Europe I went to Tuscany, Italy to a one Ludovica Re's house for a week.

This was awesome because in just 5 days I picked up enough Italian really to get me by, it comes by so fast with English and french in the bag. There we went to a lot of cool places but sadly didn't do much at the places.

I did get to see the beautiful city of Florence (they call it Firenze) with it's giant dome home to Galileo, Macciavelli and Leonardo di Vinci I think. If I had to say anything about the trip, it's that Italy is a place like France, but with people maybe even more brandy/stylish wearing sunglasses all the time, who are very romantic/good with ladies, and have extremely good / a lot of gelato (ice cream) and pizza and pasta.

I think this trip was a lot better than just a visiting trip, because I could really see the Italian lifestyle a bit more, get to know real students, and go see stuff and shop and eat with them. I had la chance to do it, 'twas awesome!

Then just last week Ludovica and the other 20 Italians came here and we visited stuff! We danced and eat a lot, and had a pleasant soirée. It was sad when she left especially because I couldn't say goodbye because we had these sorties to Univeristys to Aix and Marseille just to see what they're like. Here University is only 400 dollars A YEAR. They didn't even believe me when I sad that ours were so spendy.

I finally got to go back to my old room after like a month of n'importe quoi and that was very nice, and Arthur bought MarioKart so I've been playing that today. Oh and Bobby moved in so we've been climbing trees and playing ping-pong.

I wanted to go see my school Sheldon in Paris because they were doing a trip, the same one I did 2 years ago, but  I couldn't with Rotary and the Italian student.

My mom is coming right after EuroTour and the are going to do a little Tour of France then London, I'm soooo excited!

Still working on those English lessons, but suprisingly no one wants to use their freetime to come see me! Weird right?!

Also in Italy bought a cool chemise and some fancy socks

Till the next time!

-Clay

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!