Halloween in France! No Trick or Treaters (well, a couple, but they didn't go to our house) but pumpkin soup (in a pumpkin) to celebrate. Pumpkin= poitron 

My host family, getting ready to dig into our pumpkin soup.  

Entrance to the Musée Olympique in Lausanne, Switzerland. This afternoon, me, my host parent, and my host sister Charlotte, went to Lausanne (a little less than1.5 hours away). We went to the International Olympic Committee headquarters and to the Museum there- we watched movies (one was in 3D) and looked at all the exhibits. It was very internationally minded- everything was in English and French and at the movies you could put on headphones and use a switch in the arms to put it into one of several languages. Its a gorgeous museum, but not up to date with all the artifacts from the past olympics yet. 

Sculpture outside the Olympic Museum, the six peices move electronically- they seperate, spin around, and fit back together. 

Lausanne, Switzerland (Ouchy area) 

Outside the Olympic museum/offices there were different "exhibits" and things depicting olympic records- like sculptures that represented how far the furthest high jump was and such. Here they had the shotputs for the men and women out so we could see how heavy they were. I could barely lift the mens one with two hands. Charlotte, Benoit, and Catherine 

Coolest merry-go-round ever. Kids sit on dangling chains attached together by a chain and someone pulls them around (Lausanne, today) 

The Olympic Flame 

A bad picture of me (looking very tired) at the International Olympic Committee Headquarters in Lausannne 

The port in Lausanne 

Go that way to enter into the Olympics Museum 

The entrance to the headquarters of the IOC in Lausanne, Suitzerland 

France's National Obsession. There is not one second of the day where I can't turn on the TV and see something about the US. And I only get six channels, so that really is saying something. In fact, my screenname (or psuedo, as the kids call it here) on msn is currently "je n'aime pas Bush, cessez de demander!" Everyone is constantly asking me my opinions and how voting works in the US. There are shows on every night- documentaries about the US, and American movies. Last night I watched Dr. Folamour (Dr. Strangelove), and learned that a commie is a coco and we really must protect our précieux fluides corporels (precious bodily fluids). 

Cluedo

I've had a pretty good week of vacation so far. On Tuesday me, Maite, and Molly went out in the afternoon. We shopped a little, went to a cafe and played cards, then saw "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". It was amazing, we all loved it. It was the only movie playing in town in VO (version originale), which means it was in English with French subtitles. The subtitles weren't always a literal translation, so a few times it was just me and Molly laughing in the theater at a funny line that just didn't translate through to French. After the movie we ate dinner and went back to my house, where Molly and Maite spent the night. We played "Cluedo", before we started we had to get out a dictionary and my host sister to help us discover that a Clef Anglaise is a lead pipe and Mme Pervenche is Mrs. Peacock. The next day we went to the Musée de la Cloche in Sevrier. We watched a 20 min movie about bells and then walked through the museum. Apparently the bell factory in Sevrier is really famous, I think they made the Liberty Bell there. Don't quote me on that though. After that we went to a big sporting goods store and I bought new snowboarding gloves that have this valve you breathe into to warm your hands up.

The best place ever. All the kids in Annecy buy lunch here all the time, this is the small Chez Barnabé, there is a bigger one in the center of Annecy. 

Clochette and Vacances!

Today is my second full day of Vacances de Toussaint, now I have ten days to sit around. I think I will probably spend my ten days wisely, sitting around a little, sleeping in a lot, and doing things with friends (both French and exchange students). Today is my rest day, then I'll get on to planning out my week.

I babysat again Saturday night, I've done it three times now. I'm lucky to have neighbors that go out a lot, and a host sister that is too busy with studying to take the jobs. Babysitting is a nice way to get around the Rotary work rules- I don't need a work visa, so its fine. The past few times have been rediculously easy, the first time the kids was fluent in English (as well as French and Dutch), and the second time the kids were already asleep when I got there. Saturday night I arrived, and to my horror, the four year old boy was still up. It wasn't that it was very late, it was just that I dreaded actually having any interaction with the kids (his baby sister was already asleep). I didn't want to have to talk to him, what if he got scared and I couldn't calm him down? What if he needed something and I couldn't understand? It actually turned out to be a lot of fun, the boy was great. His mother proudly annouced that he could count to ten and say his colors in English and left the two of us watching Peter Pan 2 in French. I was actually getting into the movie, and hoping he wouldn't start to talk, when I noticed he keep sneaking little looks at me, then turning his head away fast. He ended up coming over and sitting next to me on the other couch, we had some Disney fliers that came with the DVD and we looked at them together, I said the names in English, he said them in French. For the ones he didn't know he asked me to read the names in French, sometimes I'd read one and he'd be like "No! I wan't you to read it in French!" and I'd tell him that I WAS reading it in French. Then afterwards he'd finally get it and go "OHHHH, (perfect french accent of disney movie name)". It was fun, I also learned that Tinkerbell is Clochette in French.

I thought I had the French school system figured out until yesterday. Yesterday my family drove to some friends' country house about an hour away to have one of those big, long, formal French meals everyone always talks about. I'd tell you what all the food was, but I wasn't really sure. There was the appetizers, a salad course, main course, cheese, then cake. After dinner the adults bounced up and cleared the table and said "lets go for a walk!" The kids (me, Marion, and two boys one a year older than me and another in his early 20s) declined. The older boy showed us pictures of his school, Polytechnique, which is THE best sciences school in France. I think Napolean founded it. This is where I got confused. I asked Marion how high his Bac scores had to be to get into that, and they said, oh, its not the Bac that gets you in there! (The Bac is a series of extremely difficult tests you take at the end of Première and Terminale, the grades determine everything- where you go to college, if you stay back and try again, what you do with your life (pretty much). Only 80% of students graduate here). Now I learned that it doesn't always go straight from the Bac to university. If you are REALLY, REALLY smart, you go to Prepa. Two more years of school- intensive prep for college, you need to score highly to get into it, you can't just decide to go. Very few kids go, which is why I never even heard of it. At the end of Prepa you take more difficult tests, and if you do well, you get to choose what school you go to. If you don't, its the end of the line, you need to start over or just go get a job without university. And this boy chose to go to the best school, which also PAYS him to go there. Last year he didn't pay for his room or food and got 450€ a month (like 500 dollars), this year he needs to pay for those things, but he gets 800€ a month. So why is it that in the US we all struggle to pay for college, and here the colleges hand you money?

The Lycée part of St. Michel, where I go to school 

Première L in class  

The College at St.Mich and the school yard, to the right, just off the picture is the lunchroom 

School yard at St. Mich 

Virginia and Caroline, out on the town with half my grade to celebrate the beginning of vacation. 

Colombe and I before dinner 

A very bad, very blurry picture of some kids in my class, we were waiting for more kids to arrive so we could go buy our food 

Escargot

I fully meant to have a nice long post explaining how fun my weekend was. I went to a hockey game with my French friend, saw my first movie in a theater with my host parents ("L'Enquete Corse"), went to a boring Rotary thing in Grenoble, and went on an unplanned excursion up to the mountains with one of the Mexican girls in my class to have her touch the snow for the first time. But I didn't have time. So, there you go, a mini-synopsis of le dernier week-end.

Today I met up with exchange students, as I do many Wednesdays, sometimes its a little group of Annecy kids and we just meet for lunch and head home, and sometimes, like today, its a bigger group. Today there were three Americans, three Canadians, one Australian, and one Argentinian. Two of the Canadians come in from other towns. We went and sat in a cafe for a while then went to the little theater in the old village to watch the one movie playing in English in the city- "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", but alas, someone screwed their times up and the movie actually started five and a half hours later. The other options were all in French, and none looked promising- one was "L'Histoire du Chameau Qui Pleure" (The Story of the Camel Who Cried). We ended up going to another cafe and sitting and talking for several more hours until our buses/trains home. It was great to get to gossip about Rotary, host parents, friends, etc. Unfortunately, one of the Canadian girls is going to go home in about two weeks. Her sister has gotten very sick and is in the hospital, and she needs to be with her family. We're hoping the insurance can cover the so she can come back when her sister gets better.

Last night I went to a little Rotary meeting where a French girl who was in India last year gave a talk and showed pictures from her stay. Each family she stayed in spoke a different langauge, the school was in English, and on the street everyone spoke Hindi. She primarily spoke Hindi- which I find really impressive. While we were listening people were passing around trays of apertifs, I was reaching for a mini-pizza when the woman next to me pointed at one thing and said it was escargot. "REALLY???" was my response. I thought it over a minute and decided to take that instead- I'm in France, I have to have eaten escargot once. It was in a little round pastery bowl with a glop of greenish stuff (a sauce), you couldn't actually see the snail. It didn't taste bad, but it didn't taste good. It was too chewy. You had to keep chewing it and thinking "I am eating a snail."

The hockey game I went to yesterday, the Red team is Annecy, the Blue team is Chamonix. 

Me and the lake! Annecy is at the very top of the picture, Menthon is behind my head. I'm standing on the take off area for all the paragliders. When the weather is nice the sky is FILLED with paragliders. 

Snow in the mountains! Ok, this isn't a great picture of the snow, but the ones on the other side ( behind me as I took the picture) are covered with it. 

The Benoit, Catherine, and Tannia in the mountains today