andy comes

On Thursday morning I was sleeping in a little bit because class started a half an hour late, and I was rudely awoken at around 7:18 by my cell phone. I picked it up and managed to mumble an "'allo?" and my friend Andy's voice said "Hey, so is it still ok if I come to Annecy today?" my response was "Huh? YEAH. Seriously?" Andy is an exchange student in Lecco, Italy on Lake Como. He was on a weeklong exchange with his school to Geneva, Switzeland, only about an hour from Annecy. In fact, on Monday I went on a trip with my class to Ferney-Voltaire and Geneva, and while I was there Andy and I had desperately tried to connect and wasted about 25 euros combined on text messages. (The trip was fantastic by the way, I tried to post pictures earlier this week but the picture hosting thing wasn't working, I'll get some up when I can!)After we failed to meet in Geneva we had kinda given up. But, somehow, he managed to get on the 8:30am bus to Annecy.

I managed to talk my teachers and the attendance office into letting me get out of English class to pick him up from the train station and into letting us skip classes in the afternoon so I could show him around. He arrived in Annecy a little before 10 and we went to my school and sat through two hours of history, which I'm certain was extremely boring for him. After that, the two of us took off and bought lunch at my favorite lunch place in Annecy and went and ate on the paquier in the sun next to the lake. In the afternoon I gave him the grand tour of Annecy, we walked all over the veille ville, up to the Chateau for the veiw, down into the shopping area, over to the mall, to Bonlieu, every place we could reasonably go. We window shopped, ate icecream, and sat around and talked. It was so fun. And a little disorienting. In my mind, Andy belongs back on Vashon, not in Annecy. It was great to see him and gossip about our friends and our host families and our lives back home and here in Europe. I guess he's changed, but so have I, and in general, we're still pretty much the same as we were before, just a little more relaxed and a little more mature. Seeing him also gave me a chance to really see how good my French has gotten. Andy's French level is exactly the same as mine was when I left Seattle, having him around made me realize how big of an improvement I have made. (His Italian is pretty awesome too). I'm so glad he was able to get down to Annecy, now when I talk about my life here he has a picture of my school and my city and my friends in his head. I forgot my camera, but he had his, and he'll put pictures up on his blog and email some to me. I'll be sure to put another link or post them once he gets around to doing that.

It seems like all the exchanges are having people see them right now. My friend Molly is in Ireland with her parents and Rachel, the other American at my school, has her parents here now too. I ate lunch with them today, they brought me two cans of rootbeer (doesn't exist here) and some Kraft Mac and Cheese. I was extremely happy. Its good to see people, but it also makes me realize how close we are to the end of this year, how we're about to go home, and that terrifies me.