Busy busy busy, I need to be packing right now! My parents came in Thursday afternoon and we've spent the next couple days racing around Annecy seeing host families, school, the town, etc. We were supposed to waterski today but the weather was too windy in the morning, our day ended up being pretty packed anyway (apperitifs at my first host families house, lunch at my gospel instructors, and coffee at my friend Sophies). Now I have three hours to pack EVERYTHING. At 7 I'll go into town for a goodbye dinner with about 15 friends, we're eating frogs legs. Tomorrow morning at 8:13 I'll be on a train to Paris with my parents. We'll be back in Annecy the 12th.

Wow.

birds on fire

birds on fire
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Yesterday was the fete de la Musique. All over France on the first day of summer there are free concerts. Its amazing in Annecy, this was probably the best night of the year. I saw a bazillion people I knew, ran all over town all night seeing different concerts, and sang with my gospel choir for the last time. It was truly a night to remember. It was also Molly's last night in Annecy, its such a great way for her to have ended her year.

african dancing

african dancing
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

African dancing! This was really cool.

fallen angels

fallen angels
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Maite had a friend in this band (the girl), so we had to stop by and see it, it was a rock band called Fallen Angels.

world music

world music
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

World Music I went and saw w/ Eric, Savannah, Maite, and Sophie.

bandjah

bandjah
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Bandjah, a ska/reggae group I saw with Maite and Molly at around 8pm

native americans

native americans
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Native Americans performing on the streets of Annecy.

paquier

paquier
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The paquier jammed with people at 8:30pm, triple this picture, then you can get the idea of the size of the crowd that was there.

les lutins greluts

les lutins greluts
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

This was crazy, amazing French music. It was so happy and fun, everyone was really into it. I went with Sophie before we went and sang in our Gospel concert (which went fairly well). Everyone at this concert was jumping around into each other and singing and clapping, it was like a cheerful moshpit.

fish liver oil

fish liver oil
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The last band I saw, at 12:30am, with Molly, Maite, Rachel, Florence, Cilia, and Gilles. This is the second time I've seen them, and the second time the electricity has cut out in the middle. I will have "Gay Bar" running through my head for the next week.

brazilians

brazilians
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

I was walking with the other exchange students to the veille ville, when we heard music at around 1:30, when everything else was over, we went and followed it and found a huge parade of hundreds of people dancing in the streets behind brazilian drummers. It was amazing. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was too dark to take pictures of the crowd.

breakdancers

breakdancers
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

This is quite dark, but these are breakdancers we saw outside the town hall at around 2:30 this morning.

I haven't written in a while because I was too daunted to write the epic tale of my trip to Paris. It was nice. Lets leave it at that. I had a great time, and if you want to know about it, email me, but I'm way too lazy to write it all down now!

I've hit my final week of liberty, my final week alone with out my parents. I've tried to keep it pretty filled up with things to do, people to see. I don't want to feel like I've wasted the little bit of summer I was given here. My week:

Fri-Mon: Paris with my host parents. We stayed at my host sisters apartment, went to a birthday party, walked around a lot...

Tues: Met up with Molly who had just returned from her bus trip. We shopped, attempted to make train reservations, and then met up with Eric, Maite, Tannia, and some other girl for coffee/cocoa. We also saw Teresa and Yolanda, Mexican exchanges who were at St. Michel with me. They left the next day, so it was the big au revoir.

Weds: Met up with a friend, Matthieu. We went and saw "Les Poupees Russes", the sequel to "L'Auberge Espagnol" (which I saw on TV the night before). I loved them both. The people in them are people like me... and the movies are in multiple languages, its so exciting to be able to understand the French and English completely, and I understood the Spanish a bit too. The Russian... non.

Thurs: Went to my friend Sophie's. We sat around and talked and then watched six or seven episodes of Friends (V.O., bien sur!), we'ed been planning all year on having a huge marathon, but never found the time. After that we went shopping in town and went on to gospel. At night Hugo had a barbecue with some of his neighborhood friends. We ate good food and swam in the pool at 11pm (the pool was 25°C... so nice).

Fri: Met up with my friend Gilles for lunch and also saw some other random friends when I was waiting for him. It was really hot today, we sat on the Paquier and talked and talked in English and read the Stranger for a couple of hours.

Sat: Rotary thing.
Sun: Waterskiing and then camping...?
Mon: ?
Tues: Fete de la Musique
Weds: ?
Thurs: Parents come.

Wow. Do you see how fast this is going?

On Tuesday night I went to the Festival de l'Animation with Eric, the Canadian. Annecy is the host to the International Animated Film Festival, aka. the biggest Animated Film Festival in the world, and its been pretty fun. We met up at around 7:30 in Bonlieu and looked around a little (well, I looked around, Eric is a volunteer at the festival, and he's been hanging around all week). Then we headed out to the Paquier. Each night this week they have a free concert followed by a film, and by early evening people were already starting to arrive. All my French friends were at home studying for the Bac, as were Erics, so we went and made new friends. We talked to two Israeli couples who had made a short film in the festival. I think thats the first time I've talked to people from Israel. They were extremely interesting and very cool. Their movie (Smile) premiered yesterday, and will be on Saturday also, I wasn't able to see it. Eric had managed to snag passes for the exclusive VIP party being held for the animators, directors, etc, who were at the festival. It was held on the beach of the nicest hotel in Annecy, the Imperial, and had free food and music. Quite classy... After that, we headed off to see the film, which was the old Disney Movie "The Adventurers". Before the film, a head Pixar guy talked, and we saw a short film that I think'll be turned into a movie for Disney. The Paquier was absolutely crammed with people, it was pretty amazing. Just the spirit of being there made it worth it. We also met up with Rémy, the former host brother of Tannia and Zara, and Rachel, at the film. I spent the night at Rachels after it was all done.

I LOVE this festival, and I don't want it to end! I went and saw a film yesterday afternoon as well... it wasn't very good, but I had fun all the same. It was quite random, and it was in Estonian with English subtitles... I don't think the French understood it very well. Friday and Saturday nights are going to be the crazy nights. All my friends'll be on the paquier, the concerts and movies'll be the best. Everyone'll have a little break from the Bac. Unfortunately, I'm going to Paris.

bonlieu

bonlieu
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Bonlieu, busy with the festival.

paquier

paquier
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Early evening on the Paquier. That night, this area was JAMMED with people, and we watched "the Adventurers" on the screen.

israelis

israelis
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Some of the amazing Israelis Eric and I talked to. They were so interesting.

eric and i

eric and i
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Eric and I chilling on the Paquier in the early evening at the festival de l'Animation.

soiree a la plage

soiree a la plage
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Eric eating dinner. The VIP party was on the beach of the nicest hotel in Annecy. The food was free and quite good. (La classe...)

fete

fete
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

One of the tents at the Party for the VIPS of the Animation festival, that we managed to get into.

blurry food

blurry food
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

I know this is blurry, I just want to prove I was there too. (Me, eating dinner at the soiree)

festival d'annecy

festival d'annecy
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Eric standing next to a sign at the soiree at the Imperial

Bonne Chance et bon courage a tous mes amis qui vont passer leur Bac demain!
Je penserai de vous!

(description of the AMAZING festival de l'Animation tomorrow)

Today I looked out my classroom window and saw Anne-Sophie, the daughter of my first host family who was in Sioux Falls, SD this year. She came back yesterday, and there she was, outside of my school, surrounded by her friends. She and I lived together for the first week of my exchange, when neither of us could talk the other's language very well (or in my place, at all). When she was in South Dakota, we'd talk every now and then online, just to see how the other was doing. As soon as the bell rang I raced out of the class and out to see her. We grabbed each other and kissed each others cheeks and started talking in two languages at once. It was really exciting, she looks great, and she seemed so happy to see her friends. She wanted to show me all her pictures but I had to go home for lunch. I think we're going to try and get together sometime in the next few weeks to gossip over our experiences.

Tomorrow is the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL. And I'm a little upset, because I realized that the ES classes are going to school in the afternoon, and mine is going in the morning. Now I won't be able to properly say goodbye to everyone in the other classes. I'm sure I'll run into people in town, but its a little disappointing.

BUT I'm going to the Festival de l'Animation tomorrow. And that will be fun, I know!

picnic at Mme Suchet's

picnic at Mme Suchet's
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

On Thursday night after school my class, 1L, went to the house of our French teacher for a end of the year picnic. We ate lots of food, talked, played tag, hide and seek, and this cool game called tomate. I love these kids.

les profs

les profs
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Some of our teachers and their spouses, sitting around

le bébé Najar

le bébé Najar
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Our History teacher's new baby, all us girls were cooing over him all night long.

vivi et tequila

vivi et tequila
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Virginia and Mme. Suchet's cat, Tequila.

cutting pizza

cutting pizza
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

In France they cut their pizza...

the boys

the boys
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The boys of our class: Gregoire, Francois, Alexandre, Guillaume, and William.

mathilde et anna rae

mathilde et anna rae
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Mathilde and I at our picnic

Vivi et Alex

Vivi et Alex
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Virginia makes Alexandre more manly by drawing him a moustache during history class.

Alexandre et William

Alexandre et William
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Alex and Will in History class on Thursday.

flag

flag
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

My "yearbook" a big French flag I'm having my friends sign. This is it after day one... now lots more people have signed. I can tell this is going to be one of my most prized possesions.

This week has been pretty laid back, normal. EXCEPT that it is my last full week in school here, which makes it a little sad. Everyone else is super excited to get out of school (even if it means they'll be at home studying for the Bac) but for me its depressing. It means this is the end. I had my mom order a French flag online (I couldn't find one in France) and on Monday, I brought it to school to have my friends start signing it. At first my mom bought a flag that was 3x4 feet, and I told her that was too small. Then, when my big 5x4 foot flag came I realized maybe it was too big. Now I'm glad I asked for the big one, I had no idea how much my friends would write. About half of the things say "I'm glad to have met you, hope to see you again" but the other half amaze me. Some of these people really know me... and the things they say are so sweet. I've realized that I don't have enough space for them to write just on the white and red, so now I need to find a pen that'll write over the dark blue.

The sun is shining, I have no school this afternoon, and I think I'm going to go in the pool!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!! And Happy Birthday to Philippe (my host dad) too!