Ma Vie à Annecy

2005-07-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

Here I am, back in Seattle. Its a little bit of a shock to me back, but everythinghas gone very well. My flight was very long, and my last plane was delayedthree hours, so I got in around mignight instead of 9pm. I've been spendingmy time unpacking, reading Harry Potter, seeing my friends, and watchinglots of American TV, which is SO MUCH BETTER than French TV. Now that its 'week #2' back home, I've had to start making my life normal. I'm going tobe babysitting several times a week for a family, which is going to get mesome money, but I'm also looking for a "real" job. One of the strangest thingsabout being back home is that not much has changed, my life seems the sameas before, my friends and my town seem aged a bit, but not much is different.I suppose I'll notice more distinct changes after school starts and everythings settled.
I miss my friends a lot, and I miss speaking French. Its unbelievableto me that everyone is talking in English, it gets quite confusing. All inall, life is going good.

I'm ending this blog now that my year is over, if you ever have any comments or questions, email me at futura1187@hotmail.com.

My mom has posted a bunch of pictures from our trip on her blog if you'd like to see.

Thanks for reading!

2005-07-17T03:37:00.000-07:00

Today is my last day in France, and I am very depressed.

This past week has been fairly busy, its been a great "last week". On the first day back I sat around with my parents with nothing to do, and in the afternoon, my friend Gilles saved me from dying of boredom by coming all the way to Menthon, where I was staying, to meet my parents and go to the beach with us. There were lots of fireworks at night too. The next day was Bastille Day, which was a lot of fun for me. I went to a party at my friend Maxime's house. He lives way out in the country and we played badminton and had a big fire and burned their schoolwork from last year. The next day I went in town a bit with my friend Amandine, and then I missed the bus home and had to spend some hours in town with 5 euros and nothing to do. Once I got home I packed up some stuff and finished things that needed to be finished. My friend Colombe spent the night, and there was also an American boy visiting my host brother this week, so everyone has been talking in English. Yesterday, I spent the day in town with my mom, doing my last day of shopping. We bought cookbooks and clothes and all sorts of stuff. I also got to meet my friend William and say goodbye. We ate dinner at my first host families house last night, and I had a great time. Their daughter who was in South Dakota was back, and I was happy to talk to her and Marion. Today I came to my house, packed up with my mom, cried a bit, and am now sitting in front of the computer. We should be going water skiing this afternoon and then ill sit around and mope a bit more. Tomorrow at 11am I'll be on the plane.

What a great year.

trip

2005-07-13T02:43:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Annecy! Sorry for the lack of posts as I traveled around Italy and France with my parents, I managed to find computers several times, but never had the energy to write about all that was going on. Heres the (brief) review of our trip... or what I can remember of it

day 1: Train to Paris. got there and it was pouring rain. Our hotel had the best location ever... top floor of a hospital across the street from Notre Dame. Its a secret place, not expensive at all.

day 2: Walked to the Louvre in the morning. Spent the rest of the day shopping, walking through places. I climbed the tower at Notre Dame with my mom as well, and in the early evening we climbed the tour d'eiffel. The weather was super hot... but out hotel had a/c.

day 3: met up with my penpal, Camille, who lives in northern France in Lille and her parents. They drove 4 hours to see us! We went to Montmartre (where Amelie and Moulin Rouge take place) and saw the Sacre Coeur then took the metro to the Champs-Elsees and walked around. It was really too hot, we all got burned. I also went to Shakespeare and Company bookstore at night and walked to the Luxembourg Gardens and Parthenon.

day 4: Musee d'Orsay. I loved that museum, I really like impressionism. Mom and I went to Le Marais in the afternoon and shopped, my dad did something. At night we met up with my host sister, Emilie, who lives in Paris for dinner. It was fun to see her and hear her talk in English.

day 5: flight to Rome. Kinda a stressful flight, Ryanair is cheap, but not convenient. Il faisait trop chaud. In the afternoon I left my parents and went to my friend Flaminias house. I was so happy to see her, she was an exchange student at VHS the year before last. The two of us sat around in her hot hot hot apartment and she studied for huge tests she had to take and we gossipped quite a lot.

day 6: met up with my parents in the morning and went to the Vatican Museum and St. Peters. In the afternoon I walked them all around Rome and we saw the Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona, and the Parthenon, amongst other things. Then I went back to Flami's house.

day 7: Flami and I were woken up by her cellphone... two guys from my school in the US were calling to say they were in town (they wanted to stay at her house). We went and picked up Sam and Bobby and went swimming in the pool at Flamis apartment. Did I mention how hot it was?? Really hot. In the afternoon Flaminia had plans so Bobby, Sam, and I walked all over Rome together for hours and hours. We got very tired (and they hadn't slept in 30 hours) but had such a fun time. I was so happy to get to see them and talk to them.

day 8: Early, early, early train to Florence. I had stayed up late talking to Flaminia, so I only got about 2 hours of sleep. We got to Florence by 10:30ish and went to the Uffizi at 12. It was beautiful at first, but I got burnt out really fast. After two hours we went back and crashed at the hotel. We slept through our 5pm reservations at the Accedemia. Oops.

day 9: climbed up the Duomo, which was pretty impressive. Then we saw another museum, the Bargello, which was very nice as well, but by this point in the trip I was getting museum fatigue. The afternoon my mom and I spent shopping and then we finished out the day relaxing in the courtyard at the hotel.

day 10: trains to Vernazza. Vernazza is on the Cinque Terre, which is filled with American tourists. It was so beautiful, a tiny town right on the sea. Our hotel was actually a little apartment, so we had this beautiful rooftop terrace. I sat around a lot, read a little by the water, and relaxed.

day 11: We decided to hike the 90 minutes to the next town, Monterosso. We had heard it was a hard hike... but it was even harder than I thought. And it was in the sun. There was a beautiful beach in Monterosso though, and we had a great time. Then we had to walk back, and this time it was in the afternoon, when the sun was even hotter. I nearly died.

day 12: Train to Villefranche-sur-Mer, a town right next to Nice on the French Riviera. Afternoon spent on the beach, then we had dinner in town.

day 13: Toured through the Villa et Jardins Ephrussi de Rothschild, an AMAZING mansion near Villefranche with acres and acres of beautiful gardens. Spent the afternoon on the beach again.

day 14: Took the bus to Monaco, which was beautiful, clean, and super luxurious. We walked all around and looked at the Yachts and houses... its astounding that people LIVE like that. Mom and I toured the Palace. Prince Albert is coronated or something this week, so they were decorating everthing. Dad went back to the Hotel and Mom and I took the bus to Eze, this town on top of a mountain, the veiws were great, and on top of this mountain-town was an exotic garden filled with cacti. Then I went to the beach again.

day 15: Woke up to a huge thunderstorm with lots of hail. The hotel courtyard was nearly flooded. We took the bus to Nice and walked throught the market and explored the beach. Most shops were closed because it was a Sunday. Beach in the afternoon (imagine that).

day 16: left Villefranche and rented a car in Nice. We drove up to Aix-en-Provence for lunch and looked around there for several hours. Then we drove to Gap. A friend of my mom married a Frenchman and now lives there with him and their two young sons. In Gap we saw a little concert at a Chateau and spent lots of time sitting around and talking.

day 17: relaxed in Gap in the morning and then drove up to Annecy. I was scared to go back to Annecy... going back means going home. We stayed at my Gospel Choir directors house, my family know them pretty well because they visited Seattle for Christmas. It felt good to get back to Annecy, but I'm psychologically quite confused about leaving.

The trip was fantastic. Now here we are, in Annecy. I'm staying with my parents right now because my host family is out of town, but I'll get to go "home" to my host house tomorrow. Tomorrow is also Bastille Day in France, and my dad leaves tomorrow morning. I've hit a really weird awkward place in the exchange where I no longer live here and I'm not yet home.

2005-06-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-22T03:56:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-22T03:54:00.000-07:00

african dancing
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

African dancing! This was really cool.

fallen angels

2005-06-22T03:53:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-22T03:52:00.000-07:00

world music
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

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

bandjah

2005-06-22T03:48:00.000-07:00

bandjah
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

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

native americans

2005-06-22T03:45:00.000-07:00

native americans
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Native Americans performing on the streets of Annecy.

paquier

2005-06-22T03:44:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-22T03:43:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-22T03:41:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-22T03:38:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-22T03:36:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-17T07:43:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-06-10T02:30:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-10T02:25:00.001-07:00

bonlieu
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Bonlieu, busy with the festival.

paquier

2005-06-10T02:25:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-10T02:23:00.000-07:00

israelis
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

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

eric and i

2005-06-10T02:22:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-10T02:21:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-10T02:20:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-10T02:19:00.001-07:00

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

2005-06-10T02:19:00.000-07:00

festival d'annecy
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

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

2005-06-08T13:34:00.000-07:00

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)

2005-06-06T12:38:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

les profs
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Some of our teachers and their spouses, sitting around

le bébé Najar

2005-06-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

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

2005-06-04T07:01:00.001-07:00

vivi et tequila
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Virginia and Mme. Suchet's cat, Tequila.

cutting pizza

2005-06-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

cutting pizza
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

In France they cut their pizza...

the boys

2005-06-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

the boys
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

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

mathilde et anna rae

2005-06-04T06:57:00.000-07:00

mathilde et anna rae
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Mathilde and I at our picnic

Vivi et Alex

2005-06-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

Vivi et Alex
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

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

Alexandre et William

2005-06-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

Alexandre et William
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Alex and Will in History class on Thursday.

flag

2005-06-01T06:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-01T05:19:00.000-07:00

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!

2005-05-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

One thing that has become a huge part of being in France right now is the vote for the European Constitution, and I've completely neglected to mention it. Really, its something that is very highly debated here. I started out thinking we needed a "non" vote, and now I'm for the "oui" side. I can probably talk about this subject for hours, I've listened to a billion people fight over it. I think its good that its controversial, and not a clear cut "oui", if you think about it, this is a CONSTITUTION. Not just a law. Its a very big deal, and its important that people know what they are doing when they are voting for it. Like I said, at first I believed that they should vote "non". I have many reasons for thinking this way, and the main one is that the constitution is 500 pages long, and extremely complex. Its virtually unreadable, and I've heard that one of the points of making this constitution was to bring the people more into the process of creating the union. If the people can't even understand the document, this clearly isn't working. Its important that it be simpler and less complicated, people need to know what they are saying oui to before they say oui.

In my class we had a little vote last week, the first run we had eight "oui" votes, eight "non" votes and one "ouon". Next try we had nine "oui" votes. I voted "non".

Now my mind has changed. I still think that the document is too complex, but I've realized how important it is that France accepts this constitution and doesn't close its self off to the rest of Europe. Saying no would be a major setback to the European Union and to France.

Today, after swimming, boating, and a barbecue with some of my friends, I went with my host parents to vote. We went into the place and there was a table with stacks of paper. One "oui" stack, one "non" stack and a bunch of brown envelopes. You take one of each and go into the little stalls and put the one you chose in the envelope. Then you go to the front, sign your name, and drop in in the box. Since my host sister is in Paris, my host dad had a paper that said he could vote for her. I probably broke a few laws, but I did Emilie's for her, I put the "oui" paper in the envelope. So, now I can say I "voted" for the European Constitution.

2005-05-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

Its been a fairly busy week, on Wednesday night an American came and ate dinner with us, which was a strange experience for me, because my host family spoke entirely in English for an evening. It made me realize how different I am in English because I'm so much more proficient in it, I had a lot more control in the conversation, it was like my host brother and I switched places. I wasn't the one responding when spoken to, but adding my own ideas. Its nice to do that every now and then, it makes me remember I'm not a vegetable.

Thursday night I had an "American Night" with the other American at my school, we presented our Rotary presentation to about 35 students and teachers from our school. We also had food for them to eat- jello, chocolate chip cookies, oreos, jelly beans, tootsie rolls, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, popcorn, etc. They loved the food. I think I did my presentation a lot better the time I did it for the Rotary. It was stressful to do it in front of my friends, and it was very hot, and I was so tired. And after that I went to gospel... long long day.

Friday night I went with my friends to the 24 heures de Natation, a benefit put on by my school. I believe the money goes to a hospital for the diabetic and disabled (or something) it goes to a good cause, thats one thing I'm sure of. Anyway, the whole deal is that the pool is open all night long, from 1 pm Friday to 1 pm Saturday. I ended up going from 8:30-10:30pm on Friday night, and then again this morning with my english class from 8:30-10am. Some people stayed the whole night, and they said it was extremely annoying because the pool decks were uncomfortable to sleep on, and the teachers kept waking them up because SOMEONE has to be swimming at all times. There was food, and a DJ that played music till 11pm. Then he started again the next morning. It was really a fun experience. One irritating thing was that in a HUGE pool(length= 50 m), with probably six big lanes, only two were open, because we didn't pay for more than two. And if you slipped into lane three, you got yelled at. My school is fairly large, and it was EXTREMELY hot out, so there was a bazillion people there. We were pretty much swimming on top of each other. This morning was more tranquil.

Today I went back to the pool in the morning, then I had Course d'Orientation from 10-12, running in the woods in such hot weather wasn't great fun. I figured I did pretty well today too, but our group ended up getting a 12/20... disappointing. I ate with my host family in town, and then my friend (and Hugo's) William came over. He played his guitar with Hugo on the drums and then played the drums. I was impressed, he was quite good. Then we swam (again! it is hot) and now, tonight I'm going to one of Hugo's friend's houses for dinner. He was going by himself... but his parents are eating at someones house, so I wouldn't have anyone or any food to eat, so I'll be tagging along on boy's night.

(Tomorrow: Mother's Day and the Oui/Non vote on the European Constitution... i have a lot to say about that, and I'll write about it.)

rehearsal

2005-05-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

rehearsal
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Gospel workshop in the Chapel at St. Michel on Saturday afternoon.

smiling

2005-05-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

smiling
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Sophie and I

me and sophie

2005-05-23T08:13:00.001-07:00

me and sophie
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Sophie and I at gospel.

st michel view

2005-05-23T08:13:00.000-07:00

st michel view
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The beautiful view from the top floor of St. Mich

gospel women

2005-05-23T08:12:00.001-07:00

gospel women
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Women from gospel, eating food at St. Michel

Bride

2005-05-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

Bride
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The bride at the wedding I sang at on Saturday

2005-05-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

I'm completely exhausted, this weekend has been too busy for me. On Friday I went out to dinner with Eric and his friends. Eric has two friends from Canada visiting Annecy for about a week, I ate lunch with them on Thursday and laughed like crazy, they are funny kids. And its extremely bizarre to hear Eric talking in English, he sounds different, and his sense of humor seems different in his native language. So on Friday night I went out and ate mexican food with Eric, the two Vancouver boys, the two mexican girls, maite, and eight of his French friends from school. We had a great night, eating lots of Chicken Fajitas and talking in a mix of French, English, and Spanish.

On Saturday, I got out of school to go sing at a wedding with my gospel choir. I personally didn't think we did a fantastic job, but we didn't ruin the wedding. It was just fun to be there, singing and hanging out with my friend Sophie. We ate a picnic lunch near la Visitation, a church in Annecy, and then spent the afternoon at St. Michel. We spent the afternoon doing a "workshop" where we worked more intensively on some songs, watched a gospel DVD, ate lots of food, etc. I thought I knew my school pretty well, but apparently I was wrong. We sang in the chapel, which I never even knew existed. It's located on the top floor of the old yellow school building, where the sixièmes have class. And its really, really nice, I was impressed.

Last night I came home and Colombe, Hugo, and I decided to go swimming. The day had been really hot, but the night wasn't really, and the water was 18°C, which is not warm. The others kinda dipped their toes in and whined about how cold it is, I ran and jumped in. Eventually they followed suit. After that we ate pizza and decided to play monopoly, and then realized that Colombe had the monopoly game at her house. We ended up playing Trivial Persuit, despite me protesting that I could never handle it. It turned out that none of us could handle it, and we probably got about five answers out of fifty questions right, so we ended up giving up.

My mom thought she broke our digital camera a while back by dropping it in some water, and my parents went and bought a new one, then realized the old one still works. (The story gets complicated here) My gospel teacher's daughter goes to school in Montana, and ended up staying at my house in Seattle earlier this week because she had a stopover. My parents gave the old camera to me, and now I have it. I took the camera with me this weekend and took lots of pictures of gospel and eating with Eric's friends, came home, and realized that the card reader doesn't work with this computer, for some reason. Also, the battery charger doesn't work, even with my adaptors. So it looks like all my wonderful weekend pictures will just have to wait on that card for a while... which is quite dissapointing.

Me, Bronwyn, Maite

2005-05-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

Me, Bronwyn, Maite
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

On Tuesday night, Me, another American, Bronwyn, and Maite, gave presentations to our Rotary club of our hometowns. My presentation took my lots of time and work, and I was really nervous I'd completely forget how to speak French, but everything went really well.

Seattle Table

2005-05-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

Seattle Table
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Here is my "Seattle Table" I had various Seattle related things laying out, and after my presentation people came and ate the smoked salmon my parents had sent. They loved it, the table was crowded with people.

Space Needle

2005-05-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

Space Needle
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Me giving my presentation of Seattle. It went over really well, I was expecting them to be quiet and listen to me talk, but it was actually more interactive. They all asked questions through it, were extremely impressed by how big the city was, thought Mt. Ranier was beautiful, and booed and made lots of noise when I talked about Boeing.

Bronwyn's Presentation

2005-05-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

Bronwyn's Presentation
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Bronwyn trading her Lander, Wyoming flag for an Annecy flag. Every Rotary club has a little flag, and all the clubs are obsessed with getting as many little flags from around the worlds as possible. My club in Annecy has a bazillion.

Maite's Presentation

2005-05-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

Maite's Presentation
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Maite showing everyone where Bariloche is on a map of Argentina before her presentation.

banners

2005-05-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

banners
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Trading banners with my Rotary club after the presentation

2005-05-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

This is what is now positioned right above my bedroom:

... and he can only play one rythm.

2005-05-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

Today was another exam day, I had just English in the afternoon. Last night I went and saw Tannia and Molly's Rotary Presentations, complete with cookies, guacamole, chips, lots of Mexican decorations, the singing of the US national anthem, and tequila. They both did a brilliant job, and I'm so proud of them! Mine is next Tuesday... it should be quite interesting, as I've been procrastinating a tiny bit and have barely begun. Thats what the weekend is for.

I assured my host family that I could find the bus stop and make it to Annecy in time for my test this afternoon, and got to sleep in and sit around all morning. I assummed that if I can take the bus to downtown Seattle, I can make my way from Pringy to Annecy. I was wrong. I ended up walking 10 minutes down the wrong road, and completely missed my bus. I called my friends and Hugo was astonished- how could I have possibly messed up something so easy? I felt like a little bit of a loser. Then I managed to misread the bus schedual too. I told my friends that there was no way I could make it to Annecy, because the next bus left when the test was supposed to begin. I went back to the house, got something to eat, looked at the schedual, realized I was wrong, and ran to the bus stop. My connecting bus was a little late but I managed to make it to St. Michel only twenty minutes after the test started. Not a problem though, I finished the test an hour before everyone else anyway.

Every day when we get home from school I sit down in front of the computer and Hugo sits down in front of the TV and plays video games on the X box before he goes to work. Now, he's started to teach me how to play Pro Evolution Soccer 4. Its extremely complicated, for me at least. You need to use almost all the little buttons and knobs on the controllers. After about 45 minutes today, I started getting the hang of it, and actually doing things right, which was extremely exciting for both of us... I may eventually turn into a worth opponnent for him.

Today is my host mother's birthday, a fact I learned yesterday. I'm currently debating on whether I should give her the gift my mom sent for Mother's Day today or not. Tonight my host sister, Emilie, who is at school to become an architect in Paris, will be coming home. I've never met her, so thats a little exciting. Colombe's also coming over for the night, so we'll have a pretty full house.

2005-05-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

All has been going well with my new family, I have nothing much to report on.

This week we're having les epreuves communes, tests, again. I didn't have to go to school today (the french kids took a French test for four hours). Tomorrow I have a two hour math test and then a physique/sciences de la vie et de la terre test for another hour and a half. Math'll be fine for me, I'm much more advanced than them. But science... everything on the test is something that we did at the very beginning of the year, when I payed no attention and did nothing. I'm putting forth an effort, but there is no possible way I can learn all about alimentation and procreation in one night. I only have to go to school in the afternoon on Friday to take a English test for three hours. Then Saturday I only have an hour in the morning! Its pretty nice.

Wednesday afternoon I went into town to eat with other exchange students. After listening to my ipod, Eric came to the conclusion that he had waited long enough and he had to have one of his own, at that very moment. So the two of us went to FNAC. He looked at all the other models and I convinced him the ipod was the best choice and he decided to buy it. We went to a cash machine to get money. It ate his card and then broke. We were both extremely dissappointed.

Hugo and Philippe

2005-05-11T00:19:00.000-07:00

Hugo and Philippe
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Hugo and his dad, Philippe, fighting after dinner

Hugo and Colombe

2005-05-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

Hugo and Colombe
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Hugo and Colombe sitting around the house last night.

New View

2005-05-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

New View
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Voila! Pictures of my new house. I couldn't install the program I normally use to post pictures on this computer. If the pictures are too small, click them and they'll get bigger. This is the view from my house towards Lac d'Annecy.

Pringy, France

2005-05-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

Pringy, France
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

This is the pretty countryside view of my new neighborhood, which is actually really suburban, it just happens to have a couple fields.

bathroom

2005-05-09T07:14:00.000-07:00

bathroom
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Me in my bathroom at the house of my new host family.

bed

2005-05-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

bed
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

This is the biggest bedroom I've ever had in my life, its twice as big as my host brother's. This is the part of the room with the bed in it.

bedroom

2005-05-09T07:12:00.000-07:00

bedroom
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

Half of my new bedroom

Kitchen

2005-05-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

Kitchen
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The kitchen in my new house

diningroom

2005-05-09T07:10:00.001-07:00

diningroom
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The dining room

The View

2005-05-09T07:10:00.000-07:00

The View
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

The view from my new house.

2005-05-07T08:02:00.000-07:00

And there it is. Now I've finally changed houses for the third time, something I wasn't really sure was ever going to happen. I feel like the changing houses thing is so anticlimactic. It should be a lot bigger deal than just packing, driving to the place, kissing each other on the cheeks, and moving in. Anyway, I'm really happy that this all worked out, it might be taking place a little later than all the other exchanges, but it should be worth it. I'll put up pictures once I take some!

2005-05-05T05:47:00.000-07:00

I'm most likely moving houses this weekend, and since we had no school today, this is my day to pack. This is my room before...

2005-05-05T05:45:00.000-07:00

And after.

2005-05-05T05:44:00.000-07:00

The lighting was so cool last night. It looked like the light was coming out of the lake.

2005-05-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

All the secondes came back from the US this past weekend, and today, around 75% of them were wearing Abercrombie T-shirts. I managed to get my hands on some reeses peanut butter cups and an oreo. The Euro class had been in towns in Washington and Oregon for the past three weeks, and were in Seattle at the very end of the trip. My dad sent me an email saying he heard kids talking in French at the exact time that they would have been in town, and I'm certain it was them.

I only had classes until 11am today, so it was a pretty nice way to ease out of the vacation and into school.

Mom, Mother's Day here is May 29th. You'll have to wait. ;)

2005-04-30T05:31:00.000-07:00

Gilles showing his American Pride

2005-04-30T05:30:00.000-07:00

I'm a little confused about what country I'm in...

2005-04-30T05:29:00.000-07:00

Welcome to France

2005-04-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

Gilles taking pictures of the second band (there was a second band, by the way, who only played for a few minutes) last night. Most of my pictures turned out bad and really dark, but I'm sure he got some excellent ones.

2005-04-30T04:25:00.000-07:00

My final few days of break have been busy and pretty fun, its turned into Spring (but watch it snow next weekend)and its finally hot and sunny and looks like its probably going to stay that way for a while. Wednesday I went into town with my friend Matthieu and walked around and talked a bit, I haven't seen him in a long time and the last time we were together my French was terrible, so it was fun to get to know him more. We went to a cafe and saw my host sister and some of her friends there so we all sat down together, drank coffee, and had a good afternoon.

On Thursday I woke up with absolutely no plans for the day but to sit around. By 10am my friend Regina, the German girl at my school, had invited me to go spend the night at her house. Then, at lunch, my phone started ringing constantly with calls from Molly and Maite, who had been abandonned in Annecy for the day, and didn't have enough money to buy food. So in the afternoon I went and brought them some leftovers and KinderBueno bars and we sat around in the sun on the Paquier for a while. I headed back to St. Jorioz, sat around, went for a run, and an hour before I was supposed to go to Regina's I got a call. Regina was calling to say that we'ed been invited to our friend Sophie's party. And we were supposed to dress up. So I had 30 minutes to iron a skirt and shirt, do my hair, make up etc. The little party at Sophie's was lots of fun, there were only 7 of us, we cooked a nice dinner and listened to music and had a good time.

Friday afternoon I took several buses up to my friend Gilles house. Gilles was an exchange student in Belfair,WA last year. He went to North Mason High School, one of the schools in my High School's sports league AND he's been to Vashon High to play soccer against us. The world is so small. We met over the last vacation through my friend Amandine, and we've wanted to get together and talk about Seattle forever, but he's been incredibly busy. So yesterday we finally got together, he showed me all his pictures of Seattle and we talked and talked and talked for hours in English It was so much fun to get to talk to someone about home, which he misses a lot more than I do. That night we went to a concert at a Tex-Mex restaurant, because I had never been to a concert in France. Actually, I haven't really been to that many concerts in my entire life. It was a French punk rock band ( Fish Liver Oil), singing in english of course. Thats never been my type of music, but I was surprised, it wasn't bad at all, they were actually fairly good. What was bad was the venue. This bar/restaurant isn't really a great place for concerts, it was set up all wrong and in general they were completely unprepared. The power went out at one point. But I still had a good time, now I want to go to another concert here so I can see what they are really like. The restaurant itself was a crazy place, made to look like its in the south in the US with all sorts of liscense plates and buffalo skins. There's a helicopter too... they've succeded in making it look very white trash USA. Merci Gilles, I had a really great day!

2005-04-27T02:02:00.000-07:00

On Monday night I went over to my friend Hugo's house with a couple of other friends, to hang around, eat dinner, play video games, etc. But for me there was a whole other reason that I was there. After dinner Hugo and I sat down with his parents and we talked a while so I could get to know the family a bit and they could get to know me, and now unless something goes terribly wrong, I'm going to move in with them. Hugo asked his family a long time ago and they were ok with the idea, I just needed to meet them in order to get the process going. Now we're waiting to hear from Rotary. I talked to a Rotarian about it a few weeks ago and she said it'll be perfectly fine for me to live with them, Rotary just needs to tell them all the rules. I'm very excited to go live with them. I've had no real problems with my host family now, I know they love me and they've done so much for me, bringing me snowboarding, on trips to Lyon, etc. They've been so great to me. But, throughout the whole year I assumed I'd get three families, and was disappointed when I found out I wasn't going to be allowed to move. I'm only going to be at Hugo's for two months, but its the best two months for me to be there. Hugo's house is still about as far away as St. Jorioz, but its a little more accessable to Annecy because it uses a different bus line. Its a good time for me to go there because I know the entire month of June will be spent by my friends studying away for the Bac, which I'm not taking, so if I stayed here I'd be sitting home alone, feeling lonely, missing my French friends and American friends. This way, I'll always at least be around Hugo and his friends. I feel that this is a really great move for me, and I'm happy because I feel that it kinda validates my year. If I have made such good connections that I have friends that like me enough to allow me to live with them, this has all been amazingly successful. So thats my big news. I'll fill everyone in when I hear back from Rotary, and hopefully I'll have moved within the next two weeks.

2005-04-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

Spring break looks a lot like this.

2005-04-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, me, my host sister, and my host mom headed to Lyon to visit Florian and go shopping!

2005-04-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

In Lyon we went to this huge shopping center in Le Part-Dieu... and as I walked around I saw THIS in the window. Abercrombie, in FRANCE. This one sports store had a selection of guys t-shirts, nothing for girls. I was shocked, I had to take a picture

2005-04-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

My host sister, Caroline, snowboarding on Friday at Les Arcs. We had planned on going to Lyon Friday, but the weather looked like it was going to be good so we switched the Lyon trip to Saturday. We were right on. There was not a cloud in the sky the entire day, and the snow was fantastic. It was a perfect day to end the ski season!

2005-04-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

The view from l'Aiguille Rouge at Les Arcs

2005-04-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

The most beautiful day possible, Mt Blanc on the far right.

2005-04-24T07:53:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, my class went on a trip to Ferney-Voltaire, a town right next to Geneva where Voltaire used to live. My picture posting thing was down, so I'm putting them up now, even though some time has passed!

2005-04-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

Guillaume in our minibus!

2005-04-24T07:49:00.000-07:00

We ate lunch in an empty daycare center... and then had nap time.

2005-04-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

We learned that you can grow up, become a lyceen, but then as soon as you go back to the kindergarten, you completely revert. William picking up Caroline.

2005-04-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Standing around in Ferney-Voltaire

2005-04-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

When my class went to Ferney-Voltaire we took a walking tour of the town and saw all the Voltaire-related places. It was freezing cold. And VERY windy.

2005-04-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

Learning about printing back in the olden days

2005-04-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

My class in front of Voltaire's Chateau

2005-04-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

My Spring Break has been just as boring as I expected, I spent Sunday through Tuesday sitting around inside, reading, watching tv, being bored, as it rained/snowed outside. The weather has been truely terrible. After the first day where we got pounded with snow, it warmed up, all the snow melted quickly, and it rained and rained. Yesterday I finally managed to get outside the house. I met up with Noelle, an exchange student not with Rotary, who is from Montana. We walked around, shopped (but bought nothing, because we are so poor), and sat in a cafe and gossipped in English for a couple hours. Thats something I don't do often, in general, I talk to the other exchange students in French. Its easier to talk to them in French than a French person because they don't focus so much on every word, just the general idea. And I can learn lots of new phrases from them because its much easier to ask what something means. Today I'm going to be sitting around again, but I'm going to put myself to work. I have my presentation of Seattle to my rotary club in three weeks, and in two weeks I'm going to give a little "American Night" at my school with the help of Rachel. We'll both give our Rotary Presentations to our classmates and feed them American food her parents brought over, the Mexican girls did a similar thing earlier in the year. So today's challenge is going to be putting together a powerpoint presentation with pics of Seattle and stuff. Then I'll work on writing out the script of what I'll say in French (and have my friends edit it). I've been quite lazy with French this break, I've been constantly listening to music in English and I've become addicted to the book The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. My mom sent it to me months ago, there is a essay contest I can enter when I finish reading it. (I actually found out that the contests deadline was last week, but there's always next year). I've been only reading in French, so I didn't have the time, but I just finished Harry Potter and I figured I could take a break and read a little in English. But now I can't stop, and the book is nearly 700 pages long... I must do something in French today!

Tomorrow we're going to take advantage of the fresh snow and go skiing at Les Arcs, and then Saturday we're going shopping in Lyon.

Spring Break!

2005-04-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

img_1550
Originally uploaded by AnnaRae.

My first day of Spring Break in France.

Spring Break

2005-04-18T00:55:00.000-07:00

Spring Break... and we have around five inches of snow. I was not expecting that. Spring Break is supposed to mean beaches and flipflops, not snowstorms! Its unusual even for the Alps to get snow this late, and everyone is a little irritated. I guess I'd be happier if I thought I'd be going snowboarding, but my host parents have to work for the entire break, and a majority of my friends are out of town (Paris, Scotland, Bretagne, Ireland, Nice, Rotary Bus Trip, Skitowns... really, EVERYONE is GONE!) so it looks like I'll be sitting around my house, spending far too much time online and sitting around in front of the TV. I'm sitting around in France though, so I don't really think I'm allowed to complain.

Yesterday morning, I woke up, look outside, and saw snow falling like crazy. My host family rents out apartments (I think they own six) at Les Arcs, a ski resort about an hour and a half from here. They had some friends from their old town in the north of France who were heading down to spend a week in one of the apartments and were going to stop by Annecy and eat lunch on their way down. They ended up being about three and a half hours late because of the terrible road conditions. They said they were completely stopped at many times and there were cars in the ditches all along the way. Anyway, they ended up deciding to spend the night, and we had a really nice evening. We weren't really sure what we had on hand to make a dinner for eight people, and ended up eating crepes! I love crepes, I'm going to make them all the time back home. They left this morning, the roads are better now, the snow stopped yesterday around five pm. And hopefully it won't start up again for a while so we can get back to lazing around by the lake in t-shirts.

andy comes

2005-04-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-04-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

I woke up today with a sore back, it wasn't a bad sore back that means I slept wrong, it was a good sore that meant my muscles had gotten a work out the day before. It snowed the night before last, so we couldn't go running around on the mountain in gym class, instead we did cirque. I'm terrible at cirque. I spent the first 30 minutes wishing I skipped class, I mean, school on Saturday is cruel and unusual punishment to begin with. I think cirque is just an excuse for something to do if the gym teacher is feeling lazy, cause all she has to do is sit there. In cirque we juggle, balance on boards, and use little unicycle things. These are all things I happen to be terrible at. The tried to teach me to juggle, not realizing that people have been trying to teach me to juggle for the past 13 years. After a while I actually managed to do this group juggling thing, but I messed up a lot. Towards the end everyone just got bored and kinda sat around or ran and did flips off a trampoline onto the mat. I went over and started playing on the balance beam (I did the splits on it, people freaked out). And then tried out the parallel bars. My gym teacher saw I was interested, so she showed me some stuff on the uneven bars as everyone else sat around. I learned a mount and she showed me how to get enough momentum to swing my body around the bar. It was REALLY difficult, and I know I was only doing basic things but it took a lot of effort, I definetly have more respect for gymnasts now, they make it look so easy.

Tomorrow my class is going on a daytrip to Geneva. We're going to go to the Voltaire foundation and then hang around in the afternoon in town. It just so happens that my friend Andy, and exchange student in Italy, is on a miniexchange through his school and will be in Geneva. We're hoping that we'll be able to connect in the afternoon for a little bit.

According to what people say in emails, and through statistic trackers, I know that people are reading this blog. So my question is, why don't you leave comments? I hate taking all the effort to write entries and then not have people tell me they read it, I feel like I'm wasting my time. Thats why I haven't been making so many entries recently. Its not difficult, just click the comments link under this post. I'd really appreciate it! And to those of you who already do it, thanks a ton.

2005-04-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

Springtime has tricked us once again, at the beginning of the week we were sitting around in the sun, and now its raining like crazy, and I think its been snowing in the mountains. I'm sure its all going to stop soon... I hope, the spring was looking pretty good to me.

Wednesday I went with my friend Max and his mom to a performance at the big theater in Annecy. It was called Plan B, and it was AMAZING. I'm not even really sure how I can describe it. It was a circus with four men. But not a real circus...really. There was no talking, which was great for me cause I understood the whole thing. The main set peice was this big wall thing, which at one point was horizontal, at another point was vertical, and at another it was flat. When it was horizontal the men were doing flips on it, sideways, lying down, and there were little boxes and holes that were sometimes there and sometimes not, that made it more exciting. When it was vertical they climbed, did flips, etc, to get to the top. And when it was flat on the stage there was a big screen up in the back and there were video cameras up above taping what was happening on the wall on the ground, the men would be flat on the wall, doing fight scenes and flips and stuff so it looked like they were flying through the air on the big screen. I'm terrible at trying to explain it. Take my word for it that it was very cool.

Joyeux Anni Hugo!

2005-04-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

Astrid (Australia), Me, and Izzy (Canada) in front of Lac Léman. Some different countries have different colored blazers. Australians have green, Canadians blue or red, New Zealanders have black, etc, etc, in general most countries have blue, like the US.

2005-04-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Me! Evian umbrella! In Evian!

2005-04-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

Stas and Izzy in the casino we ate lunch ate. Its illegal to take pictures inside... hehehe.