Ma Vie à Annecy

Saturday, June 25, 2005

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.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

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.

Friday, June 17, 2005

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?

Friday, June 10, 2005

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.