Sunday, August 29, 2004

babysitting

I just had a nice long post but the virus'd computer screwed it up. Someone was supposed to come fix it yesterday, now its looking like he'll come Wednesday or Thursday. I'm honestly surprised i've survived so long with out hearing from my friends, it better not be too much longer though...

Last night Marion and I babysat for a little girl who spoke French, Dutch, and English fluently. She is Dutch, has lived in Hong Kong where she spoke English, and now lives in Geneva (and Annecy on weekends) where she speaks French. For a weekend house it was very nice- furnished in that weekend house way with everything left over from your normal house, but still nice. After weput her to bed we watched "Lost in Translatin". It was artistic, but kinda boring. We also watched some of the Italy-Argentina Olympics basketball game and then Temptation Island (French Version) before her parents got back from dinner.

This morning I woke up early to say goodbye to Anne-Sophie before she left with her family to drive to Lyon for her myriad of flights to Sioux Falls, SD. When they were gone i went with our nextdoor neighbors (a couple with seven kids ranging in age from 4 months to 14 years) to our village church for mass. The church was absolutely gorgeous, their father told me the church its self is probably only (ONLY!!) 300 years old but the foundation was laid in the 11th Century. I went to their house for lunch and talked to them about the USA and Seattle as the father translated.

School starts Thursday! i'm scared!

Thursday, August 26, 2004

City Walks

If someone told me a year ago that I would be in France sitting around with Frenc kids at cafés, I so wouldn't have believed them, but here I am, doing that. Yesterday and today have been spent looking around the city of Annecy.Yesterday I tagged qlong with my host sister, Anne-Sophie, as she went around with her friends to shops and cafés. In the US when we were told that they all kiss eachother on the cheek I didn't understand that that means they kiss EVERYONE on the cheeks! Like I was at Anne-Sophies friend's house, we walked in and everyone kissed us, then when more kids came, they all kissed us too. The kids didn't even ask who I and why I was there, they just went ahead. In the US you don't enter a room and just randomly hug everyone, including people you don't know. Its different, but its good, they are very accepting.

Today the Australian exchange student, Zara, gave me a walkign tour of Annecy. She showed me all over the old town and down the canals and brought me to Sephora and H&M. The Old City is very beautiful and the canals are great. I know this sounds stupid- but everything isso very european. Like today, after my time with Zara, my host mother and I went to the Butcher shop in our little town of Menthon to get sausage for dinner. The shop was in an building hundreds of years old and had a line of people waiting to get their meat.

The computer has a virus that won't be fixed until Saturday so I can't check my email, if anyone emailed me, I'll get back to you soon!

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

I'm (still) Here!

The keyboard is messing me up, forgive any typos i'm too lazy to fix! So we hung out for a long time in Detroit and then took off to Paris. On this trip I sat next to a twentysomething Nebraska woman who was going back to France to teach for two years, she had already worked there in the past. She was extremely talkative and quite obsessive about her dog, who's framed picture she took out of her bag so she could show it to me and all the flight attendants.

The plane left really late because some man decided not to go and they had to search for his luggage, I spent the time walking around the plane and talking to everyone. The back of the seats had tv monitors in them and remotes came out of the armrest- like first class, it was so cool! We could choose what movie to watch and what games to play and what music to listen to. I watched Mean Girls and Shrek 2. I had barely fallen asleep when they announced breakfast- which was odd because dinner was two hours earlier.

We arrived at Paris (CDG) after about 7 hours and were extremely confused. Not one person out of the forty of us knew where to go in order to get Boarding Passes for our next flight. And i wasn't sure if my bags had been checked all the way to Geneva or just to Paris. I bupassed luggage and went out to where tons of people were holding up signs looking for their students, I found some Rotary officials who (thank God) were going to show us where to go next. Did I mention that the escalators were flat? Like moving ramps, it was so cool! After waiting in the group for a half hour or so I found a stub that said my baggage was checked only through to Paris, so I had to squish my way in the out door to grab them. After an hour orso we were ushered onto busses that took us to the Departure gates. When I went to get my boarding pass they told me that my carry ons were too heavy. I was so stressed and so tired that I was on the verge of tears when they told me that i'd have to pay extra or shove all my stuff in my backpack into my luggage. I managed, but it was very stressful.

The flight to Geneva was good- less than an hour and the plane was nearly empty, I had three seats to my self. The worst part of the day came at the airport in Geneva where we (me and two other girls) followed all the other passengers past the baggage claim and down the hall that said France- the other said Geneva, and we were certain we were going to France. Then we realized that they didn't check their luggage and ours was back where we started. Once again I had to force my way into the baggage claim area- when will I learn?

After that we went back down the France hall to find our families, who weren't there. Wewaited for like ten minutes and then realized that something had to be wrong- I can imagine one family being late, but not three. No one spoke english well enought o really help us. Finally I decided to go and check down the swiss hall, at the end I looked around and saw no one waiting and ran back to France. Then a woman told us we had to go down the Swiss hallway-which I had just done, but it didn't make sense not to try again. We had to lug our luggage (for me, two huge rolling suitcase and one smaller rolling carry on) down many hallways and a flight of stairs. At the end we were sweating profusely and looked disgusting. We were all close to tears when we went through customs and finally found our families peering out at us behind a glass wall.

My host mother, host father, one host sister, and an Australian exchange student, Zara, were there to bring me home. Zara has been in annecy 6 months and speaks French beautifully- but was just like me when she left, she gives me so much hope. After an hour of horrible traffic, we were home.

My email isn't working, which is very annoying. Are my comments working at the bottom of this entry? Everything is screwed up. Au revoir!

I'm Here!

I have arrived in Annecy finally! Its going to be difficult to get used to the key board but I'll write a little. My mom wrote about saying goodbye at the airport on her blog so read about it there.

On my first flight I sat next to a pair of twin 11 year old girls from Mercer Island who were going to visit their cousins in Ann Arbor. After I told them I was moving to france for a year they told me that they had lived in France for two years when their dad had worked there and that I would love it. Hmph. How is it that little kids have already done this? They also compared clouds to Swedish TemperPedic Mattresses.

I was on that flight with about 7 other rotary students from Alaska, BC, and Washington, after the flight to Detroit we all got off and saw Rotary kids everytwhere, there were probably about 40, we all sat together and talked and played poker (I won, and it was my first time!)

Time for lunch, I'll add more later!

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Finally!

Today is my LAST DAY in Seattle, and it feels really awkward- we're pretending that its a normal day but it clearly isn't. I'm pretty much done with packing and now its just little things that I want/need that much be jammed into them. I found out I don't have to go through customs in Paris which is a relief- I initially thought I'd have to go through customs in Paris, then in Geneva (since its not in the E.U) and then at the border going back into France. I'll still go through them when driving into France- but thats just a little border stop- like going into Canada from the US but faster.

I'm worried that my family won't be as into watching the Olympics as I am- it'd be very comforting to me to be watching the same thing in France as I would be back in Seattle, and I'll be annoyed if I can't see them! I was only able to watch half of the Olympics back at the Salt Lake City games because I went to Italy after the first week with my eighth grade class. We had to stay in a convent in Rome with no TV (much cheaper than a hotel).

I leave at 8:55 am to fly to Detroit. I'll arrive in Geneva at 4:40 pm (their time) the next day. Its over 24 hours of traveling- there MUST be an easier way!

Thursday, August 19, 2004

The Goodbyes Continue...

I've spent the past few days hanging out with my friends for the last times before I go. On Tuesday night my family went out with my friend Christine's familyto a restaurant for dinner, then she spent the night at my house. I've known her since 1st grade, longer than any of my other friends, and even after all these years we still never run out of anything to talk about. The next day my friends Brittany and Erin took me out to lunch at Red Robbin's and then we bought dessert at a bakery and walked for a while at a beach. There are so many people I still have to either see or call and say goodbye to that I am certain I'll forget someone.

I'm getting nervous about going but I'm also getting excited, especially about the little things- like the food and my family. I don't know too much about my family, except that my host mother's name is Catherine and my host father's name is Benoit. Benoit works in insurance, I don't know if Catherine works. They have three girls- one in her early 20s (who's name I forget) and is living in some other city going to school, one who is 18 who was an exchange student in Seattle last year named Marion- I got to meet her, and one who is 16 and will be an exchange student in South Dakota next year when I am at her house, her name is Anne-Sophie. I get my own room, which is good, I've never had to share a room and I think it'd be very difficult to start off my exchange sharing one. I'm going to need a place to be alone when I'm homesick, or when I'm up all night because of Jetlag. We don't have any servants except for a woman who comes in to do the ironing- I'm not sure how frequently. But how cool is that?? I spend so much time ironing, and always at the last second before I have to leave for school, now someone will do it for me for a couple of months.

Monday, August 16, 2004

Goodbye Party


goodbyeparty
Originally uploaded by frenchgirl11.
Yesterday was my goodbye party. Initially all of the exchange students at my school were going to have one big party, then we'd all have family parties, but we all got busy and could never find a day that we were all free to have it. Subsequently, I had to throw my own goodbye party. I decided I wanted to keep it small- its just too much stress to throw a huge one by myself- Who do I invite? Who will be mad at me if I forget to invite them? How would I amuse everyone??? I settled for a crowd of about 25, neighbors, family friends, and a handful of teenagers. I was a little freaked out that my friends from my high school and my old friends from Seattle wouldn't get along- or that the VHS kids would just overpower all the other ones, but it all turned out well- I don't give my friends enough credit, they are mature enough to handle that situation easily. I was surprised that people gave me presents, but I guess I should've expected that. It felt really good to just see all the people I care about all together. I'm really going to miss my friends.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

The Adventure Begins

Several months ago I was chosen by Rotary to be an exchange student in France. After months of paperwork and preparation I am finally getting ready to leave. In 12 days on August 23rd I'll be saying goodbye to my family and friends in Seattle, Wa and moving to Annecy, a city of 133,000 in the Haute-Savoie region of France for the 2004-2005 school year.

We finally found out that my visa is in! And all my flights have been confirmed. The same doesn't go for my friend Chloe who will be spending next year in Pamplona, Spain. After tons of drama, Chloe will have to fly down to San Francisco on Thursday to go to the Spanish Consulate and get her visa in person. This is completely outrageous- and the fact that it happened to Chloe (who has had numerous problems with her exchange already) is terrible. Visit her Mom's blog for the whole story.