Eating dinner! 

Cleaning up our mess. 

Today at 6:30 the Mexican girls at my school (Tannia, Yolanda, and Teresa- all hiding in the shadow on the left) threw a little Mexican Party, I think a teacher convinced them to do it. Anyway, it was lots of fun. I stayed and helped them prepare guacamole and quesadillas and decorate the cantine, then later all their host families and a mojority of my class came. They gave a powerpoint presentation and then everyone dug into the food, it was a great way to spend the evening. 

William eating a chip. 

French people discovering the wonders of guacamole and salsa. 

Tannia eating quesadillas. 

Tannia explaining something to Colombe. 

Friends of mine hanging out at the Soirée Mexicaine 

The Paquier- lots of green grass where all the lycéens in the city eat lunch when its sunny out. 

Buildings on the river in Annecy, Palais de l'ile on the right. 

The Thiou, the river that runs through the canals from the lake.  

Rue Royale, a main street in Annecy. 

Le Palais de L'ile. The old town jail, now a museum. 

Rue Carnot, uncharacteristically empty (because it was raining). Rue Carnot is the main pedestrians only street crammed with shops, it starts near the lake and ends at one of the big malls. 

Flower pyramid in front of the Hotel de Ville (townhall) 

Buildings across the street from the Hotel de Ville 

The entrance to the vielle ville d' Annecy from Faubourg des Baumettes (the street my school is on) 

The Thiou from the Pont des Amors 

The prefecture 

Pictures

Nothing much exciting has been going on, just daily life. I went to FNAC (big store with electronics, cds, books, photo developing, etc) yesterday and figured out how to make prints of some of my digital pictures. I've been using lower resolution on my camera so now when I order prints in order for them not to look pixilated I have to order mini 6cm by 8cm prints. I'll start using higher resolution now so I can get real ones! Its not cheap to get digital printouts at FNAC, but its cheaper than me buying disposable cameras and getting them developed- and this way I can choose what I want prints of. After school today Molly, the other American girl, and I went and did a little preliminary round of shopping for the big Thanksgiving feast we're going to attempt to prepare on Sunday. I'm not sure how it'll work out as neither of us have ever done this before and we'll be cooking for 13 people. Even if we burn the Turkey we'll still have fun- the whole reason we're doing this is to have a good time and celebrate a little. I also got my school pictures back today at school. Pictures were taken in the middle of the second week of school, and I wasn't aware that they were going to be taken. And they didn't have us fill out papers and order packages of pictures and pay them, so I was thinking I wasn't going to get them at all, but apparently we don't pay for them (must be built into tuition) and every kid gets a class picture, nine individual pocket pictures, and one bigger individual one. My picture isn't too bad this year- I've definetly had worse. And I'm so happy to have a picture of my class! And I'll get a yearbook when they come out. My school is the only school in the city that has yearbooks, so I'm pretty lucky. Except, you get your yearbook at the beginning of the next year, not the end of the year, so I'll have to have it mailed to me, its worth it though!

French Boxing

Last night my host family and I went out to a very expensive restaurant for dinner. We had four courses, and it took several hours, I felt so French. I didn't understand the menu at all, neither did Marion. It would be ok if they wrote "fish with rice and mushrooms" in French, but of course they have to use very complex and sophisticated names that no one has heard of. The first course for me was this little puffy mound that turned out to be fish (it didn't taste like fish), the next was a salad of sausage slices and beans covered with some dressing. I know that explanation makes it sound like pork and beans, but it wasn't, it was very classy, I promise. My main course was more fish mounds (a different type) and a perfectly molded little pile of rice, it was all topped with an orangey yellow sauce, tiny shrimp, and chives. My dessert was a really light chocolate cake and a ball of icecream. It was all amazing, and I'm surprised I liked it, I didn't think I'd like Fancy French Food.

I went to PE class today, badmitton (is that spelled right) racket in hand, but I opened the door to the gym and found it filled with chairs and a stage. Today was the inaugeration of the new buildings and track that have been built at my school. So we went to the other gym on the other side of campus and were told that today we would do circus and boxing. Circus?? It turned out to be juggling, balancing, playing with Diablo sticks, unicycling, etc. We did this all for the first hour. At the beginning of the class about a thousand parents came through to check out the new gym that had been built before moving on to the track and the other building to cut the ribbon. There was also a man with a video camera which he pointed at us and told us tod smile and do something interesting. We ran upstairs.

Boxing was great. When they dragged out a huge box filled with boxing gloves I was a bit skeptical- wasn't this dangerous? But I ended up enjoying myself immensely. We paired up and learned the different punches and practiced them and at the end had little boxing matches. They made a big deal of saying this was FRENCH boxing, not American boxing. Yes, there is a difference. You kick in French boxing. You are only allowed to kick with the top of your foot to the outside of your opponents outer thigh/hip, but still, this makes everything more challenging. You can't just focus on guarding yourself against upper body blows, you need to keep dodging your neighbors feet as well. Though I lost both the matches I was in (with two of the Mexican girls) I only lost by one point each time, and the instructor pointed at me and said I was really good. Maybe I should take up boxing while I'm here...

Opening presents on my birthday! 

Sweatshirt from the my host family! I got a white fleece from them and a black fleece from my parents, my bases are covered. 

Me and my Abercrombie T-shirt from my parents (Marion's thumb is over the lens a bit, sorry) 

Blowing out my candles! 

The tissue paper flower the Mexican girls gave to me, as well as the letter they wrote me all folded up cute and a leaf my friend Eric gave me. 

Pre-Anniversaire

Today is the day before my birthday but it kinda served as my birthday at school because we'll all be sitting around at home tomorrow! Las Trois Mexicaines (the three Mexican girls, everyone just calls them that because its easier than saying Tannia, Yoly, and Tere) gave me this cool tissue paper flower thing they made and a drawing of us that said Happy Birthday in three languages and was folded into the shape of a shirt. Eric, Maite, and Molly bought me a white knitted ski cap and a hair tie- an attempt to make me more French. This afternoon Zara, Molly, Maite, and Eric and I all bought lunch at Quick (a French fast food restaurant, it doesn't live up to its name), the first fast food I've had here! And it was très cher and not really very good. Then we bought Pain au Chocolate and put candles in it and they sang me "Joyeuse Anniversaire". It was lots of fun and made me really happy. Tomorrow is the big day, but I don't think I'm going to be doing anything more than opening all the packages my relatives have sent me and sitting around waiting for my parents to call!

C'est la heure

J'adore la 0h00. Sorry this is so bright, I couldn't turn the flash off my camera! Its snowing outside! See below for todays post. 

The Marathon

I have no school again today, because of the French kids taking tests! Yesterday I just had school in the afternoon- an English exam- I finished like an hour and a half before everyone else, even the other American, because I can't translate to French! I'm hoping I did everything else right though. The night before I slept at my host grandparents home, it was nice to be able to spend my morning watching BBC, which we don't get at my house. I watched hours of home makeover and antique shows, it was bliss. My host parents returned from NYC this afternoon, they had been gone for a week to go run the marathon and be tourists. They were both in extremely good moods when they came in, everything went well, they both finished (Catherine in 4:27:41 and Benoit in 5:03:19), they bought Marion her iPod, and their flight from New York to London was only six hours long. The New York Marathon really seems like a lot of fun, you'd see so much of the city- so much variety, really, its a great race for tourists because you cover everything. I have a half day of school tomorrow, like normal, and then no school Thursday- which is my birthday!

Back To School

It was a little bit of a relief to go back to school, I had a great vacation, but the last few days I was sitting around doing nothing, and it was beginning to get to me. It was nice to go back, follow the schedual, see my friends and hear about their vacations. I think I learned alot of French over vacation, at least it seems like I'm understanding more now. I studied conjugations over break which has helped me, and I also watched a lot of movies most in French, some had subtitles, some didn't (Le Silence Des Agneaux, Dr. Folamour, Le Pianiste, Les Choristes, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Beethoven 2, The Virgin Suicides, Pearl Harbor, Le Grand Bleu). But going back to school meant I had to sit through people blabbing on and on about Bush in class. We talked for at least an hour about it in Histoire, and other classes too, and then of course people had to talk about it at lunch and at break and on the bus, and anytime they saw me. They know too much about the US, one boy was making some references to FDR and the New Deal even- why would a French boy know what the New Deal is? He told me its because hes crazy about the US, I believe it. Although it was nice to go back to school, I was very happy to discover that I get another mini-vacation. I don't need to go to school today (Saturday) or Tuesday and only in the afternoon Monday, because the French kids are taking exams, rather than have me sit doing nothing in a three hour French exam, I get to be home sleeping. I have to take the English one though.

Still Counting...

Being an American in Europe has certainly made the election exciting. And annoying. I'm sick of people asking me about it, and even when I say my parents voted for Kerry they still feel that they need to spend the next hour or so explaining to me why they hate Bush so much. Oui, je sais que vous n'aimez pas Bush! Je comprends! Arretez, s'il vous plait! The big thing with me is that I don't want somebody else to tell me who wins, I want to find out for myself. So I've spent today, my last day of vacation, periodically going to CNN.com and checking election results. As I write this, we're still waiting to see what the deal is with Ohio, and even though nothing is "for sure" I'm getting the feeling that Bush is going to win. I also think that this election is going to take a LONG TIME to decide,its just so incredibly close. I wonder what school is going to be like tomorrow. Will people be asking me about it? Bothering me? Or will they not really care, and not bring it up? I'm sure my Histoire/Geographie teacher will talk about it, he has in pretty much every class I've been to of his. And he always asks me sarcastic questions about Bush and whether I support him and I never quite understand him and always mumble "oui?" or "non?" hoping that what I'm saying is the right thing.