my new life

Salut!
Everyone (yes you Arameh) has been telling me to write another blog, so here it is =)
I have been really busy these last few weeks, and have been getting real tired. The tiredness is a lot to do with the long days at school, but also concentrating on listening to people when they talk to me. It's hard to explain, but I can't just sit there and understand people talking, I actually have to listen really, really carefully and concentrate on what they are saying. At times it can be a bit frustrating with the language barrier at school and that, because I want to say something but don't know how to say it in French. That is quite hard for me because like most of you know I love to talk and talk and talk, but here it's a bit hard to do that haha. The amount I speak in NZ in one day is probably the equivalent to what I speak here in one week. Maybe not even that lol, you get the picture anyway.

Ahh fashion y'all want to know about the fashion ay? Well all I can say is wow. I'll put it this way, no one comes to school wearing trackies and a hoody. I'm pretty sure that most the girls who go to my school could be models if they wanted to. I was talking to my host mum and she said that the girls at David d'Angers are known to be "très chic." I will put some photos up on facebook or something soon enough and you can see for yourselves. I really love the clothes they wear though. It's strange for me to wear mufti everyday and I suddenly have realised I don't have much clothes! When you wear mufti everyday it gets hard to find stuff to wear! I would definitely prefer to wear uniform, such less preparation!

All the people in my class are really nice and I enjoy school and have finally figured out my timetable (it has only taken 3 weeks), although I still understand nothing in my lessons! On Thursday night I went to the theatre with my French class, and well that was an experience and a half!! I probably understood two sentences in the whole piece. I think it would have been boring in English to be honest, there were two characters and all they did was talk, fight, talk, fight. Then they started throwing rubbish everywhere, now that was just random. The whole time I thought that they were father and daughter and then in the end they started kissing lol, so I got that a bit wrong. It was definitely an experience.

I am now on holidays for 3 weeks =D well officially it's 2 weeks, but when everyone goes back to school I have a bus trip with other exchange students in France and we are going to Spain for the week. I can't wait it's going to be so much fun and I will meet heaps of new people. These holidays I am going to Paris for the day with Alain and Véronique (my host parents) and Lea who is a family friend, shes 16. I am also going to stay at her house for 2 nights, and I am looking forward to that. Her family lives in the country about half an hour away so she goes to a different school. When I was told we were going to Paris I was sooo excited, if you have ever been into my bedroom in NZ you will have seen my obsession with Paris, so this is actually a dream come true.

I was told before I arrived that it will start getting warmer, well that was lies! I swear everyday it gets colder, like this morning I woke up to find snow everywhere. It's like being out on the Kepler all over again... everyday! It's crazy, and I am so jealous to hear about people at the beach in NZ!

Last weekend I went with my friend Lucas to Nantes. Nantes is the closest city to Angers and it's where a lot of the other exchange students in my district live. So I met up with them and we had a really good afternoon. Lucas is the guy from Brazil. We took the TGV which is soo fast compared to the Auckland trains. It takes an hour to drive to Nantes by car, in the tgv it took us 35 minutes. From Pukekohe to Auckland is about 40 minutes when there is no traffic, and in the train it's over an hour... So you can see why I was so amazed!

Tonight we had crêpes for tea! And I made them! It was really fun because we flip it in the air and catch it with the frying pan again. I made a couple of bad ones but I didn't drop any on the floor so that was good! I was a bit worried that I would throw them too high and they would land on the roof aswell! Haha- Only in France.

To be completely honest I don't really miss home that much, only the sunshine. It's because I have been so busy here adjusting to a new life I haven't had time to think about it. I am sure the homesickness will come at some point.

Well I will put a couple of photos up for you. To the St Mary's class of 2009; good luck to all you heading off to University, I'm thinking of you! =)
Laura xoxo


me and lucas at the patinoir (ice skating)


the snow outside my house this morning


me and véronique at this super old village just out of Angers, the roads are all made out of rocks, and the houses are of stone. The town is right by the river and it floods often, we are standing beside a sign which shows how much this town floods. It is so bad everyone leaves by boat!


Crêpe making!

La France, le première semaine. (France, the first week)

Okay its been a week since my last post and a lot has happened since then. It's been very busy, tiring, interesting, and I've also had heaps of fun. So here it is.

School
wow, school here is so different to St Marys! My school is called Lycée David D'Angers. Some mornings I start at 8, others at 9. And I finish either at 12pm, 4, or 5. My friends all finish at 6 on a tuesday because they have this study thing for the bac's which is kind of like our NCEA exams. The bac's are at the end of the school year which is June. It seems really stressful and the work looks really hard (not that I understand much) haha. The teachers speak sooooo fast and write nothing on the blackboard (yes blackboard, haha and I thought France was new age....) so I pretty much just end up sitting there doing nothing, sometimes I sleep, sometimes I try listen (it takes huge concentration though), and sometimes I copy what other people are writing. Oh and everyone here has neat as writing, its all kinda like caligraphy and linked, its really hard to read! So when the teacher does write the rare word on the board I can hardly tell what the letters are anyway. Everyone probs thinks my writing is messy as. We have 2 or 3 hours for lunch and we can do whatever we want. I have a card to eat at the canteen but the food isnt always that good. When we have 3 hours for lunch my friends go into town for lunch and then go shopping or something so we did that last week. Also people who live close to school return home and have lunch with their families. I went to Nicolas' last week for lunch and met his family which will soon be my family, I really enjoyed that. I am in the première grade which is the equivalent to 6th form, and after the summer holidays (july-ish) I will be in terminale (7th form). At my school they don't have options like we do but instead take either art subjects, science subjects, or social/economic subjects. I am in the social/economic group and I didn't get to choose it but its cool. The subjects I take are- Maths (i love maths because its stuff Ive done before and maths is universal), English, Advanced English (lol its either this or another maths),Economics (difficult- I do nothing), History/Geo (also impossible), PE (fun- we play volleyball), French, this thing like biology (equals sleepy time) and also this other subject and I have no idea what it is because I havent had it yet its on my time table as ECJS so whatever that is I'm sure it will be hard. Also if a teacher is away the class is cancelled- this has happened to me 3 times already. They don't have a morning tea break as such but instead there's 2 breaks during the day 15 mins each where we can leave if we want. Pretty much everyone goes outside the school for a smoke- everyone here smokes its crazy. I also have some lessonss that are 2hours long, those suck haha. When I tell people about the differences between school in NZ and here they are amazed especially at the fact that we wear a uniform and have no boys! (Schools like that dont exist here in France)


food/other stuff
Okay the food here is insane. Its so yum! But they never snack between meals so I am starving when the time comes to eat. Lunch and Dinner are both huge meals with like 4 courses. They have the best bread and cheese aswell!
Its really cold here ( sometimes in the minus degrees). To school I usually wear 5 layers and a scarf haha. But the houses/class rooms are warm enough, its just outside thats freezing. I went for a walk with my host Mum around the Lake in Angers called Lac de Maine its 5km around the lake and heaps of people go there for bike riding, running etc. It was really nice but cold as! Parts of the lake were completely frozen over it was really cool to see. Theres another rotary student at my school from Brazil but he arrived 6 months ago and will leave in june, he's really nice and we might be going to Nantes together this weekend. My house is real cool i love it here and I have a huge room, and they are renovating a bathroom that I will use. It will be finished in a week or so.

Anyway heres some photos for y'all. Enjoy and take care xx Laura



My school- its actually like a maze i never know where the class rooms are.



Inside the cathedral- amazing


me outside the cathedral


dinner at councillors house with all three sets of host parents and Nicolas


Me and my host mum at the Lake


My House- my room is at the very top where that window is =) its so nice!