9.09.2010

Laissez Le Blogging Commencer

Hi.
I've been gone for a week now, and I'm sorry that I haven't blogged yet. This has been the CRAZIEST week of my life so far. I will try to catch up on some stuff:
First of all, I went to New York for some orientation in a hotel ballroom. It was a lot of fun, which I wasn't expecting, and aalthough the orientation activities themselves were kind of dumb and boring, it was so interesting to meet other students from all over the country. I was able to establish a really great group of friends, and really enjoyed hanging out with people who were in the same boat. It was great to talk to other exchange students about being an exchange student because we all share a similar outlook and attitude that is maybe different from our peers. We flew to Paris together (51 students on one plane!) overnight on Thursday, and arrived in France after having gotten about one hour of sleep. We stayed in Paris in a hostel for two days. Unfortunately, we couldn't leave the hostel because of insurance and blah blah blah, but that ended up being okay because I had a great time being with my friends and meeting students from all over the world (groups of AFS students from other countries met us at the hostel). It was the coolest experience, because we got to make connections with people from Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovenia, etc. I loved it.
Apparently in Slovenia, "nora" means "stupid." Awesome.

Anyways, that was a lot of fun. On sunday, I took the TGV from Paris to Rennes and met my host father, Marco, and host sister, Maïwenn, at the train station. We drove to their house, about an hour away, which is halfway between two towns: Redon and Bains Sur Oust. It's only 2 miles or so to either town. We had lunch as a family (I met my host mother, Magali, at the house). In France, Lunch is as big of a meal as dinner, if not bigger. Especially on Sundays. So we had a big lunch, and afterwards I had a big nap. Then they took me into Bains Sur Oust, where they have a sort of village-wide rummage sale every Sunday. Then we went home and had crepes for dinner. We don't eat untilm around 8:30 or 9 at night, and dinner is long. So everyone just goes to bed afterwards.

On monday I took the day off of school to rest and recuperate and explore Redon. It was great. Redon is so beautiful it makes me want to cry.

I started school yesterday, it was very scary and very confusing. Maïwenn helped me a lot, even though we aren't in the same class. There was a strike happening yesterday in France parce que Nicolas Sarkozy est une espèce de con and the retirment age is 60. Some of the teachers were striking, so I didn't have class the first and last two hours of the day. I met a really wonderful girl in my class named Lucile, and she invited me to go walk around town with her that afternoon. She speaks some english, so we can use it to supplement my French. We had a great afternoon, and I'm really happy to have met her.

I have lots more to blog, but it's almost dinnertime (it's 8:45 pm) and i don't want to overuse the computer.

Sorry to be so late in starting actual blogging.
To see my pictures of France and orientation, go to this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076680&id=1322227136&l=954977665

In closing, let me just say that this is the most overwhelming and challenging and exciting thing I have ever done or could ever imagine doing. I'll try to keep this blog updated weekly.

A toute à l'heure,

Vee-no-rah

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