11.14.2010

Love and finding a home

Hello. Hi. It's me, (Vi)Nora. I am not dead. Au contraire, I am very much alive and too busy LIVING to be bothered with things like blogging. But seriously I apologize to all of you out there who I know live to read my blog. I have been selfish and neglectful.

Let's seeee. Where I left off, we were in the middle of fête-ing and grève-ing. The strikes have died down and are basically finished around here. The fêtes, on the other hand, are not finished. This is Bretagne, after all. Things must be celebrated.

This past Wednesday was my birthday and Tuesday was my host sister's birthday. We are the same age- born exactly 14 hours apart. How weird is that? And our dads were born on the same day too. There is some serious zodiac alignment happening here I think. To celebrate, we had a wonderful family dinner on Tuesday night with fondue and cake and presents and champagne. Not only do Maïwenn and I have the same birthday, we also bought each other the same birthday presents- gloves that we saw one day when we were shopping and both really liked. Later, we both went back to the store (seperately) and bought them for each other. Pretty adorable. My friends gave me little boxes of knick knacks they had assembled for me- things with sentimental value or some kind of use or absolutely no value or use at all. I loved it.


On Wednesday night we had a joint birthday party at the house, because Thursday (November 11th) is a national holiday in France and there is no school. Too bad I don't live in France- I could have a party every year the day of my birthday, regardless of if it's on a weekend or not. Damn.

The party was a whole lot of fun. Overall, it was a very good 48 hours of celebrating our births.

In other news, since my last blog post I feel like I've really turned a corner in terms of adjustment and well, I don't know, being here. I have been saying "I love it here!!" basically since I got here, but I feel like now it is becoming more and more true. It is funny to think that I was proclaiming my love for this place way back then, before I really knew it. And I'm sure in another few months I will love it and feel that I know it just that much more.

But right now it really has become a new home. My friends have really become wonderful, dear friends, not just nice people who let me, the dumb american, tag along with them. I am actually completely in awe of the way that I was taken in by them, and the fact that they immediately liked me before knowing me. Now that my French is better and I'm more adjusted, I can come out of my shell more and we are all just one big happy clan of copines. I adore them all and feel so incredibly lucky and happy to be here with them.

I have figured out how to exist among my host family and the awkwardness of being a stranger in someone else's home has completely slipped away. They are hilarious, humorous and remarkably on the same plane as my family at home.

French flows much more easily out of my mouth and people don't have to repeat themselves quite so much. There is still a long way to go in terms of the language, but that whole problem is becoming more and more obsolete.

I just feel so unbelievably blissfully happy. It's probably really annoying to read all this gushiness (I feel annoyed just writing it), but gosh, what can I say...

France, I- I think... I might... Be in love with you.

(et je ne veux jamais te quitter)

1 comment:

  1. Hey Nora this is Jake!
    this is the most adorable blog post ever!
    ME SO HAPPY 4 U

    ReplyDelete