Well when I first arrived last week... I was absolutely exhausted! You see... I didn't sleep on the plane and when I arrived in Paris, we didn't have a chance to sleep until we boarded the bus at around 4:00pm... that's when most people dozed off, and I tried to for a little bit but I was more preoccupied by the scenery (which looked a lot like Australia and Canada meshed together -with the odd historic-looking building here and there). When we arrived in Rennes, most of the other students and I were picked up either by our counselors or families. The other girl going to my town (Lais, from Brazil), and I were met by our counselor and club president. We drove for a bit before stopping for dinner. I had a burger, the last one for awhile, I figured. Then we kept driving. (Though I tried, I still couldn't sleep due to nervous excitement in my belly). I didn't get to my host family's house until 12am France time, which is about 3pm Vancouver time (the day after I left). Because my family could speak no English, they had a friend who could speak English and was staying overnight, translate the basics for me. He gave me a tour of the house, and some basic information... none of which I remembered due to my extreme lack of sleep.. and told me a little bit about the family... once again, I can't remember exactly what. Then, I went to bed. But after lying in bed for 2 hours with no sleep despite being massively sleep deprived, I gave up, turned on the light and started unpacking. Most likely from being so tired and from my long journey, I did cry while unpacking. It hit me... this is my home now for 6 months, I won't see my home in Canada for one year, I won't get to see my dogs or my family or friends until next year, and I won't get to graduate with my friends! You could say I was a little homesick, but as soon as I had unpacked and could see my things around the room, I felt a little more at ease and I settled back into bed at 3:30am (6:30pm Vancouver time) and if you did the math, that is exactly 36 hours from the time I woke up in my bedroom to the time I fell asleep in France. I told my family it was 40hours (because it seriously felt like that) but that was the tired me speaking.
My host family is lovely!! There's Sandrine, the mother, Constance, my 14 year old sister, and Baptist, my 11 (almost 12) year old brother. They loved the Canada gifts I gave them! And Baptist loves peanut butter! Turns out there is no where to buy peanut butter in France. Its practically non-existent. It smelled too odd for Constance and Sandrine to try but Baptist loves it and has it with bread, toast, he tried it with bananas, he's licks it off the spoon and he keeps asking me if we eat it with crepes or pancakes or other things it certainly doesn't belong on! As far as maple syrup goes, I'm not sure if they are all that keen on trying it... it is very sweet. I like it though :) There are 2 friends of theirs that stay overnight every few days or so. The first is the man I mention from before, Laraunt, (or something... I always forget French names). And the second is his son, Pierre. He explained to me why they stay here sometimes when I first arrived, but naturally, I forgot the details. It has something to do with their work.
my host family :)
My house is on a hill with a view of the town, although you can't see all the old buildings, those are in a different direction- but still. It's gorgeous. Surrounding all the houses are bunches of bushy, green trees and what looks like a valley. I still haven't figured out my way around or how to get from my house to point B but I'm sure that will come. The view out the window at night is breathtaking.
My first few days here, I didn't do much other than simply settle in. Upon waking up in the morning, it became very clear to me, I don't speak French. We learned to use Google Translate to have conversations. My family showed me the town of Lannion, which is beautiful! It's filled with old buildings and cobblestone, one lane roads (that cars drive on and people walk on), its full of shops (already I'm regretting bringing so many clothes), and it's exactly what I wanted. And then I saw my school (which is conveniently a 10 minutes walk down the road from town) and dun dun duhhhh..... The nerves set in for school which started a week after I arrived. I also saw the beach which is stunning! About a 15 minute drive from Lannion. I was shocked to see the same places at the beach that are in the pictures when you Google "Bretagne". We usually finished days either playing board games or watching TV in French.
Lannion
Lannion
Cobblestone
My host mum runs a daycare out of her house, and so last week, when I woke up in the mornings, there were always little kids running around. There's Raphel, age 2, Laurent, age 2, and Lou age 6 months! It was fun to play with them. I've also developed a new hobby to pass the time: painting my nails! I've never been all that interested in it before but when you're looking for something to do- paint your nails! I'm becoming obsessed with the colour of mine! Right now my favourite colours are a purple one I got for my birthday, and a bluey-turquoise I bought from the Dollar Store right before I left (surprisingly good quality too)!
Raphel
Laurent
Lou
I started school on Tuesday and it's awesome! I was so nervous for school! My heart was literally pounding when we arrived. Sandrine explained to me that normally I would take the bus but for the first bit she would drive me (basically ease me into taking the bus so I wouldn't get lost or have a panic attack or anything like that). Sandrine and I were to meet Lais (the Brazilian girl) and her host dad (my next host dad), Chrisophe, in front of the statue in front of the school. I was so nervous. The school has a population of about 3000 students and there were crowds of students in front of the school, most of them smoking (I've learned now that everyone goes in front of the school to smoke and that about half of the school smokes which is the equivalent to my whole school in Canada smoking). Also, everyone was attractive. Like everyone. I knew that people dressed up for school in France and that some people wore heels but I wore basically what a nice outfit in Canada is-new jeans, Keds, my "French" H&M striped shirt and my brown jacket with small pieces of jewelry and my hair down-and I couldn't have felt more under-dressed. When I saw Lais, also dressed rather simply, she came up to me and said in a nervous, anxious-voice "All the girls are so pretty!" So, therefore the next day at school, we both came "prepared" wearing lots of makeup, our nicest clothes and our hair all done "pretty" and instead, we see everyone is wearing Keds or converse, and has their hair in a bun or pony-tail and looks tired and simple. The best moment of the day was when Lais said, "I think people were prettier yesterday." Or something like that. Whatever it was, it was gold!
Lycee (missing an accent on the second e)
School really isn't that bad. I have no idea what's going on in any of my classes (and at first, it took me awhile to figure out which class I was in) but that's okay because the teachers know I am foreign and that I don't speak French and all the English teachers are kind to Lais and me. We just sit in the class and doodle until there is something on the board to copy down or someone else gives us their notes to copy down. On the first day of school one teacher assigned a student in the class, a boy named Alexandre, to show us to our classes (because in French school, you only have one class of students that you change rooms with so you're with the same group of kids for the whole year which I think is awesome! So far I like everyone in my class!) He was really nice and he's always explaining to us what's going on in class and whats for homework and introducing us to his friends... although he has a lot of friends. Every few minutes, he sees someone he knows and he just *has* to stop and say hello with the bisous every time. Oh well, he's a nice guy and everyone seems to like him which is completely understandable.
The cafeteria at school is incredible. I swear, as soon as I walked in, it was like the gates to heaven open up and there were clouds and streams of lights and angels singing. Let me explain this to you. French food is good. All of it is good. Like all of it. And I was hungry. To get into the cafeteria, you have to swipe your food card (it looks like a purple credit card) in a machine that reads it, similar to a ATM. Then you walk past the ATM-swiper and a tray pops out of a machine (like the money would at an ATM). Then, you take your tray, and you take your knife, fork and spoon, and you walk into the main room. 2 salad bars in the centre of the room, and food surrounding the entire circumference of the room. Fruits, desserts, main courses, yogurt, you name it. And its the kind of thing where you can take as much as you want. At first Lais and I ran to the first section and grabbed pizza, then we continued down the line pretty much taking exactly what we wanted which was one of everything but before the line came to an end, we got distracted by the salad and ran to the salad bar, filled up on salad and then the rest of it is a blur of randomly cutting in line, taking a look at all the food and running in circles of excitement around the cafeteria until we had all the food we wanted and we went to go sit in the eating area. Also beautiful. At first we ate alone but one of my "host" sister's friends (my host sister, Camille, who is in India right now) came up and invited us to eat with her and her friends and so we did. After we ate, Lais and I went into the courtyard of the school and lay in the sun on the grass playing card games and tanning until the bell rang.
The next day at lunch was similar but very different at the same time. When I went into the cafeteria, I went in with the thought of Okay, yesterday you were the silly new girl who'd never seen a real cafeteria before and today you are experienced. But once again, I found myself running in circles to all the stations out of order because there was a new selection of food. I think I should just accept the fact that I'm never going to get used to this cafeteria. It's too amazing. Lais and I ate with some kids from our class and their friends and these people were awesome- so nice! One of them, a boy named Efflam (an old Breton name) was very interested in us and kept speaking English to us because his father is an English teacher and he wants to be a French teacher in Canada. All of the people were awesome- can't wait until I can actually speak French though!
Two nights ago, my host mum when out to Ikea to buy new furniture for the living room and her best friend Margaree (I think...) stayed in with Constance and I (Baptiste was at a friend's for the night). It was awesome! I loved it! We ate Chinese food in front of the TV watching the movie "Limitless" (in French... I couldn't understand anything but I had a basic idea of what was going on). So comfortable, fun. It was a good night!
Today I went to the beach for a potluck picnic with my family and their friends. It was lovely! Unfortunately, it was cloudy and windy but we tried flying a kite, collected seashells, and ate well. I counted everyone, and there were 10 kids and 8 adults (including myself). 4 families in total. It was great!
Some differences I have noticed between the French and the Canadians are:
- the French drive very fast... And I used to think the Canadians drove fast. But after driving 140 km/h down the highway, and speeding down a hill on a one-lane road inwhich cars travel both ways on, I have come the the conclusion (well, actually I came to it on my first day here), the French drive fast!
- The French eat bread at *every* meal. It isn't a French meal without bread. Often, we use the bread to clean the plate with. But other times, we just eat it plain or with butter. It's just always there. And it is so damn good. I don't think I can ever eat Canadian bread again.
- French meals are always delicious and no matter how fancy they look or taste, are always rather simple. Breakfast here, every morning, is bread dipped in a bowl (yes, a bowl) of hot chocolate (or if you're an adult, a bowl -yes, a bowl- of coffee). Then we drink the left overs. Lunch is usually like dinner. Sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes we eat leftovers- but it's always finished bread, sometimes cheese and/or a small cup of coffee or dessert. Dinner is usually a hot, sit down meal with lots of cheese (always cheese) and bread. At every meal we drink water, not milk and only sometimes juice (for breakfast).
- French food is the best food in the world. It really is. At every meal I mutter "tres bon" and I tell my family that I am in paradise with this food... It is always that good.
this came out of a yogurt container, believe it or not. so freaking good!
baby tomaoes and cheese
mhmm food :)
- The French are way more stylish than Canadians. Now that isn't to say that they all wear the same things, or Canadians don't look nice or anything like that. Its just simply this: When I say stylish, I mean, they tend to dress very chic and everyone seems to has his or her own style that's specific to that person. Whereas, in Canada, there is usually only 1 popular style that everyone has and as a result, everyone kind of looks the same. Here, what you wear is much more specific to an individual while still being clean and chic. However, you still do see a lot of leather jackets (black, grey, brown, tan), heels/boots/Keds, coloured jeans, etc
- Practically every French boy I have seen is attractive and dresses well. Like wow. Why can't the guys in Canada dress like the guys here? It's just not fair that Europe has all the well-dressed attractive guys. And this is a fact. There are so many attractive guys, I've actually developed a certain 'pickiness' about who I think is cute and who is not. But seriously... they are all cute! (If you're single, come to Europe!)
- They are much more conservative when it comes to energy and water... not a bad thing to learn at all. There are never any lights turned on unless someone is in that room and it's dark, they hang-dry most of the clothing, they don't shower every day if we don't need to, etc.
- They don't use conditioner! This was shocking to me as everyone uses conditioner back in Canada! Someone at the weekend orientation last week told me that only the "fancy" French people use conditioner. So when I asked my host mum to take me to the store to buy some... I guess that classified me as a "fancy" person? Either way, after only one week of only using shampoo to wash my hair, it was so dry and knotted and hopeless, I couldn't stand it any longer. My hair will always need conditioner and that's just a fact.
And another fun fact: "Breton" is the old language of the area I'm in (Bretagne). But no one speaks it. It's probably the same as the Aboriginals' languages in Canada- very old and you see it written on the names of some signs but no one actually speaks it.
Well I know there was more that I wanted to write but I can't seem to remember it right now and this seems like a decent amount for everyone to read and catch up on! I will blog again soon! - I promise!
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