NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Schools started again!!!!!!

it was interesting to go back to school yeaterday after the holidays. i was dreading monday!!! but then when i was there at school, it didnt seem too bad because i got to see all my friends, teachers and my class. you wouldnt believe how many people came up to me today to say, "OMG, there are massive floods in queensland in australia". so then they asked is it affecting where you are, and im like no, its pretty far away. so today i ended up drawing sooooo many maps of australia to show them where i live and where the floods are.
i cant believe how fast these 6 months have gone for. i only have about 12 days left of school. and a few weekends. one weekend honey is staying over to celebrate my birthday, and then another night i am having some friends over as well, then this weekend i mite get a start on packing my suitcase, (just my summer clothes for the moment). i know you are probably thinking, 'why are you starting to pack it now?' but its because all the weekends i have up until i leave are packed with things.
So im nearly coming home, about 3 weeks left. My last day of school here is on my birthday, so that will be good and bad in a way. the good thing is that i will be able to see all my friends, but the bad thing is that i have to go to school on my birthday!!! oh well, it wont be too bad!!!
so now imcounting down the days until i leave. im soooo excited to come back. As much as i love Nantes, my host family and all my friends, i really cant wait to get back to australia. I have really started to become homesick and missing EVERYTHING about 1 and a half months ago. I cant wait to see everyone, go to the beach (and one that actually has waves!!! the only beaches that i have seen over here are 0 degrees with waves of less than 1cm!!!), have a nice fruit salad, and a nice meal thats all fresh and not with heaps of packaged and processed food. i think i have written all this stuff out before, but i am just missing it soo much, that i can never stop thinking of it!!!! And i also cant wait to be able to walk out of the house without having to put on 6 or more layers of clothing!!! SUMMER!!! HERE I COME!!!!!!

A very different and amazing christmas and new year

This has been over a week since i have written so i am going to summarise each day.

FRIDAY 24th December:

Today we woke up as normal and had a normal breky and got ready to go to Conge-Sur-Orme (the town where noels parents live). On the way we went through maccas drive through and had some lunch in the car. The car ride was so squishy because we had the whole family. there was christelle and noel in the front, antoine and quentin in the middle, and me and sarah squished at the back in the boot!!!

This is sarah in the car and you can also see a bit of how squished we were!!!

then when we got to conge sur orme we stayed in noels parents other house and then unpacked all of our clothes, and then got changed and went into the city of Le Mans to have a christmas eve dinner with christelles mum and heaps of the kids cousins. We ended up having over 5 entrees, and then 2 main meals, and then cheese, then dessert. i ate some interesting seafood there, and surprisingly i liked all of it. It was just us kids in that room at the table so we decided to watch the tv while we ate. so we put on this french tv show of "Searching for the next Michael Jackson" and so that was helarious watching all the kids and adults auditioning for that. Both dancing and singing!!! By the time the night was over it was 2:30 in the morning, and the drive hone was about half an hour, ao we got into bed a bit after 3:00am.

Saturday 25th December

We woke up at 9:00 and went downstairs to see our prezzies under the tree. so we spent the morning at home, and then went to Noels parents place for lunch, also with heaps of cousins. There we ate Cow tongue (it tastes really nice, but i absoloutly hate the texture of it when its in you mouth. it feels discusting). i also ate some oysters there. then us kids went upstairs and played the wii. it was heaps of fun dancing and watching others dancing!! we stayed at the grandparents hous efor dinner as well, and then went back home and into bed.

Sunday 26th December

it was sarah and quentins birthday so wen got lunch prepared at the house, and then we had an uncle of sntoine come over, and also their grandparents for lunch. then some friends came for dessert. Then after a couple of hours Cristelle went into Le Mans with sarah and quentin. she dropped quentin off at the train station for him to go back to nantes to work, and she dropped sarah off at her cousins place and picked up another cousin to bring back here. in the afternoon, we played heaps of games and then everyone left, so it was just me, antoine, Antoines cousin, christelle, and noel who were home. We all sat down to watch a movie that i got for christmas. it is a typical french movie, with no english subtitles or anything, but i could understand it thankfully!!

Monday 27th December

Today we woke up at a normal time of about 9:00, and had brekky and got changed for the day. Then me, antoine and victor (antoines cousin) all went for a walk, and found a big lake. it was all covered in ice, so we decided to see if we could walk on it. we eventually walked on it and it didnt break, so we thought, well, it must be stable, and we looked and the ice was about 5 or more cm thick, so we thought it should be fine. we spend over an hour there, and it was sooooo funny, we had never laughed so much in our lived. we played a bit of ice hockey with some sticks. i fell over 2 times while playing that. then we decided to do something else. but seeing who could run the fastest, and to run you have to take big and hardish types of steps, and with one step that i took, the ice cracked, so my foot sunk and the rest of my body was still moving forward from running, so i ended up falling over. it was soooo funny. Then we played a game of who could jump on the same spot the most amount of times without the ice breaking. i lost about 2 timesso my legs were drenched and so were my shoes and jeans!!!! that was sooo much fun. then we went back into the house to have some lunch. after lunch, i got dropped at the train station because i was going to stay at margos house for a few nights over in Granville over neer the sea and neer Mont St Michelle. So i cought the train, and it was a bit over an hour, and i sat next to a lady who spoke really good english and she also had 2 kids aged 2 and 4 i think. so i played some games with them and looked after them while the lady had a sleep and went to the toilet. they were so cute, and then before we left the youngest boy gave me a kiss on the cheek. he was sooo cute!!! then when i arrived it took me a while to fing margos family. Marie-Pierre (margos mum) was there, and so was joe(from Coffs), and so was felix (margos brother). so mari pierre had placed felix at the doors of the station, joe on level 1 and she was looking everywhere. so when i arrived, i stayed on the platform and didnt see anyone, so i went up the escalators and didnt see anyone and walked around for about 10-15 minutes and then i went back on the platform for about 5 minutes and then i saw Marie pierre coming towards me. it was so great to see them all (Pascal(father), Marie pierre(mother), Felix(Son, Leonard(son), Oscar(son), and margo(daughter)) and it was also great to see joe as well and to also speak some more english. That night we had crepes for dinner, mmmmm, and then we all watched a movie together.

Tuesday 28th december

we had a little bit of a sleep-in and woke up to a bit of a drizzle and cold outside. So in the morning while we were waiting for the weather to clear up, me and joe helped marie pierre with writing out all the differences in schooling between australia and france. i hadnt actually realised how many differences there were until that day. we ended up writing over 7 or 8 full pages. And then i looked at it, and i thought just how lucky we are in australia to have the schools that we have. i looked at all the differences that we had and i could only find 1 or 2 differences that i liked better about france than australia. and that difference was just having the restaurant at school!!!!

That afternoon we went over to the sea and started ot go for a wwalk but then after 5 minutes it started raining, so we went back home and got changed into our swimmers to go to the pool. The pool was really nice. we went on the slides, in the sauna and in the steam room. Then by the time we got home it was late so we had dinner, looked at some pics and then went to bed.

Wednesday

today we woke up early at 7:30 to a fod with a visibility of about 50 meters and it was also -8 degrees outside. today we went to Cean. Cean is a major city about 1 hours drive north east of granville. We saw some snow and ice along the side of the road along the way. the first thing we did at Cean was go to the Museum of WW2. It was a massive museum and we spent over 3 hours in there.

this is the beginning of the museum just giving a bit of history about it through each year, and then later on in the museum we got into the details.

this is a message in a bottle that was found lying next to a person who had been shot. the persons identity was found on a piece of paper in the bottle along with a little message.

Then after the museum we went and had pasta for lunch and then headed to the American cemetary of WW2 where all the soldiers were buried. including the 3 men who in the film "saving private ryan" were the brothers of  Ryan. there were sooo many graves there also an memorial. it was located just up from Omaha beach where the troops landed in Normandy in 1944. it was so amazing, and there was also an museum there also.

this is all of us. Margo, Me, Marie pierre, joe and leonard. Pascal was taking the photo and leonard and felix had other things to do and they couldnt fit in the car!!!!

Then after that it was starting to get darker, so we quickly drove to another beach that had an artificial wall built around it for protection by large ships entering and to calm the seas.

you can just see the wall in on the horizon. sorry the pic isnt too good, it was getting dark!!!

Thursday
Today we had a little sleepin and then stayed at home for the morning and i played some games with leonard and oscar. then in the afternoon we went to GRANVILLE. finally it wasnt raining and we had really nice weather. so first up we went for a walk around the marina.

everyone at the marina

view from up at the church

bunkers

inside one of the bunkers

me, leonard, margo on the bunkers

me and joe on the bunkers

me sitting neer the edge of a cliff!

Friday.
that morning i woke up really early, because i was leaving that day and it is a longish drive to the train station. so i said my goodbyes and then went in the car with pascal and marie pierre. i got on the train and had boring train ride!! then as soon as i arrived in nantes, noel and a friend of his picked me up and we went to pick up another car and then went strait back home. then when i got home, it was just me and antoine home, and i made myself some lunch (but not too much because dinner was going to be big!!!). then we all got changed and made our way into the center of nantes.

ice sculptures at nantes on new years eve

me about to bowl at bowling

my team!!! me, floriane and albert

we found a nice fire in nantes, so we stood by that for a while

everyone who played bowling with us. there are 4 familys there, and everyone is great friends, all like family. so we spent new year with all of them.

me and albert dancing at new years eve dinner.

Ney years eve was amazing. there was soooo much food!!! we had heaps of fun, singing, dancing, playing games...etc. we ended up leaving the house at 3:30 in the morning, so by the time i got to sleep it was past 4:00am. but it was great because i slept in until 1:30pm.

New years and christmas are soo much different to in australia. Christmas is with ALL your family. and then new year is just with friends.nand there is also soo much more food and wine. all up in the meels there is about 3 or 4 entrees, then 1 or 2 main meals, and then 3 or 4 desserts (inc. cheese). each little part has its own alcoholic drink that goes with it. theyu have cocktails, red wine, white wine, chamaagne, and the list gows on. that night there would have been about 50 or more bottles of wine opened.

It was a great holiday that i had, but nothing can beat a sunny, warm christmas on the beach.



MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We have been sooo lucky. we had a fair bit of snow last night, about 3cm. I got some pictures, but they didnt turn out really well because it was night time. I hope it ends up snowing on christmas day!!! how exciting!!!

This was the snow 

 this was me in the snow

 This was me and sarah with sntoine dressed up as santa

 This was the snow from some time last week. And on the pool you can see that half of it was covered in Ice

The other day we ate this.

It was called Duck gizzard: which is: Quote,

"The gizzard, also referred to as the ventriculus, gastric mill, and gigerium, is an organ found in the digestive tract of some animals, including birds, earthworms, reptiles and some fish. This specialized stomach constructed of thick, muscular walls is used for grinding up food; often rocks are also instrumental in this process. In certain insects and molluscs the gizzard features chitinous, plates or teeth."
But surprisingly it was sooooo yum!!!!
Tomorrow we are going to see relatives of my host family, and we will be having heaps of nice meals with them; both on christmas eve lunch, christmas eve dinner, christmas day lunch, christmas day dinner, and the day after christmas lunch, and dinner also because it is the birthday of my host sister and host brother. And apparantly each meal is huge. we have had so many people telephoning us asking, do you like lobster, what cheese do you want, etc all week. It will be so nice though to see the differences in how france celebrates christmas. i am really looking forward to it.

So, i will be away until the 31st of december. And when i get back, i am sure ill have many wonderful photos to share!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Another blog

this is another blog of the same day i had with honey. i just couldnt fit all the videos on the one blog. tho this blog and the one below are the same thing pretty much!!!

So, that was such a great afternoon with honey. it will be the last time we will see each other this year (how scary is that), but then next year hopefully we will have some weekends together before we will have to go!!

tosya was the first day of holidays, and i went ice skating with another australian girl, and then we went shopping. and then i came hope and we went strait to a friends place to have dinner and play some poker. and i only just got home now (at 11:00 at night) so it looks like i will have another sleep in in the morning!!

What a fabulous surprise it was this morning...... THERE WAS SNOW!!!! how lucky is that for on the first day of the holidays to have had a big snowfal. it was much bigger than last time.

Well, i better get to bed... and i cant wait until christmas, im counting down the days. i also only have about 5 weeks left here in france... so sad... but i am also soo excited to come back to Australia to see everyone, the beach, the sun, the heat!!!! And most of all....... fresh food!!!!!!!

HOLIDAYS!!!!!!

YAY!!!!!!!! HOLIDAYS!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!! ABOUT TIME!!!!!!!!!! 

 this is my school

  this is the view from the Chateau

this is me videoing us trying to cross the roads and a bit of nantes

 

whilst at the chateau me and honey spent over 1 and a half hours there. we had some fun making videos. This one was helarios to make, because when i was getting towards the top of the starcase, there was a man just standing behind honey, looking at me thinking how wierd we must have been. it waas helarious!!!!!!!!

Junk food, and not long left!

Well... today was a pretty good day at school. We had a great lunch which they call 'le repas de Noel' (christmas meal). So that was very special. It consisted of a quiche for an entree; roast beef with special hot fried potato crisp things for the main meal; and then cheese with a nice bread roll; then a nice chocolate and vanilla ice cream and biscuit desert with custard; and then a very nice mandarine and a ferrero rocher. mmmmm. After that i was so full, i could barely stand up to leave the room!
I was taking to renee on video chat the other day, and she was eating the 'shapes' biscuits. I am dying for something savory like that. That is what i miss most over here, is just healthy-ish food. something without chocolate. Pretty much the only savoury food they have here is a baguette. What I found out a while ago was that their christmas is both christmas and easter at the same time (kind of!). They have the normal easter at the normal time in the year, but at christmas, they eat heaps of chocolate. i've been in the shops and there are just aisles of chocolates: chocolate reindeers, santas, present shape things, etc. They eat so much junk. The first thing i am going to buy when i get back to Australia is get a massive fruit salad... and then go to the beach.
I cant believe how close it is getting until i come back into Australia. It only seamed real when i got my ticket for the train to the airport today. I have only 6 weeks left i think.. or mabey less. I have less than 3 weeks left of school in france. My last day of school i think will be on my birthday. I am fairly unlucky though because the half yearly exams here are on the week before i leave, same as what happened in australia!
YAY!!!! Only one more day of school until the holidays!!! I'm so excited!!!

Lunch and an afternoon with honey!!

Honey and i had a great lunch together, and a great afternoon after school together. Some of these videos are a bit wierd!!! We had a great time despite the freezing cold!!

i also achieved a 19.5/20 for my english listning test!!!!!

this is honey enjoying her pizza

 this is me enjoying my pizza!

this is my delicious gelato



Another Video of Mont St Michelle

This is another video of Mont St Michelle. THis is a long(ish) video of Mont St Michelle. It is pretty much a tour Of the Whole Mountain. I hope you enjoy!!!!!

The Best Weekend ever!!!!

Sorry I haven't writtes a blog in a while. i have been quite busy with school work, getting together with honey etc. But i have lots to talk about!!
Firstly, i am so happy with all my marks and work in class. i have been getting 12 as an average for all  the tests. and the highest marks are about 14, so im really happy with that. I am also understandeing pretty much every word i hear now, which is fantastic, no-one needs to speek slowly to me now, they can just talk to me normally. The hardest thing i find, it to write, but speaking is easy and hard at the same time. I think what makes it hardest for everyone to understand me, is my accent. The australian accent is so "Slangish", that we blend in all our words together, so i guess i kind of do that a bit with my french, so they dont understand it. But other than that, all is good!
I have also had some great times with honey, walking around the streets, experiencing the french culture, and a little bit of the french cuisine. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite foods here so far are the mandarines. they are soo good!!!
I also had the final match of basketball, and we won that, which is fantastic. So we have won all the games so far, we havnt lost any. YAY!!!
This weekend Noel, Sarah, Antoine and me all got in the car headed for Mont St Michelle (MSM-it takes ages to write it each time!) So we left the house at about 11 on saturday morning, and after about a 2hr drive, we stopped for lunch at macdonalds.

 this is Sarah, Antoine and me just before we were about to eat lunch.

 We decided to have a little game of soccer on the table with coins!! that occupied us for a while

 This is me in the car driving towards MSM

After lunch, we had a litttle drive of about 45 minutes - 1 hr to MSM. It was such a nice drive and along the way, i took some pics

we finally arrived at the MSM and it was amazing. i have some videos and some pics.

This is the view from the top of the MSM

 This is sarah sitting on what used to be a toilet

 This was a beautiful little court yard we saw

 The wall that you can see going down the steep hill sort of thing, is what used to be used to lift food up to the people that lived up there. I have a video later of the wheel at the top, that was used to pull up the food.

 this was just another nice place..

 This is an model of the actual Saint Michelle

 This is us sitting down to some nice crepes for afternoon tea at the MSM. I think i cought Antoine at a bad time, haha

 This was a sign infront of the MSM telling you how dangerous it is to walk on the sand because it is all sinking sand.

 This is me on the sand with alot of sand in the background

 This is the MSM

 This is us in the cathedral part of MSM. In this video there is also the wheel to lift up the food that i was telling you about before. the men would get inside and run in the wheel. It is like a mouse running on its wheel!!!

 This is a very embarrasing video, but some of it is ok, so thats why i decided to put it on!!!