shopping!

Today, i left the house at about 7:00am. it was so cold. i had 4 layers on, and i was still frozen. We also had sport that started at 8:00. and its outside. we all run around the running track, and are all blowing so much steam. we then threw the discuses. geez, that was dangerous. all our hands were numb, so we couldnt really feel what we were doing, so the discuses kind of flew everywhere.
After sport, we had double french, but i dont do french classes, because its just too hard. I will after another month or two when i can understand it. so i had 2 hours of nothing to do before lunch, and also an 1 1/2 hour lunch break and recess break. so all up i had 4 hours to chill. i cought a random tram, i had no idea where it was going, and i just got off at a random stop, and looked around, and i saw a big sign with 'ATLANTIS' written on it with an arrow pointing to where it was. i had no idea what it was so i thought id go check it out, and it was a huge shopping center. geez, arnt i lucky. so i chilled out there, and bought a few goodies. i then went to macdonalds and had lunch, and studied for my maths test that i had when i got back to school. the maths test was ok, i couldnt understand about 4 or 5 questions though, because there was alot of writing, and symbols that id never seen before. there maths is so advanced. Sarah, My host sister, is only 10, and she is learning stuff in maths that we learnt in year 9.
i got home from school and the wood fire was on, thank god!!! nice and warm!!! then i decided i would go to the public pool for a swim (its indoor and heated). so i got on the bus, and then walked for about 15 - 20 mins to the pool, and it closed 10 mins before i got there.  i had a nice dinner, and then sat infront of the fire on the lounge, all nice and cosy under the blankets, and watched tv.
its getting late here, i think i mite head to bed. ive got an 9:00 start in the morning. YAY!!! just a bit of a sleep in!!
xxx :)

WHAT A FAB DAY!!!

What a day. it was so much fun. At about 11:00 this morning we went to 'Bretignolles-Sur-Mer' (The sea). we couldnt have asked for a better day, hardly any clouds, but it could have been about 5 degrees warmer. it wasnt too bad though. It was about an hours drive. Noels parents own heaps of houses, and one of them is located rite on the beach where we were today. they use that house in the holidays, so no-one was there. we used that as our 'base camp' for the day. it is only 100m walk from the beach. (below is a pic from the backyard) firstly we had a nice lunch and headed off to the beach. before we went on the actual beach, we sat in a nice little beach cafe and had a hot chocolate and coffee. Then we went on the beach and played some fun games like frisbee, soccer, and bowls (its not actually bowls, you throw the ball but the aim is the same : to get closest to the little ball) its such a fun game though. then we got out the kite, and i had a good go at that. that was the first time i had actually had a go at flying a kite. it was heaps of fun. then we went back to the house to pack everything up and put it in the car and we went back down the the beach cafe and had the best crepes ever. i looked at the menu, and there were 2 whole pages of different types of crepes. they were so YUM!!!! loads of nutella, creme, sprinkles, and a flower thing. mmmmmmmmm. by then it was about 6:00 so we headed home. we went on the tourist route through all sorts of small old villages. its amazing to see that pretty much all the towns have historic buildings, and they all have massive churches with tall spires (i think thats what they are called). at about 8:00 we arrived home and had a nice dinner, and watched a movie all snuggled up under the blankets. i think we mite start using the wood fire soon. i also have a heater in my room, yay! nice and cosy!
I'm rechecking my timetable a few times tonight to make sure i start school at the rite time and dont miss any more classes!!! ive got an 8:00 start in the morning. i hate them because its so cold at 7:00 in the morning. 5 degrees. i also have sport, so im outside. and i know running is meant to make you warm, but it doesnt help at all!

this is me with sarah in the background. 

 this is the view from the backyard of one of Noels parents house (from this pic it looks like the sea is heaps far away, but its not. about 30secs to a minute walk)

 this is looking up the beach.



SPECTAC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG!!! what an afternoon!!! we went to the town center of coueron at about 5:00pm today, and watched some great music performances. the town center is located rite on the Loire river, with a large area of just stones, that are used for heaps of different activities each weekend. this weekend, it was to celebrate 100 years of this special sporting organisation. so throughout the whole day they had performances and activities. after the earlier performance, we went home to have dinner, and get some warm clothes on. when i say warm, i mean more than half my wadrobe! i had thermals on; 6 other layers, including about 3 jackets; also i had two pairs of leggings/tights under my jeans; 2 scalves, 2 pairs of socks. and i was still freezing. COME ON... its just 20 days into autumn and its below 10 degrees. im going to die when its winter. im already in my warmest clothes. uh oh!!! anyway, when we returned back to the spectac at about 9:30, we were waiting for the actual SPECTAC to start. and when it started there were these awsum clown people running through the croud playing drums, and then they went on the big "thing" (in the video below you'll see. soz, i dont know what its called). but anyway, it was being lifted up by a crane with a gymnast doing trapese while the clowns were playing the drums and there was music playing. it was such an awesome night, and to top it alll off, there were fireworks over the Loire River to finish the night. It was such a great day. and ive also got another great day planned for tomorrow.
(p.s. sorry about the bad quality with the videos. i was shivering and trying to watch the actual performance. and also, i hope the videos work, i havnt tried them yet on my blog. see if you can click full screen. that mite be best)

What a week, and a great start to the weekend!

Hey! What a week! I had the most confusing week at school. firstly, on tuesday, i had my alarm set for 8:30, because school was starting at 10:00 so i woke up with my bag all packed, and i head off to the bus stop. i arrive at school, and everyone else is in class, so im just waiting on the seat, and i look at my timetable, and i was meant to start at 9:00. i must have looked at wednesday on my timetable. so that was maths that i missed out on. my favourite subject here. so i had to fill out an absent form and get my host parents to sign it. God, ive only been here for 3 weeks and there has already been 2 strikes. thursday was a strike, and the teachers tell you if they are going to be at school or not (well some teachers dont tell you). anyway, thursday was a strike, so on wednesday i asked my friends if the teacher of maths was going to be at school or not, (because if he wasnt id have an extra hour to sleep!) and they thought he wasnt. so i turn up to school after the maths class on thursday, and here are my friends that say to me, sorry, we were mistaken, the teahcer was here. so that was two classes of maths that i missed out on. Anyway, the rest of the week was good, and now, its the weekend!! YAY!!
ive just been to a match of soccer at the Nantes Stadium. apparantly it was the stadium where france won the world cup. The match i watched was Nantes against Grenoble. Nantes won 2-1. YAY!!! it was such a great game and it was the first time i had ever watched a match of sport live so that was exciting. I went with Noel, two of his friends and their son. after the game we went back to there house and had a cafee, some biscuits, and now im back at home about to go to bed. now it is 12:15 am, im so tired. lucky there is no school tomorrow, and i can sleep in. but i do have to get my homework done in the morning bacouse we are going somewhere very exciting tomorrow afternoon. Cant wait.
Happy Holidays everyone!!! i still have 5 or so weeks till im on holidays.
here are some pics i took of the game. Nantes are the yellow and green team

 there's the score at full time. 2-1 our way!

trophie

what a great day!!! it was so much fun!!! ill tell you all about it from the moment i woke up.
well, lastnight we planned that we would leave at 7:50, so i set my alarm for 7:20. i woke up to hearing sarah out in the hallway, and i just jumped strait out of bed. looked for my phone to check the time and it was 7:42. less than 10 minutes before we left. i got ready so fast, just get dressed, brekky, teeth, and then strait out the door. i must have heard my alarm and swithed it off and fell back asleep because when i woke up i was lying on my phone! anyway. the day was organised with sarahs school, so there were many people there. we all split up into teams of 8. we then drove to this small little town about 10 minutes away from coueron, with many casles, churches, gardens, and just a nice cute little city. it was a competition between all the teams. we were all given a sheet of paper with instructions of what to do, a questionnaire (for example: what number house has a statue of a head above it, and how many different animal sculptures are hanging from the church, etc). so we were constantly walking (and sometimes running) from 8:30 - 3:00. after one questionairre was finished we followed the instructions and there was another envelope of instructions, and that continued for about 10 times. there were mazes to go through, bushwalking trackes to follow, castles so visit. it was set in the best little town.
after we finished everyone had a picnic at a castle and after that there were several mini games, like archery, guessing games, etc. and finally there was the presentation. WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!! we came home with a big trophie and a bag full of prizes. the bag was so huge, it was nearly up to my waist.
it was such a fun day, pretty tiring. and i also came home with very burnt shoulders and back!!!

spectac

lastnight we went to a friends house to have crepes with nutella, jam, sugar, and all sorts of sweets for dinner. mmmmmmmmmm. then after that we all went to the city center of Nantes for the final night of a carnival, and a spectac show. it was night time so it was dark, and it was inside a castle (well not indoors, but there was a massive grass and stone area surrounded by the large walls of the castle) and there was music and a 3D presentation of lights against the walls. there were images of the castle walls cracking and splitting, trees, water, etc. it was amazing. by the time that finished it was 11:00, so we went home to bed.

Boat Cruise

today i went on a 2 hour boat cruise with noel and sarah. it left from coueron along the loire river up to Nantes, and then came back to coueron. it was such a lovely day to do it, with hardly any clouds in the sky.  here are some of the pics i took, of some nice little villiages and then the final picture, is looking towards Nantes. the water in the river is really dirty, i guess its because there is a fair bit of shipping that goes on there.

Now, we are getting ready to go to a friends place for dinner. ive got an exciting day planned for tomorrow, cant wait!!!

this pic below is taken from the same place as the final one, but looking further left.

pics from school excursion

on friday, my class went on a "history of Nants" excursion. it was perfect for me, i got to see all the wonderful sculptures, and old buildings, that are major historical features of Nantes. our history teacher was speaking about each historical feature (and i couldnt understand) but luckily, i found some signs that were for tourists with heaps of languages. so i got all my info from there. and also the english teacher was there, so she explaines things to me as well. it was such an awesome day. hear are some pics:

this is the 'Jardin de Nantes'. Nantes is regarded as the greenest city in france. This particular garden has over 11000 different species of plants and trees. (sorry, the sun wasnt doing me any favours! i'm not the best photographer!) -------------------------->

this is the "Musee des Beaux Arts" It was built in the 1900's as the Museum of the city. It consists of beautiful western art of the 13th century. (p.s. i couldnt work out how to rotate thi pic!)---------->

this is the 'Cathedrale-Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul'. this pic i took while standing on the steps of the Musee des beau arts. in between the musee des  beaux arts and the cathedral , there used to be a river. the following two pics are of the cathedrale. --------------------------------------->

this it a wonderful feature of Nantes in the 'Place Royale. Sorry i didnt quite get any other information about it. ----------------------------------------- >

this is the wonderful 'Graslin District Theatre'. It was built in 1777 by Jean-Joseph-Louis Graslin, a buisnessman from Nantes, and designed by an architect, Mathurin Crucy. The designs were based on the Gardens of the Palais Rowal in Paris.------>

i hope you like the pics and are looking forward to your holidays in a weeks time!!!

Last book finished and a fun week-end

oh no!! ive finished my last ond only book written in english. it was allways good to just close my door and lie on my bed and read, to be zoned into english rather than french. it just gave me a rest from concentrating and trying to understand french 24/7. My french has improved and i notice that my family is speaking faster to me and they are also saying im improving each day. It makes me feel so happy and encouraged to hear that from them. ive only been here for 2 weeks, but it feels like months. Ive settled in really well and everyone is like my family already.
today we went to a fair/show, with heaps of activities, performances, music and circus acts. there were so many people there. We watched a presentation of 'blanche neige' (snow white), and i was so surprised that i could understand about eight tenths of it.
my bag is all packed for tomorrow at school. ive got another early morning, because i have to catch the bus and walk to the stadium by 7:50am.
cya, xxx

Green Beans!

So far, since i've been here, i cant believe the amount of green beans they eat. one day in the canteen at school, they had a choice of meat with either hot chips or beans. and i watched them dish up the beans, and they covered the whole plate, there would have been over 150. luckily i got the chips!!!!! and also at my home here, when they are cooking, they fill up a whole frypan, to the top with the beans.
we had visitors over tonite. i made them try vegimite, and they didnt mind it too much with cheese. they were still all not that fussed on it though! they just left now at 1:00 in the morning. im falling asleep writing this!
so good night everyone, miss u. xxx

France Family

This is me with my host family. (from left to right) Antoine, Sarah, Quentin, Me, Noel, Christelle.

Meeting the Mayor of Nantes

Jean-Marc AYRAULT is a French politician and a member of the French Socialist Party. He is currently Mayor of Nantes and President of the Socialist Party group in the French National Assembly and is against the President, Nicolas Sarkozy.
today, i was lucky enough to meet him, at a gathering in Coueron. and got my picture taken with him. he was so nice, and he explained who he was, what his job was, and some other information. here is a pic of us.

another week at school

what a week at school. i had 3 mornings where i had to wake up at 6:00 and then finally a morning where i had to wake up at 9:00 and then another morning at 6:00. early mornings, with late nights. anyways schools really good, im making heaps of friends and i met Laetitia and Yvan who will be helping me with my french. i see them during some of my french and spanish classes, and another science lesson (god, there are so many sciences here). after only one lesson with Letitia and Yvan, i have 5 or 6 sheets of homework. the school is pretty good with homework though, i havnt been getting that much (or mabey thats just me not understanding the teacher telling me we have homework!!!). the main subjects with homework are maths and my french classes. maths is a bit harder than in australia, one of the reasons is because the symbols are all different, the methods of working the questions out are different, but its the easiest subject for me to understand because what the teacher is saying, he is writing on the board as he goes.
the school commences at 8:00 everyday, depending on if you have a free lesson or not. its really good because all of the frees are either at the start or finish of the day. during the whole day there are 9 lessons, each going for 1 hour. there is also 2 15 minute breaks in the morning and afternoon, and 1 1/2 hours for lunch. wednesday is probably the worst day for subjects, because i have a tripple lesson (3 hours) of science, and one of those ours goes during lunch, so im like starving. wednesdays finish at 1:30, but because i am working with laetitia and evan, i stay for a couple of hours after school finishes.
on friday, i woke up at 6:00 and on the way to the bus the sun hadnt quite come up and there was this huge thick fog. i could only see 50m at the most infront of me. at 10:30ish at school, it still hadnt cleared. it looked so cool, but it was cold and wet, but no rain, thank god! ive already bought my umbrella for when winter comes around in a month or two, very cold and rainy. where i am in Nantes, i snows about once every two years, with just a few inches, so i hope im lucky and i have a small white christmas!

cheese and busy day

omg, last night i tried this traditional french cheese, ALL FRENCH!!! and it was soooooooo discusting, i had to spit it out!!!!!! it just tasted like salt, it was so gros. in the supermarket they have like 1 whole long isle (both sides) with 1 isle for yoghurt and one isle for cheese. wow. and i walked in the meat section and what wierd meats they eat. liver off some animal (i didnt want to know what animal!!!) and algae, (long strands of it) ewwww, and heaps of mussles and prawns and snails and pippy like creatures.
in schools in france, if the teacher is absent there is just no class, there isnt any replacement teacher or anything so you just do whatever you want during that class. so today was a strike for france so some teachers go to school and some dont. so i went to school for my first class at 9:00 and the teacher didnt turn up so i went to the office to ask if my teacher for the lesson after was there or not, and she wasnt. so i had 2 1/2 hours off. and coincidently so did antoine. so we went for a walk to the shops and had a snack and then returned to school. i then had english. it was so fun, we were just asking and answering questions like, what is your name, where do you live, what's ur fav movie, etc. its interesting to see how hard it is for people to learn english. then after that lesson there was no canteen running so christelle (host mum) picked us up and we went home and had lunch there and then went shopping. then i had another class of english at 3:30 so i went back to school for that. all up today i spent about 2 1/2 + hours on transport today.

friday at school and the weekend

the weekend is nearly over here. during the weekend ive been to a fabulous flower presentation, with heaps of unusual flowers and plants. so interesting. and we also went to the Coueron markets and fair. with heaps of little shops set up, rock climbing, go carts and little games and lots of food. after that we had friends over for the afternoon and i got them to try vegimite. no-one likes it. they all had a glass of coke ready for after they tried it!!!!!!!!
the school is really big, and each building is 4 or 5 stories high. its kind of set out like a hotel. and on friday i got lost, i couldnt find my way around and the bell had already rung. i was with antoine, who is not in my class. and the other people in my class had already gone to class. so he went off to his class and i had to find my own way around. so any teacher that i walked past was hurrying off to class, so i quickly asked where the room was and they pointed and said something in french that i couldnt undertand, so i went where they pointed. and i didnt come accross the room so i asked another teacher, and the same thing happened for about 8 teachers. so i was on the right level and i came accross the room and there was no-one in there, so i kept walking, and a teacher came out of a random room and said in english "are you the australian girl? i forgot my key for the other room so i just went in this room" i was so relieved then.  What an experience!!!!
im getting ready for school now, so many books.
miss u all heaps.

first day at school

omg, how scary. my first day at school was good. it was like the scariest thing i have ever done though.
my subjects are: science, life on earth, physics, french, maths, english, sport, history, geography and some wierd subject to do with science. i was meant to do spanish but we decided that it was going to be too hard to learn another language from french. so i have 3 free lessons to read my french book and study.
today was the beginning of the france school year so it was the first day for everyone. everyone came from different schools so no-one knew each other. in the break everyone was sort of standing around by themself and so was i, because my host brother is in a different class. i went up to a girl and started a convertation (in french). i was so nervous i could hear my heart pumping. i was so pleased with myself and was so relieved after.
im so lucky because my homeroom teacher is my english teacher, so she can help me out, if i need it. she is really nice.
i cant believe how many kids smoke here. i go to leave the school, and outside the gates, everyone is sitting down smoking.

miss u all,
xxx

Big elephant!

Today Noel and i went for a drive to get my bus pass, and we also went for  a drive around Nantes. We stopped in this island in the middle of the loire river. Noel told me to close my eyes, and i walked around the corner until he said, open. i opened my eyes and here was this massive mechanical elephant (see pic below). We walked inside this ginormous building and there was so many handbuilt machines. they were so amazing. Noel voulenteered me to go on a simulater of a boat in a storm. we had to put on raincoats, and a special hat, and as soon as the wind and rain began, my hat blew off. it was so much fun. later, we actually went on the elephant, and it drove slowly around the island. It was such a fun day.

this is the view from on the elephant of the Loire River and Nantes

this is the elephant. it is huge. for the perspective of the actual size, there are people on the top.

Long ride

First up today, Antoine, Sarah, Christelle and i went picking apples. we walked there and i was shown my bus stop for school. we came home and i gave the family some gifts that i bought in australia. i gave them an australian flag, and they gave me a french flag. they are both flying out the front.

in the afternoon, Antoine, me and sarah went for a long bike around Coueron. It was wonderful to have a look around the beautiful town which is located on the Loire river.

this is Coueron Lake