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.
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| 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. |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| everyone at the marina |
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| view from up at the church |
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| bunkers |
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| inside one of the bunkers |
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| me, leonard, margo on the bunkers |
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| me and joe on the bunkers |
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| 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.
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| ice sculptures at nantes on new years eve |
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| me about to bowl at bowling |
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| my team!!! me, floriane and albert |
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| we found a nice fire in nantes, so we stood by that for a while |
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| 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. |
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| 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.
