Which is pretty cool, because then you can check what the kids in Australia, Brazil,Thailand, etc, etc, are up to.
I have decided to post all 3 of mine here :). If you like them, definitely go to the website to find more from all over the place.
Without further ado.... Beaver tale 1!
When I woke up on August 27th, I knew that I was in for a long and emotional day. I had spent the day before saying goodbye to all of my friends, and today was the day when I had to do the same with my family. Saying goodbye in the airport was very hard of course, but when I walked through customs, I felt strangely calm. “Well,” I thought, “here we go.” Found my plane with little difficulty, and 7 hours later landed in Paris. I was greeted in the airport by my host parents and host sister and brother. I could tell right away that they were very nice and were trying to make me as comfortable as possible, but it was difficult to communicate with them, as I spoke exactly 8 words of French at the time (I’m pleased to report that I have learned a few more since then). We drove for 3 hours to Beaumont en Veron, which is the first little village that I am living in. The house that I am living in is 300 years old (which is especially amazing if you consider that the country of Canada is only 145), and my family is renovating it. I have my own wing of the house, which is as awesome as it sounds. I have my own bathroom, and am next to the television room. As the rest of the family sleeps at the other end of the house, I feel like I have the place to myself, which is great. I can watch all the cartoons I want (which are great for picking up a bit of French) without being teased by my host brother :P. My host family loves to laugh, and I provide them with lots of opportunities, due to my absolutely terrible accent. It’s never mean though, and I laugh right along with them.
Beaumont en Veron is about 10 minutes away from Chinon, which is where I go to school. It’s a pretty little town, which old stone buildings and a big river running alongside it. My favourite part of Chinon is the big castle that overlooks the town, as I dearly love castles. My host family knows this, and I have been to every castle within an hour of Chinon, and loved every one of them. Chinon is right in the middle of wine country, and there are vinyards everywhere that I look. My host dad works with a local producer, so I got invited to watch the winemaking process first hand. I won’t tell you all the details, but it turns out that wine is drinkable (and delicious!) at every stage of fermentation, so the work didn’t progress as fast as it could have, due to everyone celebrating every good 5 minutes of work with a nice glass of wine.
School takes up the majority of my life here, and it goes from 8:00-18:00 (that’s 6pm to you civilians and non-French people) and it is LONG. It’s generally dark when I leave for school, and the sun has gone down when I come home. The French school system has 3 ‘classes’ where the Canadian one has grades (at least for our grade 11 and 12.) You can either be in L, ES, or S, which stands for Literature, Economic Science, or Science. I am in L, so the courses that I take are: French, English, Literature (French), literature (English), history/geography, and gym. I used to be in Spanish too, but my teacher thought it would be easier for me just drop the class, instead of trying to learn a new language through another new language. I know that sounds like a lot, but each class is only an hour long, and you have a lot of ‘perms’, which are basically spares, so you end up having a lot of time off. And my school is huge compared to my little school in Canada, and has 4 or 5 main buildings for classes (each is also 4 storeys tall), and I still get lost, even 2 months in. The classes themselves are very structured and disciplined. The students enter the classroom when the teacher tells them to, and then stand behind their desks until given permission to sit down. All the students them take out their pencil cases and notes book (you should see the paper here! It’s an absolute mess of about 4 different colours of lines, some horizontal, and some vertical), and them sit quietly until the teacher begins. The preferred method of teaching seems to be talking for an hour while the students take notes (which is not so good for me…it’s embarrassing, but I keep getting in trouble for sleeping in class :P). There is no chatting, DEFINITELY no cell phones, and no talking back to the teacher. Also, the students get a ton of homework (about 3 hours’ worth on weekdays, more on the weekends), but most of my teachers don’t expect me to do it (for which I am infinitely grateful).
Rough as all that sounds, I really don’t mind going to school, because the people are so wonderful. When I first arrived, I couldn’t communicate with anybody, so I was pretty nervous about how school was going to be, but when the first day arrived, my host sister from my second family came to my house to take me to school, and introduce me to her friends, etc. She had been completely invaluable to me, and speaks pretty good English, as she is going on an exchange to USA next year (which just goes to show, that exchanges kids are the greatest people ever). Bisous (the very-French kisses on the cheek that you do when you see people. Canadians wave, French people kiss) are a big part of social time here and it takes forever, because you have to bisous everyone you have ever met before in your entire life. Also, god help you if you skip someone who feels they deserve to be kissed- they cut me some slack because I am foreign, but I have seen some pretty dirty looks being exchanged at this perceived slight.
The lunches they serve in the cafeteria are absolutely amazing. In Canada, you are basically pretty lucky if your tiny burger is still warm. In France, you start by grabbing and entrée (FUN FACT: fancy restaurants in Canada like to say the entrée is the main course, but it’s actually the appetizer), then a plate of a meet and a vegetable or pasta. I have steak on a regular basis, and one day the cafeteria served shark, which was interesting. After that, you have a fruit, then some bread with cheese, and then finally dessert.
Food is a very big part of life here. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, usually about 3 or 4 courses long. Also, if you go to a dinner party (which can be a low key as having another family over for dinner) and you begin at 7 pm, don’t expect to leave the table until about 11:30. You will begin with usually 4 or 5 entrées, nuts and raw vegetables and small pastries, etc., and then have the main course of meat and vegetables. After that comes salad, then the cheese. The French do not joke around when it comes to eating their cheese. There are generally 4 or 5 kinds, and naturally, massive amounts of baguette to accompany the cheese. I’m searching my brain for something to compare the amounts of cheese they eat to Canada, but I have nothing. The most that I can say is that when they take their cheese, they usually have more than they have bread to eat with the cheese. Also, you cannot say ‘no’ to more cheese if someone offers you some. You have to eat it until all of the cheese is gone, which can take a while. After the cheese course (though by this point I for one never want to see food again), comes dessert. Each course is accompanied by its own bottle of wine (which is about 13% alcohol, so everyone gets a little louder as the night wears on).
I am the only Rotary exchange kid on my town, but I have been on 2 rotary weekends so far; one to Paris, and one to Mont St. Michel. I visited Paris with the other kids in my District here, which was a great way to meet everybody and begin to really experience France. This included the famous French time management, so we had 3 hours for a picnic lunch, and 5 minutes to buy souvenirs. This gave us lots of time to get to know each other though, so that was fine. In Mont ST. Michel, which is up in Normandy, many French districts where there, so there were about 200 kids to get to know. I absolutely loved meeting all of the other Canadians in France; you never know how great your own people are until you are away from them for a while.
I am having an amazing, life changing experience here across the ocean, and am so grateful to everyone who has had a hand in making it happen. All my love to my Canadians
Bisous!
Victoria
