The Homecoming

No, this post is not about the great American tradition of celebrating the return to high school, proudly wearing your school's colours and cheering loudly at the first football game of the season. The main reason this post is not about that is, well, I live in Canada and we don't engage in such shenanigans (fun though they seem :P). No, I figured about 2 months was the longest I could get away with not bothering to write about my actual homecoming from the great adventure that was France.

Yes, early July 21st (or 22nd?? wow, maybe I did wait too long...) I grabbed my 'meagre belongings' (comprised of 2 absolutely bulging suitcases, a backpack full to bursting, and a carry-on in the same state), petted the two lovely dogs at my host family's for the very last time, waved goodbye to my home away from home, and then watched this countryside that I had come to know and love glide past the car windows. Goodbye, winding country roads i had spent many a tranquil hour wandering, goodbye old lazy river, goodbye little town where so many of my friends were and are and shall continue to be, without me. 

Eventually arriving at the airport exactly 0 minutes in advance, I was forced to quickly say goodbye to my host family, who had become so much more than that to be in the past year, and walk, rotary jacket pins shining, back into the familiar yet unknown life that waited for me.

Last views of France

On the long airplane ride how I felt strangely calm. It's weird to explain, but I guess I was ready to go back to my own home my own family my own place of belonging and that's were the plane was taking me.

The end of France.

And HELLO CANADA!

Actually stepping off the plan and into the arms of my waiting parents was fairly surreal, but honestly by the time we arrived back at my little home on our great big farm I just felt like all was normal and I had basically never left. My siblings decorated the house for me, with a great big hand-painted "WELCOME HOME!" sign and canadian flags on every conceivable surface. :)

The long road home ends here :)

I'd say the only difficulties I had readjusting were a) the sudden distance between me and all my friends :( and b) the language!  Back in France, I lived in a house with one of my best friends in the entire world, and so whenever I got bored or lonely I could just walk down a hallway and be instantly happier. But now I live on a farm in Ontario, my canadian friends are far away in town, the rest of my friends are scattered across Europe, the USA, mexico, Australia, Argentina...not exactly within arm's reach. Multiple time zones are now also a force to be reckoned with (example: my Australian friend snappchats me about breakfast when I'm going to bed, and sends pictures of herself out for the night when I'm just beginning my day :p).Time zones can also make setting up Skype chats far more complicated than they need to be.

But this little lady was happy to see me, so
I guess I do ok for friends ;)

Illogical though it may seem, language was also actualy a bit of a change for me getting, even though yes, English is indeed my native language. I guess after thinking and speaking and listening to french for such a long time I needed to...readjust. My friends and family found great amusement in my new 'accent', and I once spent 10 minutes trying to understand what my mom didnt understand about the phrase, "wow, the sky is really noire over there!" ("...Do you mean black?" "..Do I? hmm. Yeah, i remember that word now :P black it is!")

Overall though, I'm glad to be home, though I'll always miss France and the people I knew there, and the person I was there. Looking forward to living the rest of my life with these experiences behind me!

Motocross de Huismes

Dirt biking and motocross is actually a pretty big deal in France, and my little community here's one claim to fame is it's world class motocross track.
On June 30th my host sister and a friend of ours went to watch the French Championships being held there, for the side car cross divisions. For those of you who aren't familiar with it (most of us :p)  the side car division is when the drivers ride bikes with carts strapped to the sides, where their partner (called the 'sange' or 'the monkey') hangs on to a bar, and uses his or her weight to help throw the bike around corners. The track in Huismes is famous for its steep hills, sharps turns and flying jumps, which makes the side car ra
ces particularly interesting (and dangerous) to watch.
The morning started off warm and sunny, dust from the tracks already beginning to cover everything. As a side event, all the local clubs sent their students out (about 11-15 years old) and they did a few races. Each race consisted of several laps, and 3 heats for each standings. So, everyone raced once, then lined back up twice more during the day. The overall winner was determined by the results of all the races.

It's hard to tell in these pictures,. but these 12 year old kids were flying like, 4 metres through the air just casually. Pretty sweet overall.

So, the kids did their thing, and it was all pretty sweet. Then it was time for the main event, and all the experienced riders came out to play, including the champion of France, and a world championship competer.

French Motocross champion team, 3d in the world circuit.

But no one said the sport was safe, and taking an 180 degree turn at break-neck speeds is liable to do just that....champion teams made mistakes sometimes too, and they can cost.

But in the end of the day, we all had our share of excitement. Lots of dust, lots of speed, a couple spectacular accidents. Even if I've really never been interested in the sport before, it was  great day (excpet for the sad parts...no one wants to see guys surrounded by paramedics), was an interesting day.

Disneyland Paris

The beginning of April left the host family and I with the opportunity to experience a bit of fun just outside of Paris...Disneyland Paris invited us to 'venez découvrir toute la magie du monde Disney', and discover the magical world of Disney we did indeed.

We set off at the crack of dawn, with my host mother, sister, brother, and a family friend in tow, merrily singing along to a cd of french disney movie songs (interesting fact : Aladdin's 'Whole New World' translates to "This Blue Dream"; "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" gives us "Love Shines in the Stars", the cultural barriers go on :P)  at the top of our lungs, to our delight, and the entertainment of passing cars.

After navigating the maze of roads that lead us to Disney, we eventually found where we were staying for the 2 nights there, a charming little bungalow park called 'Davy Crockett's Ranch`, where, I assure you, the `Canada is nothing but a big forest frontier, you`ll be right at home here`jokes did flow.

We got settled in, and then drove on over to the main attraction...

Disneyland Paris is technically 2 parks joined together; the Disney theme park and Walt Disney Studio Park.
Both feature a lot of rides, themed restaurants, shows, and exhibitions to go to.

Because I had never been there before everyone else (who had already been, and where therefore experts) guided me to the best rides and the prettiest spots.  Disney land Paris has a lot of very beautiful sights, from the pirate ships in Adventureland,





The Arabian markets,

Or Sleeping Beauty's Castle, right in the middle of the park.

me + chateau

Another really really great aspect of the experience is the little costumed characters running around the area....

Ignore the facial expression, I was in the middle of laughing and giving bisous to Eeyore/ Bouriquet en francais.

All in all, it was a great experience, and a lot of fun.  I definately hope to be back one day!

Pictures of Chinon

This is the castle of Chinon. I love it, think it's beautiful (also, this is a particulary great picture I just stole off google images...looks like a painting!). Difference in culture though, the French people could  care less about it. I guess it's just become...normal for them, having beautiful pieces of archituecture everywhere, that are older than my whole country :P.

I took this picture standing on the tower of the castle, showing off the Vienne river and some of the houses on it's banks.

              La Vienne river is home to a lot of fish, and
therefore, fisherman.  They have little, delightfully
 traditional wooden boats.

A stamp from 1993, showing off the castle. pretty :).

Thin, winding cobblestoned roads here. Almost all the construction is done with limestone, which is a beautiful white stine, but also a very soft one, lots of erosion.

                                                          The main crops here seem to be grapes for wine, and sunflowers. Rolling fields covered in a sea of swaying yellow is quite a sight.

hello! welcome.

Hello! I have finally decided to make a blog of my Rotary club student exchange year, from South-western Ontario, Canada, to Centre region, France. I'd like to talk about the things I've seen and done here, the strange french culture, and the crazy things people have asked me about my country (hence the title of this blog...Actually french people, there's more than one province in Canada, and no, we don't all speak french), and just anything interesting I come across. I'll admit, I've already been in France for about 9 months, and I'll be back on my home soil in 2 months, so I'm maybe a little behind on documenting my exchange year, but hey...better late than never :).

The Final Beaver tale

I present to you all now my final, farewell beaver tale before I leave France, and come on back home.  From today (May 15), I have exactly 67 days left. Sounds kind of long, but I promise it’s not. There’s still so much I want to do, so much I want to see, so much I have left to experience.  That saying, I have seen and done a lot of wonderful things since I’ve been here, and I’m happy with myself for it. For example, at the beginning of April I left for my bus trip with 40 other exchange kids, and we toured France, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Italy in 11 days.  It was beautiful everywhere we went (European cities truly are beautiful, but the mountains we saw truly took my breath away), and it’s always a pleasure to be with other exchange students.  Each country we were in was like experiencing another mini-exchange, with all the great parts condensed into a couple of days. We got to see and experience the different European cultures, and it was an interesting reminder of how hard it can be when you are surrounded by locals, all speaking a language you can’t understand a word of. Thankfully, all exchange students have highly developed miming skills, so communicating sans-voix wasn’t a huge problem. 

I still have a lot of plans to live out before I leave this place. So far, I’ve seen the Eastern part of Europe, and I’ve been to the north, but the west coast and the southern part have alluded me so far. Plans have been set in motion to change that though; I don’t want to leave here without seeing all that I can. At least, I’ll take advantage of all the opportunities that I’ve been given, both by Rotary and also by the people who welcomed me into their lives, and cared for me as though I’d been a part of them forever.  

I know it will be hard saying goodbye to everyone and everything when the end does come. I know I’ll miss the food, the French bisous, the casual way of life here. I’ll miss my friends, who have become my family; I’ll miss my families, who have become so much more than that. But, the paradox of exchanges, I’m also dying to be back on home soil, back to the country where I was raised, where my real family lives, a country where I know people have been sending me there love and their thoughts and their support all the way across the ocean. I love the sprawling French vinyards; I miss the rivers that wind through my Canadian home.  I’m still charmed by the French language; I want to hear my national anthem sung in my home country.  How can I say goodbye to the life I’ve made here, with the natives and all the other strangers to this land? How can I wait to see my family and friends again any longer? Such is the complicated life of an exchange kid.  I want to be home again, but home is where the heart is, and mine is now all over the world. I leave a part of me with all the people who have become so close to me, this land that I love, everything I’ve seen and felt.

  

  In French, there are 2 words for goodbye, ‘au revoir’ and ‘adieu’. The first translates literally as ‘til the next time I see you’, we say that for people we shall see again. The other means ‘to god’. We’ll meet again in heaven, but not in this life. So, I say to you all now, this is not adieu. I’ll be back to France, I’ll keep in touch with my friends all over the world, I won’t forget any of this, and I won’t waste the experiences, the growth I’ve experienced here.

France, au revoir. I’ll keep you in my heart.

Victoria