Finally Home Again

This week flew by… I can’t even figure out how it’s already Monday again! Last Monday and Wednesday we had different teachers for French class. The first was a lady who was much more strict than our normal teacher. I liked her because it was a bit more challenging although I can’t remember her name… Wednesday we had Sebastien and he was awesome! He was hilarious and taught us so much. Instead of going over the assignments as a class he came around and helped us each individually with our mistakes and explained it in depth to us. I learned the most that day.

Monday night, my friends and I stayed up till 4 am eating nutella and chips and hanging out. It was a good bonding time… I absolutely love the people here. I already consider them some of my closer friends.

Tuesday and Wednesday we all just laid around hanging out. Nick showed me a new grocery store where I found baking soda! I was ecstatic! I ended up making cookies Thursday night for Lauren’s birthday! Then we all went to Said’s house to celebrate with her. The house was absolutely packed with all the people in our program and he turned his house into a club type space with strobe lights. We all had a blast… I crawled into my bed at a decent hour that night and made it to class in the morning. Friday we watched a movie with the intermediate class. It was about foreign exchange students going to school in Barcelona which was pretty cool since it relates directly to my life now and my life in about 3 more months! After school I took the train from Vichy to Nevers then from Nevers to St Pierre then from St Pierre to Angers to see my host family for the weekend. The ticket there and back cost about 80 euros which wasn’t terrible. It took me about 5 hours each way. The train from St Pierre to Angers was a TGV and was a double decker! I was overly excited for that! I arrived and Nicolas & Vincent picked me up and took me home. Everyone was there and I had so much fun being back home again with them! I missed them all so much! I truly think of them as my family. My mom had made me chocolate mousse and an amazing sponge cake with nutella in the middle. We stayed up and talked for a bit then headed to bed. In the morning my mom cooked an amazing appetizer with eggs, sour cream, and cheese. It was awesome! Then we had lasagna and chicken cordon bleu and I was absolutely stuffed! I had forgotten how much the French eat… still have no idea how they aren’t all obese! I couldn’t even bare to look at the cheese or chocolate mousse that they all ate after lunch! Nicolas and I headed to what he claims is the biggest mall in all of France, although I don’t know if I believe him. We shopped for a bit then headed back to the house where Coralie met us to take me to Rennes for Marella’s birthday. It was so amazing to see them both again!! It seems like it’s been so long but we picked up right where we left off and nothing had changed! It was such a great night! We went to a big discotech outside of Rennes that had 5 rooms. The first was the huge main room with couches and tables wrapped around the ginormous dance floor in the middle with crazy lights flashing to the beat of the music that the DJ was playing. When you went up the stairs, there was a big dance room/bar to the left playing really random songs and another big dance room/bar to the right playing old school French music. Finally there was another room off to the side which was a bar that was like a cinema playing a movie… despicable me to be exact (extremely random), and there was a huge hulk statue in there. I think it was the most random discotech I have ever been too. There was a private club downstairs as well that wasn’t exactly any place I wanted to go. We stayed there dancing until about 5 am when we drove back to Marella’s apartment. We arrived back there around 530 and her cat had peed on the bed Coralie and I were supposed to sleep on so we stayed up till about 630 cleaning that and finally went to bed… well attempted to go to bed. We had put her cat in the laundry room so she wouldn’t pee on the bed again and she apparently hated it because she banged on the door all night. It was so loud, it sounded like someone was trying to break in, and you would have never known a cat was making such loud noises. Around noon we gave up on trying to continue to sleep and woke up and ate breakfast then Coralie and I headed back to Angers. We stopped at Mcdonald’s on the way, which was so different than the USA. Nobody came to the counter to ask for our order because they assumed we would be using a credit card which means you have to put in your own order on their little screens. Unfortunately, my American card wouldn’t work in that machine so Coralie paid for mine with hers and I paid her back… It was crazy expensive and the food wasn’t even good and greasy like normal! I paid 7.50 euros (about 10 dollars) for a McChicken Meal which would be about 4 dollars in the USA. France is so expensive! Finally I arrived back at my host families house and hung out with them for an hour and then Nicolas and Manon took me to the train station and we said our goodbyes. It was such an incredible weekend and felt amazing to be Finally Home Again with my host family and friends… however taking the train back to Vichy also made me feel amazing to be finally home again in Vichy. I will never again have one specific home; I am blessed to have many homes with many wonderful people in my life. When I arrived back in Vichy, Nick made me an amazing Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo for dinner. It was delicious!

            Monday afternoon we had our first French test. It was surprisingly hard… at least the grammar part. We had one page (front and back) of grammar, then one page (front and back) questions about a story we read, then we had to write one page (front and back) story about a murder that had occurred. The grammar was my main troublesome part. Learning French from speak has both its pros and cons. After the test Kim and I walked to Carrefour… except we didn’t make it there because we found “Leader Price” on the way there, which is a discount grocery store, and we bought all of our groceries there. It was awesome and cheap! Then we headed to the park to watch the boys play soccer and Frisbee. It was a beautiful day! At least 60 degrees farenheight with the sunshine! (It’s been a wonderful 45-50 degrees everyday but yesterday was extra special!) On top of this amazing day, I received valentines day cards from my entire family and they brightened up my day completely! I couldn't stop smiling!

            Today, I had my first business class in English, International Marketing. The professor had a thick accent but spoke pretty good English for the most part. It wasn’t the most entertaining class I’ve ever had but I think it will be good overall. However, the professor tried to tell us certain French words meant things in English that they absolutely didn’t mean…. It was interesting to say the least. After class, Kim, Jacob, and I headed to Happy Cash to get a deep fryer for everyone to use. It was 20 euros so about 6 of us paid about 3 euros. When I brought it back, Nick and I made fries and they were unquestionably delightful!! Clearly, my time here this far has been nothing but perfect! I can’t wait to see what else is in store for this adventure!