year nineteen in paris

February

2009-03-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

So, since I haven't updated my blog in months (apologies for that), I am going back, month by month, to fill you in on what has been happening here. I am starting with February and will go back to November, each month will be a seperate post. Therefore, don't worry that i have skipped all the time between October and February, just keep reading and you will get to the other months...

February was a good month, on the 14th began my vacation, so i didn't have a whole lot of school to deal with :) And before that, I had a Rotary sunday with all the other students from our two districts (1660 and 1770 always do everything together, i don't really know why we are separate). We got together for lunch and the afternoon, and to talk about the upcoming trip to Toulouse. The trip is for all the exchange students in France to get together for a weekend, and each district (in our case our two districts) has to put on some sort of skit or performance. That Sunday we had to figure out what we are going to do for the show. It was fun to be able to see everyone again, and the weather was really nice so we went outside a bit, as you will see in the pictures :)

Me, Cari and Maggie

myspace!!?!??!?

girlssss

we were bored, and giggly

hahah

lunch!

cheeeeeese

The week after was Cari's 19th birthday, so we celebrated in Paris, and then vacation! I spent the first week at home, and went to some museums with Marie, Musee d'Orsay, Musee National du Moyen Age (a.k.a. Cluny Museum), L'Orangerie, and L'Institut du Monde Arab. The Musee d'Orsay was really beautiful, the architecture is really amazing. It was originally a train station built to bring people to the Eiffel Tower and World Fair, and was later turned into a museum. I got to see a lot of VanGogh and Renoir, so that was cool, along with a lot of other amazing paintings and statues. The Musee National du Moyen Age was really cool, i enjoyed it a lot. It had tons of artifacts from the middle ages, most coming from France, but also from other european countries. Lots of tapestries as well, i loved seeing the Lady and the Unicorn series, there are 6 fully preserved tapestries, five of which illustrate the 5 senses and the 6th showing 'a mon seul desir' or 'to my only desire' which i think is illustrating love. The Orangerie is a museum featuring eight paintings done by Monet, and there are other paintings on the lower level. The museum was built to house Monet's paintings, which he did for this purpose, but was closed in the 1960's, and didn't reopen until 2006, no one saw those paintings during that time, they were just sitting in the museum. Finally, the Arab Institute was kind of a disappointment, the set-up was really bad, and the explanation of the artifacts wasn't very good either. All in all though, it was really interesting to see all the different things.

Inside the chapel (the museum is a monastery)

and by the way all these pictures are from Cluny

italian silk from the 13th century i believe

outside in the gardens

ceiling of the chapel

a part of one of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries

After that week, I left to go skiing with my host family, without my host brother who stayed home. We stayed in a little chalet that Eric's dad built about 40 years ago. It is at the foot of some small mountains, on the edge of a town called Faverges. The first day, Sunday, we cleaned the chalet and unpacked, that night we ate at the house of some friends of theirs. They made this thing called a tartiflette, which is basically just potatoes, onions and some cream, and then they slice a round of cheese like reblochon, but it on top, and put it in the oven. So the cheese melts all through the potatoes, and then you eat that with different cuts of ham or sausage. Its pretty good, but reeeeally heavy. All the typical dishes in that area of France are full of cheese. So the next day the weather wasn't great, so we went skiing at a little station so that i could get started relearning how to ski :P Marie helped me and it all came back to me pretty quickly. The rest of the week the weather was beautiful, and the snow was perfect, so i had a great week of skiing. We would wake up in the mornings around 9, have breakfast, tea, bread and nutella for me, get ready, make a picnic and drive to the ski stations, we would start around noon everyday and ski into the afternoon, eventually stopping to dring hot chocolate and eat kit-kats. I don't remember all of the ski stations right now, but i will eventually figure them out.

our little chalet

my skis are on the left :)

my bed in our chalet

marieeee and me

snowshoeing, this is the easy way, not what i did with Perrins

after lunch, and some chocolate mousse :)

post-ski, we had to take them in b&w, color was not pretty

hahaha, i did it for camille

At the end of that week, we met up with Signe's host family, the Perrins, and skied with them for that Saturday. After that I said goodbye to my fam. and left to stay with Perrins for the week. We stayed at the house of Brigitte's brother and his wife, Philippe and Sabine, they are both really sweet people, and they have a beautiful house. Anyway, the first day of skiing with them i was reallllly tired, i had already been doing it for a week, so i was ready for a break. They were all really understanding though, so it was fine. On Monday the weather was bad, so we went on a walk in the snow instead. We were in a tiny village near the Swiss border, and we ate lunch in a restaurant that is part of a farm. It was nice for me to have a break from skiing for one day. Tuesday we went skiing and that night we ate in a little old chalet in the mountains. You have to walk about 40 minutes to get there, but the walk is beautiful and that night the sky was clear and the moon was bright, so it was nice despite the hike. At the restaurant we ate a plate of cold meats and pate, along with bread and a salad, and then we all ate fondue with mushrooms in it. It was all amazing, and by the end i think i gained a few pounds :P So after dinner and dessert, we got to sled back down to the cars, which was hilarious and fun. We went with head lamps, and it was really fast because the snow had melted a bit during the day and then re-frozen. It was a great night, Signe can vouch for me, she did the exact same thing :) and did you go in the bathroom signe? it's really unique... Moving on, Wednesday, we went skiing with a family that Perrins know, and that night ate at their cabin. Thursday i went snowshoeing with Clemence and Brigitte, it was one of the hardest things i have EVER done. Uphill, for three hours, in fresh snow. Needless to say, by the end, i was spent. Friday we all went skiing, the snow was better and the sun came out for a bit. And Saturday, my last day for skiing, we were out all day, the weather was gorgeous, and i wasn't even tired at the end of the day :) After two weeks of conditioning i was in form, and the rest of the family was feeling what i had felt the previous week, so anyway, it was a good day :) Sunday they drove me home, and i was received with Eric's silliness and comments about my tan (after two weeks of UV at 3800 meters, i got rather dark). Now I am home, and it is nice to be back to Paris, although i miss the mountains and clean air.

post restaurant, sledding fun!

looking goooood, i promise you axelle doesn't normally look like that, i don't know what happened in this picture

January

2009-03-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

Alright, so the month of January was highly uneventful for me, i went to school and watched a lot of tv with my host parents, you know, to help my french ;) Towards the end of the month i met up with Chelsea, a girl i met two years ago at french camp. We have kept in contact through facebook, and this january we finally had a chance to meet up again. She was here this summer, and started dating a guy who lives here, coincidentally in a town about 2 minutes away from me. So, in short we figured all this out over the internet and planned to meet up while she was here for vacation in January. We ended up spending an afternoon in Montmarte, and stopping for a coffee in the cafe from Amelie, which turns out to be quite different in real life since there is no tobacco counter and they rearranged all the tables... Anyway, later that day we met up with her boyfriend and went out to dinner. It was nice to see her and have a chance to talk after all that time :)

Other than that, i didn't do much... I did however start a tradition of going out for luch every friday with Carine, a friend from school. I don't have class friday afternoons, so we go eat paninis, or at Paul or chinese food and talk for a couple hours.

ok, moving on to december!

oh and also, some pictures of snow at my house, a rare occurrence :)

December

2009-03-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

Alright, continuing back to December... It began pretty normally, just going to school, fun fun fun! Then a couple weeks in we had a Rotary meeting to say goodbye to our Aussies who were going home, and to take care of some other really, thrilling business. We all had to bring something to contribute to the lunch, and after spending some time saying hi to everyone again, hanging out and taking stupid pictures, we assembled all we had, set the tables and ate. After the lunch, our YEO's gave our three Aussies their certificates for completing the year, and we spent the rest of the afternoon talking and wondering what we were really supposed to be doing...

John and me, bestiesss!

Jas, John, Bek and me

Everybody!

Ben, Cari and me

Bek :)

Being smart...

Gingerbread roof!

It is always really nice to be able to get together and see each other, despite the fact that that particular Sunday I had to say goodbye to Jasmine, the one Aussie that i would not see again. Rotary days are great because we can all just sit around and talk. We tended to divide into groups determined by our first languages, those of us english speakers enjoying rapid conversations in which we can understand and communicate completely :D I suppose it wasn't the best habit, but in December none of us had the skills to carry on in rapid French with each other. So in other words, it was a nice break for the afternoon :)

A few days later, Bek, Cari, Ben, Maggie and I met in Paris for one last 'arvo' with Bek. The weather was horrible, and I got there way before everyone, so I bought goodbye roses for Bek and tried to stay out of the rain while waiting. Eventually everyone got there, and we tried to think of things to do. Eventually we ended up in a cafe to get out of the rain, and ended up staying there allllll afternoon. At one point another friend, Tom, came, but he couldn't stay for long. That evening we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower because Bek had never been up at night. We had to run to make it before it closed, and arrived with a couple minutes to spare. Curtis also ran there to meet up with us.

Bek and me

Bek, me, Cari and Maggie

at night

bored!

After getting really cold on the Eiffel Tower, we all had to say our goodbyes to Bek and head home for school the next day. Bek and I said goodbye in the metro in the middle of a million people rushing past to go home after work, it was really weird and quick, and sad :( Now we are all just hoping to see each other again!

The days before Christmas break I spent my time counting down to the last day of school, and going to Paris to see John and other friends (John is my other Australian friend who left at the beginning of January).

Finally, Christmas break arrived. I spent the days leading up to Christmas until the 26th here in Chessy with my host family and my host dad's sister and aunt. They came from Switzerland, near the French-Swiss border. I ate tons of chocolate, and watched a lot of movies, one of which was Les Bronzes Font du Ski, a hilarious movie about a group of people who go skiing; eeeeveryone here knows this film. Eric's aunt made fondu one day, it was amaaazing, and on Christmas Eve we ate a giant seafood platter. It was good, but i don't really like cold seafood for a Christmas Eve dinner... After that we opened presents; i am now supplied with enough cook books to keep making french food at home, and macarons! All in all i had a nice Christmas, but i felt like it wasn't really a big deal for my host family; now i can just look forward to the next one at home in snowy iowaaa :) Anyway, on the 26th Marie, Camille, Hugo and I headed down to the south-west coast of France to visit Marie's mother; she lives in a town called Dax. I spent the eight hour drive listening to music, sleeping and eating lots of kinder bars :) While we were there, we saw Marie's two brothers, her sister-in-law and their son; we had our own little late Christmas with everyone. Being there with Marie's mom started to drive everyone a little crazy, she calls everyone 'ma poulette' and one night made a soup with a pig nose and ears in it, no joke. Camille and i totally lost it and could not stop giggling, i felt really bad, but i don't think she noticed. I felt like i was in Indiana and the Temple of Doom or something. Anyway, while we were down there, we visited Biarritz and San Sebastian (San Sebas. being in Spain). They are both really beautiful cities, in the Basque style which was really interesting to me.

it was arctic in host g-ma's apartment, and boring.

Din-din with all the rellies

San Sebastian

boatsss in spain

harbor in Biarritz

more Biarritz

The sunnnnn :)

So after having a little break away from Paris, we headed home on the 30th in order to get ready for the New Year's Party Hugo was having the next day. New Year's eve I had a good time celebrating with frenchies, some I know from school and others who are finished with their BAC. We rang in the New Year outside under the fireworks from Disneyland, and finished the evening at 5 a.m. after a long night of dancing :)

All in all, that wraps up December...

November

2009-03-13T05:20:00.000-07:00

The beginning of november was the end of my fall vacation, so I spent a lot of time in paris. I went to the Pantheon once, saw a film about the alps in the 'Geode,' it's kind of like an imax theatre, but it is more of a dome, i think the screen is 360°. I ate wonderful felafel in one of the many Jewish districts, and had crepes with nutella almost every time i went to paris :) I also did a lot of meeting rotary friends to hang out. Paris, I have discovered is all in all a beautiful city, but in the winter, unless you want to sit in a cafe all day, or play dominoes in the louvre ;) there is really not too much to do. It is too cold to be outside all day, and it is a little difficult to be with a group of teenagers in a museum all afternoon, because although some of us like them, it just never works too well :) So, i do love paris despite the winteriness, however, i will be more than happy when spring comes!
November 4-5 were exciting for me here, I followed the election closely, and even altered my sleep schedule to watch :) i think i went to sleep around 7 pm so that i could wake up at 2 am to watch the polls close and get results. It was an exciting morning, even though I had to go to school. Everyone that knows me at school was congratulating me and so happy that Obama had won, it was a nice week to be an American :) That Wednesday we had a picnic in Paris to celebrate...

Me sitting on a plastic bag due to the eternal Paris dampness

Curtis, he is from Stratford, Canada

Bek, she is from Sydney, Australia

Les Halles Fountain

So continuing, after vacation was over i had to start school again, which was not the easiest thing to do. The time between the fall vacation and the one for christmas is the longest in the whole school year, so I am glad that's over with! Anyway, November was kind of a blur, it went really fast because by that time, i had really established a routine. I mostly just went to school, with trips to Paris on weekends and occasionally one on a wednesday afternoon (those i try to avoid because i can't use my train/metro pass :( ).

One Saturday, Marie, my host mom, and I went to Provins, a village about an hour away. It is a well preserved medieval town, famous for the faires it would have for merchants from Italy and wherever else they came from. We visited the building that housed all the merchants when they would come for the faire and where they stored all their goods, it was built in the 13th century, all the doorways were super tiny :) Anyway, Provins was the most important place for trade during that time, it was all run by the Counts of Champagne or something...

In mid-November i had a district conference with all the other exchange students from 1770, which was rather boring i must say because we just sat all day and listened to people talk. At one point all of us had to present ourselves to the audience, saying our names, where we come from and who we are hosted by. It all went well, everyone made it through :)

As November began to wind-down, we started to prepare for our French-style Thanksgiving dinner. My host mom invited two families, I had already met everyone because my host family and the two others are all friends. We had the dinner on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, seeing as it is impossible to do anything during the week when dealing with French work and school schedules. That Saturday I cooked all day with my host mom, and Curtis and John came to 'help'/play guitar hero all afternoon. We prepared a salad, a sweet potato soup, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, and a 7.5 kilo turkey with lots of stuffing, all in all i think it was the tastiest Thanksgiving i have ever had. For dessert we had a Cheesecake that i made, a pecan pie from Curtis, and a pumpkin pie that one of our guests brought over. Our tiny house was stuffed with 16 people, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, so it was a good evening. It didn't really feel like Thanksgiving because i wasn't with family, or in the US, or on vacation for a few days, but it was fun nonetheless :)

What was left of the cheesecake at the end of the night

Eric, my host dad, holding up the wine from 1990

fooooooood!

Our fatty dinde, it cost 110 euros, and was sooo tasty

Our table setting, thanks mom :)

So anyway, November was a good month, and I hope after all these posts that you are sick of reading about my life here in France, because I am getting a bit sick of writing about it! Nevertheless, i hope you enjoyed the news!

love to all my family and friends :)

Siri Ellen

france, life, rotary

2008-10-21T03:38:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Since my last post, quite a lot has happened, so this post may end up being quite long... Picking up where I left off, the end of August and beginning of September was kind of a blur. Before school started, I was busy adjusting to my new atmosphere, and during that time, I did a lot of sleeping, studying French, and meeting friends of Hugo. I had a great time meeting new people, and it was nice to be able to get out of the house and do some things. When school started, I was a bit overwhelmed with everything and I was tired all the time from trying to understand French 24/7. School here is ridiculously difficult, so it's good that my marks don't matter, otherwise I would probably die. My school here has 1,200 students, and in my class there are about 25. Since I am in the literature section, there are mostly girls in my class, to be exact, only three boys. Also, they are all around 15-16 years old, some are 17, but only a couple. So despite the fact that they are all really nice to me, it's difficult to really become good friends with any of them because their interests and maturity levels are not the same as mine. All of the friends I have at school are in the last grade, so I don't really ever see them except sometimes at lunch. So school is rather boring and long, and I feel like I waste a lot of time there. I wish there was a program to teach French to me, because I would be progressing so much faster if I had someone teaching me the language. Three other rotary students in the town next to mine get to have a French class three times a week, so they are progressing quite a bit faster than me. Immersion is great, but pairing that with practical lessons would be really useful. Aside from school though, everything is good.

The first weekend after school started, I had a rotary meeting with the students from my district and the one next to mine, 1770 (my district) and 1660 always do everything together, so we are basically in the same one. We met in a school north east of Paris, there was a bit of an orientation for the newbies, we were told the rules and everything, and then we met all of the students that were already there, and the ones that had already had their exchange years, and were back. We then had to present ourselves to everyone, tell our names, where we are from and who our host clubs are. After, there was a meal, and we were able to talk to all the other students. It was really nice to talk to the other exchange students, about our schools, host families and whatever else we wanted. At the end of the afternoon it was hard to say goodbye to everyone, but we all managed :)

After that rotary meeting, it was back to school for a month before the next one in Mont Saint Michel. So I got used to my schedule, got to know my classmates a bit, and was able to go to Paris a few times, and meet up with a friend during my break on Thursdays. I also got used to using the rer and metro, after getting rather confused the first time I came home from Paris, I learned what not to do the next time :P My rotary club paid for me to have a pass for the rer and metro, so on weekends I can go to Paris for free and use the metro there, and in my area I can use the rer and bus. So, not much happened during September other than that.

In the beginning of October there was a rotary meeting in Mont Saint Michel, and that was really fun. We left at about 7 am from Paris on Saturday morning (missing school :) and we took a bus. Driving there it took I think about 4 1/2 hours so on the bus we had time to talk to one another, and it was fun despite how much time it took to get there.

When we arrived, all the exchange students from four districts were there, it was 1660, 1770 (my district and the one next to mine) along with the district around Mont Saint Michel and the one from the North. So, we had some time to meet each other, and then we were assigned our 'bungalows' which were tiny little cabins, with 10 teeny beds, and no bathroom. After, we had lunch, and then we departed for Mont Saint Michel, it only took about 5 minutes drive there, we could see it from where we were staying. When we got there, we went on the sand walk that goes a loooong way around Mont Saint Michel and another island behind it. It was a beautiful day, so that was really nice, and the guides that led us were really cool. Walking there was mostly easy, everyone goes barefoot, but occasionally there would be deep parts with pretty strong currents, and we would have to walk through water up to our knees. That was not so fun seeing as my pants got quite wet, and I didn't have another pair.

After the walk, we returned to our bungalows and prepared for dinner. We all ate together at a banquet hall, and there was a group of dancers there who performed for us, along with their musicians. They showed us traditional dances of Bretagne and Normandie.

Dinner was quite good, and after, we had to sing our national anthems for everyone, so that was interesting... Then there was a 'dance,' but it was rather lame, so a lot of students left to go hang out in bungalows or wherever, I left with a group of mostly Australian kids, one New Zealander, one South African, and a couple Canadians. We just sat around and talked, it was a fun evening. The next day, after about 4 hours of sleep we went back to Mont Saint Michel to visit the Abbey and the little village beneath it. It was really beautiful there, and I would have liked to spend more time there, but, our district people were rather unorganized, so we spent a lot of time waiting to get into the abbey while they talked to the people in charge of tickets. Once we were in though, we were free to walk around and look at things. I walked around with Curtis and Lloyd, so that was fun. Curtis is from Canada and Lloyd is from Australia. When it was time to meet everyone back at the bus, we were a bit late, so they got annoyed, but we weren't the last people, so it was okay :) After that we returned to where we were staying, had a really good lunch, and then left to return home.

It was hard to say good bye to everyone, but we were all really tired and ready to get home. Being able to meet up with other exchange students was really fun, and I was able to talk to a girl who lives near where you did Signe, and she knows all the people that I met when I was visiting during Christmas, so that was really cool to make that connection.

Since then I have just been going to school, and to Paris to meet friends. Right now I am on vacation for a week and a half, so I will be doing a lot of sleeping, and going to Paris :) France is a great place, and I am really enjoying myself so far. So, until next time (I will try to update my blog sooner than in two months :). Love to family and friends, hope you are all well!

Siri Ellen

my first day or so...

2008-08-28T01:15:00.000-07:00

Hello all, it is 10:15 here, and i have been awake with nothing to do for about four and a half hours... yesterday i slept alllllll day after not getting any sleep on the plane trips over (on the flight to Paris, i had to sit next to this ginormous American guy who was taking up half of my seat, so that make it hard to sleep) I also sat next to a really nice american woman (who was small :). She asked me about the group I was traveling with and thought it was really cool that i could do something like rotary exchange. She was traveling to Paris for business or something, i'm not sure what exactly...
So anyway, i eventually arrived... Marie and Camille were waiting for me at the airport, as well as the district chair person and my rotary club president, they were all very nice :) I also met some other guy, but i don't remember who he was, it was kind of awkward because i tried to do the 'bisous' but he was trying to shake my hand... hahahaaa... we figured it out in the end :) and he made some comment about how i preferred bisous, ohh well :)
We eventually made it to the house, it took about 20 minutes to get there, i think... once we were there Marie and Camille showed me around the house, in French mind you... the only english they spoke to me happened in the airport and on the drive to the house, after that i think Marie decided, oh well! she can probably figure it out! So after showing me around and explaining things to me i ate some bread, drank some juice and went to sleep for the day, until about 7:30 that night :)
When i eventually woke up, i showered and went down for dinner, Camille had a friend over, she was nice to me as well, and interested to see pictures of my house and family. For dinner we had crepes with cheese and ham and an egg on top, and then sliced cucumber and sliced mushrooms with some sort of dressing on them, it was all very tasty :) For dessert we had chocolate cake, it was a very thin cake, kind of torte-like, and english cream with it. We sat around talking for a while (i was just listening for the most part:) and eventually Hugo got home. I gave them the quilt, a jar of rhubarb jam and one of those magnets, Marie was very impressed by the quilt. After all that, I played some Wii bowling with Camille and her friend, aaaaaaand after sitting around talking for a while Marie, Eric, Camille and friend (whose name i obviously do not remember, oops) went to bed. Hugo and I watched some tv, he told me a bit about this trip to Spain, and after a while I went to bed.

Some how i was able to sleep for awhile, but after waking up, i wasted some time, and went down to get some breakfast and take some pictures for you all to see...

My very messy room, and bed, which folds into a couch if I want.

This is the view from my bedroom window, Disneyland is to the right, and it's a lot farther away than I thought it would be, you can only see the top of Belle's castle from our driveway.

The shower, not that exciting... pretty normal really.

The other side of the bathroom...

This is my drawer in the cabinet that looks like a giant mirror in the other picture...

This is the staircase, sorry it's a bit dark.

The dining room table, there is a piano on the right, which Camille's friend played for us after dinner, she was very good.

The living room...

The other side of the living room...

This is the view from the entry way...

The kitchen...

The other side of the kitchen...

And finally, my breakfast :)

So there you have it, a view into my new life here... I like their house, it's very new, so there isn't much in it, but it's nice. I think I am going to go downstairs now and see if anyone is awake yet. More later!

Love - Siri Ellen

P.S. sorry for all the errors in this post, i am too lazy to go back and edit it.

au revoir :)

2008-08-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

Hello all, just thought I'd update you with the creation of this blog, and say that soon there will be more interesting things to read/look at on here :)