Life as per Usual

Alors qu’est-ce que j’ai fait aujourd’hui…

I say this every night when I start my journal. Madame likes that I write it and she thinks it is a cool idea. We have a few nightly rituals. She plays with Beebow and gets mad when he bites her and then he falls asleep on her lap. Then she falls asleep until I yawn or cough or get up and then she decides to go to bed.

Last night I watched What’s Your Number because I couldn’t sleep. Then I had a bunch of weird dreams again. Also one of the things I feel bad about here is going to the bathroom in the middle of the night because about half the time I wake up Madame because these doors are so loud. But its like I won’t be able to sleep unless I get up… But then I feel bad. I was talking about this predicament with a group of others students today and they all agreed that it is one of our biggest difficulties with living with host parents.

I woke up five minutes before my alarm and went and took a shower. It was good but showers here are never actually very good. It is a continuous cycle of water on and off so when you are doing soap you are standing there all wet in the cold because it isn’t cold enough here to turn on the heat yet. It is not a very fun experience. But I do like having clean hair sooo… it must be done! After that I made a PB&J for lunch as well as eating two kiwis and my roll for breakfast.  

I got to class early as usual and was going to sit in our classroom as also usual but then there was a clas in there, which there isn’t supposed to be. So that was awkward to walk in on. So then I sat on the stairs to wait and see if they would leave soon. Then a girl names Gina came in and we talked for a while. She offered me a tomato I kindly declined, also she offered me a doughnut thing which I gladly accepted. It was good and tasted like a sugar doughnut. She is kind of an odd duck but she is really nice. Pretty soon Cassandra came in as well and we decided to run to the store so I could buy some mandarin oranges. We did that and it passed without any problems. Gina went and pet some ladies dogs. And we all talked about our pets at home. When we got back to the school the class was still invading our room so we sat on the stairs and blocked it all. Then we would move for people. We knew we were in the way but we didn’t really care and always moved for people, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Pretty soon Patrick came in too so we all were just like chilling waiting for the class to leave. Our professor came in about 10 minutes before our class and we told him our room was invaded and he said “Cool im going to go get coffee see you later” we all were like, he doesn’t need more energy! He is a very energetic professor and really funny. I like him a lot. He is also really young but has 2 PHD’s in History and Art History. But he isn’t like flashy about it. He also knows four languages I heard. He’s cool.

We had class and he said if any of us are going to Paris for the break we need to visit the Catacombs in Paris because they are super cool and full of tons of skulls. He said he wishes his skull was in there for people to look at for a hundred years or more. The pictures of it online look pretty creepy so I think it could be fun. We have a Midterm on next Tuesday.

After that class, I moved to the next building and ate my sandwich. One of the guys in the room was like hey want some of this candy and I was like sure so I tried it. It looked like spaghetti but multicolored and it was actually pretty good. Then I started eating my PB&J and he made fun of the way that I eat the top crust then flip it over to eat the bottom crust because those are my least favorite parts of the sandwich so I eat them first. He asked why I don’t just cut them off and I said because there are starving children in Africa (which isn’t very far from here…). After that I listened to a conversation about the bar/club scene and was not sad that I haven’t been. It sounds very expensive and not like something that I would be into.

After that I went upstairs to class and told my professor I had a copy of City of Angels if he wanted to see it because it was so similar to the movie we were watching. He said he looked it up and the reviews said it was a more hollywooded rip off. I said yep but it is still good. So he had me copy it onto his jump drive (which no one knows what that is here USB, Flash drive yes but no Jump drive). We watched the end of the movie and I really didn’t like the second half like at all. But oh well. I have a one page paper to write on it which is like nothing for my midterm.

After class I went downstairs to read in the library but it was so loud I decided to forget it because I couldn’t concentrate. Then I decided that I would go try the other library in the other building. I hadn’t ever really explored it but it is actually kind of cool! There is a spiral staircase to a second floor where you can duck under an arch. The school used to be a monastery chapel so there are cool arcs and stone columns and stuff. And they kept most of them when they made it into a not church building. It is pretty cool though. But also of course people have vandalized it. But it is a pretty cool space. I found a spot on the floor to lay down out of the way and read for about an hour. It was quieter but still obnoxious. After a while I went to the cave to take a break as I knew Cassandra would be getting done with her class soon.

She came down not two minutes later when I was writing a Facebook message to Barnett. She wanted ice cream so we went to Monoprix and got some little cups of it for pretty cheap. It did not come with spoons though and the cashiers were mad at us because we broke bills instead of using coins so we didn’t want to ask if they had some. So I was resourceful and grabbed two of the plastic coffee stirring things. They were flimsy but worked surprisingly well. I only flicked ice cream all over myself one time. So that was good. We sat infront of a fountain to eat. After that I bought a slice of Pizza because my moms facebook status about pizza made me crave it.

Then I went home and read a bunch. I’m on page 190/980 so I’m about a fifth of the way done. It is exhausting but I am kind of getting the hang of it. I imagine that I will spend a lot of time tomorrow reading. But I also have a wine tasting. I want to get really far ahead as fast as possible so that a) I don’t have to worry about it over break b) I can be done with it sooner.

Madame came up and made dinner and then Paul showed up to play games before his mom finished making their dinner, and then shortly left. We had lentils and sausage. It was good I don’t mind lentils but the portion was too much for me again. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten the pizza two hours earlier… oops. Oh well.  

Madam and I started watching Godzilla because she had never heard of it before. But of course she fell asleep. She presented me with a phone prolem I couldn’t fix of how to put her camera pictures on her SD card. I got it so that future pictures will be saved to it but not her existing pictures. She is going to ask tomorrow when she goes in to get a case for it. But it is cute how she asks me about everything for her phone. Even if it is like “Do you want this phone so save pictures from you camera to the SD card” she comes and is like is this what I want? And I explain to her the benefits and such.

I have been really thirsty today so I have been drinking lots of water which inevitably means I will have to get up in the middle of the night again… :-/ That sucks. But today was a pretty average day in the French school life. Nothing too exciting but got some work done. Tomorrow I have another wine tasting in the afternoon so that should be fun!

Hoogity Boogity boo, Yesterday is Through

Today I woke up around 7:45 and went and had breakfast. Madame asked me how to turn off the smart texting on her phone that makes words from letters you are started putting in so I had to figure out how to do that. After that I had breakfast and orange juice and got dressed. I decided to wear my green sweater today because yesterday it was cold and rainy.

 I walked to class. It was not cold and rainy today it was HOT. So when I got to the classroom I ditched the sweater for a while and sat in the window in my tank top. Then I felt better. Will came in and I started talking about how last time I was sitting by this girl who wouldn’t stop smacking her gum. Pretty soon she came in and sat by me…. So I got up and moved across the room to a seat with an outlet so I could pretend that was why I was moving. As soon as I got up Will smirked at me and I gave him a look. Class was pretty good though we looked at a map and on Monday we are going to the Cathedral for class so that will be fun!

After class I walked with Patrick to get lunch on his way home. I got a baguette and a few mandarins. I wasn’t really hungry though. Then I went down to the cave and watched Spencers Minecraft videos. I totally called that the chest would be there. Win for me! (That will make no sense to anyone but him.) After that I said I could go shut myself up somewhere to read this boring book… orrrr I could watch Project Runway. So I did that for a couple of hours.  Sarah gave me some of her Tarte Tropezienne to try which is the speciality of Saint Tropez. It was pretty good. Not my favorite but good even so. I bought myself a hot chocolate and a tea during my sitting in the cave. Pretty soon LaSia came down and when she learned I was watching Project runway she freaked and came and sat by me to watch it. It was fun. It’s always more fun to watch Project Runway with someone so you can talk about the design. It was fun. These girls came in and sat down and started talking loudly about Obamacare and LaSia and I exchanged a few messages over iPod about what they were saying (they were very misinformed). It was fun. Eventually we ran out of episodes as the finale is on tomorrow night so I won’t get to maybe watch it until Friday. Boo.

She had class so she left and then I went to the other building to pay for my trip to Nimes this weekend with George on Saturday. After that I went and bought a chocolate bar because I was craving it. Then I sat down and read about 15 pages before Patrick and Cassandra came in and paid for Barcelona/Nimes. We got to talking and Patrick was trying to convince me to go walk to the library to see if the history packets were there for class tomorrow. I said I was too lazy and I would get it on my way home from class. He left and then Cassandra was like oh hey what are these packets on this bookshelf? Oh hey they are the history packets. Win. So we were like yay being lazy! Sucks to be Patrick because now he won’t find them because they are in this library… Oops. Too late. After talking to Cassandra a bit I went to class.

There was some confusion because there was a sign on the door that class was cancelled but then we didn’t know if that was old from Monday or if that was new so we had to go back down to the front desk and ask. But then our professor walked in not a minute later so we were like well guess we do have class. We got our tests back and I got a C. But I did fail it by American standards as I got 10/20. But I guess they grade things differently here? So I was very happy. I still know I did horrible but it is nice that the grades are different. We did some translation stuff and it was good. At one point the teacher came and looked at my work and was like received is spelled received not recieved. I was like… Oh. Oops. I knew that. Then when I was writing I wrote “whould” which is a word that I made up and thought was real, meaning who should. I was like looking at it and was like…. What is that? That’s not even a word!!! I laughed out loud and then my professor was like what are you laughing about? So then I had to explain it.

My professor is really nice. I like her a lot. She knows what she is talking about but is like more soft spoken but also fun. It’s a good class. I like it once I am finally sitting in it.

I came home and read another bit of pages and then Paul came up with some cars toys. He and I talked about the movie Cars and Planes. He made obstacle courses for the cars and raced them and had me count the seconds it took. I also had the job of lifting the couch a bit when one of the cars went under it. Madame came up and was not very happy with Paul I could tell. Before I started reading I was going to go down and hang out with them but I could hear them arguing. So I decided to skip that one. Madame had made soup for tonight so the whole apartment smelled very delicious. She went to cooking croutons/ pieces of baguette to put in the soup and blending it. When we finally sat down it was sooooo good. We put some garlic flavoring in it and it was so good. Paul had butternut squash and potato sound because he doesn’t like any vegetable and then we had vegetable soup. It was delicious. I had two bowls and was like Yes this was really good. After that Madame made Paul some pasta and let me try this meat thing with bread? It was weird but with pickles it was good. I miss the pickle taste. I think I might go buy a jar and eat carrots and pickles one of these days. I really like that taste combo as weird as it sounds. Plus then I won’t get leg cramps!

After that I had a mandarin and decided to see if Thad was on Skype. He was so I went to my room to get on and Paul joined me. Once we got Thad online I made Paul say hello and what is your name and how are you so that he could practice the English that he has learned in school. It was fun and he was embarrassed and shy so it was cute. Oh also at dinner he said that me and the first girl that Madame has had and been host for are have been his favorites. So that was kind of cool. I guess I am not terrible with kids which is good. Well at least with French kids.

After that I talked to Thad for a little bit by myself before he had to run off to do his passport stuff for May when his school does a three week Juniors Abroad. He plans on going to Israel/Jordan. So that should be fun for him.

Tonight we have been watching some kind of like show… Specific I know. I don’t remember what she told me the name of it is, but a BUNCH of popular French artists get together and do this huge concert/show which is really cool. Its like the VMA’s but bigger and cooler and more like a community. But yeah they do this big show for free and then they sell tickets to it, make cd’s of it, and make DVD’s of it and then sell them and all the proceeds go to feeding people who don’t have the money to buy food. I probably could have written that a lot more eloquently had I been more used to English. But it is really a cool idea. And I bet it makes a ton of money because it is really cool! Now I am tired and sleepy. I get to sleep in tomorrow though which is awesome. Also today was Laundry day! This week went by super fast! Les Enfoirés Madame says it is, and they happen every year. Pretty cool!

Post title courtesy of Cassandra

Reading and Movies

I had a really good nights sleep. I slept for eleven hours but because of this I had really weird dreams. I dreamed that I was at my hour in St. Helens but none of my family was there and then a friend of mine was super drunk and was like I don’t do this but I want to drive my car. And I was like no. No you will not do that. So then I had to convince her in my dream not to do that. It was annoying. So then I woke up and was like that was weird, must be time to get up soon. Nope its 4:30. Hahaha Win! After that I had two more weird dreams but I don’t remember them. But they seemed really long I remember. I woke up and was like was that all one night? Awesome!

I woke up at ten and took a shower and shaved. I really can’t wait to take a real shower. I think I will do that when I go to Paris. I will be so pumped for that. After I took a shower I got dressed and had breakfast and made myself a PB&J for lunch. I learned that Peanut butter in the US is more spreadable than Peanut butter here. I don’t know why though. Maybe because the peanut butter in the US is newer? Because they were both the same brand? So that’s what I learned.

I went to class and got there early as usual so I put up my blog. I was going to start reading my lit book but I gave up on that because I wasn’t awake enough. I was really hyper and talking to Patrick, LaSia, and Gina before class. Class started and we got our tests back. I got an A- so that was good but then he went off for 45 minutes about how we didn’t do our papers right and we were supposed to do a bunch of outside documents. Which I thought meant the documents for the class which are all historical documents like a DBQ. Sooo he was unclear about that. But I got an A- so now I know for next time and don’t really care. Class went by fast after that because we had started ten minutes late to begin with and then with the talk we didn’t cover much new material.

After that I went to my Lit class and turned in my paper and we started watching a film called The Wings of Desire. It is about angels and Berlin and it reminded me SOOOO much of the film The City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. It was like uncanning so I wonder if that director saw this film and then stole a bunch of the ideas to make it in the US with US actors. It is a pretty cool film. I am liking it so far I think. Plus I like not having to have a discussion. I like discussing books but with this group I don’t really like it. The same people dominate the conversation and make it hard for anyone else to join in.

After class I went and bought a soda and then decided to go home and read to try to get somewhere in this big book. I was reading when Madame came home and was like oh what’s that big book? I showed he and she was like geez that’s hard stuff even if it is in English and I was like yeah I don’t like it. She laughed and then went to watch Paul. I stayed and read and reached the 100 page mark. It still is really boring…. But I am a tenth of the way through. So hopefully I will get done with it by mid November… Without having to tread during fall break. But we will see. I would like to finish it as quick as possible. But it is so boring to read I am not sure how well I will do at that.

After that I started watching an episode of Project Runway that I torrented when Madame came back and we had dinner. We had salad with chicken. It was pretty good. She put avocados on it which wasn’t my favorite but I just sucked it up and ate them.

After that we I watched the Social Network and Madame slept J

Not a very exciting day but I got a lot of reading in which is good! 100 pages closer to being able to start the fourth Game of Thrones!

Kacy tries a Macaroon

This morning I woke up at 7:30 and said no shower I am too tired and slept in until 8. I wanted to sleep in even more. My stomach was not happy this morning so I was glad to have the tums mom sent. I had fruit and skipped my roll because I just wasn’t feeling like food was the answer. I got dressed and pretended to sleep for another ten minutes. Then said I could skip this class I haven’t ever skipped it and I get two free… I could just sleep all day until my night class… But then I decided to get my butt out of bed and go. Mostly just because I knew that I would be getting my test back and I wanted to see what I got on the one I did well on.

I went and it was kind of rainy so I wore my boots. I also brought my computer along to do some homework between classes. My back hurt though from carrying it to school. I should use my backpack when I bring my laptop… That would be smart of me… oops. Oh well. I got there and pretty soon Mary came in and sat by me and complained that her shoulder hurt from bringing her laptop today and I laughed and told her I was just thinking the same thing. We talked with another girl Cooper who was there about what she had heard about our professor and how hard he was of a grader. She had heard this class was one of the hardest the university has. That scared us.

Class started and we got our tests back. I got an A! Win! I was happy. We started talking about the Sacrophages or Sarcophagus in English of Arles. They are kind of cool and it is interesting to see the significance and influence of the different cultures. We moved our second exam to a week later because he originally had it planned on Armistice Day which we don’t have school. So that was cool. After class I walked with Mary to the other building. She went to check her mail and I went down in the cave to edit my paper and hang out. I ran into Cassandra and apologized for sort of ditching her yesterday because we were making tentative day plans but then I got told I was going to lunch and then the walk so that changed quickly but luckily I was able to tell her things had changed. She is starting to try and go jogging everyday to get ready for the Color Run in her state. That’s the 5k run where each K you get pelted with a different color of dust which is maybe paint or chalk or something? The pictures from it look cool but I would fall over and pass out in a white shirt with no colors on it. So I say “go Cassandra” when she tells me she ran for support because running is really not high on the things that “do not cause me pain/ can do them” list.

We talked for a while before she headed off to go fix her paper and then go to class. I stayed and bought a 50 cent hot chocolate from the sketchy espresso machine that was probably some of the best hot chocolate ever. I’m not sure if because it is French or because It was cold and rainy out and I haven’t had hot chocolate since I have been here or what. But it was delicious. I also learned the vending machine only takes 20 cent pieces without eating them. So that is good to know after already losing a few bucks to it. I sat down there a while until Julia came down and sat and sketched for a while. Will, Risa, and Christelle were there too and were being really funny so I joined in on their conversations for a while. Then I went to get lunch at the Chinese place. I got a different chicken this time and liked it better but they use too much sauce or should have asked if I could get plain rice because that’s all I really wanted. It is hard to get plain things here I have observed, which is unfortunate because I like bland and plain things. I know I’m in France and complaining the food isn’t boring enough. First world French Problems. It is a good deal though for 5.50 with a drink. Pretty good.

I went back and ate my two mandarins that I had brought from home. They were delicious and I am glad they are coming into season here. They actually look like little oranges too not like the smooshed down wrinkly ones at home but like real little oranges that are mandarins. They were good. After that I edited my paper and talked to Morgan about it and we both agreed it was harder than writing an analysis because we both hate writing imaginative and creative things. I do on occasion enjoy it but not when I am forced to. I am not really sure mine is following the format he wants because he didn’t give us a clear format so I hope it is fine. I saved it and then went to town to try and send a package. Unfortunately for me though the post office by the school was out of world envelopes so I couldn’t send it. So I went back to school to print my paper. I also printed my History documents for the rest of the lectures because I have learned I will not read them electronically. I have to have the paper in order to take them seriously because I like to highlight as I read. It was a lot of pages but I double sided and it wasn’t really THAT many but probably 45 pages, for the rest of the semester. I see why he wanted us to use it electronically though. When I went to print the printer started spitting out like 20 copies of some girls two page paper over and over again. Finally I figured out how to get it to stop. But that was more wasted paper than anything else.

I went back to the cave to start doing some reading for that class when Christelle asked if I had read my email. Apparently we didn’t have class tonight! Our professor was sick so that means we were free! That was pretty exciting! I was like are you serious? YES! Not that I don’t like that class but given the option to go or have the night free I wonder which I liked the idea of more! I was excited I went to Paul’s (Patisserie) and bought a Macaroon Speculoos flavored. I had never had one before and figured now was a good time to try. TO give my honest opinion, I was unimpressed. For how much people here talk them up I was expecting something a lot more amazing. I mean it was good but the whole time I was thinking, “You know this tastes like speculoos but not as good, I could have bought three packs of speculoos for the price of this and been much happier.” Also it made me really thirsty and I had no water. So then I went home.

When I got home I skyped Dad and saw some of mom before she went to work. Then Madame came home and was like oh are you finished for today, oh no you have class tonight and I was like actually it’s cancelled and she was happy for me. My parents said Bonjour to her, and then they left and Madame left and I watched some Project Runway before heading out to go try a different post office.

The post office I went to is the main post office in town and is next to the tourism building so they are fully equipped with envelopes and boxes and the like. The people there were really nice even though I had to ask three people for help they all seemed to be happy to help me which was a lot nicer than when I went to the other post office. Maybe I will just go there all the time! Also there was.. a change machine! TA DAH!!! WOW! That is a GOOD thing to know about here, let me tell you. They really hate when you don’t give exact change or give them more than a euro over the cost of something. I sent my package after only a bit of confusion remedied by the friendly staff and then went on my merry way. I passed by a store that I had seen before that had Christmas decorations so I went inside to poke. It was a really pretty store. It was like a home goods store with dishes and linens and cool decorations and stuff. It is a good thing I don’t live here or I would have bought so much stuff! It was just pretty and fun to walk around in. they had lots of colored glassware which I have always wanted. I think they are so cool, and I love color.

After walking around that store for a while I went to Monoprix to look for some carrots and some speculoos cookies. I walked around there for a while and found tortillas which are good to know where they are because mom is sending taco seasoning in a package that is coming. I didn’t buy them but I remembered that they were there. I paid and left and came back home to work on homework. Madame came up and started dinner which was TWO croquet monsiuers (grille dcheese with ham) and salad. Madame only had one croquet monsieur and a tomato and salade. But oh man it was too much food. I felt bad not eating it but I forced myself. I have eaten two before when I didn’t snack in the day but because I had it was like man I want to stop. I think I slowed down so much in eating it Madame knows I can’t eat two full ones. But if not, then next time we have them I will tell her I only want one. 

After that I tried to Skype Thad but my internet doesn’t work in my room for some reason so after trying for fifteen minutes I gave up. I went to the living room and Madame was like you look mad did it not work? And I said no that the internet is the opposite of last time where it works in the living room but not in my room as opposed to last time where it only worked in my room and not in the living room. But it was all good. She told me I could call in the living room and I said no I don’t want to be annoying your show and she was like what show I don’t care about this it’s just on I am reading the paper. So I said sure. She told me she doesn’t understand English at all so it wasn’t a big deal to her. I said okay and called Thad. We couldn’t get the video to work tonight but it was good to talk to him anyways.

After that I started writing my blog post and Madame fell asleep watching Castle. It was good and when she woke up we had dessert of apple sauce for me and yogurt for her and Beebow. It was the perfect dessert after a big meal like that. It is almost impossible to get away without a dessert of some kind so it is good that fruits and stuff are considered dessert. We ate some speculoos too.

Tomorrow my lit class starts on the movie for the term which is called “Wings of Desire”. It should be good.

Carro et Sausset-les-Pins

Today was a good day. I woke up naturally at ten and came out to have breakfast. I didn’t bother getting dressed because I just didn’t feel like it and because I had no plans I decided I would just play it by ear. Madame asked how to see messages on her phone so I showed her. I ate a lot of fruit this morning. I had a banana, kiwi, and a mandarin orange. Along with my usual little bread thing with nutella and jam. Madame bought new orange juice so I had that as well. She was also wearing her pajamas still. She told me that Beebow had woke her up at 6 and that she had been napping on the couch since then. We had a quiet morning watching the music video station and she would ask if I knew each artist which of course I didn’t. I did know a few though. And it wasn’t bad to have some Phil Collins for a few minutes!

After that Madame asked if I had any plans and I didn’t I told her she wasn’t very happy with that answer but I told her that I had homework and so did all of my friends. So she took that better. She went to go to the store after a while and then I started doing homework. It was going fine. I learned my monuments class has like next to no homework this week and for my Lit class we are watching a movie so I just have to be reading my book to get ahead. That is nice! So it’s a pretty relaxing week (maybe) before midterms next week. I am not sure how many I will really have because most of my classes had tests last week, so who knows!  I would be very okay with an easy week though! I did my homework for my classes minus my paper by the time she got back. She came in and said we are eating lunch downstairs. And I was like oh I can eat in town and she gave me a weird look so I just said or downstairs. The program doesn’t include lunch so if I eat here I feel like I’m intruding but I guess I am not.

So I said bye crappy paper that I have barely started but is super bad, and followed her downstairs. I put on some jeans first though but I was just sporting my grippy socks which are awesome. It is still nice out so we had lunch out on the terrace. I brought Paul the two sticker books that mom gave me and he thought they were really cool. Laurence told me that we need to all stop giving him gifts because he is mean and that my mother is too nice to be sending them. I just smiled and said okay. But I think that will not be the case…  :-) Paul and I played Connect four and I let him win a lot. After that he showed me some games on his mom’s phone before we sat down for lunch. He went to change out of his Pajamas. Laurence told me that he still has accidents and last night he had to change three times. She told me that she was told NOT to tell me. But I mean all kids do that so I was like eh whatever.

We all sat down and Laurence told me that I eat like a kid because I don’t like tomatoes so Paul and I had pasta and a hamburger patty which they call steak because it is beef. I was fine to be eating like a child because it looked a lot more appetizing to me than the tomato salad. After that was cheese and bread and fruit. It was good! We had good conversation and I was able to keep up. Paul took photos of his Skylanders and Jean-Claude force fed him so that he would actually eat. When we were told our places at the table Paul was to sit by his dad and he was like Nooooo not next to dad! A minutes ago Laurence had told me she sits Paul next to Jean-Claude so he keeps him in line J it was funny. There was a bee and Paul tried to shoo it and touched it but didn’t get stung but he like freaked out. It was kind of funny he was just sort of scared. It was cute though.

After lunch I was going to play with Paul some more but Madame told me to go change and put shoes on for the walk. I said oh to where and she said I don’t know maybe to the sea. So I was like oh okay. So I went upstairs and changed and grabbed a sweatshirt because it gets windy on the sea. I got told not to wear my flip flops because we were going to rocks so I came back up and changed and Madame gave me a little towel to dust off the sand if I took my shoes of in some sand. I said thanks again and went to meet Jean-Claude, Laurence, and Paul. Madame was staying behind because she didn’t want to go out and she had some chores to do she said.

We got in the car and I don’t think we actually knew where we were going exactly. They asked if I had been to Marseille and the port and I said yeah I had and then they asked if I wanted to go there and I said sure. But we didn’t end up going there. On the way Paul kept playing with the window so eventually Jean-Claude locked it which didn’t go over very well. Laurence gave him the books I brought and he had fun for a while. I told him you aren’t supposed to stick the faces on until after you color it and he said I will just color around it. Which makes sense I guess. Then he took the reusable stickers and put one on the window as his mom told him he could. After about 6 on, Jean-Claude saw and got mad and then Paul threw his mom under the bus and she was like no but I showed her the cover of the stickers where it said reusable and saved her. So it was all good. But it was a bit of a scary moment! But it was fine. Paul gave me a sucker. It was strawberry and delicious.

We arrived at a little beach and I had no idea where we were so I had to ask. Turns out we were in Carro which is a little fishing town not too far from Marseille. It was very Non-touristy and cute. They had a little harbor and we walked around. Pal kept looking over the edge to find big fish and Laurence kept telling him to back up and that if he fell in she would be really mad. We saw lots of fish schools both really small like tetras and bigger ones. We walked along the harbor and came across the beach for the harbor. There was a collection of gross things there like about 10 dead fish, a dead crab, and the giant head of a dead tuna. Oh and a bunch of dead fish guts (?) We weren’t really sure what it was but it was gross. Paul found bouncy ball though which delighted him. He started picking up the dead fish and throwing them back in the harbor. It was gross.

We walked around n the coast of the sea and on the pier of the harbor. It was cool and I nice day and pretty. Paul showed me muscle shells with barnacles. I talked to Laurence a bunch about I’m not exactly sure what but she would tell me things and I would forget them not 5 minutes later. She is probably the hardest for me to understand but I try!

After we walked around we went back towards the car making the half circle again and ran into some people playing Petanque. It is the game where you throw the big metal balls to try to get as close to the rubber ball as possible. It is the national sport of France. It looked fun and I talked about it with Laurence and she asked if it existed in the states. I told her no but it looked fun. One of the guys playing was listening and smiled at me and I think was going to ask if I wanted to try but we had to keep walking. But I appreciate his thought J Paul threw the fish back into the harbor again which I was like I am not touching his hands.

When we got back in the car Laurence was like dang it smells like fish in here. And then she was like eww Paul smells like fish! And in my head I was like well duh you let him pick them up and they leaked fish water all over him… But I kept that to myself. But he did stink so we kept a window down. We were driving through another town and Laurence said she wanted Ice cream so we stopped almost immediately at a little place. It was also a harbor and there was a little merry go round. Paul really wanted to ride it and his parents were like that’s for babies but he wanted to anyways so they paid for him for a ride. He got off and was really disappointed that it wasn’t more fun. But his parents were like well we told you! We walked around the harbor before stopping at a restaurant.

It was nice looking and not very crowded so that was cool. We ate outside. We had water and Paul had hot milk, Jean-Claude a coffee, Laurence une golfe (waffle) which I did not know was the word for it with nutella, and I had an ice cream. I don’t know why Laurence didn’t get ice cream when she was craving it but okay! I was like do I pay or no? I offered and they said no. Paul ran around the patio with his ball so it was good there weren’t other people there. His parents were like man this kid and I don’t blame them. He has a lot of energy and doesn’t really listen to them. I feel like they need to have a bit firmer of hand with him but eh not my place. Jean-Claude paid and I learned the city was Sausset-les-pins.

We got back in the car and drove home without too much trouble. The radio started making a weird noise and we all were like what is that so we stopped the car and figured out it was a skipping CD. We were all worried that the radio had stopped working. Paul removed the stickers and Laurence put them back in the book in their places. Paul accidentally ripped one and was pretty upset. We got back and I said thanks for everything a few times. Madame came down and I helped her and Laurence figure out how to find Madame’s email and save the pictures that Laurence had sent. Jean-Claude was like you should have just sent it MMS. We figured it out ant then went upstairs. I started my paper and wrote it I think mostly before dinner. I am not sure if it is really done because it isn’t like specified in length. But I hate the creative pieces because I am bad at dialogues between characters, and especially between different works. I had to try a couple combinations before I could find a pair that worked sort of well. I had 2 angels and 2 devils to choose from.

Madame called Christelle the wife of her son and she sent her some photos so we learned how to save those as well as make alarms. I made a fake one for a minute later so that she would know how to stop it. She said that was smart or else she would have had to wake me up at 6:20 to ask how to shut it off. J It was funny. We had chicken and potatoes as per normal weekends and it was good. After that we had two kinds of oriental cakes which means like India area not oriental like Chinese, from the orient. They were interesting the first was like honey and date sort of cornbread but more grainy and compact and the other was like red and honey filled. It was a lot of sugar to get down but they were both pretty good. I had the cornbread one before a bit earlier this week but I forget when and if I remembered to write it. After dinner we were like where is Beebow? We looked on the microwave, under my bed, behind the couch and the curtains, on her bed and all of his usual places. We didn’t find him. We looked outside even just to be sure we didn’t accidentally lock him out. Nope. We were getting worried so I went to look under my bed. Nope. But then I noticed one of the pillows n my bed had moved and when I went to turn out the light... YEP! There he was! IN my bed!!! I called to Madame and she came and we laughed for like five minutes. It was really funny.

After that we watched a movie called le reine M… something. It was lots of blood and gore and killing people and lots of sex. Like Game of Thrones but in French and more graphic. Definitely rated R if not X. Madame slept most of the time and I wrote this most of the time.

Tomorrow I have class at 9 and I get one my tests back… I am not looking forward to my French test return… Maybe I just won’t look at it… I think that would be the smartest thing. Just don’t even look. I think I might do that.

But I am not sure if I will have pictures up tonight or not. I accidentally closed the window of the photos uploading to the site and it takes a while so we will see. If not I will tomorrow at school! 

Bonne nuit!

Rock Pile

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.- Antoine de Saint-Exupery