Went to Bordeaux! Actually Bordeaux this time, no ancient house in the middle of a forest, we legit saw the city and it was incredible. This was on yet another AFS chapter event (I love my chapter to bits, everyone is so amazing). We all met up on the Saturday, I took the TGV with new arrival Maria José, and hit up the Christmas markets, ice-skating and this incredible cathedral in the centre of the city. We all went back to Fanny's for dinner, CREPES, and chilled there the night. It was so great catching up with everyone.
But every silver cloud has a murky grey lining, so I've had tonsillitis all week! Totally wouldn't recommend it, even if the amount of medicine these French doctors throw at you is absolutely outstanding. I got concerned Facebook messages from my class though, asking when I'd be back at school though, which made me smile :)
Also today I did a presentation for my class! Subject: New Zealand. you'd be surprised how much research I actually had to do. It went reasonably well, I made everyone pavlova-based cupcakes (recipe haphazardly morphed together by yours truly) and they didn't throw them up which was kind. Also, the whole thing was done in French! Three points for the foreign girl everyone :)
And last Friday (I'm awful at this chronological order thing) I met up with Miss Lassaube in
Pau (for those of you who don't know her, she is a French teacher at Rosehill College, who is in Pau for the holidays), and we had lunch at a café and did a tour of the castle together. It was really cool, we talked purely in FRENCH (another two points for the foreign girl everyone) and the castle was absolutely amazing.
That's pretty much all I've got news wise, christmas is coming up soon so I'll no doubt have more in a week or so, since I won't be posting again before Christmas, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!! I hope you all get up to something fun :)
Also, it has been brought to my attention (against my will, I'm trying not to count the days) that I am sliding ever closer to that precipice of mixed feelings that is the end of my exchange. Not that I'm close, I'm just a heck of a lot closer than I was in September, you know? Gosh, maybe I am close. Im not kidding about the mixed feelings thing either, I kind of came here expecting to take away a language, some stories, some souvenirs. But I've really attached myself to some people here, this'll be the first time in my life that I'll have to say a permanent goodbye en masse and it's freaky as heck, even as much as I'm looking forward to all the things I miss from home. I'm opting for the keep-the-feels-box-closed-until-the-last-moment motto. We'll see how I go :)
That was a poetic post. I'll submit it for my creative writing in English next year.
Stay Super,
Holly :)
Friday 20 December 2013
Thursday 12 December 2013
Trucking Along
Bonjour!
A few little things to catch you all up on :)
First of all SORRY UNCLE STEVE I totally didn't realise I wasn't supposed to open it until Christmas I promise I will hide it from myself until Christmas Day :)
Also, my local chapter of AFS has a new arrival! Actually we have three, but one of them is a girl called Maria from Costa Rica and she is going to my school here! We only had the opportunity to meet up briefly yesterday but she's really nice and we'll be seeing each other again this weekend at the AFS camp in Bordeaux.
Also, we had our conseil de classe, which is where the two elected student representatives of the class and every single teacher all meet up and discuss the class in general and all of the students one by one. We will all be getting reports soon but the two elected class representatives took notes on all of us (our average scores, teachers comments, etc) and gave them to us in class and I totally have an average of 12.68 out of 20 and I got an encouragement! Which is like a praise thing, not the best you can get but not bad either :)
Also, I had a great weekend. Saturday night I went with my host brother Antoine to see the Hunger Games 2 in the cinema, and it was fantastic! Really an enjoyable movie and I followed the whole story no problem at all :) got back and had dinner at ten at night and watched some of the Miss France competition
Then Sunday, my host parents and I went to St John de Luz. THAT was an incredible day, St John de Luz is absolutely mindblowing and I am DETERMINED to go back there someday. The weather was perfect and we had paninis and ice cream for lunch and took a look around some shops and walked along the beach and we walked up to this point at the end of the bay where you could do a perfect 360 of the entire waterfront and the sea it was just amazing.
Voilà. That's the business of late, I'll do another post after the camp to let you know how it all went and stop being lazy and put up some pictures of the snow with Taryn and St John de Luz :)
Stay super,
Holly :)
A few little things to catch you all up on :)
First of all SORRY UNCLE STEVE I totally didn't realise I wasn't supposed to open it until Christmas I promise I will hide it from myself until Christmas Day :)
Also, my local chapter of AFS has a new arrival! Actually we have three, but one of them is a girl called Maria from Costa Rica and she is going to my school here! We only had the opportunity to meet up briefly yesterday but she's really nice and we'll be seeing each other again this weekend at the AFS camp in Bordeaux.
Also, we had our conseil de classe, which is where the two elected student representatives of the class and every single teacher all meet up and discuss the class in general and all of the students one by one. We will all be getting reports soon but the two elected class representatives took notes on all of us (our average scores, teachers comments, etc) and gave them to us in class and I totally have an average of 12.68 out of 20 and I got an encouragement! Which is like a praise thing, not the best you can get but not bad either :)
Also, I had a great weekend. Saturday night I went with my host brother Antoine to see the Hunger Games 2 in the cinema, and it was fantastic! Really an enjoyable movie and I followed the whole story no problem at all :) got back and had dinner at ten at night and watched some of the Miss France competition
Then Sunday, my host parents and I went to St John de Luz. THAT was an incredible day, St John de Luz is absolutely mindblowing and I am DETERMINED to go back there someday. The weather was perfect and we had paninis and ice cream for lunch and took a look around some shops and walked along the beach and we walked up to this point at the end of the bay where you could do a perfect 360 of the entire waterfront and the sea it was just amazing.
Voilà. That's the business of late, I'll do another post after the camp to let you know how it all went and stop being lazy and put up some pictures of the snow with Taryn and St John de Luz :)
Stay super,
Holly :)
Tuesday 3 December 2013
Snow!
Okay so there are a few things to cover in this post.
The first is the snow. My goodness was it cold but WOW probably one of the most fun single days I have had here in France a serious, heartfelt, massive THANK YOU to Taryn and her incredible host mother Sylvie for taking me, I really had such a great time. We had a snowball fight and make snow angels and this awesome beans little kid let us have a turn on his luge thing it was just magical.
The rest of the sleepover was great too, did some shopping and caught up with some people from AFS New Zealand. And Taryn cut me a fringe!! I hope I can hang with her some more before I go, she's really been such a great friend to have here and I will legitimately miss her like crazy when I leave.
Been pretty chill apart from that, keeping up with school and all. Im going to the theatre tonight and eating in town with the girls before which will be fun. Also, I don't have enough details yet to elaborate much here yet but a French teacher from Rosehill College is coming here! We're going to meet up and she has a project in mind that I think will be really amazing, I'll let you all know more a bit later :)
It's around eight weeks now until I go home, and I'm in two minds about it. On one hand, the thought of seeing my family and friends again gives me excited butterflies every bit as strong as I had about coming here. On the other, this place is really amazing and it's hard to imagine that I'm just going to drop it so soon. That I might never do these daily things I love so much, crossing the road when I walk to school just to see the fish in the stream, leaning against the radiators before class starts until the teacher has to actually tell us to take our seats, sneaking my headphones into English and sleeping for an hour (sorry but I mean what's the use?). I can't get my around the fact that that's all going to just STOP.
Saying that, I do realise that this time I've been given here was a massive, unbelievable gift and that nothing could make it not worth coming here. Really, truly, thank you NZ ministry of education for just doing this award, and for giving it to lowly me. I promise I will always pay all of my taxes and take a serious interest in elections when I'm 18.
Also, a massive thank you to the people that have kept me sane while I'm here. It's so good to here from people back home, massive thank you to beautiful, entertaining, hilarious, magical SARAH WATSON whom I love for all your promises of the fun things we will do when I get back, so life won't seem dull by comparison (live is never dull with us haha)
AND CHEERS UNCLE STEVE AND FAMILY for the AWESOME amazing Christmas present, my host family loved the tree decorations, they're on there now, and I am really really truly grateful for the necklace (it's Saint Christopher readers, the patron saint of travellers).
Also, an emphatic, primary school style round of applause that actually forms a circle in the air to AFS New Zealand, for doing that predeparture camp so that I have friends in countries like Spain, and Sweden and America and Venezuela that I can just chat to. I love keeping up with everyone, this returnee camp is going to be mindblowing :)
That wraps it up for today kids. The usual love and kisses to you all, sorry I can't do personal shout outs to everyone. If you're keeping in contact with me, that's you I'm talking to :)
Stay Super,
Holly :)
The first is the snow. My goodness was it cold but WOW probably one of the most fun single days I have had here in France a serious, heartfelt, massive THANK YOU to Taryn and her incredible host mother Sylvie for taking me, I really had such a great time. We had a snowball fight and make snow angels and this awesome beans little kid let us have a turn on his luge thing it was just magical.
The rest of the sleepover was great too, did some shopping and caught up with some people from AFS New Zealand. And Taryn cut me a fringe!! I hope I can hang with her some more before I go, she's really been such a great friend to have here and I will legitimately miss her like crazy when I leave.
Been pretty chill apart from that, keeping up with school and all. Im going to the theatre tonight and eating in town with the girls before which will be fun. Also, I don't have enough details yet to elaborate much here yet but a French teacher from Rosehill College is coming here! We're going to meet up and she has a project in mind that I think will be really amazing, I'll let you all know more a bit later :)
It's around eight weeks now until I go home, and I'm in two minds about it. On one hand, the thought of seeing my family and friends again gives me excited butterflies every bit as strong as I had about coming here. On the other, this place is really amazing and it's hard to imagine that I'm just going to drop it so soon. That I might never do these daily things I love so much, crossing the road when I walk to school just to see the fish in the stream, leaning against the radiators before class starts until the teacher has to actually tell us to take our seats, sneaking my headphones into English and sleeping for an hour (sorry but I mean what's the use?). I can't get my around the fact that that's all going to just STOP.
Saying that, I do realise that this time I've been given here was a massive, unbelievable gift and that nothing could make it not worth coming here. Really, truly, thank you NZ ministry of education for just doing this award, and for giving it to lowly me. I promise I will always pay all of my taxes and take a serious interest in elections when I'm 18.
Also, a massive thank you to the people that have kept me sane while I'm here. It's so good to here from people back home, massive thank you to beautiful, entertaining, hilarious, magical SARAH WATSON whom I love for all your promises of the fun things we will do when I get back, so life won't seem dull by comparison (live is never dull with us haha)
AND CHEERS UNCLE STEVE AND FAMILY for the AWESOME amazing Christmas present, my host family loved the tree decorations, they're on there now, and I am really really truly grateful for the necklace (it's Saint Christopher readers, the patron saint of travellers).
Also, an emphatic, primary school style round of applause that actually forms a circle in the air to AFS New Zealand, for doing that predeparture camp so that I have friends in countries like Spain, and Sweden and America and Venezuela that I can just chat to. I love keeping up with everyone, this returnee camp is going to be mindblowing :)
That wraps it up for today kids. The usual love and kisses to you all, sorry I can't do personal shout outs to everyone. If you're keeping in contact with me, that's you I'm talking to :)
Stay Super,
Holly :)
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