Learning french words

Helllooo everyone,

It is wednesday night and I have all sorts of things to write down!:)

Today I had school till 11:45 am, because every wednesday is a half day for me. So I had 2 hrs of History and then 2 hrs of Sport (P.E.). I realized Sport is actually nothing like the P.E. in the US. It's actually a workout but the teacher isn't strict like a coach. Today we got a lot of info, non of which I understood except for the important stuff that someone translated for me! Then we went outside and ran for 10 straight minutes.... which to me is a long time to run around a concrete loop that isn't even as big as a track. Then we did dynamic stretching and ladder drills. Most of the french girls in my class attempted to run for about 5 seconds and then sat out the rest of the class. LOL! That was different for me, because the teacher allowed. kids also won't wear workout clothes or tennis shoes they where like converse and regular clothes! Super crazy! Also the sports class is coed which is also different! overall I was impressed with the class because I thought it was going to be a total joke compared to American athletics. Thank god it wasn't!:)

 I also got info on playing basketball! I found out the school has a club type thing where you pay 10 euros and then come and practice/train in the gym for an hour and half after class one day. If your schedule allows it and I think you can do more if you have enough free time during the week! So that was exciting!

Since I got out of school before lunch today, I had the whole day to figure out something to do! I ended up doing my homework really quick and then texting two of the girls that i'm friends with outside of school, that live in wittelsheim, to hang out! Their names are Lucie and Julie! I really like them. Julie goes to my school but she is a year older than me, so I never see her at school. Lucie goes to a different school and she doesn't have a half day on wednesday, so julie and I hung out at my casa for a while until lucie came over. Then we rode our bikes to this really cool trail through the woods that has par core set ups all along the trail. After that we went to this really pretty park that was just built recently and then headed back home. It was really fun!:)

When I got home today Renata, my host mom, told me that my host dad was in the mountains to pick mushrooms and when he got back he came home with this...

The most beautiful basket of mushrooms I have ever seen!! Trés belle! Now they are being dehydrated in a machine thing and the whole upstairs part of the house smells like mushrooms. That's not a good smell! LOL! 

Okay so now I want to end with words I have learned today/ yesterday!

left- gauche

right- droit

you're beautiful- tu es belle

you're ugly- vous êtes laid

I dont like it- je n'aime pas

I like it- j'aime

fork- fourche

knife- couteau

sit down- asseyez

work- travail

walk- marcher

pool- piscine

eggplant- aubergine

prune- pruneau

rooster- coq

chicken- poulet

stop- arrêtez

here- ici

now- maintenant

okay- d'accord/ bien

The one I use the most is j'aime because it helps me describe what I like and thats good when talking to friends. I also use oui, no, merci, bonjour, bonne nuit, yum yum (thats what renata says to the dog when its time to eat and she also says it to me when its time to eat! LOL) and many other words.

Everything seems to really be settling in nicely and tomorrow is thursday so that means school starts at 8 and ends at 5:30! "Crying face" Luckily I have a 3 hour break in the middle of the day, but still!

Bonne nuit,

XOXO

Grace :)

France Vs. USA

Salut,

It is now tuesday night and I know I blogged yesterday, but I noticed a lot of differences and similarities through out the day between France and the USA. I'm sure you all are thinking we know the differences, but these are not just "they speak french" "we speak english" sort of differences. These are the ones you would only notice if you had been staying for an extended amount of time. Like more than a week! LOL! (technically that's not me. But who cares)

1. The shower is labeled with a C for hot and an F for cold. This one caught me off guard tonight...-_-
2. The windows don't open like doors. they open like a mail box door. If that makes an since, you pull the window toward you. I'll post a pic.

3. Toilets are the weirdest thing ever. They are all different. It's the biggest surprise every time you go in a bathroom! Hahaha!!

4. Kinder eggs are here. Kinder candy is fabulous, it's a chocolate product and it is sooo good! j'ai t'aime!

5. The way my schedule works for school and the way classes are, the high school is more like college. 2 days days during the week I have a 3 hour break in the middle of the day. I could walk home eat lunch take a nap and walk back in that amount of time! 

6. NO SPORTS IN SCHOOL! My least favorite thing, but it's not that big of a deal. I have 2 hours of a P.E. type class. Except here you actually work out and play sports, unlike America where you walk in a circle for an hour.

7. Kids are allowed to smoke. pretty much every second of the school day you can find a group of kids smoking. Luckily the group of girls I made friends with doesn't smoke and is insanely nice. I really like them.

8. You have the same group of people for every class and you just switch class rooms and teachers. 

9. Classes are either an hour or 2 hours. not 83 minutes or whatever it is at Vandegrift. 

10. Kids cannot drive till they are 18. 

11. The foreign language classes are taught in the language that you are learning. 

EXAMPLE: Today in my spanish class the teacher spoke spanish the entire class and would occasionally through in a french word. LOL!! In America the foreign language is taught in english and the teacher occasionally speaks the language you are learning. For me having the spanish teacher speak spanish the whole time was amazing because I actually understood her! Hahaha!! Plus there are only 8 people in my class, which is nice. Most kids take italian or german. 

12. They do not drink cold water or put ice in any drinks. So i've gotten used to drinking room temperature water. (Juju would love it)

13. There is no AC, so my window is open 24/7.

14. They don't use sheets here. There is a fitted sheet and then a comforter or blanket. Which personally makes me a little hot at night since there is no AC, but it's really not bad.

15. Breakfast is only sweet stuff. Today Wojtek made me crepes!!<3 and I put nutella on them. But don't worry parents I've been eating a banana with my sweet.

Okay enough of that. This is for my parents. They will be so excited when they read this next paragraph and probably laugh their butts off.

So here at casa de Miciuda, the washing machine is about as big as an easy bake oven. So the size of a load of laundry is very very small. They also don't have a dryer. They have a clothes line outside and I have to hang my clothes up on that with little colorful clips and everything. It's actually kinda cute. Anyway so moral of the story, I have to do my own laundry. So I wash them, hang them up, and then wait a day and then go get them in my green basket and then I iron anything that is super wrinkled and lastly I put everything away!:) 

My parents are probably in shock! LOL! :)

Today was my first official full day of Lycée (high school) and it was fabulous. Like I said earlier the girls in my class that I have made friends with are soo nice and I really enjoyed English class! :) It's fun because they teach british english and I know American english so I help the teacher and teach him some things as well. Like they say 'tick' instead of 'check'. like when you write a check mark on a piece of paper. Plus I was able to understand and participate in spanish and a little bit in math.

Alrighty thats all for now. Au revouir, Bonne nuit and Bonnesoir!!! :)

All my love! 

Grace <3

First day of school/ first days in Wittelshiem

Bonjour Everybody,

It is my second day in Wittelsheim and it is absolutely beautiful! My host family is so nice, even though we have a pretty hard time communicating, we are all giving it a lot of effort so it makes things a lot easier. My french is already better than it was in paris 2 days ago and I can kind of understand some stuff when people speak to me. It is pretty stressful right now because I really don't understand and it's hard to say what I want to say, so I do feel like a baby that hasn't learned to talk yet. But i'm trying really hard to keep a good attitude and not get discouraged!:)

My host mom renata is an amazing cook and she makes very good meals. Yesterday the meal we had for lunch looked like it should have been in a restaurant. hahahaha!! Lèa my host sister showed me this really good trail yesterday when we took isador, the dog, for a walk. So I think I'm going to go for a run in the evenings on that trail. It's a large loop and is a good distance!:)

Today was suppose to be my first day of school and Renata and I went this morning to get my schedule and talk to the people, they gave me my schedule, but then they said that it would be better if I came back in the afternoon. So we left and went back home. Then we went to a store that is basically the french version of a home depot to buy a shower and I bought some school supplies!

My schedule is a little weird because french high schools are not like american high schools in the since that everyday you have class at the same times.

On Lundi/ Monday I start school at 8:45 and end at 3:35.
On Mardi/ Tuesday I start school at 7:50-8 and end at 3:35.
On Wednesday/ Mercredi I start school at 7:50-8 and end at 11:45 and thats it.
On Thursday/ Jeudi I start school at 7:50-8 and end at 5:30.
On Friday/ Vendrei I start school at 8:45 and end at 3:30.

As you can see it's very weird and the actual paper schedule with classes is even worse. I'm going to be very lost. Hahaha. I should be playing basketball like 1 day a week I think, which is good, So ill see how that goes.

(So this is my schedule but, I just got home from school and it turns out I don't have 4 of the classes that are on that sheet and instead I have nothing. This means I'm a VERY lucky kid and have a light class load!!!:) It also means that I might have less homework. hahahaha!! I got really lucky because the classes that I ended up not having are after lunch so that means I have a 2 1/2 hour break on thursday for lunch! then on friday I don't have a class before or after lunch, so I have a 3 hour break for lunch!)

The first class I had in my french High school was...... FRENCH. It was a 2 hour class and I took about 4 pages of notes and now I have to translate them and then translate the text book pages I have to read for homework. sounds fun right! LOL NOT! I did meet some girls in my class as well as outside of it and they were all very nice to me! One of them even commented the nicest thing on my last blog post. It was funny today, because as I was sitting outside this one girl was talking to her friend and they looked at me and the girl asked her friend a question. Then they looked at me again and said american and then continued to look at me. I ended up talking to them because I saw them talking about me, so they came up to say hi! It's like I'm an animal they have never seen before! hahahaha, but in a way I totally am that foreign creature that is walking around in their territory!

So far everything is good, stressful and kinda confusing, but good! I think because it's hard to understand what's happening I feel a bit home sick, but I hope as I feel more comfortable and start to understand what's happening the home sickness will pass.
This is a Picture of me in la duche (shower) today while renata, wojtek and I were shopping for the shower. Renata made me get in all of them and tell her which one I liked. hahaha

This was the dessert Renata made me for lunch the first day I arrived! This gives you a glimpse at what most meals look like.... they are very pretty! hahahaha!:)

This is the view from my bathroom window

Love to everyone,
Grace <3

Paris Orientation

Bonjour tout le monde,

Paris orientation has been crazy. There are people from USA, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Hungary, Holland, Denmark, Russia, Norway, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, Costa Rica, Columbia, Argentina, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ghana and many more I just can't think of them!  It's so fun because all these kids can speak english but they also speak their native language and it's so the place where we are staying is just this massive room filled with a ton of kids speaking different languages but some how we all manage to communicate and understand each other.

STORY TIME/ EMBARRASSING GRACEISM:
Yesterday (friday) was the day that everyone was arriving at the hostel, so there was just a constant flow of more people arriving as the day went on. The Americans were pretty much the first people to arrive so we met everyone as they came in.

After a couple hours had passed and the latin american countries had started to arrive I heard about this one girl from Costa Rica that didn't speak ANY english. Pretty much everyone spoke at least a little english so we were all helping each other out when we were talking, but this one girl was sitting all by her self at table and wasn't talking to anyone. So me being my smart self, I decided that I was going to use the 2 years of spanish knowledge that I possess to talk to her. LOL!!!! It was painfully awful! hahaha! We actually did talk for like 30 minutes but it was full of awkward silence and me trying to remember enough spanish to form coherent sentences! I was slightly impressed with myself though because I managed to find out her name, her age, where in costa rica she is from, where she is going in France, how many siblings she has at home and in France and I told her that I liked her nails!:) They were very pretty! I also got her to get up and go get a coffee with me and then she sat down with a bigger group of people! So all in all my brain was exhausted from trying to speak a foreign language and I managed to not use french which is the language I needed to be speaking! But I'm counting that experience as a major success and I'm sure Mrs. Gutierrez and Mrs. Sisk would be proud! hahaha.


Last night was also super fun because this guy from columbia, named Paulo, plays the guitar really well. So basically all the italians and americans were hanging out and he started playing his guitar and we all chose songs that he could play and we knew and we all just sang together while he played the guitar! It was AWESOME! Everyone joined in and it was like 300 exchange students from all over singing together and clapping and laughing and it was just sooo fun and amazing to see! I'm not doing it justice in my description but I took a video that y'all can see when I get home!

Currently Marla is asleep in my bed and I'm about to join her because JET LAG IS A VERY REAL THING! I am exhausted and I even slept like 8 hours and took a 2 hour nap yesterday before dinner! Its insane how tired I feel. I'm really excited because in about an 1hr 30min we get to go on our bus tour of paris so ill be posting those pics soon probably. Okay I can't think of anything else at the moment!

Au revoir lovelies, (not sure if that spelled right and my google is in french so... )
Grace :)

Orientation in the US of A

Bonjour Everyone,

It is now the second day of orientation. The US orientation is over and the french orientation starts tomorrow! I am currently sitting on the floor of the JFK air port with Marla my new exchange BFF and we are charging our electronics. It's super weird because at this air port the over head speaker person speaks in french in then in english!!!:) It really wasn't that bad getting to the air port and going through security which was nice and made things easy for all of us since we are such a large group!

SIDE NOTE: A MAN IN VERY SHORT SHORTS JUST CAME UP TO GRAB ONE OF HIS CHARGING ITEMS AND SINCE I AM SITTING ON THE FLOOR MY FACE WAS EVEN WITH HIS NASTY HAIRY MAN LEG....... O.M.G!

So my flight is about 7 hours which at the moment seems kinda long, but I'm totally exhausted so I'm hoping I can fall asleep on the flight! I really haven't felt the nerves or crazy emotions that everyone talks about until this very moment, sitting at the air port! There are so many feelings and thoughts that lead up to going on exchange and you really can't put them in words, but I can definitely say that I am feeling the excitement and anxiousness to step out on french soil in less than 24hrs.

This is our 'country' group pic of the french exchange students from orientation

I will be posting and taking a majority of my orientation pics in paris since we were in a hotel the whole time we were in the US so I didn't really take many pics1:)

Au revoir,

Grace <3

Last Week at Home

There are officially 5 days left until I leave Austin and head for New York/ France!!!

The packing has started and my room is an organized disaster. But there is a buzz of excitement that comes along with the mess, because it means my adventure is about to begin!:) My mom and I are spending this whole week shopping and getting all the little details finished and all the loose ends tied up before I leave, so it is going to be a very busy week.

On another exciting note I took my last test for my summer school today. It was such a relief that I almost had to lay down and take a nap afterwards! LOL!

In terms of things I'm packing for France.
I can only pack 1 checked bag and if my information is correct it can only weigh 45lbs.
1 Carry on bag and a back pack or purse. -.-
Luckily my fabulous host mom told me it was totally fine if I shipped a box of stuff to Whittelsheim before I arrived. Which I think will be very helpful.

I am packing lots of sweaters and long sleeves. leggings and jeans. like 2 dresses. workout clothes. Pjs and just some comfy clothes to relax in. Basically a full set of outfits for all sorts of occasions. However when packing I did have to keep in mind that I will more than likely do some shopping once I'm over there, so I had to really think about what clothes I was going to bring.

I also found out today that cellphones can be taken care of in a lot of different ways.
1. You can just buy a prepaid cellphone with a SIM card once you arrive in France. (most kids do this and I'm pretty sure it's one of the cheeper ways you can get a cellphone)
2. You can get an international plan through your US carrier and just buy minutes, texting and data each month. (My carrier is AT&T and after going to the store today I found out that this way can be very expensive and is not a very good choice, for me.)
3. (This one is the one I believe I am going to use. It can also be a little more difficult.) If one of the phones on your families plan or your own phone's contract is up/ expired. You can request to have your phone unlocked. Meaning you can take your phone over seas and then get a SIM card from one of the carriers in your host country and buy a phone plan that will work in whatever country you are in. But you are still able to use your cell phone from home.
In my case my dads phone contract was up so we are having to switch the SIM cards on our phones that way I can take his to France with me and he can use mine. (I'm sure all of that seemed very complex and confusing and at first it is. But it is a very good solution to any Cell phone problem when going abroad for extended amounts of time, at least it was for me.

I have also met 3 other super amazing and funny exchange students that are going to France this year and we have been talking basically non stop all day. hahaha. I can't wait to meet them in New York in a couple days!

Well that's all I can think of at the moment!:)

Avec Amour,
Grace

Departure Info

Today I received the email for my travel information. Ahhhhhh!!! It is all starting to seriously seem very real. My host mom also emailed me back today and it makes me even more excited to get to France and see them.
I leave for New York on August 31st and my mom, dad and I are going to do a little sight seeing before I leave. Then my flight for Paris leaves September 4th at 7:05 pm and I should arrive in France at 8:30 am the next day!!!:) This whole experience is just surreal, 7 months ago I never would have imagined that I wold have another family in France. Now all thats really left to do is learn french so I'm not stumbling around Whittelsheim like a toddler…. LOL!:)

Avec amour
Grace <3