I know it is no longer the weekend, but I could not muster enough energy last night to write a post! So instead I am going to double post today! ("crowd cheering") :)
This past weekend was my first weekend in Wittelsheim and it was very fun! A majority of this post is going to be about sunday because that was the day that I did the most!
SATURDAY:
Saturday was a pretty chill day because I got to sleep in (till 9:30) and then just relaxed and read my book until around 1 or 2 when Lea and I went to Mulhouse to go shopping! <3 It is a bigger town, about 15-20 minutes by car, from my house and it has a shopping center similar to the domain and galleria. To give you Austinites an idea of what it is like! I got a couple cute tops and one dress and was very impressed with my self because I didn't spend all the money I allotted myself for the shopping trip earlier in the day! (" I know my dad is totally thinking that last sentence is BS, but I swear it's true!:) ) After our shopping trip we went back home and Renata had her kids from bible study over for dinner and to meet me. I already knew one of the girls because she is my age and we already hung out last week. Everyone was super sweet and we spoke in a mix of broken french and english, because they were very interested in me teaching them english! LOL! like pretty much everyone I meet! :) It was a lot of fun! We ate burritos and had a dance party and just hung out!
SUNDAY:
OKAYYYY, sunday I had an AFS event! It was to celebrating the 100th birthday for AFS. 2 American men had rebuilt the original ambulance from WWI that was used by AFS. And have been touring France with it!
(SHORT HISTORY LESSON:
AFS stands for American Field Service and it was started after/ during the world wars. The Afsers would drive ambulances.)
So these two men took the first ambulance and took the parts and made a new one that looks like the original! They were also there with this old woman, i'm not sure which one it is because I was given different info from two different people; but this woman was either, the nurse that served the last meal to the first man shot from AFS or her mom was. (sorry that was crazy! LOL!) Anyway, that is very confusing and I arrived right before she left. The first part of the event, the part I just told you about, was at this museum in a small town and anyone was welcome. After the woman had left the museum and I had met all the people and volunteers from my AFS chapter, we went to one of the volunteer's house for lunch!
This was not a normal lunch though. Keep in mind Lunch to the french is a very important meal and it can take up to 5 hours sometimes, especially on sundays. Yesterday it was only like 3-4, I enjoyed it so I wasn't really looking at my watch. The two times I did were roughly before and after and it was about 3-4 hrs! Hahaha. They kept referring to it as a BBQ before we got there and I just kept thinking, "BBQ probably means something completely different to them than it does to me! LOL!". I was pleasantly surprised to find the french version of coleslaw, pasta salade and then we had german sausage! <3 It was all very good. For dessert we had cheese and bread and then for more dessert coffee and tarts or a pound cake type of bread!
That was just like the first half of the day. We then left and continued our celebration by going up to a War memorial that was in the Vosges mountains! It was called the Hartmannswillerkopf memorial 1914-1918. I know that name is freaking insane! It's german! LOL!
We got up to the memorial and the 2 American guys, which I loved, parked their car and set up the French, American and another flag (I'm not sure what it was). Then the volunteers went around talking about AFS to all the people up there and handed out brochures. I was like a spokes person, it was really funny, they would call me over and I would say hi and answer some questions about my exchange! I walked around and took a lot of good pics and a couple of them come with a pretty cool explanation.
LOTS OF PICTURES
"YAYAYAYAY"
This was a vineyard we drove by on our way down the mountain!:)
I meant to post this way earlier, but here it is! DAD, IN FRANCE THE WHITE MAN IS FREAKING GREEN! SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD YOU WERE RIGHT! (I literally freaked out when I saw this! LOL!)
Every time I eat the figs here I think of my grandma because she has a fig tree in Austin. The only difference is here, they are like as big as your first! Hahaha!
Driving up into the vosges!<3
This was the ambulance that the two American men fixed up!
At the memorial, this is the shields of all the towns of the french soldiers!
The flags as the guys put them up!;) One of my Fav pics!
Driving up the Vosges
This was the inside of the ambulance!
These next 3 pictures are to represent the religions of the fighting soliders.
Jewish
Catholic
Protestant
This was the entrance to the main part of the crypt, once you were inside.
This was the entrance to the crypt from the outside.
Okay so picture time is over!:( I said earlier that I was going to double blog today, but that was a lie! I was going to write another post about basketball, but when I went today it turned out that there were no coaches at school! Hahahaha! That was new for me! Never in my life have I experienced a coach just not being there! I mean there were no coaches, not the I had previously talked to and not any of the other ones! So that post will come another day! Instead I am just going to run tonight!:) I feel as though I am forgetting something I was planning on talking about, but since I forgot I will just talk about it in another post!:)
I hope everyone is having a fantastic/ fabulous monday!
À bientôt :)
XOXOXO
Grace <3
I am going to try this again. My lengthy post just "pooled" into the cosmic internet ether". I've been watching a PBS special of "The Roosevelts" The period between 1910-1920 was about WWI. My grandfather fought in that war and it was so brutal. American did not want to become involved but did after the Germans began sinking every ship in sight with their submarines, including 3 American merchant ships. Pres. Woodrow Wilson and his cabinet declared war with tears in their eyes. We were isolationist at the time. You so beautifully and reverently described the memorial to the 12,000 unidentified men. I was very proud of you. I will now press publish and hope it post.
ReplyDeleteHahaha it worked!:) and yeah the memorial was a really cool place! thank you, I don't think I did the description justice. I was literally taking notes at the memorial so my attempt at writing about it would be some what accurate! Hahaha!
ReplyDeleteXOXOXO
I meant "poofed" into the cosmic internet ether! I have now had 3 or 4 do that but I think I have figured out the system! xo Babee
ReplyDeleteOhhhhh.......you did it sooooo justice. I full grown adult probably would have said we saw a large war memorial today! Thanks for letting me know my virtual telegraph is making it to you via code (translation...I guess)! Big sloppy hugs,
ReplyDeleteBabs
One more thing....I think figs, prunes and dates are like "Old Testament" food....been around "as is" for thousands of years.I love those huge figs you have there! Onward and upward! xo
ReplyDelete