Sunday, December 12, 2010

Good to be back!


So i have been home for about 2 weeks and it doesnt even feel like ive even left? Everyones still the same, my mates are still as fun as they were before and im so happy to be able to just chill with them everyday! only thing thats changed is at home but other than that, everythings normal! Now i just need to enjoy my summer holidays, get started at university in february, then find a job so i can start saving to go back to france:)
Oh, and so apparently my blog is pretty famous? Congratulations to all you français reading and understanding it all. ;)

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Le temps passe beaucoup trop vite...

I cant beleive its already been 10 months since ive been in France, i only have 1 week and a half left! Im not looking forward to leaving here, ive gotten so used to the lifestyle, to the people, to the kisses hello everyday, even the school work!(well, what i do of it anyway). I cant imagine what it will be like to not see these people everyday anymore, im gonna miss them so much! I dont even like thinking about it anymore its so depressing lol, we even talked about it a little at school during the break and out of no where i started crying hahahaha. Talk about embarrasing. I try to not think about the fact im leaving soon, but everyday there is someone who brings it up, so yeah, its a little difficult haha.I could so continue to live here for a lot longer, atleast until the end of this school year when everyone else will be off on there own ways anyway! But oh well, i have told myself that i will be back here within 3 years, to see everyone again:) I havnt gotten homesick for NZ once since ive been here, but i know i will be homesick for france once i get back lol. funny how that happens. Anyway, at the same time im excited to get back to see everyone back home! and plus it will be summer which i cant wait for cos its been crappy weather here lately.

Anyway enough of this leaving rubbish, what has been happening. Not much, actually. Im going to Rochefort tomorrow evening with Nathalie, so i can see Frédérique (aunty) and Loic(cousin) and julie(cousin) one last time! On sunday or next wednseday afternoon we are also hoping to go ice skating which shoudl be fun. Im just trying to plan as many rendez-vous as i can, take as many photos as i can, and just make the most of every single moment i have left!

School is going good too, me and Amelia have just discovered a new guy at school, who could honestly be Chuck Bass's twin. Everytime i see him i ahve to look away so he cant see the facials(amazement) i make when i see him. hahaha. My philosophy teacher is still funny, just taking the piss out of everyone and everythign as usual. Take this remark he made about people, and how "they only buy new clothes cos they think they look better in them". He then said "i mean im sorry people, but if your ugly, then your ugly! a new hat aint gna change that"lol. hes funny. The economics teacher wants me to teach him a hand game that i tought to the girls in the class too. Economics is my fav class, its so relaxed for me and Amelia haha. Oh except for the other day when i lent my ipod to the boys next to me, and they thought it would be funny to change the language settings into chinese before they ghave it back-_-it took a good hour to figure out how to change it back by myself. Boy oh boy am i gonna miss that!!!

Im so glad i did this exchange, i love France!!!!!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Not good.

So i have just come out of 1 and a half weeks of holiday...my last ever holidays here in France before i leave...got me thinking that i leave Angoulême in exactly 26 days from now:( Not cool! But at the same time it is really cool cos it means i can get back to everyone back home, which i am really excited about. Its gna be so wierd tho seeing everyone again after such a long time being away from them, like seeing how people have changed, or how theyve stayed the same, seeing all the changes made around the town, seeing changes around my house (eg. new people living in it who i have never met before!!! haha :p), it just will be so wierd. And i don't know why but i think i may be a little tiny bit nervous about coming home haha how strange is that.
I will miss france, i know that. I was thinking about it the other day, and im just gna miss everyone coming to me at the last minute saying they understood nothing in the english homework, gna miss the hello kisses everyday that have become an automatic reaction now for me (will try carry on the trend in palmy, even though i know people will look at me awkwardly lol), theres just so much stuff that ive gotten used to here, that im gna miss so much! 26 days is gonna go so fast, so im gna try not to think about the fact that i have to leave soon, and gna try do as much as i can before i leave.
I dropped my laptop a couple of weeks ago too, and now it wont start up, so yeah, that really sucks. Atleast it means i cut down on my computer time which can only be a good thing? I thought id be so lost without it, but its not actually as bad as i thought itd be haha. Ive been occupying myself when theres nothing else to do, by drawing pictures. I drew a picture at the start of the year (in classes i didnt understand) and friends saw it and asked me to do them pictures too, and then more people see and want pictures so yeah, im trying to draw people pictures before i leave! haha. And i liek it tho cos i miss not having art as a subject here, unlike last year where i was having to draw or paint a picture nearly every weekend! So this kinda fills in the gap.
Oh yeah, and one more thing before i finish.
Im broke. Like outclean. And it sucks. Alot. Going into town with no money is self torture, and at the end of the year when i want to buy everyone presents, well, as the french say << ça fait chier!>> .

Chocolaterie "Letuffe" = heavennnnn!


The best chocolatier we have discovered so far.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Mmmmm...

Okay so avec Amelia, we have a mission to go hunt down all the best patissières, chocolateries, all the french-food-aries in town !
We went to town the other day and bought fresh, home made Macaroons (like a french delicacy! very delicious, but very pricy.) from a little patiserrie in Angoulême. I hadn't realised how many chocolateries, patissières etc. there were here! Which is where our new fav hobbie came from.We then set an actual day to go food shopping which we will do tomorrow haha which means i probably wont be able to eat all of this weekend. But thats okay, it'll be worth it !

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Prof de Philo.

Just thought i'd add a link of something about my philosophy teacher. He's really into his job, and kinda of shows off all the time, so lots of people immediately disliked him cos he acted like he was the best there was.
It wasn't till someone googled his name that we found out he actually knew what he was talking about...(will have to translate page, or google translate^^)

Thursday, September 16, 2010

La Rentrée

Okay, so, it has been so long since i last wrote, and so so much has happened since. I went to Rome with Aunty Awerangi and Uncle John, where we saw the Vatican City, St Peters Basilica, Sistine Chapel, The colloseum, the catcacombs, pompeii city, almafi coast and so much more ! i had sooo much fun there, it was really hot everyday (it was 41°C when we went to the vatican and that was in the morning! i got the bloodiest nose in my life as a result just as coming out of the basilica, so low key awkward when guards and other tourists would just stare at me sitting there trying to clean blood off of me.) We stayed in the centre of Rome in a motel, where we had drinks on the roof top bar and restaraunt every night (which of course, had the handsome, smooth talking italian waiter, who yes indeed, smooth talked me too! haha. the fact that uncle john and aunty awerangi didnt seem to be an issue for him!) We ate loooots of pasta, looots of pizza, and loooots of gelato every day! Sooo good!
After Italy, i went to spend a few days in Paris with Fanny, as her grandparents live there so we stayed there. I was welcomed at the train station by fanny and Hélène, and also by a full on fight in the train station involving atleast 6 grown men, yelling and chasing another grown man with long bits of jagged wood and baseball bats, gang bash, blood everywhere. Luckily (i use the word lightly) there had been an attempt to bomb a train station somewhere within the week, so there were troops of soldiers walking around everywhere in Paris with all ther guns and everything, so they were there to break up the battle. Any way, we did loooots of shopping ! went to the louvre museum (not into the actual museum, but inside the building. got inside and the line was too long.), saw the eiffel tower light up by night, sprinted thru the metro trying to catch the right one! The metro was where we had the most fun now that i think about it. We saw exhibitions at different museums in Paris, went and got a good taste of Paris night life, and just had so much fun !
During the rest of the holidays we did even more camping! One time to an island called "L'Ile de Ré" where young people our age would all gather on the beach everynight for a bonfire and drinks, without setting a time or place or being in contact with each other, we'd just go down to the beach and everyone would follow the flame of the bonfire. The old school way of meeting people! The other time we went camping was to a place called "Fouras", where it was just me and Fanny. Our camping spot was not ideal, it seemed as if we were plonked right in the middle of the surrounding peoples back yards. But we got used to it. There were a couple of guys our age staying in a tent not far from ours, so we got talking with them and just hung out with them, went to town, etc, which was cool!
The rest of the holidays was cool, did so much but there is too much to write about it all!
The first day of school was about 2 weeks ago, and my class is pretty much the same as last year except for a few changes. There is another boy in the class who moved from another school who is Irish, and has been living here for 7 years, so i can speak english with him too. And then there is another exchange student from America who arrived at the start of last week, and on her first day i asked her if she wanted to come hang out with us kinda thing cos she didnt know anybody, and shes really cool. It felt good to be able to talk about stuff with another english speaking girl my age like that! But we try to talk in french as much as we can still, but yeah its good to have someone to talk to in my own language! The classes are alot easier this year, i can see that ive made alot of progress over the summer holidays, because i understand everythign the teachers are saying, i can even take all my own notes like even when they dictate and everything. And i even did a essay in philosophy. (even tho i didnt anwser any of the given questions but still, i did something !)
But yeah, i think ive summed up everything so far, i will try and keep a regular update from now on! My time has gone sooo fast here, i only have like less that 3 months here:/ To be honest, im not ready to leave. I dont want to leave just yet, i want to stay just a little bit longer, things seem like theyre starting to get even better !

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Fun Camping.


Yesterday we got back from a weekend camping, and it was such a cool weekend we had so much fun! the camping spot was just out of a small village called Aubeterre, which is classed as one of the prettiest towns in France. The camping grounds were pretty cool, we pitched our tent right at the back right next to the river, and then we had a view of a dam and the artificial beach too. We also had a couple of Dutch neighbours who were real cool, they invited us over to their tent for little nights out with them it was fun. The first day we got there we just pitched up our tent and sorted out our stuff, then went spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach, and then went in to town to grab a drink at the bar. Got back and it was hot, so went for an evening swim which was better cos there was no one else there just us and our neighbours. They were jumping off the little dam so we wanted to go try, and i sliped and fell off instead of jumping off and fully thought i was gna drown haha but i managed, and then after that Fanny and Amélie were too scared to go down but the dutch guys were like come on its easy well help you and so they did it and i wanted to do it without drowning this time so i went and did it again and they helped me not drown haha and then we started talking and stuff and then thats how we made friends with them haha. That night we spent it at their tent, and then the next morning i woke up to go toilet only to find an old man fishing right outside our tent. What a lovely suprise. Then the next day we went and did a visit of the town and went to an underground church, which is reeeeeally old and was entirely carved out from inside a big boulder, it was pretty cool. That night we went to town again to the bar to watch the world cup finals and got there and the pub was packed as, so we spent ages tryna get a drink, got our drinks and just listened from outside behind all the crowd and then left cos gt sick of not seeing anything. The next day we packd up our tent and got ready to go canoeing, but had to leave all our stuff with Milo and Thomas cos we couldnt carry it al to the canoeing place. And then we did a 2 hour canoe trip and it was pretty fun, crashed into the bank loads but it was okay, and then there was a group of little kids who caught up to us and decided to all gang up on us and splash water at us, and driving us into the bank at the same time. Got back to the starting point, and then on the way back i wanted to jump off the bridge like the boys were doing. So i got myself on the edge of the bridge, and realised how high the birdge actually was, so got nervous as and tried to trick myself into jumping. Then the girls were all like go just jump dont think about it and then they made me nervous cos they started counting so i told everyone to shut up so i could think haha, and then this man came over looking all worried and was like you know you dont have to do it if you dont want to and im like yeah i know i want to do it im just scared haha. And then, i looked up and realised i had a full on crowd at on the river bank watching me all waiting for me to jump so im like great now i have to jump i cant chicken out infront of all these people haha. So then like after 10 mins of standing there being watched i jumped, and it wasnt even scary haha so did it again. And yeah then that night we came home.
Oh and also, there were soooo many english people there, like most of them were english, and then when we were at the beach once we were tanning and then these english people about 15 year olds come over by us and were talking to eachother, thinking that we were all french including me, and were in the middle of talking about me. One of the said "is that who i think it is?" so i looked at them and they were looking at me, and then another one goes "yeah thats her, the one with the tattoo." i looked over at them and fully felt like saying "you do realise i speak english and underdstand what your saying?" but yeah i just gave them a dirty look everytime they stared at me. haha.
But tomorrow we are leaving to go to Auvergne, the family farm, for 4 nights, then on Sunday im going to Italy for 4 days, and then after that i catch the train up to Paris for 3 or 4 nights and then come home, gna be a busy couple of weeks!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

SUMMER !

Its finally summer time in Angoulême! The days are long and hot, thank god we have a pool so spent the day in. Summer here is so so soooo hot! Most days are 30°C or over, tomorrow its supposed to be 35°C! Im definatley making the most of the weather tho, getting black! haha.
Um so yeah summer means summer holidays which means 3 months of holidays which means dont go back to school till september. The year has gone so fast already, ive done nearly 6 months, less than 5 more to go. Have been shopping my heart out seeing as sales are on (very good sales might i add), but am going to control myself and wait till i go to Italy with Aunty Awerangi (in 12 days to be exact) and then going to Paris when i get back so am going to save money and suitcase space for that! I am definately gna start sending stuff back home soon cos no way am i leaving any of my new stuff here at the end of the year! haha.
On saturday we are going camping, at a camping ground about 50 mins away, and its right by the beach so well be spending sat and sunday at the beach and campground (me, Fanny, Mélanie et Amélie) and then on the monday we will be doing a 4 hour canoeing trip! Shouold be fun. Then on tuesday we are leaving to go to Nathalie(host mum) s family farm thing for 4 days, then i leave for Italy.
The other night i went to have dinner with some people i met, Nelly (englih lady met her ages ago), and a couple, Elvana, (who is greek), David, (who is french), and Jason (there little sone who is just over 1 yr old) and it was cool! theyre really nice, and Jason is soooooo cute he is the only little kid that ive met since ive been here and i love him! haha His parents were telling me how crazy it was the way he follows me and looks and smiles and wants to play with me all the time haha i love it cos i miss being around little kids so yeah, he has all my attention! Hope theyll need a baby sitter sometime soon:)
Oh! And i dont know for sure, but i think i might be fluent in French? People ask me and ask me if im fluent ad im like no not yet, but then ive heard my family tell people im fluent now so it made me ask my self how am i suppodsed to know when im fluent? I can understand every thing and can reply fine, but its just the vocab that i dont understand sometimes? So yeah i dont know if that means im fluent or not. And i dont like speaking english either. Stutter too much.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

News.

Its been a while since ive last written on here, and theres been heaps of stuff thats happened that i keepd reminding myself to write about on my blog but i kepd forgetting and yeah now ive forgotten most of the details haha. But, in the holidays which ended like a month ago, it was pretty cool fun. The first week was busy busy, me and Fanny went out a few times, meeting heaps of new people, shopping, rah rah rah, all in Angoulême btw as we didnt go away that week. I also went to a film shoot thingy cos Fanny was on of the extras, and so i went along to see what that was all about. It went from 8am till like 6.30pm so was a pretty long day, and at first it was real interesting to see how they shoot scences and stuff, like they only did about 3 or 4 scences in the whole day, but had to repeat each one like a hundred times to get it perfect, so yeah tbh i got real bored after a while. So i would just sit on the side and watch everything, and then once one of the main actors even came and sat next to me for a few minutes and he said hi to me haha i felt so cool right then.
The second week we didnt do much, but we went to stay the night in Rochefort at Nathalie's sister(Frédérique)'s place, which is about 1 and a half hours away from Angoulême. It was cool meeting her and her kids (a girl, Julie, 12, and a boy, Loic, 16) they were nice. They also have the most beautifullest dog ive ever seen, its big and cream and fluffy and cuddly and doesnt smell! i so wanted to bring it back with us. We went to visit a place where a castle used to be, but was distroyed during the war to create a defense port thingy to protect the town, and then after that we went to the beach but the water wa way too cold to swim, so we just sunbathed.
The first couple of weeks have been okay, theres been quite a few tests in class lately as the school has exams coming up this term, but im not doing exams so i just draw when they have tests. I miss having art as a subject at school so i just have to doodle all the time to feel better haha and sometimes they turn into quite big drawings.
And about the dance competition, a school pulled out so we get to go in there place now. But we actually found out that its not a competition its more like a dance event kinda thing. We leave early wednesday morning, and come home the thursday night, and will be staying at the Futuroscope motel. Anyway, there will be lots more schools there, and therell be 3 dance shows and we will be showing our dance in one of them, and when were not doing that we get to choose 2 other types of dance to have lessons in, some of the options are hip hop, jazz, contemporary, salsa, ragga, african dance, and cant remember what else. And then et the end of the last day, we get to watch a proffesional dance show so yeah its gna be so cool i cant wait!
Today it is the first of May, and every year this day there is a big walk that goes on through the valley we live in "Valée des eaux claires", and so there have been crowds of people walking back and forth past my bedroom windown. Fanny went to go to town this morning to get some stuff, and she said that she had to zig zag between all the people on her way out there were so many.
Oh and also, just over the past week ive started to go for either a run or a bike ride through the valley everyday except friday. I run by myself but go biking with Fanny and the bikings pretty hard out haha there are hills EVERYWHERE, but yeah if we keep it up well be able to do all the hills no sweat by the time i leave:)

Monday, April 12, 2010

Angoulême in spring time .

A view of some old buildings from the Cathédrale, and in the background it looks over a part of Angoulême...

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Dance comp...

So the competition was okay, nothing special, but nothing bad either. The bus ride there and back were the most annoying tho. Was nearly 3 hour bus ride each way, and we were with other schools who were going to the comp too. Other litle kids schools. So, for the whole three hours we were surrounded by loud talking, screechy voices, constant screaming and giggling, it was horrible! There were about 5 collèges there which is 12 or 13 year olds, and 5 lycées (high schools). At the last minute again tho, the teacher decided to make me the person who would introduce our group on the microphone! i did it of course, and afterwards everyone said to me "that was really good! i couldnt really understand what you said but it sounded cool!" haha. Yeah anyway our group didnt come anywhere, which dissapointed our dance teacher abit. It was wierd cos they didnt have any judges, so it was just students from the high schools who judged the collèges, and the little collège kids who judged us. This caused abit of tension with all the teachers because the group who won for the high schools was completely off subject and did more of a drama skit than a dance, which was cool it was funny and everyone enjoyed it, but it wasnt dance which was part of the criteria. So the teachers off all the schools werent too happy that they won, but oh well thats what happens when you let little kids decide!
We are on holidays now, dont know what we have planned tho, guess will just find out as i go!

Monday, March 29, 2010

Décollage horaire

So on sunday Daylight savings started, so we now have to get up an hour earlier. I havent felt it yeat cos we started school at 10 this morning so we could sleep in anyway, but yeah we dont have histoire-géo or math all this week cos the teachers are both gone to Italy on a school trip. On wednsday however its gna be so hard : we have to go to a competition in Poitiers for dance ( hahaha how embarrassing im still learning!) and we have to be at school by 7 in the morning, meaning i have to get up at 6, meaning if it wasnt daylight savings it would be 5 in the morning. Génial! But yeah anyway about the competition, the teacher signed us up for it, but its gna be a joke cosim gna just gna be straight up - we suck. there is only one girl who is any good who has one of the main roles. And just to add to the joke, the other girl who had the second biggest part of the dance turns out cant come cos shes part of the group whos going to Italy, so the teacher decides to give her part to ME! LOL soo, on top of everything i had to quickly learn to be included just at the end, i had to learn all the other girls dance in the last practice we had:) i have no idea why the teacher gave it to me i suck at contemporary dance i am so uncoordonated, and so im not looking forward to this stupid competition lol its going to be a disaster.
Anyway what else has been happening, last week on tuesday i went to "Café Linguistique" which is a place where people get together to speak foreign languages together, which i think ive already written about. Anyway it was really cool i really enjoyed it. It was good being able to have proper conversations in english which i havent done in a while. I met some new people, there were two romanians who spoke english, a boy called Tibby and a girl called Michaela and they were both very good looking. and there was also a french girl who wants to improve her english, because nex year she is hoping to go to NZ and maybe study at Waikato Uni which i found pretty cool! The lady who invited me whos name is Nelly was the one who introduced me to all them, and shes really nice, she also lived in NZ for a bit too.
On Friday it was cool too, Fanny and a friend wanted to go to the public pools after school but i didnt really feel like it, so i spent the afternoon with another friend of mine, Chloé. It was real cool, she took me to where she hangs out and introduced me to all of her friends and she has ALOT of friends, so all the names of course just went in one ear and out the other. But they were all really nice and asked me heaps of questions about NZ and the parties and stuff lol it was cool. But yeah by the time everyone was ready to leave, i had managed to remember 2 peoples names. A girl called "Wasi" or something cant spell it, and a boy called "Tibeau" cant spell that either. Oh and another boy called Josuah but hes in my class and i already knew him. Oh yeah and i gave Josuah and Chloé some KORA songs and they loved them, and then they were playing some that afternoon and everyone else loved it too, haha it was cool sitting there and even hearing some of them sing along to the songs.
My weekend was pretty relaxed, the oldest sister Hélène came home from Paris for the weeked, andon saturday we all went to a second hand market, and i bought some really cool stuff all for only 5 euros which is about 10 NZ dollars. I got a little brown woolen hand bag, that hangs on yyour shoulder, another hand bad type thing that is beige and the material is kind of like canvas, and on the top and the inside its brown leather. And i also got a little blue leather Lancaster make up bag thing its quite nice! And after that we went to a friends house and yeah that was my weekend!
This week should hopefully go fast, and then when its finished we are on holidays for 2 weeks again, and im hoping to meet up with Jason and Carrie if shes not busy sometime during, so that should be cool! Right well im off now, but will let everyone know how the bloody dance competition goes haha.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Soirée...

So the other day at school we were in english, and had a little suprise vocab test. The last phrase the teacher wanted us to translate into english was "Je veux que vous ecrivez" which means "i want you to write". A boy in my class however didnt know the answer, so quietly asked the person next to him what the answer was. They told him the answer, and so when he showed the teacher his answers, it turns out he had misheard the right answer and had written "I want you tonight." instead! hahahaha i could not stop laughing and neither could the teacher. And also today in English the teacher was talking about broad sheet newspapers, but because of her accent Fanny had misheard it, and wrote down "Broad Shit" instead lol english is the funnest class for me. On Friday it was the 6 days before all the people in terminale(7th form) have their Bac exams, and in France its tradition oon this day to chuck eggs and flour on all the seconde and premier (6th and 5th form) people, so i was paranoid the whole day. Its banned at our school tho thank god, because last year someone chucked a whole big sack of flour at someone, and they were only in troisième (4th form)! but we still went into town anyway and it was so funny seeing other people covered from head to toe in flour lol. On Saturday we had to go to school in the morning because it was the open day for the school, and it felt so wierd to be at school on a saturday which i have never done in my life. Thank god we dont have to do that everyweek like some schools in France do. On Saturday night, a friend called Amélie had a little soirée at her house to celelbrate her 17th bday, and it was very fun i had a good time. Fanny always does baking and is always really good at it, so we decided to make chocolate eclairs for the party. It was the first time i have helped her bake something and it was a complete disaster haha nothing went right! first the actual pastry didnt work cos it didnt rise, it burnt on the outside, and didnt cook on the inside. Then we made the choch cream for the inside which was the only thing that worked properly, except we made way too much of it. Then they looked real ugly so we decided to melt some choc for the icing, which Fanny let me do. Big mistake. I burnt the chocolate abit. I couldnt even melt choc without stuffing it up hahah! so we iced the "eclairs" anyway but it dried up way too fast and the "eclairs" actually looked like human poo hahahahah. So THEN we decided to put rainbow sprinkles on top to try and make them look better, and because we didnt want anyone to know that we had tried to make choc eclairs but had epicly failed. I left that bit to Fanny seeing as i had stuffed everything else up lol so Fanny starts sprinkling the sprinkles...when the lid falls off and alllll the sprinkles splat right in the middle of the plate hahahahaha so everything was a pretty big mess. So we didnt want anyone to know that we had attempted and failed at laking choc eclairs, so instead decided to say that it was a NZ specialty that was not eclairs. I then decided that i did not want to give NZ a bad name, so we changed it to be an Australian specialty called "Rainbow Cat Fingers" lol. We did not eat any at the party but said that we had already eaten too much at home so coudnt eat anymore hahaha but when people tried them they actually liked them. which made ma and fanny burst into laughter. everyone was wondering what was so funny and we didnt wanna give away our secret so fanny was siting there laughing, and pointing to Victor(friend) saying that it was him who was funny, and you had me sitting there laughing, pointing in the other direction saying it was the birds in the cage that were so funny and everyone was so confused lol but yeah it was a good night full of laughter, drinking, and dancing! Today it was so hot, well hottest its been since ive been here. It was 18 degrees and its supposed to be like this for the rest of the week, yay! Spring is finally coming:)

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Weekend

Today is sunday and im so tired. last night me and Fanny stayed the night at a friends house and at about midnight just casually decided to watch "Les Collines a Des Yeux" -ie. "The Hills Have Eyes" in french, and because it was a scary movie we didnt get to sleep till about 3.30 and then woke up at like 9 which was not fun haha but it was a good night. People are also starting to be able to say my name better now like it low key sounds maori but not quite but theyre getting there! its funny cos they all ask me what my brothers and sister names are like wether or not theyre as hard as my name. For example the other day after school we went to town and went to a bar to get a drink (yes we are allowed to buy alcoholic drinks here without id!!!) and one of the girls asked me if my family had hard names to say as well. This is how it went :
Me: "Hinemoana, Arohia,Te Reita,Taunoa, and neice Hineata Te Ope Wairua..."
French: [looking so amazed and shocked and confused all at the same time] "F.ck! and your dads name???"
Me: "...Paul."
then they all burst into laughter and so did i cos i realised how random it was and yeah. had to be there lol.
also this weekend me and Fanny have started to watch Skins(i french of course) on the internet from the first episode and im loving it, even tho its been in NZ for ages ive only ever watched a few episodes every now and then. and i can understand most of whats being said too which is good!
im going to go now as i am really tired, will right again soon.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Monday 1st March - Lundi le premiér mars

Had the first week back at school last week and it was a pretty good week, well most of it anyway. Apart from the infected pimple i was blesseed with, it was good haha. I tought some of my fellow class mates some very usefull words in english hahaha and vice versa, i love hearing them swear or insult each other in english its hilarious with the lil french accents. I also had two tests, one in english which was on the DANCES WITH WOLVES movie which i bullsh*d my way through as i have never seen the movie and arrived after they had watched it, but got the result back today and got 30/30 haha luckily. and the other test was maths, statistics which i think i did okay in except for two questions which i couldnt do, but other than that all the rest i had already done in like year 10 and 11 so it should be sweet! today i showed Fanny some Kora songs and she loved them, so there goes my work for the whanau! haha spreading the word in France. in the weekend i went to the museum of Angoulême with Christophe(dad) and there was lots of stuff there and even found a couple of maori things there too like a patu and cant memba what else. after the museum we went to the place they ived before which is called Villebois-Lavalette, which is about 30 min drive out of Angoulême and it is sooooo pretty its a really old little village with like a ancient market place in the middle of the village from like hundreds of years ago and a place where all the women from the village used to all wash their laundry etc, it was cool. Then we went to Christophe's ULM club where i met some of his fellow ULM friends haha that was ages and i got a little bored while all the adults talked but apart from that it was cool seeing the little planes and everything. Haha i can hear Fanny in the office listening to different Kora songs, see she already loves it! Lately there have been big storms in France only about an hours drive or so from here, and there are already over 51 people dead from it, but its not that bad here luckily just abit of light wind and rain. It was Nathalie's birthday today too, so we had a little bithday lunch for her yesterday, luckily i already had some presents and stuff left over that i bought over with me so i gave her a hing that looks like a pen but isnt a pen, im not sure what it is actually, and it has a twist on the top. Also today a guy at school, who has always just watched me smiling when i walk past since about my 2nd week here, said hello to me for the first time in stead of just staring which was nice for a change lol, but yes he always used to just sit there and smile and stare which was awkward but now that hes said hello its not as awkward haha. oh and i managed to figure out how to change the settings of my keyboard on my laptop from English to French so i can now write with all the little accents and things "comme ça". but i also had to write on my keys with twink just to mark where the different characters all are cos its way diff to english ones . i think thts all i had to say fro now, so will write more next time. oh yeah and my pimples going down:)

Sunday, February 21, 2010

End Of Holidays

Ive been in France for just over a month now and have just decided to make a blog site so i dont have to repeat the same story to everyone over and over again. Everythings going really good here, When i first got here it was freezing in Paris, and i could not understand a single word anyone was saying to me cos they all talked so fast! but im better at understanding them now and can keep up with the speed most times. My first day of school was pretty hard and tiring. Everyone spoke suuuuper fast and the teachers used lots of words i didnt understand so i just sat there in most classes doing nothing, but lots of people were really nice and tried to speak english to me when they saw i had no idea what was going on, and then some people would just come up to me when i was reading a book or something while the class worked and they would try make conversation either in english or really slow simple french. School in france is so much different to Girls High cos of many reasons: 1. It's co-ed, so you always have something to keep you interested. 2. No uniform, and everyone has there own style kinda so not everyone looks the same like in Palmy lol. 3. school starts at 8.15 every morning, and we finish at 12pm some days, and 5 on others. 4. Everyone smokes here. Before school, during there breaks inbetween classes, during lunch, after school, pretty much everychance they get everyones outside having a smoke its wierd. And theyre allowed to as well, the school even supplys ashtrays in front of school. The only subjects i understand in school are english (which is funny for me cos the teacher is not very good at english and has a hilarious accent) and maths(ive already done the subjects they are learning so all i need to do is link the french words the the english equivalent). I have just been on holiday for two weeks. The second week i spent with Nathalie(host mum), Fanny(youngest sister), and Laure(2nd eldest sister) in a place called Aulus-les-Bains which is in the south of France in the Pyranees, where we were skiing for the week. Ive never skiid in my life so the first day was not good haha fell over so many times, lucky it doesnt hurt when you fall on the snow. By the time we got to our last day of skiing i even went down a red slope which is the one below the experts slopes and i didnt even fall over! I did however fall off the teleski which pulls you up to the top of the slope cos it went over a bump and i lost my balance haha. Tomorrow i go back to school, which im kinda looking forward to just cos school there is so different to what im used to. Ive also just booked my tickets to Italy for in the summer holidays(july/august) which i am going to spend with Aunty Awerangi and i cant wait! the next holidays we get are in 6 weeks and my family are planning to go to Paris for some of that time which i also cant wait for itll be amazing there! Everythings so exciting over here, and i havent even felt homesick yet haha which is a suprise to me as i thought id be crying myself to sleep everynight for the first few months. Ive called home a couple of times and both times it feels so wierd to be talking in english as i am not used to having long conversations in english anymore, and when i speak english i normally have to go slow cos apparently i talk too fast lol, but yeah im sure im already losing some english. Oh and Fanny and her friends love it when i sing the grease song "your the one that i want, your the one i really want, ooo ooo oooooo, HONEY!" so they always play it on their phones and get me to sing along lol. They listen to a bit of english music but dont understand what the words are saying, so they get me to translate and then when they know what the words actually are they get all excited and sing it all the time like "Ms Jackson - Outkast" which they are in love with now. I asked them if they knew "single ladies-by beyonce" turns out the knew it but always thought that instead of saying "all the single ladies, all the single ladies" that it was "im a cigarette, im a cigarette" hahaha. Oh and one more thing, the cat loves me but i dont like cats. It is always in my room sleeping on my bed, and on the first night i just left it there but then it came and slept right by my face and it farts too so now i have to chuck it out every night before i go to bed. Kay yup thats all i have to say for today, ive pretty much told everyone everything so far anyway through FB, so yeah will right again soon.