Last Post of the Year

Must...report on things done...before too overwhelmed.....

Christmas.
Eve was spent at my host uncle's house, with all of my host family. Eating and drinking (wine and champagne are allowed with the families) and enjoying the night. Foie Gras is tasty, but very rich. I don't think I could eat it more than a few times a year. Also cruel to geese. Seafood is apparently traditional, which is a bit strange, but not a bad thing. Escargot, Shrimp, Salmon, all are tasty things. In an landlocked province it's a bit scary to think where these things are coming from and how fresh they are, but m'inquiete pas. It was fresh enough to be healthy. Dinner was a Rabbit/Goose (not sure, one of those) with sauce as well as potatoes and brocoli.
I also recieved presents, which was very nice.
Christmas I walked out to Nela's host-grandma's(was late...ugh) and spent some time with her family. All are great people. I enjoyed talking with them and eating lunch (more seafood). A nice long french (ergo, 2 hours) lunch, followed by going back to Nela's house and watching Tarzan. The original. in French. It was cool.
And again, making Ecuadorian food, the green banana's(which are not banana's). Very simple. I have two recipes now. Multinational chef. Yahoo.

The next few days were spent in the house, sleeping. And talking to family. So most of the people reading the blog know that.

Then Sunday it was Hana's goodbye party. The film Australia is a decent movie, bloody long, but none the worse because of it. I would recommend seeing it. After that, we went out to eat pizzas and just have a dinner. Always a nice thing. It really was an enjoyable night.

Yesterday Max came into town and we hung around for a bit. Saw the film Le Bon, Le Brute, Le Cinglé (The Good, The Bad, The wierd). GOOD movie. Eastern western. It was a winner at the Cannes film festival, see it if you get the chance. You will not regret it.

And finally, today, we went down to Mulhouse. A decent place during the day. They have a nicer mall than us in Stras. Drug capital of France though. Don't go out after dark. But we went to see the Car Museum, biggest in the world apparently. It was a nice place, cool and interesting looking cars. Didn't really learn much, but wasn't really trying to. Just enjoying the sights. Took a decent amount of pictures, but don't expect to see them for a bit. Stupid Camera.

Tomorrow, New Years. So I'll talk about that in a bit.
Happy New Year Everyone.

Swedish Treats and Last weekend

I'm behind, Christmas update will come when I have it recorded myself.

So Last wednesday(not Christmas Eve, before that) Anna came up from Selestat and we all had a grand old time at the Ikea in town. I guess because lots of people speak english here I really don't know what it's like to miss my language, but she freaked. A nice lunch of Swedish meatballs was eating, filled with comments about how Anna could make them better. But give them a break, they're French, not Swedes.
After lunch, we went to the grocery store they have and searched for gingerbread cookie dough. For to make houses. It was all missing, and we were very sad. There may be an attempt to make it by hand soon, and I am looking forward to that.

Then on the weekend, we just had a nice chill time. Hanging around the city, wandering into metal cds stores, and just really enjoying the Marché. It was a pretty fun time.

Monday came with sadness though. It was the mast time Em is going to see Hana for a while. By a while, I mean until we have a reunion in a few years. There was no tears on either side that I saw, but you never know what happens on the train and bus after you leave. I'm glad that I'm gonna see her two more times before she goes. But I still don't wanna think about it. Especially about Adam leaving the 8th, and the dinner party we're having on the 7th.

This year sucks so much, and is the most incredible experience ever. Rotary is a cruel organization, making us so close with each other then forcing us to say goodbye.

Médiathèque

Oh mas...

Took a little trip into the local Médiathèque, it's lika a Bibliothèque, but on crack and LGH (Library Growth Hormone). For just 12,50€ I'm allowed 8 books, 6 CDS, 2 DVDS+VHS+Computer Discs for a month. This, is incredible. Especially as it's France and they seem to have everything. For the moment I've taken out Lovecraft (in English) as vell as some books that are billingual (English on one page, French on the reverse. GREAT for learning the language.) as well as some CDs and 2 movies(Jurassic Park and a Godzilla movie). They have The Thing From The Black Lagoon, in french. I LOVE this place. They also have TVs and Stereos there, so I can just go hang out and watch a movie(Old horror movies anyone?) or listen to music....God I love this place. They have a really cheap Café too, so I may hang out there lots in the coming months.

Thank you Titu for showing me this place.

Sadness

This year is full of saying goodbye, and I just had my first one since leaving.

Imke, our German friend, is leaving thursday because her exchange is over. A party was had on Saturday, where I discovered I'm still rather horrible at Bowling and have very slow reflexes. Also, there was a game, kind of like Monopoly, which was difficult to understand at the beginning. Needless to say, while she's not leaving until Thursday, it was still very sad.

On the plus side, I've discovered that I've made well progress in French since the beginning. Still not enough, but I'm working on it.

Je suis TROP fatigué....

Oh god...

It was fun, but why did we stay up so late? Or early...
Taking a group of exchange students to wasselone was fun. The pool was a bit sucky (only banana hammocks, and I will not wear those) but we spent our time in the sauna and that was cool. Met a cool French guy that we had a few conversations with. Sauna destroyed me though.

After that, we ate Emeralds cookies. I have since decided that she is some form of cookie goddess, and will put much energy into stealing her recipes, as they are incredible.

I also made the couscous salad I figured out last year. Everyone who tried it seemed to like it. Adam enjoyed it, and he hates chick peas, so it must have turned out all right.

Monty Python and Movies, Rrrrrrrrr is hilarious, although no one will ever watch it with me at home. Stupid people who speak not the french...

Oh, right. It turns out Me, Adam, Emerald and Anna are stupid. After watching Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring (Frodon...wtf....) and the girls(OTHER girls, Emerald and Anna are girls) went to bed, we decided ve vere hungry. Ate for about an hour, just manging and laughing about the stupidest shit, we finally got to sleep around....7h this morning. Hana woke us up at 9 because she had a bus at 10, which she didn't even take. The hell man.... but we went right back to sleep and didn't vake up until midday.

C'était un très bon weekend, mais franchement...Je suis fatigué.

I'm a nice person

Amazing the amount of Touriste in this city right now.

I was just walking along when suddenly I hear a bunch of people, obviously english speakers(they were speaking English, one can only assume...) asking in horrible French, "Excuse-ay Moi Madaam. where can we find the Catheedraal?"
Naturally, being the nice person I am(Screw you France, no matter how hard you try to get rid of them I'm KEEPING the Canadian aspects of my personality.) I told the lady they were asking that I could help them and that she could go on with her day. Naturally, she got defensive, claiming that I was just a child and my english couldn't possibly be better than hers. I responded with "Je viens du Canada, madame." THAT shut her up.

Kids were from Northern Ireland. They were EXTREMELY grateful to find an english speaker who could speak french. walked around with them for a bit, then had to go back to school. Cool kids. Shame about their total lack of French though...

Marché de Noël

It's Christmas time in Strasbourg.

The lights are beautiful, and completely overwhelming. They've really gone all out. I haven't visited the actual market yet, but I've walked past it a few times and it completely blows me away. I'm trying to take as many pictures as I can. It really is incredible. They call this the Christmas Capital of Europe for a reason.

Yesterday we went down to Colmar to see Jess, and the city. A really nice place, quite tranquil and very pretty. All the normal Christmas stuff (normal for Europe, NOT for home) was around. Including Santa. He had a donkey. It was wierd. He made us sing, but then gave us candy. Apparently there's a really nice Museum down there too. No idea what it's for, but I'll try and see it the next time I'm down there.

French seems to be getting worse. I've started doing boring Vocab and Conjugation work to combat this. Hopefully it's helping, because I'd hate to be this mind-numbingly bored for no reason....

Starting to think simple sentences in french though. Hopefully that's a good sign..

Réunion

Had a meeting avec René last night.

Turns out it vvas bad that vve forget to let Rotary knovv that vve 'quittez le pay' for Baden Baden. Oopsie...

On sais maintenant. It's all good.

Recent Semaines.

I have had crazy times since I last updated this.

Last friday a bunch of us savv Quantum of Solace in an amazing theater. And it only costs us 4€, so vve'll be going back there lots. And the next day, vve all vvent to Iitu's (my next family) and made food and just had a nice time hanging out. VVE also didn't sleep much, and vvent outside around 3:30 in the morning to play football. VVE managed to vvake up the only english lad in the neighbourhood as vvell.

This vveek vvas the normal drudge, not extremely interesting, but not bad either.

These last fevv days vvere crazy though. Max (the other Canadian) came up from Grey friday and vve all ended hanging around Cafe Rohan for quite some time. About 4 hours. At about 8 vve all got a treat as vvell, first snovv of the year. Nela's first time seeing snovv. That vvas a good night. Then saturday a group of us vvent up to Baden Baden for the Spa they have there. 3 hours of relaxing in hot tubs and vvarm pools and saunas, vvhile it vvas snovving. After being in Germany the vvhole day, vve all came back to Nela's place and had a party for her birthday. VVe have spent a good vveekend.

Stupid 'vv' key is still broken, so I have to use 2 'v's. Bleeh.

Shoplifting again....

I'm convinced that France hates me.

This time it was a book. I guess I must have dropped the receipt while I was walking around, I didn't really notice it. I was listening to music at the time, so I didn't hear the sensors go off as I walked through them. I was hauled off to the back office and asked a whole slew of questions. Had to empty my bag, all that stuff. I wonder what rights I have here..can they do that?

Anyway, I was allowed to go walking around the store with one of the security guys, pointed out the man who was working the cash where I bought the book, and found my reciept, THEN they let me go.

I guess I just look dodgy or something..

Sick

Well, I made a 3 am trip to the bathroom today.

First time really being sick on my own, fun stuff. Why I'm writing about this, I don't know.

Europapark

Woah.

I'm STILL tired.

We went to Europapark yesterday, and it was craziness. 3 years ago I didn't go on any rollercoasters when we went to Wonderland. Now...The only ones I DIDN'T go on was because we didn't have enough time.

That's right. I have conquered Silver Star, highest coaster in Europe. Behemoth, you got NOTHING.

Pictures will go up in due time. Don't lose hope, I'm just lazy getting them off my camera.

I slept until 2 today. THAT'S how tired I was.

Finally a Dinner

Last night Lauren and I went to a dinner with Petra (Ms. Christov) and a few of her friends.

I'm being treated like an adult. This is ridiculously fun. I mean, who else can say they've had dinner with their teacher?

Good luck trying to think of me as a kid once I come home.

But it was nice, we spent more than 3 hours at a Japanese restaurant eating and talking and drinking (no alcohol for me, as much as I wanted some Sake...) and just living like a group of people having a good time together. There were also many Canadian jokes supplied by Petra. I'll have to get her back for that.

Also, this is the SECOND time I've been told I have little or no accent when I speak. Now I just need to figure out the rest of the language.

À Bientôt.

Suddenly Rotary! Everywhere!

That was a massively tiring weekend.

It was the district conference, which was interesting. 4 of us boys from Youth Exchange had to learn how to Square Dance from the EGE group from the states. I don't remember any of it, but there's video's floating around somewhere.

We were paraded around a lot, then it was off to Vescemont for the night.

Which was an interesting time, french and english were both spoken in tremendous amounts. Games were played, people were met. It was a good time. There were Inbounds, Outbounds and Rebounds abounds. And I can't think of any more words that can rhyme in that sentence, but anyway. Everyone had a great time. I liked meeting the girl that was in the Yukon last year. There doesn't seem to be ANY interest in Canada. Maybe that's because of our history of kicking the French's ass?

Anyway, sunday was just as funny. We were woken up around 8 (not as fun) for breakfast. We then proceeded into a tiny little town around Vescemont...Girodame or something...And watched a parade of cows. They stopped in a large area and it was a festival of sorts. They also peed. A LOT. And pooped. And peed on other cows. And tried to mount other cows, which was wierd.

Pictures were taken, but I'm still having difficutly with the camera.

Apparently I'm considered a colleague now, and we're arranging a dinner with a bunch of teachers for friday night.
Which will be followed by copius amounts of sleep. Because holidays start next week. Hooray! Europapark and SLEEP. I remember sleep fondly, like an old friend I never see anymore. It'll be nice to hang out again.

A bientôt.

Art is Arp

Musée de Art Moderne.


It's weird.

Cool, even "sweet as" as the new zealanders would say.

But bloody hell, it's wierd.

Still, a good day of half school and hanging out. Looking forward to checking out some other museums.

Later

Shoplifters!

My friends and family,

I sit before you, a stupid, STUPID man. Adam and I met up for lunch outside Lucie Berger today, and we headed over to the supermaket to buy some sanwich making materials. We then headed out to a DIFFERENT supermarket to buy drinks, because they're cheaper there.

We didn't take receipts.

Hilarity ensued as we were accused of stealing some ham and cheese. We were dragged down into the security office and given speeches and yelled at and all the stuff that happened. Over Ham. and Cheese. I mean seriously, it's was worth about 3€. Would we really keep lying after we had gone through all their crap?

They let us go eventually, but not without a 'stern talking to'.

That's a good story.

EDIT

Forgot something, managed to help two Japanese tourists. In french. They thought I was one of the froggies. Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiierd.

Paaaarty.

A bunch of Rotary students met up in Stras yesterday, it was a fun time. There was around 15 or so of us, and we just hung around. It was good to see everyone and spend some time together.

After that, the few people that were left had a bit of a party with ourselves, it was a good time. I crashed at Adam's place and we did manly things, like wrestling bears and growing out our beards and smoking cigars.

I also have a bridge to sell someone if they're interested...

But fun was had. We're going to the Art museum with a bunch of people and then we have the weekend in Belfort next weekend, so even more fun will be had.

First week

The first week of helping here went very well.

Sure, I actually have stuff to do now, but it's really fun. I made a little game for today's history class with 'The Nationals' (kids who are from english speaking countries, but live in France) that was all about Hieroglyphs and the Rosetta Stone. It went over well.

I'm also going to be working with a little boy named Matthew who just arrived here a few months ago. Not exactly sure what I'll be doing, but it should be good.

VERY tired though...

I've organised some sort of gathering of Rotary tomorrow, and Dr. Christov has arranged a dinner with me, Lauren (student from Boston College), and two of her friends that are closer to my age for sunday.
I feel so responsible and adult.

C'est tres étrange.

Assitant de Madame Cristov

I am wholeheartedly enjoying this.

Granted, my schedule now begins at 8 toujours, not cool.
But it's fun.

Think of it as a co op course from highschool, but in france. And I'm given almost all the freedoms that the other assitant from Boston Uni is given. Which is cool.

I'm observing, commenting, and helping teach.

This is fun.

And the teacher I'm helping is my Civ teacher, so we already know each other. That part was cool.

À bientôt.

Woohoo!

So my schedule has changed.

I'm now going to be assisting one of my english teachers at the bilingual middle school in our group of schools. I'll be doing the same kind of work as a girl from Boston University, so Battilana better give me credit for this.

I still have my normal english classes at the school, because I've been learning a small bit of french there. I'm also going to be having extra french lessons on wednesday mornings, so I should be speaking this language very soon.

I'm able to form many simple sentences now. And I can read the questions on tests. I just don't know the anwsers in french.

Life is good now. I just hope it's not karma setting me up for a nice kick in the groin. It's happened before.

À bientôt.

Meeting

We had our first district-wide meeting yesterday. All of us from the northern part of the district took a train down to Mulhouse for a rules meeting.

The rules are all the same ones we already know. Just explained to us in french. Pointless, since if we don't know the rules by now we're probably not going to get them here. But it has to be done, eh?

Finally met all the Inbounds for this year. We've got a good group. A VERY odd ratio (5 boys-12 girls) but I think that's just france.

Should be fun. Next weekend is October 18th up in a chateau. It's also the district conference on the 18th..bugger. We have to do some presentations.

And I thought I was safe from Temagami. No dice. They've got a snowshoing weekend on the 8th of february here too.

Oh well. I'll live through. First band day is tomorrow, and I have to lug the sax around all day tomorrow. Stupid uneven week classes messing with my schedule. I'm not getting home until about 9 tomorrow.

Ugh.

Sleeeeeeeeepy

Alors,

So I've had an interesting week. It's like Bizarro world here. Gym doesn't suck, but everything else does.

And I've become involved in a bandish type thing. We've yet to decide meetings, but they'll be every week, writing songs and maybe even recording. This is awesome. And there's an orchestra meeting next week that I'll be going to.

Yesterday all the Rotary Kids in the area met up for lunch, then walked around. We had a good time looking through the antique market crap. We found a Water Buffalo head. And an Emo Key. Which I couldn't buy, because 25€ for random crap is out of my budget until I get some money from my club. It was an interesting day.

And today, I went out to eat Choucroute with my family. Do not ever do this. It is Saurkraut. It is the vilest thing to ever emerge from the Abyss. Ingesting it will rob you of your soul.

Yeah, it's disgusting.

Anyway, I'm lazy and slowing down on blog posts. I have an orientation next weekend with the district. That should be fun. Same rules, different language.

Hooray!

Tram Encounter

Donc,

I ran into a lady on the tram today while reading my stupid french textbook for idiots. Good news is that I pretty much got a french tutor out of it. She noticed it, and we exchanged emails. She'll hopefully send one soon, and we'll help each other with our respective language differences.

Pretty cool.

Still feeling trapped in my own head though. And I have gym tomorrow.
The week sucks, weekends are better. French is hard.

A Semaine, ou Demain.

Rotary

So,

Attended my first club meeting today. I understood maybe one word out of every two sentences. I blame Greg for this. He knows french is the one of the hardest languages Rotary students can learn, I think he just hates me.


Why is it so cold in september? It's like in single digits already. Not. Cool.
And it's been raining nigh every day. Reminds me of home I guess..

And I have a learn to speak french book now, not sure if I've mentioned that. It's like a textbook from home, same size and just as dry. Written by Canadians though.

Oh, here's news. On friday, I was walking home from school, and saw un moto. Now, normally, this is not a suprising thing. And it was not remarkable. What it was decorated with, however, was. Un beaucoup du drapeau de canadien et quebécois. They were everywhere. So I waited for the dude to come back to it, gave him a hug, and talked to him for a bit. Cool dude.

Any other canadians out there wanna come say hi? I miss the smell of hygene...

a demain!

Rotary!

So,

Last night we had our first meeting type thing. Nice dinner at a touristy restaurant. Lots of Tarte Flambée.
And I found out that all brazilians are the same.

So've we've all met up now. Nela, Douglas, Adam, Iitu and Janavi. We're a diverse group. We're all at Sturm except for Janavi. She's out in Obernai, so I don't know what school she goes to.

And today, we all met up after our french lessons, except Douglas, because we lost him. After eating, we had a nice day of just walking around strasbourg centre and hanging out.

We also made a pla to go to Europapark for our october vacation. Really looking forward to that.

School still sucks, but Other things are looking up.

L'école

L'école sur vendredi c'est un sac mélangé.
The first few hours are le suck. French, History, Math and Science. But after that I have my Civ class and English. These are in english, and actually good classes. Friday is looking up. I may have my weekly thing to look forward to now.

That and wednesday. I may have Gym, but hopefully the special french lessons will be good. And I'm free at noon! So soon I should be going to friends or going out and doing stuff. Stuff be looking fairly ok now.

Still miss everyone, hope you're having more fun than me. Adventures are not necessarily a good thing.

School

So, school here is long. Very long. I go until 6:00 tomorrow.
This is not cool. Especially when I still have no idea what's going on here. Or what anyone is saying. Or that I have to buy my own books.
Bloody hell, this is wierd.

WOOHOO!!!!

Yeah, I just figured it out. It was in english at home, french here. Go figure.

Anyway, much has happened. Stayed at someone's flat, got to my host family, went on a LONG walk through the mountains (15km+) and took many pictures.

Oh, and now the phones and internet is working again. It wasn't before.

Also started school today. Will take a picture and post my schedule soon. It's kinda nasty...

Keyboard hurts my brain....

Farewell.

The storm before the storm.

This is a blog. Here I will post news about myself and experiences away. I have no need to be fancy or the like. This is not Livejournal, I am not emo. Bugger off.

Why do Visas have to be so finnicky.

Finally got my visa today after 3 days of going back and forth to toronto. Also Stress headaches. Also Nausea. Fun. But now I have it, and all is ready for me to get on the plane on tuesday. Hooray.