harry potter :)

last night I finally saw the 7th harry potter! gahhh i had been waiting for it forever! i was so excited :) and it was soooo good. i was very impressed. Also, i am getting really far in the first book in French so i am proud of myself. I'm becoming a little too obsessed with harry potter i think, seeing as i am writing a whole blog entry for it.... haha :) new subject- school today was good. My french teacher was absent today so I started at 10 which was really nice. The food in the cafeteria today wasn't good... but for dinner we had the thanksgiving leftovers so that made up for it. nothing like pumpkin pie to brighten your day! well, i'm going to go read (in french! woo hooo!) sorry this entry was boring. ha
love,
em

Thanksgiving in France

"Thanksgiving, c'est un truc bizarre que les américains font pour Noel...?"

I heard this quote on the TV here the other day. It was some young French girl's response to what she thought Thanksgiving was. ("Its a weird thing the Americans do for Christmas") i loved it. Well, i know you are all dying to know if I, previously known as the worst cook in the world, was able to pull off a Thanksgiving dinner for my French families and the answer is YES!!!! i did it!!! i am so proud of myself :) And the food was surprisingly good! (Shout-out to Gramma Net for all her help!) I made a few things in advance like the pies and such, but then the rest I made that afternoon with Solene (my 2nd host sister). It was a lot of fun actually. We ate the dinner that night instead of in the afternoon which gave me a lot of time so I wasn't stressed at all. It was so cool to be able to share this little piece of my culture with my new families here. And i think they enjoyed learning exactly what Thanksgiving is.


and at the end of the meal everyone gave me a "Diplome de la Meilleure Cuisinere" where they had each written a little thank you message to me. It was so nice :) I'm so glad I was able to bring Thanksgiving to France : )

xoxo,
emily

pumpkin pies :)

happy thanksgiving everyone :) i made two pumpkin pies today to prepare for my French thanksgiving this saturday! I think they turned out well. At least they look yummy and smell good! So we'll see. After I pull off this meal I'm going to feel like a master chef. haha
Well, sorry for the short post, but thats all my exciting news for the day hah.
enjoy your thankgiving dinner! Eat a little extra of everything for me :)
♥
em

faire les courses

Got all my shopping for Thanksgiving done! tomorrow I am going to make the pumpkin pies :) we are having our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday since we don't get out of school for it here haha. I'm getting excited :) hope all goes well...
I am very proud of myself too because I thought I was going to be really homesick this week since all my friends are home from college and all my family is together, but I'm actually doing really well! :) i am truely happy.
Today, school was pretty tiring. I had a two hour test in math which wasn't very fun... I had a slight headache towards the end of the day, but it wasn't too bad. For dinner tonight we had a quiche :) It was really good.
Just another day in my French life :)
xoxo,
emily

Raiponce ♥

I just got home from the movie theater where I saw "Raiponce" (english title "Tangled"). It was Disney's take on the story of Rapunzel and it was soooo cute :) Disney movies make me so happy. Plus, I understood ALL of it!!!! well, not all the songs, but everything else! I was sooooooo happy!
School was okay today- in my French class we had a photographer come in and show us some of the work he has done. It was really cool. (Katie, I wish you could have been there- you would have been inspired!) One project he did involved taking black and white really close up and personal photographs on all the his family members. They were really raw photos but I loved them. The people weren't trying to be beautiful- and thats what made the photos beautiful. It showed all their imperfections and all the details of the face. And then next to the portrait he put a picture of them as a child which was cool to see side by side. It was really neat. I want his camera...
Anyway, thats my day :)--- need sleep because tomorrow im going thanksgiving shopping!!!
xoxo,
em

l'hiver arrive...

its getting really really cold over here in France! (but after seeing that its snowing in Twin already I'm glad I am here.) I definitely need to knit another scarf and some hats though! or buy them :) i get chilled to the bone. But hot baths after school help warm me back up. anyway, it was really hard to wake up for school today after a pretty tiring weekend, but i managed. My history teacher was absent today so my class just chilled in the library for an hour. Also, I got back my math homework today and i got an 18,5! whoot whoot! Everyone was jealous :) except, i took a math quiz today and i didn't finish in time so probably not going to get a very good score on that one (not that it matters haha). well, thats about it for the day!!! :)
love,
emily

Noyon♥

I had another Rotary trip this weekend- this time to Noyon, north east of Paris. It was fun :) Saturday we caught the train to Noyon, toured an extremely old cathedral, learned a dance thing we had to do that night at a Rotary Gala and walked around Noyon a bit. That night we had to work at a huge Rotary fund-raising gala; selling champagne and raffle tickets, talking about our exchange and country, taking coats, and other random jobs. It lasted until 3am!!!! but thats normal for French parties haha. The Rotarian in charge of the gala brought all of us exchange students bottles of champagne to share, which was funny since we were at an actual Rotary event. But even though it was super super tiring and my feet hurt from walking around all night, it was still fun :) (I took a little nap in the coat-check closet at like 11:30 which made staying up til 3am more managable haha) Also, when I talked with guests at the event they told me my French was really good so I was soooo happy! It was really nice to hear. I can tell I'm making a lot of progress and I can only imagine how much more I am going to make in the next 7 months! Anyway, after the gala we all stayed with host families in Noyon. My family was soooooo nice! and their house was beautiful. When we got home it was really late, but they kept the party going haha. We stayed up another hour talking with them and listening to Mamma Mia songs while they had some more champagne haha :) The this morning, we woke up at like 9ish and had breakfast with the family. During breakfast the dad brough down his laptop and we all (there were 3 of us staying there) showed him where we lived on Google Earth. It was fun. It was really nice because they seemed genuinely interested in us.

After breakfast we met back up with all the exchange students and we went and toured Chateau Pierrefonds. It was beautiful!!!! I couldnt believe it. It was just in a town. Imagine looking out your window and seeing a huge castle haha. It was really cool. Then after our tour we had a really long lunch and then took the train back home. It was a really nice weekend. I love the other exchange students :)

well, back to my routine tomorrow!

em

rire :)

oh dear. today english class was hilarious... well just for me but still. I was very close to having a laughing attack, but luckily i was able to stop myself... First of all the teacher passed out an excerpt named "One Night Stand". Can you believe that?!?!?! It was really about a one night stand! haha and so you can only imagine how hilarious i was when we got into analysing it and talking about what was happening... When the teacher asked the students what was going on in the text, everyone was trying to put it as appropriate as possible like saying "they were together" or things like that, but she kept saying they were wrong until one student yelled they were "MAKING LOVE!" oh my goodness.. i just lost it. especially with the girl's french accent- it was hilarious. But the prof still didnt thing that was right because love wasnt involved so she just came right out and said they were having sex. It was just so unexpected from a high school English class. I couldn't believe we were really sitting in class talking about one night stands... oh dear. haha and then when trying to pronouce the word "cheating" one girl in my class said "shitting." It was so funny, but of course i was the only one that realized what she said so I was laughing to myself. It might have been the funniest class i've ever had... But still- out of all the texts we could be analysing why this one? who knows... anyway- that was the highlight of my day. Tonight I am staying the night at the Gabelotaud's because early tomorrow morning Milton and I have to take a train to Paris and then we are meeting up with the other exchange students and going to a town called Noyen for the weekend. It should be fun :)
a dimanche!
em

le bac et l'anglais...

so i would just like everyone to know that passed one section of the bac today :D well, it was the sports part so it had nothing to do with brains but i still feel cool anyway :) It was a really good day- not for any reason in particuliar, but it just was. Lots of laughs. I like my class- they are really nice and funny. Oh today in english class the teacher asked me to read a fairly long passage outloud so the class could hear my accent and the intonation i use. She always stressing the fact that when reading english you must change pitch and tone and i had no idea why until today- My friends told me that when reading outloud they always speak in a monotone! Its that funny? I asked even if they were reading something with dialogue or exclamation points and yupp same tone no matter what. I found that very very interesting. No wonder they thought it was cool when i read haha. it must be so different to hear! Oh when i was reading the passage i made two mistakes (i said "looked" instead of "looks" and i can't remember what the other was) and my teacher had to correct me. i said "je n'arrive pas lire en anglais!" (i can't read in english anymore!) and everyone laughed haha. but really, its hard to go from speaking french all the time and then reading english outloud! of course i still can but my brain has to switch gears and thats the hardest part. Good thing the students just listen to hear my accent and that doesnt take any work :) But my bad english today, my french was pretty good :) i noticed that i have starting talking more with everyone and im not self concious because i know that if i dont try i wont learn! I love speaking french :) even when its super frustrating i still love it.
miss you all!
em

conversions.

today after school i took on the task of converting all the Thanksgiving recipes into grams since that is what the French use to cook. It was a little difficult keeping it all straight but I am fairly sure I did it all right (at least i hope since if not the meal will be ruined haha) Tomorrow i need to go through the kitchen and make a list of everything i need. Thanksgiving is a big project! I have a new-found respect for everyone who has made it. (Thank you Gramma for making it for my family all these years! ) Its kind of fun to have as a project though. Anyway, school is going well. Still don't like waking up early, but who does? I have two tests tomorrow- one is history anglais and one in math... The two subjects that I will be expected to do well in! the pressure's on. I have no idea what to expect from the history controle and history is not my favorite or best subject so it should be interesting. And math i hope i can understand the questions! if not- oh well :D how i love being able to say that... "Oh test today? i'll try my best and if i fail- oh well!" Its nice to not have the stress of school this year since last year was brutal! Last year I had so much homework that this year was MUCH needed. Sorry I dont have any exciting stories today haha- just another regular day in France :)
♥
em

les champs-elysees

first let me point out how crazy it is when i see that i have already published 71 blog entries while i have been here... and i have been in France even more days than that! wow. it probably wont hit me until its over haha. it still just feels like a dream... Today, I went to Paris with Mariana et Milton. It was fun, but the weather wasn't very nice... Its getting pretty cold here and is raining a ton. Anyway, we went shopping on the Champs-Elysees (well, more like window-shopping) and then visited l'arc de Triomphe. When we were walking down the street it hit me again that I was actually out shopping in Paris on the Champs-Eylsees. Its truely unbelieveable. For an afternoon snack we indulged in some crepes :) we are becoming so French. Anyway, school tomorrow :( haha.
xoxo,
emily

raclette!

For dinner today, the Lasserre's had a couple over and we ate a dish called Raclette. it was soo yummy (here i go again talking about food on my blog...) How it works is there is a stove type thing in the middle of the table and everyone has an individual dish of cheese that they heat up on the stove thingy. (sorry hard to explain...) the when the cheese is soft and melted you pour it over potatoes and meat. delicious :)
Also, for lunch- my friends and I found this americanized french restaurant in Paris (i know you are all thinking why would i want to eat in an americanized restaurant, but after living in a new country for almost 3 months you would understand haha) anyway, I had this delicious chili dog and then we all split a huge dessert- there were 2 cookies, a brownie, and a slice of apple pie all topped with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. It was perfect :) expect we devoured it in under 2 minutes.... hahahaha we're terrible.
I can't believe how much i talk about food on here... hah i should probably stop that...
anyway, im off to bed---
♥
em
oh p.s. in one of my earlier posts i mentioned a saying from a commericial that my friends just loved having me say--- here is the link to the commercial... (you can hear his extremely thick american accent.... which supposedly i also have... damn. )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDyHMhJDv90

phew!

so i was very worried today going to my calligraphie class that my teacher was going to tell me that i couldn't take the class anymore since there were too many students, but instead she told me that i was welcome to stay in the class no matter what! and there are two groups in the class since there are so many students so the groups alternate weeks, but she said that i can come to both since im such a good worker and because she can tell that i like it :) im very happy! i still dont know the verdict of my french class but i will find out on monday i believe...
oh and we got another seeing eye dog for the weekend. she's cute. but she makes me miss Luckster...
anyway, im off to sleep!
emm

USA!

today patrice, isabelle, and I went to the Thanksgiving store in Paris! it was so funny because I never thought I would be excited to see things like Twizzlers, Reese's, Campbell's soup, Dr. Pepper or Cheerios haha :) it was just to see familiar things i suppose. like taking a little trip back home. Plus I found pretty much all the stuff I'll need for making the thanksgiving dinner so thats a relief. and now i know that if i ever get homesick I can just pop over and buy some Poptarts or Oreos to cheer me up haha.

Today was a good day (mainly because we didn't have school!). I woke up to freshly squeezed orange juice and fresh croissants. I'd say its the perfect way to start a day. It was really rainly all day...actually all week, so after going to the store we just lounged around. It was nice.
Anyway, school tomorrow. Lucky its an easy day for me :) another half day.
well, better rest up!
♥ em

yay half days :)

i just love half days. and i love how 3 out of my 5 school days are half days :) thank goodness.
today, my class took a class photo which i thought was funny. it reminded me of being in elementary school again, but i guess it makes sense since we are with the same group in all our classes. my class is goofy so we all wore hats and glasses for our picture. Everyone was sooo excited to dress up for the picture and they thought it was soooo funny that they were wearing hats and glasses. I couldn't help but think about all the dress-up days we have in the high schools in the US. The French students would go crazy seeing the different outfits if they think that wearing hats and glasses is pushing the limit. :D
anyway, in other news- I raised my hand and explained a whole math problem today during class! i was soo proud of myself :) and everyone understood me too! i think that shows some progress. I feel so smart in my math class because we are doing the same thing i did in calculus last year and so i'm the only one that understands it. everyone asks me for help. i love it. One thing that i think is sad about the math classes here is that they aren't based on level. Everyone takes the same classes and at the same pace. I think that would be really hard for the students, especially because they are so fastpaced here that if you get something down you will be lost for all the years to come. its too bad... a lot of the students are struggling right now because they are trying to cram in so much before the bac. i feel bad for them!
rock climbing went well today. I learned how to repel all by myself which was cool. well, thats about it! :)
bisous,
em

oh, jeudi... haha

oh boy. school today was sooo tiring... im still in vacation mode so trying to get back in the swing of things is difficult. haha.
In my french class we got a ton of new students and my teacher said that she might not have room for me in the class anymore since I don't actually go to the high school that offers the class! Isn't that sad? but today was extra difficult with all the students in the class because it was loud and no one was paying attention and i had a pretty bad headache. Also, today we learned how to conjugate the verb "aller" and when to use "à la, au, à l', et aux" which i already knew so its a little easy for me at the moment... but i guess we will just see how it works out--- i really really really hope i don't have to go back to my original tuesday schedule with 6 hours of economics.... j'ai peur! Anyway, when i got home i took a little nap which was helpful... and tonight was the finale of desperate housewives in french so I watched that too. Well, I need sleep :) goodnight!
em

le lycee---

gah- it was really hard to get myself motivated to get up early and go to school today... after a great weekend and so much vacation school just didn't sound very fun. But it turned out to be alright (a little tiring but what do you expect?) I got back my score for my math control and i got a 16,5- which the other students told me was really good. woot woot- Its so funny here because when we get a paper handed back to us, everyone wants to know what everyone else got. Its not like in the US were you might just ask your neighbor and maybe not even them- here its like yelling at people across the room what they scored. Its like a competition! In math, we started learning derivatives which i love so i'm excited about that. I miss my calculus class and mr. honcheranko and all the other students. it was surprisingly fun. After school I came home and took a little nap because I was exhausted and then I organized all my Thanksgiving notes (thanks gramma net!). I was stressing about finding pumpkin for the pie, so i googled it and found a blog called "Girl cook in Paris" how perfect! she had an entry about making pumpkin pie in France and she mentioned a store in Paris called "Thanksgiving" how perfect right! i checked out their website and they have everything i will need. what a relief :) now all thats left in the most difficult part- shopping, and cooking... oh dear. haha :)
oh random little funny part of day- so there is this commercial here and in it the guy is speaking French with a reallly really really thick american accent. I've only seen it once, but today my friends at school were quoting it and then all of a sudden they turned to me and told me say this phrase that was from the commerical. After only saying two words of the phrase they started cracking up and saying how perfect it was... they made me say it quite a bit after that haha. glad my horrible accent could be useful for something :) even if it is just for laughs haha.
anyway- thats about it!
♥ ,
em

Paris, chez Mia, Versailles.

ah what a fabulous weekend. c'était super :) Saturday I went to Paris, comme habitude :) and it was pretty rainy so we ate lunch at a sandwich shop to stay warm and dry. I had a croque monsieur (bien sûr), une tartelette chocolat blanc et a fruit crumble (yes, i had two desserts, don't judge haha). it was all delicious. We then went to La Galarie Lafayette to look at the christmas decorations and displays already up. they were absolutely amazing!
and La Galerie Lafayette was so fun to walk through because its all the really top end stores like Chanel and Tiffany and Prada. good window shopping :) That night I spend the night in Antony, at my friend Mia's house. Maria, another exchange student who i love, also stayed over :) it was really fun. We made pizzas and just hung out. It was good to have some girl time. We had some good conversations about how weird language in general is.... hahaha I love them. Then this morning, we woke up really early and Maria's host mom took us to Versailles! There we met up with Jack and Mariana and toured the castle and went to watch this horse show. The castle was absolutely amazing. I wish I could rent it for a week and pretend I was Marie Antoinette with my extravagent dresses and such :). Everything was soooo detailed. it was amazing and since it was the first sunday of the month is was free!!!! good stuff!!!!



I am pretty worn out now thought after the weekend and tomorrow is going to be my first full day of school in over a month haha man better rest up!
bisous
em

La Comédie-Française♥

I just got home from watching L'Avare by Molière at La Comédie-Française. It was so amazing :) I didn't understand very much of the dialogue since it was in older French, but luckily I had researched the storyline before I went and I was able to follow along fairly well :) Also, the actors were very animated so that was very helpful and entertaining. I just love going to the theater, no matter what! It was very nice of my host family to take me. It was especially fun going to see a Molière piece after performing Tartuffe last year, except it made me miss it a lot haha. I want to try to find a theater showing Tartuffe this year so that I can watch it in French! I think that would be so fun :) Also, I would be able to do some comparisions--even though our production would blow theirs out of the water haha ;). Also, and added bonus to going to the theater was seeing Paris all light (is that the right spelling? it doesn't right...) up at night! It was magical... Le Louvre, Notre Dame, La Tour Eiffel, and Le Champs-Elysees all alluminated. Ah i loved it. :)
On another note--- school started back up yesterday (unfortunetly...) and everything has calmed down... there was some talk about another blockade, but it doesn't look likely at all so don't worry about me! The vacation was good for France.
Also, its a good thing that i have yahoo news up everytime i check my e-mail so that i can stay a little bit updated on the news because i got asked several times by kids at my school what i thought about the outcome of the US elections on Tuesday. I was so surprised that everyone here knew about the elections! I was sooo relieved that I had actually read about the elections and the outcome when I got asked about them. It was a good reminder that I should stay up to date on current events...
Anyway--- its pretty late and my brain is worn out from trying to understand Moliere's language haha :)
grosses bisous!
em

Paris, je t'aime♥

Spent the afternoon in Paris today with some of my favorite girls :) 4 other exchange students. I love them and I love how I can just pop on over to Paris when I want! its amazing. I have to stop sometimes to soak in the fact that I am actually in Paris and actually living in France. I find myself getting into such a routine here that I occasionally forget that I am here! But when I do take a moment or two to really realize how lucky I am, it just floors me. I'm very very grateful. And I feel like a true big-city girl when I just walk through the metro stations knowing exactly where i'm going and using year long card instead of tickets :) its so fun... Life is never boring when you have Paris pretty much in your backyard.
Paris, je t'aime ♥
em

lounging...

not much news to report today... haha didn't have a very productive day, but i enjoyed it all the same :) I was home alone so I just kind of lounged around. Well, I went on a run and went to the post office, so at least I did a few productive things! :) other than that my day was filled with Harry Potter movies. haha. I'm such a nerd, but i love them. I can't wait until my french gets to the point where I can read all the harry potter books without having to look up every word!
anyway, sorry for the short post---
grosses bisous♥
em

sleep :)

The soiree in Paris last night was pretty fun. It was in this latin restaurant that changed into a karaoke bar/discotheque at night. It was all latin music so I was experiencing some major language conversion... hearing spanish, speaking french, and thinking in english. It was very tiring !!!! plus it got over really late (well, i guess really early the next day haha) so I was in desperate need of sleep to help my brain sort through the language confusion. All I could think about was the clean sheets I had just put on my bed :) im so lame...But I have really come to realize how important sleep is and especially for an exchange student. My brain is working in overtime throughout the entire day, so sleep is necessary for rejuvination ha. but I am happy that I hang out with some of my friends from school, I think it was good for me even if it was really fatigant. Anyway, today I didn't do anything too productive since I slept half the day... I went on a nice bike ride and watched the 2nd Harry Potter in French :) I really like watching movies in French because I find that I am able to understand a lot more that au debut! Its a good way for me to test my progress. Well, all this talk about sleep is making me tired :)
goodnight!!!
em