Where has the time gone?

Today I pulled out my suitcase and started loading up my vacuum bags, hoping I would be able to fit everything. It feels like just yesterday I was sealing up those vacuum bags back in Oregon getting ready to stay goodbye. Here I am getting ready to say goodbye again, but to another life. A life that I have grown to love and will never forget.

So I know I have blogged hardly anything this month and I am sorry for that but I really have been busy! With the end of school, some traveling, birthdays, and a lot more! Here are some of the highlights with some pictures. Enjoy! :)

I went to Lyon for a day with Luciana and Enzo. I had already gone with my host parents but it was nice to revisit. It is really a beautiful town with so much to offer.

 I also went to see a bunch of hot air balloons take off with my host mom. Unfortunately after we got there it was announced that the hot air balloons wouldn't be taking off due to the weather conditions. However one took off anyway.


Then there was the 40th anniversary of AFS France in my region (Bourgogne) so there was a big party in my town for that with AFS people from all over France. It consisted of a dinner, taking lots of pictures, dancing, singing and a few speeches about AFS. I never thought AFS would become such a big part of my life, but it has become somewhat like a family.

Then with the end of the school year, terminal (senior class) organized a huge water fight in the park at school during lunch. However, along with the water students brought eggs, flour and other stuff that kids were picking out of their hair for the rest of the day in class.

 

We also celebrated my host brother's 18th birthday with all of the host family at the house, which was a lot of fun!

My friends and I ate pizza together next to the river and then went to a cafe later for our last night altogether. They gave me a ton of presents and it was so sweet. It was really hard saying goodbye to all of them and I will never forget them. They helped me around the halls when I was lost and were patient enough to explain ancient french poems to me. I am really going to miss them!

 I tasted escargot (snails) for the first time at my host grandparents house as well. It was odd, but I surprisingly liked them! It was hard saying goodbye to my host parents as well.

Including all of this I also headed across France to Nantes, which is in the west about 45 minutes away from the beach. I took a 7 hour train with Luciana then spent a wonderful week in the fifth biggest town in France. We stayed  in the center of town with another AFS family who was really great! There was also another chinese guy who came for the week to stay with the family. The family was really welcoming and friendly. During the week we visited several museums, a castle, took a boat ride, explored the town and had a really good time! We also made fajitas for the family one night, we really nervous about them but in the end they turned out really good! Also during the week there was a huge music festival, that happened to be on Luciana's 18th birthday, all around France. To celebrate Luciana's birthday the family we were staying with bought a cake and we sang happy birthday. Then at night there was music lining the streets all over with bands, djs, singers- everything musical. Then of course you had people all over dancing to the music. It was really an incredible night! During the week we also got a chance to do a little bit of shopping. Then on the last day there the woman we were staying with took us to the beach. Unfortunately the weather was pretty bad, but it was still great to visit the beach! Overall it was really a great week, one I will definitely never forget.

So that is what I have been up to the last month. I hope to get one more blog post in before I head home in 9 days. I am going to Paris the week before with some friends and my AFS liaison, which unfortunately means I will be leaving my host family in 2 days. I am not ready to go home but I have a life in America that I need to get back to. 

Bisous!

Life lesson

If there is one thing I have really learned in France, it's to not take anybody for granted. When you spend 5 months without the people who have always surrounded you, you realize how important they are to you. Here on the other side of the world, I have realized how great of people I have in my life and I have stopped taking them for granted. Along with learning who cares you also learn who doesn't. And as unfortunate as this may be, it's the truth. I have learned who is really there and who I can live without. With that I can say how I also have been forced to realize how important my family is to me. They have given me so much support through this journey and I am so appreciative for that. Thanks mom and dad, I love you.

What is exchange?

I am not sure who wrote this but I found it on the internet and it explains exactly what it's like to be an exchange student so I thought I would share it. Enjoy.




Exchange is change. Rapid, brutal, beautiful, hurtful, colourful, amazing, unexpected, overwhelming and most of all constant change. Change in lifestyle, country, language, friends, parents, houses, school, simply everything.

Exchange is realizing that everything they told you beforehand is wrong, but also right in a way.

Exchange is going from thinking you know who you are, to having no idea who you are anymore to being someone new. But not entirely new. You are still the person you were before but you jumped into that ice cold lake. You know how it feels like to be on your own. Away from home, with no one you really know. And you find out that you can actually do it.

Exchange is learning to trust. Trust people, who, at first, are only names on a piece of paper, trust that they want the best for you, that they care. Trust, that you have the strength to endure a semester on your own, endure a semester of being apart from everything that mattered to you before. Trust that you will have friends. Trust that everything’s going to be alright. And it is seeing this trust being justified.

Exchange is thinking. All the time. About everything. Thinking about those strange costumes, the strange food, the strange language. About why you’re here and not back home. About how it’s going to be like once you come back home. How that boy is going to react when you see him again. About who’s hanging out where this weekend. At first who’s inviting you at all. And in the end where you’re supposed to go, when you’re invited to ten different things. About how everybody at home is doing. About how stupid this whole time-zone thing is. Not only because of home, but also because the tv ads for shows keep confusing you.
Thinking about what’s right and what’s wrong. About how stupid or rude you just were to someone without meaning to be. About the point of all this. About the sense of life. About who you want to be, what you want to do. And about when that English essay is due, even though you’re marks don’t count. About whether you should go home after school, or hang out at someone’s place until midnight. Someone you didn’t even know a few months ago. And about what the hell that guy just said.

Exchange is people. Those incredibly strange people, who look at you like you’re an alien. Those people who are too afraid to talk to you. And those people who actually talk to you. Those people who know your name, even though you have never met them. Those people, who tell you who to stay away from. Those people who talk about you behind your back, those people who make fun of your country. All those people, who aren’t worth your giving a damn. Those people you ignore.
And those people who invite you to their homes. Who keep you sane. Who become your friends.

Exchange is music. New music, weird music, cool music, music you will remember all your life as the soundtrack of your exchange. Music that will make you cry because all those lyrics express exactly how you feel, so far away. Music that will make you feel like you could take on the whole world. And it is music you make. With the most amazing musicians you’ve ever met. And it is site reading a thousand pages just to be part of the school band.

Exchange is uncomfortable. It’s feeling out of place, like a fifth wheel. It’s talking to people you don’t like. It’s trying to be nice all the time. It’s bugs.. and bears. It’s cold, freezing cold. It’s homesickness, it’s awkward silence and its feeling guilty because you didn’t talk to someone at home. Or feeling guilty because you missed something because you were talking on Skype.

Exchange is great. It’s feeling the connection between you and your host parents grow. It’s hearing your little host brother asking where his big brother is. It’s knowing in which cupboard the peanut butter is. It’s meeting people from all over the world. It’s having a place to stay in almost every country of the world. It’s getting 5 new families. One of them being a huge group of the most awesome teenagers in the world.
It’s cooking food from your home country and not messing up. It’s seeing beautiful landscapes that you never knew existed.

Exchange is exchange students. The most amazing people in the whole wide world. Those people from everywhere who know exactly how you feel and those people who become your absolute best friends even though you only see most of them 3 or 4 times during your semester. The people, who take almost an hour to say their final goodbyes to each other. Those people with the jackets full of pins. All over the world.

Exchange is falling in love. With this amazing, wild, beautiful country. And with your home country.

Exchange is frustrating. Things you can’t do, things you don’t understand. Things you say, that mean the exact opposite of what you meant to say. Or even worse…

Exchange is understanding.

Exchange is unbelievable.

Exchange is not a semester in your life. It’s a life in one semester.

Exchange is nothing like you expected it to be, and everything you wanted it to be.

Exchange is the best semester of your life so far. Without a doubt. And it’s also the worst. Without a doubt.

Exchange is something you will never forget, something that will always be a part of you. It is something no one back at home will ever truly understand.

Exchange is growing up, realizing that everybody is the same, no matter where they’re from. That there is great people and douche bags everywhere. And that it only depends on you how good or bad your day is going to be. Or the whole year.
And it is realizing that you can be on your own, that you are an independent person. Finally. And it’s trying to explain that to your parents.

Exchange is dancing in the rain for no reason, crying without a reason, laughing at the same time. It’s a turmoil of every emotion possible.

Exchange is everything. And exchange is something you can’t understand unless you’ve been through it.