Parlez - vous Francais

I say this every time i make a new post but it is so true and you know of another way that I can say I have so much to tell you or so much has happened then feel free to comment. I suppose that I could just get right to what I want to say but would be too easy.In my last post I said that I was going to spend the week speaking nothing but French. Ya, three days in I caved and spoke English with my friends from the states, but after that I spoke nothing but French till Saturday. An all French week, speaking nothing but French is not as easy as you would think; at least it was not as easy as I thought!!!!  I believe that I have progressed a great deal with my French from when I had written that I would be spending the week speaking nothing but French even if in the end I ended up speaking a little English.This is basically the half way point for my trip. It is hard to believe that I will be leaving soon. I don’t want to think about that, so I am not going to. In all my classes and in my life here in France i can almost 100% understand what every one is saying. I have come a long way from when I first arrived in France. Living here in France really opened my eyes and showed me the difference between how much French I knew and how much French I thought that I knew. It turns out I didn’t know as much as I thought but it is all good. I came here to learn and I learning.Imagine learning a language for 11 years then choosing to go live in that country with which that language is spoken every day. It’s hard and you feel frustrated, more than if you were in that class for an hour or so, but then you realize that you are starting to understand what you are hearing and suddenly you are not so frustrated and you relax.I have been sooo untalkative. Ya I know me not talking very much. Mom, Dad, you might want to savour this moment when you read this. NATHALIE ROBSON IS NOT TALKING CONSTANTLY!!!!! Any way what was I saying......................? Oh yes, I have been as Joel said last night “observing”. I have been observing things and now I have to stop observing and stop worrying if what I am saying is correct and just live in the moment. Live in the present and not worry about the future. There is this quote that i have come to love and think that it applies to my situation very well it is: LEARN FROM YESTERDAY, LIVE FOR TODAY, HOPE FOR TOMORROW!! This has turned into one of my favourite if not my favourite quotes.   
 
So since my vacation I haven’t really done much, but this past Sunday I went to La Corderie Royal. This museum is where I learned all about rope and how rope is made. It was kind of fascinating actually.  There were ropes that were huge like I mean you could hide me inside them and not even know that I was hiding in the rope. Really neat, Anna (Lea’s sister) got to make a little rope and after the lady that was doing the demonstration let Anna keep the little piece of rope. Neat!!!!

 So that is really all that I have been up to. Not to exciting but hey that life right.

- Nathalie <3

Avez-vous eu une bonne semaine?

Hey I'm back. Sorry it has been almost a week if not longer. So much has happened in this last week that I have been so tired and could not bring my self to blog. Now I have some time and I would like to share with you what I have been up to so here we go. ENJOY!!!!

So did you have a good week? My week was more of a relaxing week. I didn’t really do a whole lot like I did last week.  I went to a friend’s house and stayed the night on Monday and Tuesday. He is really nice and his girlfriend is amazingly kind and pretty. His family is unbelievably kind. His sister Manon is older and really amazing. She helped us make CREPS!!!!!!!!!! We ate crêpes for a snack at four and then for dinner we ate crêpes and for desert guess what more crêpes!!!!  All in all it was a good two days. We also after eating all those crepes we watched the movie room 1408, (for those of you who know me, you know that I don’t watch horror movies and guess what I watched a horror movie) which is about this reporter and how he goes and stays at different hotels that clame to have paranormal activity until he gets a postcard that says check out room 1408 at the dolphin hotel in New York..... Things happen but if you want to find out more watch ROOM 1408.

So on Wednesday went with Lea to meet one of her friends that she hasn’t seen in a while. There were a couple of other girls coming so we were going to meet up and all go at the same time. Well on the way there I don’t know what happened but I ended up falling and scraping my knee really, really badly.  The cut is probably the size of a ping pong ball. It stung so much but I made the best of the situation and I said that the point of this exchange was to experience the culture and every aspect of the French life. So I decided that in order for that to be possible obviously I had to hurt myself, ya probably not my best option but at least I know that the ground is hard and mom and dad I didn’t break the ground that is how I found it, I swear!!! :D

So after my little accident I decided that it would be better if I spent the next day relaxing and trying not to make things worse.  So I spent the day on facebook and reading and various other things that didn’t involve a lot of moving around. Also Anna had some friends over and they were singing so Anna asked me if I would help out their group and sing with them. Anna was playing the piano and one of her friends was playing the guitar and another friend was singing. The song was someone Like you by Adele (if you know me then you know that I love to sing and that I love to sing Adele and that I love to sing her song someone like you).

Thursday night or when I woke up Friday morning I noticed that I had my first dream since I had been in France. I do not quite remember what the dream was about exactly but I remember that it was about EVIAN water and the family was there and get this my dream was in FRENCH. My 1^st dream in France and it happens to be in French. It was strange but cool at the same time! :D

By Friday my knee was feeling better so I had a little adventure with Joel. Lea’s parents are planning on renovating their kitchen so I went with Joel and we went to look at kitchens. The stores were like the Home Depot but all Kitchens. We went to three different stores and I actually understood pretty well everything that was being said between Joel and the person helping us. That is what I did in the morning and in the afternoon Becca, my friends from school (Becca is from the states. She lives in Connecticut) invited me to go to the centre – ville (downtown Poitier) with her and a guy from Turkey and a girl from Italy. Turns out that the guy from Turkey and the girl from Italy couldn’t come so it was just me and Becca and near the end of the afternoon Lea.  She showed us some stores that aren’t really expensive and I bought some more jewellery and a pair of flats to go with my new dress I bought!!  I call it my confetti dress; can you not see that it looks like confetti?????

So Saturday lea was with her boyfriend and Anna was at her friend’s house so it was just me with Cathy and Joel. We watched the sorcerer’s apprentice. It was a really good movie and I understood most of it.

Cathy keeps telling me about how much progress I have been making. So lea suggested that I spend a week where I don’t speak English at all. I have to go on facebook as little as possible and see how much my French improves.  So I have chosen this week starting tomorrow ill next Sunday I’m going to try and speak nothing but French so there will be a delay on the blogging and the communication. Though I would let you all know that so that you didn’t worry. I know you all would, but anyways. 

In summary from my 2 weeks of vacation which now has come to a close, I have been to La Rochelle and seen Canada and the Atlantic Ocean, gone to Futuroscope, had a dinner party with Jennah, Camille, and Camille’s family. Did I tell you about that, we had a dinner party a week ago yesterday and I got to see the other Canadian girl who is here her name is Jennah!! We ate lots of food and played Just dance three on the wii. So much fun that night I went to bed at ohhhh 3 in the morning and got up at noon ya that was a tiring night. Anyway went to one of leas friends’ house for the night hurt myself and relaxed a whole lot. I now start a long 6 week of school then I have another 2 weeks of vacation and then I leave for Canada. Oh ya and in 4 weeks lea goes to Italy for a week.  Hope she has fun!!!

- Nathalie <3

Friday, saturday, sunday, monday, ect.

Where to start,

Oh yes, I know,

FRIDAY:       

    So for me Friday was a long awaited day because that marked two things. ONE, I had been in France at lea’s house for exactly two weeks. TWO, I started two weeks of vacations. (This I really need) That means that Fridays was both a happy day and a sad day, sad because I said goodbye to a friend. Amelie is a friend that I met at school on my first day of school. She was an exchange student here from Germany. Friday was her last time and I had only known her for two weeks.

Saturday: 

   Saturday night was my first French party. Let me tell you it was not what I had expected. I expected, well I don’t know what I expected but it was not what I saw. When Lea told me that I was going to a birthday party for one of her friends I thought ok birthday party. No it was a birthday party with cake and presents and games but the games were alcohol games weird. The party was fun because there was dancing and it was kind of funny watching drunk people dance. In case you are wondering I had one drink at 8:00 when we got there.

Sunday:

    So it was Cathy`s eldest sisters granddaughters birthday. We went to her house. (Cathy is lea`s mom and her sisters name is Lillian) I got to meet pretty well all of Cathy`s family which was nice. She has three sisters a brother but I only bet two sisters her one sister wasn’t there and nether was her brother.

Monday:

    Today was especially interesting because I went to La Rochelle. La Rochelle is a city right on the sea. We had the perfect day. It was sunny and warm and there were clouds but they were scarce and white and fluffy. I spent the day with Dasha and her husband and her son and his family.  Lea had syncro practice, her mom had to work, Anna had basketball and her dad had to work. I spent the morning touring around where Dasha`s son lives. It was so beautiful. Dasha`s granddaughter says that this city is the sleeping city because there are a lot of younger people that live there so they sleep until noon. The only people who are up before noon are the elderly people or people with babies. Though that that was kind of true and funny.I also discovered a new singer her name is Lana Del Rey. Her music sounds kind of strange but I think it sounds interesting.

               

    In the afternoon we went to La Rochelle and saw the sea and toured the city. The thing that I love about France is that you can go anywhere and everything looks the same. It looks old and worn-down, but at the same time it is all very different with a different story to tell. You see history and I love that about France and about Europe.

Tuesday:

    After all the partying and traveling I had been doing in t he last three days I had to do nothing, so I stayed at home with Cathy and Anna and I helped Cathy do some house work. Then we played a game called mastermind. This game is so fun.

Wednesday:

    FUTUROSCOPE! The Futuroscope is an amusement park that has a lot of things to do with the future if you didn`t get that from the name of the park. I went with Lea, Camille, Anna, Beggie (he is from Iceland) romain and Jennah. We spent the entire day there and it was so cool. There were robots and people dressed up in costumes and said that they were from another planet. For me to describe the place does not do it justice. You will just have to hop on a plane to Paris then take a train to the Futuroscope and see it for yourself, or if that is not an option then here are some of my favourite pictures of the place.