French Exchange

I was going to write this all in French but there really is no way for me to do that because it would take way to long. Anyways the trip started off well, we all said bye...and I am proud to say that my family was one of the only ones in which no one was crying hysterically. We were herded like sheep onto the airplane and escorted to our seats which were very very tight and small. The flight was nothing particularly special....a fair bit of turbulance but with a bit of prayer and a quick glance at the flight safety booklet, it was all good. We landed in Paris at 6 something in the morning their time which is 1 for you guys. While picking up our bags I had an extreme blonde moment and I forgot what my bag looked like... needless to say I was a bit stressed because I thought that perhaps my 7 pairs of shoes were lost and never to be seen again and that would be a real tragedy. I waited there for about twenty minutes...all the other kids waiting for me, until I finally realised that the only unclaimed bag on the convayer was indeed my own and had my name actually written on it and a ribbon for me to identify it. I felt a tad stupid but oh well. Then we boarded a bus...and mind you it was about 4 in the morning back home...and we took a tour of Paris. Went up the Effiel Tour, and were forcibly marched down the Champs-Elysée, past Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and other notables, and went to Notre-Dame for ten minutes. After that we were pushed onto a boat for a tour of the Seine...so that we could listen to the history of 27 different bridges and classical music *yippie*. The problem with this was, that most of us had been up for over 30 hours and all we wanted to do was sleep. But the chaprones insured that we payed attention to every detail of every bridge, poking us when necessary. It was tourture to say the least. Then we went to the hotel where they went over the rules for about an hour which was as equally enjoyable. Charlotte and her parents finally picked me up and took me to their friend's house in Paris. We ate dinner and I tried to understand as best as I could but failed rather miserably. At 11 that night Paris time I finally got some sleep after 39 hours of travel. That moring I started to realise the difference between home and here. First the toilet is not in the bathroom but in a seperate room which does not always have a sink...a little bizarre. Also when having breakfast you do not use a plate but eat right off the table. Glasses go in the centre of the plate not at the side and cheese is a must at every meal except breakfast. There is no cheddar cheese either...theres lots of blue cheese and other strong cheeses though. Also no matter what you are eating, baguettes are always present. There is no milk or cereal and the yogurt is thick and rather weird. Anyways, the next day I went to Versailles which is way bigger than I could have even imagined. The "garden" which surounds it has got to be 50-100 times larger that Adams Park, if not more, but I won't go into detail because it would probably bore you to death. After that we shopped for two days, visited the Louvre which is amazing, and visited Montmartre where a woman drew a portrait of me. Yesterday Charlotte, her brother an I took the TGV to Brest from Paris and it took about 6 hours which wasn't to bad. Brest is a fairly new village persay because most of it was destroyed in WW2 and apparently there are lots of bombs still in the ground. Their house is huge in comparison to the others, and has a fence that surrounds it entirely and an electric gate like thing. There are three floors and lots of stairs so there is an intercom system. Most of the stuff in the house is pretty similar to ours except for the bathrooms and the windows. The windows or blinds really are neat. With the press of a button all the blinds in the house close at everything becomes completely dark. In the morning you can't tell if the sun is up. They are metal too, for security purposes. I unpacked...we toured the town today...nothing else particularly exciting really...miss you all.