It's almost May...WHAT?

The month of April has literally flown by! Part of it due to the fact that my week long April vacation turned into two weeks because of the volcano in Iceland. Being stranded in Stirling Scotland was far from a hardship though. I was really blessed to have been stranded with my friend and her family. I had an amazing time; relaxing, watching movies, playing bingo etcetera.

Then....back to real life. I made it back to France a week later than intended. I spent the weekend in Paris, got a sunburn, ate some great food, went to the Musee D'Orsay and the Tuileries and then finally made it back to Grenoble.

Grenoble is having a stretch of amazingly gorgeous hot weather! 23-26 degrees celsius all week! I finally had a reason to buy a swim suit and give the family pool a go! It was actually amazing. Having a pool in the yard is incredible and I think I am going to go again since it is going to be hot today as well. I suppose since this ismy blog I can say it. My extremely hot French host brother is home for the week! Yay!

Exams are in one week...eeeeek! I lost a week to my extended vacation and came back for a week and a half of school before the exams. I am terrified! I think it will go well because on the practice exams I passed without studying....so if I study really hard I should be able to pass the real ones. I think thats a pretty good theory to go with. It however doesn't stop the butterflies in my stomach!

Also! I have started running, technically I've only gone twice but that counts as starting. The whole time I am running I am hating life. I am cussing myself out...complaining about my feet hurting, my legs hurting...reminding myself that I hate to sweat...that I can't breathe. This may make people wonder why I go again. Hell, I wonder why I go again. But after I finish running I am always in a great mood. I feel accomplished, mostly because I just finished something I detest, and I feel like I have a great start to the day. Hence the reason I am going to try to keep doing it. My legs were so sore after the first run. A huge sign of how out of shape I am but also that I am accomplishing something. So here's to hoping!

That's all for now xxx

Bonding time with my host sister

So recently it has been just me and Emmanuelle consistently in the house. This last weekend was Easter weekend and my host parents went to Bordeaux. Sophie was in some unknown place and Marion had come to visit. Then my host parents came back and Marion left and Sophie is still gone. But it does mean that me and Emmanuelle have been hanging out more.

The other night I decided I needed a bang trim so I thought Emmanuelle would be the best person to do it. That and she's got the right personality type that she would go for it even if she wasn't sure. Which was exactly what I needed. It turned out great! Out of all my friends who have trimmed my bangs before she did a great job!

Tonight she talked about all of her practice exams for the "bac" that she has been taking recently. The "bac" is a big big big exam that French students take at the end of high school. She is doing her "bac" focusing on science. The students have a choice between philosophy, literature, and science I think. The science one is the hardest and the most recognized. Since she wants to become a doctor thats the one she has to take. She is doing exams on chemistry, biology, math, english, and god knows what else. She showed me some of her practice stuff for it and it looks so hard!

After we talked about the "bac" and exams in general we somehow got onto the topic of vulgar words in French and English. I shared some of the more generic English cusswords like "fuck" and "shit" etc and she told me some of the French ones such as:

Merde - shit

Conard - asshole, jerk, dick, bastard

Connasse - bitch

Salope - bitch, slut, c***

Putain - damn, fuck, whore (literal translation)

A few interesting side notes: conard and connasse stem from the same base and you have to conjugate it go be in accord with the sex of the person you are yelling at. It seems extra French to me just because of that. Stephen Clarke mentions it in his books which is really the reason I even noticed it. Also I think salope is particularly vulgar because Emmanuelle giggled a lot more when she told me that one and had a bit more of a pause before she actually got it out :P

Phone Cards, Tax Refunds, and Geneva

It is officially the weekend! A nice lovely long three day weekend too. I love that the French recognize Easter Monday as a day worth having off!

Phone cards: I am so fed up with trying to use phone cards here in France. It is nearly impossible to get them to work. My last phone card I tore up and threw away in a fit of frustration. So tonight I made yet another attempt to call Alaska. Every! Single! Time! I try to enter in the "secret code/account number" The stupid automated woman tells me "Votre code secret est incorrect" which is a load of bullshit because not only have I entered it in exactly the way it is written, I have used the phone card before and it has worked! I did finally get it to work. But not because I changed the number I was entering. It was because I continually tried until it accepted the number I have. This card was lucky to have survived this phone call attempt. It almost joined the last one.

Tax Refund: Imagine my disbelief when I go to check my credit union account and find a huuuuuge sum of money has been deposited and is labeled "tax refund." I literally held my breath while Lauren texted my dad to verify that I wasn't imagining it and that it was really there for me to use and keep. That makes my life so much easier! I have never gotten a tax refund like that before and I am so overjoyed at the prospect of having money I think I might just let it go to my head for a little bit before I rejoin the real world!

Geneva: Tomorrow at the crack of dawn I will be on a bus headed for Switzerland. It is literally only 2 hours away by bus which is so surreal considering it takes 2 hours just to drive to Girdwood from Palmer to go snowboarding. In two hours I will be in a different country! We are going to get to take a tour of the United Nations building and see the Red Cross museum among many other things. I plan on buying Swiss Easter chocolate for my host family since Sunday is Easter. This weekend promises all sorts of happy happenings!

xxx

La guêpe

Just a short anecdote before I head to bed tonight.

After dinner I came back up to my room and I was sitting on my bed on my computer researching some holiday plans and I heard a buzzing. I started looking around. Almost immediately I saw the wasp (la guêpe) flying about three feet away from me. It landed on a bag near my wardrobe and I picked up my computer, ran out of the room and shut my door. Needless to say I am not a huge fan of bugs. I know the general advice is "if you don't bother them they won't bother you" but there was no way in hell I was going to stay in my room and pretend everything was ok and then eventually go to sleep with it still lingering around.

First thing I do is tell my host sister that there is an insect in my room. I used my computer to look up bee (l'abeille) so she would know. Her eyes got really big and the first thing she said was "J'ai trop peur!" and immediately called for her mom. The bug in my room had officially turned into a family affair. It was actually pretty funny. My host mom came upstairs got some clothes and was making fun of me and Emmanuelle. At this point no one had gone into the room again. Emmanuelle kept telling me she was scared and eventually me and my host mom went into the room to find the bug.

Of course when we went in we couldn't find it. My host mom found out that her spray wasn't working so I stayed in the room looking for the wasp. Of course I found it, under my chair. I involuntarily let out a shriek as I was running out of the room and closing the door again. Both my host mom and Emmanuelle were cracking up.

Long story short my host mom came into the room with me again, we found the wasp again, this time on my mirror frame. My host mom dispatched it quickly with wasp spray and I picked it up with a piece of paper and tossed it out.

We are officially into bug season and they are bigger here than in Alaska. My host mom saw it and said it wasn't very big at all. I definitely disagree! I would hate to see what she considers a big bug!

xxx