Another Monday

I had an awesome day today! I got some work done in the book I have to read, 1984, and I talked to a lot of people. I was in a good mood today and that was awesome. Last week seemed to go by really slowly but I can tell this week is already going to go by quickly (knock on wood).

We had a lot of classes today.  French, history, English, and two hours of math. I think my speaking is getting a lot better and my listening is a billion times better than what it used to be. I'm so proud of myself. Florence even said I had good vocabulary and that made me really happy. Something I need to remember though is that I have to wait for the teacher to say sit down before class begins. I always forget.

It's funny though, when people ask me my name and I say "Alexandra" without an accent they don't understand. I have to say it with an accent and then they say "Ohhhh okay!".

Solène and I watched Harry Potter (the 6th one) and that was practically the cherry on top of my day. I'm a Harry Potter geek.

I'm really tired from not sleeping last night because of the time change, so bonne nuit!

Alexandra

Carcassone and Renault

Today was amazing! We drove to Carcassonne and Renault!  Renault is a tiny little town on top of a hill and it's so old. 3 times older than the age of the USA. It's amazing. It's very religious too si we saw nuns walking around too for their pilgrimage. Then we went to Carcassonne which is a huge castle on top of the hill. It was so magnificent and old. I'll post lots of pictures! Oh and btw I just had to go through daylight savings time here AGAIN haha.

School tomorrow wahhhh waking up early.  Jk it's OK :)

Au revoir!
Alexandra

Exploring Toulouse

Basically I'm going to post a bunch of photos because that's the best way to explain my day! We drove for about 45 minutes to the big city of Toulouse and shopped. :) oh andby the way it was so windy. I'm going to estimate 30 mph or more or wind at certain points.

Vendredi: Le Meilleure Jour De La Semaine

Yay for Fridays!  Today we only hadMontauband French. Then we walked downtown from the school. It took a while but we went to E. Leclerc which is like a mall.

It took a long time to get downtown but it was an absolutely beautiful day. 70 degrees and sunny made it awesome for walking around the cute little town. Solène was explaining to me that during the Middle Ages everything was tiny and close so that's why it's still that way now! Solène went to a birthday party tonight so I've just been hanging out. Her mom and I went grocery shopping.

Something so cool that I found out is that my distant family has a vineyard in Chinon!  I have family in Foix and Bar Le Duc too! It's such a small world.

The picture I included is an elevator to downtown from where we were walking. Maybe we can install these to get to the third floor of Millbrook? It wasoso cool. The other pictures are downtown Montauban! 

Bonne nuit!
Alexandra

The elevator to ddowntown Montauban. 

The city square.

look at this guy's parking. 

l'hôtel de ville or city hall of montauban

Je suis en train de comprendre

Today was a great day! They did a lab in physics and then we had math for two hours after that. The math teacher gives you this evil glare if you talk it's scary and funny at the same time.

For lunch I had a ham sandwich, and we had a super long break than I thought we normally have. I was waiting for Solène and I made a new friend! His name is Andrea and he was super nice to me. He said that he'd been to the USA before and that it was his dream to live in the USA. Solène said it's everyone's dream.  He also asked me if there were Taco Bells in Raleigh and I said most definitely hahaha. He really wants France to get Taco Bells, too.

One of my favorite classes of the day was Biology because the teacher was so, so nice. He even spoke some English and said he was happy to have me in my class. For the entire class we watched the projects that the students made! It was actually really funny.

It's amazing. I've been here for almost a week and I'm tremendously better at listening. I understand almost everything people tell me if they don't talk too fast. This is such a wonderful experience and I'm going to enjoy the last 2 weeks so much.

All I need to work on now is my speaking and my accent. Reilly,  Alice, Ombeline, Maragaret,  Solène,  and I are going to go to Toulouse on Saturday I think! Time to do some shopping!

P.S. I'm going to start writing down every word I hear and don't know.
P.S.S. If Mrs.  Guikema's class is reading this you stole my favorite teacher!!
P.S.S.S. If my mom is reading this then I love and miss you! :)

Au revoir
Alexandra

Je comprend!!

Sorry I didn't blog yesterday! I had a really long day yesterday. School ended at 5 and we left at 6! My favorite part about yesterday was probably English class. The teacher was very nice and she talked in English for the entire class period. It was....A nice break. It was so funny,  the teacher asked a student where her chin was in English and she couldn't decide between her forehead and her chin haha. They were studying the book "Uglies" that I've read before. After class, Océanne asked me to help her with her English homework and it was so funny to me. It was a passage with questions and it's so weird to think about how it's easy for me and not for her.

I'm starting to make friends and that's good! I think it just took a while for everyone to become accustomed to us foreigners.

Today I had gym class....and even though I play soccer I felt out of place because they were doing long jump! They were very serious about the technique and it was for a grade I think. I actually got kinda far and they were like, "Have you done this before? ". Gym is for two hours and every Wednesday we get at out 12! We need that in America. :)

I would be able to understand so much more if they talked slowly, but Solène's mom said it's unnatural for them to do so.  I feel so dumb sometimes! It must be annoying to have to repeat themselves all the time.

I'm a lot better at listening, but articulating what I want to say is still very, very hard. I really hope I sound better than a caveman by the end of this!

Au revoir
Alexandra

The first day of school

Today was hard, I'm not going to lie, but cool, too. After taking 2 buses to school, I met all of Solène's friends and they kiss for everything.  And I mean everything. It's just something cultural that I'm not used to. I also found out that smoking is just as common as IPhones are in the United States. The students smoke, the teachers smoke,  and it's just normal for them. It's definitely illegal in the United States haha but the teachers don't mind at all here. Solène was kind of surprised when I said that I'd never smoked before. Tu te fume? (Do you smoke) was probably one of the most common questions that I got throughout the day. And they have a very long day at that. We left at 6:45 and didn't get back until 6pm! The first class that Solène had was French and that was hard to understand cause they were talking about a French classic. After that, we just left and went to a movie in Italian because I think it's part of her class. I was actually proud of myself because I understood it with the subtitles.

Then we went to lunch and the cafeteria is so small compared to the one at Millbrook! I had some sort of onion with pasta. It was good but I was trying to listen to them talk and I hardly ate anything.  For her next class, the teacher just didn't show up haha so we went and hung out in front of the school.  It's so relaxed.

Then we had math for 2 hours. She saw my calculus and said I was advanced!  Yay! I think I'm learning a lot.

While we were waiting for the bus after school, it was actually tough. I guess this boy didn't understand why I couldn't understand what they were saying,  even though they talk super fast. I'm pretty sure he made fun of me, so I didn't know what to say. They talk so fast, it's crazy. We got home and while here mom went out, Solène and I watched Eragon (in French of course) and had dinner.  I'm really tired now so I'm going to go to bed.

Bonne nuit!
Alexandra

The first day

My first day has been awesome, stressful, and magical all in one! I slept all the way through the night because I was exhausted. Solène's mom woke me up speaking French and I was so confused for a second. I woke up and was like what where am I? We had croissants for breakfast and then we went to the farmers market!  It was so cool, just like the United States. We bought bread, cheese, and spinach! There were some historic churches and buildings and that's what's in the pictures below!  We went home and we had lunch,  which consisted of meat and spinach!  It was really good!  For the rest of the day we've just been relaxing while I try to translate the television shows haha.

I'm doing my best to speak in French but it's difficult! I hope I don't annoy or offend anyone, but languages are different! However, this place is so beautiful, and I'm so grateful that I can come here and learn.

Tomorrow is my first day of school and I'm terrified to put it plainly. There's going to be lots of people asking me questions and talking to me, but I think I can handle it haha. It's going to be completely different and new. We're also going to the movies after school.....In Italian haha!

Solène's second cousin, an English teacher, came by today, and she was nice, too! Lots of nice people here willing to help me.

I hope all is well in the States. I'll write tomorrow!

À bientôt,
Alexandra

Travel Day!

Hey everyone!

I'm sitting in London Heathrow Airport right now! Our flight at 6:55 last night arrived at around 6:30 London time! We flew over the London Eye and Big Ben, too! Our next flight to Toulouse isn't for another four hours, but I'm excited! After we landed in London, we had breakfast/lunch/brunch at Pret, and the sandwich had British chicken in it! Which I didn't know existed, but it was delicious. 

We took the bus to Terminal 5, and it's so weird being an outsider in a country! I'm so used to blending in in the USA (obviously), but it's strange. It's also weird that I haven't completely wrapped my head around being away for 3 weeks.... I won't be back in the states for 3 weeks! I know I'm going to have a blast, but it's crazy to think about sometimes.

I have to use the 45 minutes that London Heathrow so graciously gave me (ha), so I'll write later!

À bientôt,

Alex