France. Um, what else?

Good afternoon! Well, I suppose for most people it's morning. Here it's 3 in the afternoon and we finished lunch less than an hour ago.

Well, looking back at the photos that I took for y'all last week there's a bit of an emphasis on my daily life. I suppose that's because most of my life is daily life. Hmmn, looking back on that phrase it seems a bit self-evident. Ah well. SO anyway, here's what I see in the morning:



Yes, my lovely bus stop of Rampaud. Well actually, usually I don't see it much at all because it's still dark at 7:14 in the morning. This was from one of the mornings where I start school later because of my free periods (they're good stuff, these free periods).

Speaking of free periods, there's this lovely place at my school for lyceens called the foyer.



There's a vending machine and a TV and a billiards table where the guys play nonstop. On the other side there's a study area where I often hang out with friends



or do homework...



And sometimes, I get to hang out with some of my favorite folks here: my fellow exchange students:



So, this weekend I helped my hostdad (who is trying to learn how to bake) make pain-au-lait.





It came out quite well!



For lunch yesterday I made stuffed spaghetti squash and Alice made grilles aux pommes. In the evening we had dinner chez Stephane's parents.

This morning I went to the market with Benedicte and Alice.



My next post might be a bit delayed. WHAT!? WHY???

Next weekend--SPECIAL EDITION:

Quiet weekend

Hi all,

Well, this was pretty much my first completely quiet weekend so far. On Saturday I did my homework on the morning, had lunch with my host family, and FINALLY started my precalc from home. In the evening, we watched



Today I went to the cinema with Elizabete (an AFS exchange student in my area from Latvia) and saw "Hope Springs" in French. Would NOT recommend. We had salmon and frites and lentils for lunch, and then THIS (and then I was like, WHOA):



So that was really pretty much my weekend. Relaxing, finally!

Last Wednesday after I got home from escalade, Benedicte and I dropped Alice off at dance and went to look for sweatpants for me for sport (no luck). Then because we were already at the right mall, she took me to visit a real French Parfumerie.





At first, the perfumes pretty much all smelled the same (and kinda gross) to me. But we found two that I liked pretty well, and at least one of them is definitely growing on me. The only problem: it's SUPER expensive--some $50 per bottle, and the bottle lasts maybe 3 months. A bit out of my budget, but I'm thinking about splurging at some point. Otherwise, I know that they give perfume as a gift quite often, and I am here for Christmas...

Then we came home and I made quiche :)



Also, in case anyone is interested, this article (yes, it's in French) was published in a local newspaper:



(If it's too small, click here for a link)

AFS Weekend!

Hello world!

Well, for those of you (if there are those of you) who follow the blog regularly enough to notice, my post is a bit late this week. That's because I was away basically all weekend, so I didn't get a change to write. What was I doing this weekend, you want to know? Well, I had an AFS reunion with the other exchange students in my region about 1 hour north of the capital Poitiers; that's 2 hours north of where I live. There were maybe 25 students there (from all over the world) and 8 or so AFS staff/volunteers.



So on Saturday morning I baked this super cool yogurt cake thing that Benedicte taught me, and then we met up with the three other AFSers in Angouleme and one of the volunteers for the weekend who had offered to drive us. In the afternoon we played group games, had a snack, met with our liaisons one on one, and had a talking to about health and contraception. Yay! Then we had a big potluck dinner, with the food that everyone had brought (I ate WAY too much) and learned a medieval dance. DANCE PARTY!



Needless to say, I didn't sleep that much that night. Ah well. In the morning we had hot chocolate/tea/coffee, bread with butter and jam, and the rest of the cakes that didn't get eaten the night before. Then we did some more group activities, went for a walk, saw some sheep...



...had lunch, and had a talk on the french education system (not like we've been living it for a month already or anything). Then parents came and we socialized for an hour or so before departing for Angouleme. All in all, it was a fun weekend and I felt like I got to know other AFS students a lot better than at the initial orientations.

So it's back to school. In case you were wondering, here's a photo of the "cours"--it's sort of an inner courtyardy thing that the buildings surround. Actually, there are two of them: one that is mostly surrounded by middle school classrooms, and one that is mostly lycee.



There is a cafeteria and also le ZAP. In general, the cafeteria has more balanced but less yummy meals. On the other hand, I did get this at the ZAP the other day:



And of course, at home there's always:



chez moi :)