The Mediterranean!!!! We stayed in friends house near the sea and we visited the beach and Montpellier so I could run a race there. It was a devine weekend, I collected lots of seashells and a jar of the Mediterranean to take home! Don't tell the people at the airport though. 

Sete! (the name of the town) was beautiful. I was suprised at how different the south of france is compared to where I live. We went from snow to sea in 4 hours! The architecture and the landscape was so beautiful and very different as well. I really got to see some good examples of the Chapparal Biome. Sete was such a nice little sea side town 

We saw pink flamingos chilling in the sea!! How cool is that? 

Les 20 km de Montpellier!!! I came with my Canadian flag and French staff! It was a beautiful run all around the town. I saw lots of cool buildings and talked to lots of nice runners. I placed 2nd in my age catagory. (out of 2 people- I think my stats are going to go down drasticly when I reach the next age catagorie) All in all it was so cool to run a race in France and see the sites of Montpellier.  

Proud to represent!!! I got lots of comments as I I ran by people. People would cheer " allez allez," then see my back and shout "Vive le Canada!!" It was so much fun. There were also these french guys who were like " ok goal #1 is to catch up to Canada! " I ran with them for a bit but I beat them by a good three minutes in the end. Canadian runners kick ass! For the most part anyway haha.  

Yeah!! Je suis arrivee!! 2 hours and 5 seconds later

Saying goodbye to the sea 

Il Neige!!!!!!!! 15 cm of it.Fantastic. I'm off to Montpellier ( south of France) this weekend. enjoy the pics 

This is my school, Lycee Vaugelas in the snow!! 

Because of the snow there were no buses, so my gym prof was absent AGAIN. So we hit the cafe AGAIN to pass the friday morning. This is the cafe with Camille in front. I had to walk to school!!!! 

Iliana on the right is from mexico and has never seen the snow before so we gave her an introductory lesson on snowball fighting. I'm wearing the tuque! 

madame Blanche, my magnificent snow woman, she took three hours and I had a total riot playing in the snow. I dedicate her to greg, because you of all people know exactly how much fun it is to play in the snow! 

Le week-end

While I have a minute I thought I'd write about my weekend, because it was interesting.
Friday night I babysat! I babysat for a woman in my running club. (I really never will change) She has two kids, a little girl, Noah (4) and a little boy, Matice (2) It was really fun and her kids were superb. I learned lots of french, like always, reading childrens books to them and we had a fun time in general. I had a really good french expirience and earned €15. Bravo!
Saturday I had an exchange student day in Annecy, where we promanaded in the town a bit and then went to this Castle museum full of the weirdest modern art I have ever seen. It was kinda cool but I definatly didn't get it.
Then satuday night I went to a latin music party with my Mexican and Equidorian friends from Rotary. I had such a fun time. There were groups playing latin musique and dancing expositions and drumming all night. It made me want to go to South America so bad! I love they way they dance. Its now my goal in life to be able to dance like that one day.
Sunday I went to the Wedding Show and there is an explaination of that below.

I will finish off with a quote, one that is rather indicative of the France.

Bernard: "Bonnie, do you realize how much this bagette was? "
Me: "No, how much"
Bernard: "€0.95, thats almost a whole euro! We can find bagettes for €0.45! But these bagettes are found in only one place, and thats..." he paused, lowered his voice and made a face as if it were Voldemort he had to say, "the supermarkets"

This is lake Annecy, and me of course. I'm posting this picture, because I think it's a pretty picture and looks quite simular to the Canadian countryside. 

This is our group of exchange students standing on the bridge of lovers in Annecy. The poor guy who had to take all the photos of us. He actually had like 40 cameras hanging off his arms. I'm fifth from the left, not looking at the camera. 

Sunday I went to a wedding show, which had everything to do with weddings. I went with Camille, Margaux and Vero. We all lied and told them I was getting married in January 2007. That way I got all sorts of free samples and it was just fun that way haha. This dress is really quite the typical wedding dress fashion. White isn't really in and apprently everyone wears colours for weddings in France. 

Merde!!!!

This morning my first course starts at 8 00, so that means I have to take the 7 30 bus. When I first woke up enough to actually look at my clock, as opposed to just hitting it to get another 10 minutes, its said 7 20. I am feeling sick today and yesterday anyway and was really in need of a steaming bowl of tea so having less that 10 minutes to get ready wasn't really good news. I cursed in french, jumped out of bed and threw on my clothes, shoes, coat, backpack and a hat for my undone hair. I was ready to go in 10 minutes flat and I even had time to put my earrings in. I went downstairs to the kitchen to quickly grab some bread to eat on the bus and I stopped, looked at the clock again and it said 6 30. I must have accidentally set the clock in my room forward an hour. Something that has deffinatly happend more than once to me. I cursed in french again, took off my coat and backpack, had a breakfast, tranquille and then decided to use my extra half hour to write to all of you what happened. I got so carried away writing all of this that I missed my bus. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? I was ready an hour early and still managed to miss my bus!!! I ended up getting a ride to school with Veronique. Anyway the point of this story is that merde happens, even in France.

The time flies, even 9 hours in the future.

Well the time is passing quickly as usual and I am enjoying the life here, as I have been for almost Three months now. I feel like I am still the same girl, who is still blessed with an amazing family and a great running club. I get to do lots of fun things and I still have to do not so fun things as well. The only thing that has changed is that all of this is just taking place in France. My values, personality and life hasn't changed, its just the location and the people in it that have. I love France and my life here, its not as different as you think it would be, but its the differences that I love.
I adore the little things about life in France that now seem normal, like the fact that they drink their tea or coffee in the morning in bowls and never in mugs, the pink toilet paper, the 5:00 snacks and the 8:00 dinners, the windows that never have screens, the three hour weekend lunches, all the round-abouts and scooters in the road, and above all the people that I have become acustom to seeing everyday.
This is what happened in my week.
I have gone once again to Annecy where I enjoyed a 3 hour saturday lunch at my host aunts apartment. I love the tiny little apartments here. They all make me want to move to France and have a teeny, tiny little apartment for myself. I really am going to move back here next year so I won't have to wait for long.
I have been running a couple of times and I have a sore body. My legs, thighs, shins, abs and back hurt, I miss my team of chiropracters, massage and athletic therapists in Kamloops!!!. I have been pushing myself rather hard lately and as a result I am sore but I'm sure with a bit of rest I will be fine within 3 days, and I really need to rest now, because I run my race in Montpellier next weekend!!
My host Dad hurt himself at work so he is off for a bit. He bruised his rib falling on a piece of machinery. Its nice to have him home and he is funny to see him on pain killers. We have had lots of laughs about all the stuff he says and does.
This morning my prof de sport wasn't there so a bunch of us went to the bar for a coffee, which is my favorite way to spend a morning; talking and laughing in a warm cozy bar with a bunch of friends beats a cold stone classroom anyday.
Thats about all I have to say other than to share a little anecdote about french sound effects.
I was talking to Camille and Romain, my very classy french friends, one day about how we immitate different sounds and these are the differences we came up with.
A roster in english says "cock-a-doodle-doo", and in french "Cocorico"
A train noise in English is said "choo choo and in french "Tchoo Tchoo"
Hen in english= cluck cluck and french = cot cot
A bird goes "chirp chirp" and a oiseau goes "Cui cui"
A sheep goes "baa" and a french sheep would say "bêê bêê"
Ducks in english= "quackquack" and in french "coin coin"
and last but not least dogs go "bark" in english and "ouof ouof" in french.
We laughed for about half hour about this because one would never think that an animal would say something different depending on the country. It took two rotary clubs, Lycée Vaugelas, $4000 and an incredible amount of paper work to figure that out. I am proud to represnt Canada in such a dignified way

I just wanted to share with all of you the amazing photographic talents of my host sister, Margaux. She took these pictures while promenading in the vinyards about 2 weeks ago. I love this picture in particular because it looks like there is a light coming from within the flower. 

The trunk of the grape vines. 

One of the few trees providing shade in the vinyards. 

To me this is the essence of the France.The beautiful vinyards, jolie comme tous!!  

Here is a picture of the "parapont" that we saw on the mountians of Chamonix.  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAUD!!!! Today was is the birthday of my host sister in Finland. She is 18 today. We painted our faces in honor of her b-day. Vero drew the Finnish, French and Canadian flags on our cheeks for birthday wishes from around the world. Joyeux anniversaire!!!!!  

Chamonix, le toit d'Europe.

This weekend we went to Chamonix, an alpine village about 2 hours away from Chambery. We had perfect weather all day and there wasn't too many people because its not tourist season yet. It was around 0° all day and I happily pulled out all my winter gear for the first time this season. We took a train to one set of mountians (Aiguille du Midi) and the sea of ice and then we took a tèlèpherique to another mountain( Plan de l'Aiguille) to see the view from there.
I have honestly never been so amazed at the beauty of the mountains. I can't describe how good it felt to breathe the fresh mountain air and see the incredible glaciers and geographic features. To go up to the peak and look down on the little village far far below was so cool. We saw people doing paragliding ( I had to look in the dictionary to figure out how to say paragliding in english) in the afternoon and we all chose a comfortable rock and sat and watched them take of into the sunset for a good hour. It was refreshing for the heart and soul . It was like clarity, rest and quite for a day. With a few good snow ball fights mixed in. I absolutly have to go back there and I also absolutly have to do paragliding. Unfortunatly I can't this year, because of my insurance and Rotary, but its officially been added to my list of things to do in life.
To sum it all up, it was a day of peace and tranquility, que me donne le joi dans mon coeur.

There was even caves with crystal dispalys and mineral deposits. It was like geography heaven.  

Look there is the valley, from 2 317 meters up!! We took the t�l�pherique up to the "Plan Aiguille" and walked around a bit. These hills truly made me feel alive.  

Mes parents et moi!!! Pictures don't do this place justice. It was mystic, beautiful, calm, exciting. I loved these mountains, they were stunning. 

Here is Margaux, her boyfriend, Sylvan, and moi, beside the sea of ice. A real live glacier in a valley of the Massif Mountains.