Sweat, blood and tears

The french people have really given me a lot as an exchange student. They have hosted me spoiled me and taught me a lot about myself and people in general. So I wanted to give back to them, in blood. haha. This morning I went to the blood donor clinic with my host mom. I was a nervous wreck and quite nearly passed out. I was quiesy, all sweaty and shaky for the 10 minutes and I definatly cried after I was done, but all in all it really wasn't that bad. Its just me who totally is squimish. Its a psychological thing 100%. I have to work on that because it didn't hurt at all, and I would thoroughly recommend it to those who have not yet done it. I feel extremely calm and zen today knowing that I've helped a bit and that I'm refreshing my bodies blood supply. Its a different feeling. Not only that but the nurses were extremely nice and patient with me and I ate such a good snack after. I am eager to see if it will go better for me the second time around. In france when you give blood you get these cool give blood postcards and they pay for the postage, so I sent two to Canada, one to Finland and one to France. Spread the give blood joy all around the world. Everyone laughed when I took a picture. Only an exchange student or a tourist would do that.

My embassadorial skills improving....

Because its almost time for me to leave this host family, I thought I'd better get started doing the things that I've always wanted to do. Better late than never eh? So I decorated the table all fancy and held a soir�e canadian. I made something typical from our culture, meatloaf with rice and salad, as well as a normal apple pie with two crusts. My host family loved the meat loaf and apple pie. We listened to a CD that I brought that has 15 different versions of the national anthem, in country,french, jazz, etc. It was really fun and they liked the meatloaf so much that we are going to make for new years and eat it along with fois gras and smoked salmon. What class.

Mon Noël Français

Christmas eve family photo. For christmas eve it was just the four of us. After a very difficult day of snowboarding due to the lack of snow and icy patches, we came home and got all dressed up for each other. I even wore a skirt and high heels, Margaux looked beautiful and we just looked really classy all four of us. It was such a nice time, we relaxed, talked, enjoyed the company and set out our presents. In france instead of a stocking they put shoes in front of the christmas tree and then put the presents out in front of the corresponding persons shoe. I was completly spoiled this year. Between my french family, neighbour and friends and my canadian familyand boyfriend I had a gigantic pile of cadeux.

The Christmas eve dinner was I think the best meal I've ever eaten. Christmas dinners in France are very fancy. They eat things that are very gourmet. We started off with Champagne and appetizers and then we ate salmon on crackers and then oysters with a chalotte (I think thats how you spell it) sauce, follwed by escargot (seen below) and then wild pig (sanglier) meat with green beans and a delicious red wine. Then we were all so stuffed that we took a walk to see the christmas decos in the neighbourhood. We came back ate cheese and desert with more champagne and finished all this at about 12 30 at night. Then went to bed. It was amazing, delicious.  

Christmas Day we went around to see the family of Bernard in down town Chambery and then the family of Veronique, who are incredible warm and welcoming, in Annecy. This is a picture of the extended family of Vero. I am on the right and around my neck hangs a scarf that my french host grandmother (2nd on the left in the middle fo the white shirts) hand knitted me. It was the nicest present ever. Its really warm and will remind me of my french grandma for years to come.  

Days of christmas vacation..

This is me and Veronique preparing to do some hard core snowboarding/ skiing. I borrowed my host sister's snoboard for the 2 days that I went. I have also done one doay of snowshoeing and one day of cross country skiing, (below)

This is me and Margaux on the chair lift at a small ski resort that is called Marjeriaz, I think. This picture ressembles Canada ski hills, but don't let it fool you, just above those rolling hills are incredibly jagged alps. The view is beautiful 

My snowy outings in the french countryside....

This a where we went snowboarding on tuesday. It was a relatively small mountian with suprisingly few people, for you Kamloopsians, it was like Harper a bit. A family ski hill. Perfect for the first outling of the year. The snow, weather and tempature were perfect. I'll post more pictures of actual snowboarding later.

This is the sunset on the way home from snowboarding. I know its just about the 20th sunset / sunrise photo on this blog, but its just so beautiful, everytime.  

This is me in the process of cross country skiing, as you can see I have excellent posture and perfect technique all the time. What you can't see is the sweat, snot and tears that went into such perfection on skiis. Being truthful, this was pretty much the hardest thing I've ever done in my life physically. It resembled an odd form of torture involving coordination and muscle power. Sadly, not one of those qualities is present in my body.  

This is me and Margaux, pretending to do cross country skiing to get a picture. What a day.  

Christmas is coming...

and while the goose is not getting fat......

I am on vacation now, so me and the fam are doing something sporty every second day. So far we have gone snow shoeing and I went snowboarding yesterday.I am super sore today, so I have spent the day on the computer, doing stuff, in order to be ready for cross country skiing tommorow.

.......and now for a petit french anecdote long overdue........

The other day I had some friends over to watch a movie, a canadian and a mexican. Fun. Then we had lunch with the family. Veronique was telling us how to make pretty Christmas garlands out of chocolate wrappers and we asked her if she knew who Martha Stewart is, and she thought about it for a bit, the said, "Yes, isn't she the queen of England?" hahahaha.

In actual fact there was a queen of England who was called Marie Stewart but she just misunderstood with the accent and all that. Voila.

The Nations Capital- PARIS!!!

It was magnificent, stunning, historical, young, old, charming, sparkling, dirty, surprising, ancient, fresh, busy, calm, delicious, loud, fun, tiring and yet invigorating. It was Paris.

After waking up at 5am and hopping on the TGV (train grand vitesse or high speed train) flying through the french countryside at 300k/hr we arrived in Paris at the Gare de Lyon about 9am. This is the train station upon (or is it apon) arrival... 

To start off my weekend in Paris,we promanaded along the Seine river, passed many well known landmarks, waved at the passing tourist boats and blew kisses to the people on board. The sun was still low in the sky and the weather was beautiful although very fresh. Perfect  

Pretty self explainitory. We popped in just for 5 minutes to see. What detail. Wow. Thats all I have to say.  

Mus�e d'Orsay was an old train station that was built so large and so high so that the smoke from the trains wouldn't bother the passangers as much. This museum has things that you can listen to with explainations of the art; You punch in the number of the painting or sculpture and it explains it. I love stuff like that. We stayed there 4 hours looking and listening. It was amazing. Here I saw some incredibly famous works, some of the finest details as well as some of the hugest paintings in ever made. 

This sculpture was a favorite of ours. The sculpture depicted her own self as the nude woman, and the man is her sculpting teacher / advisor whom she was truly in love with in real life. He is being carried away from her by his other partener, as was the case in real life too. The artist ended up with many mental disorders and she died in a insanasylum (if this word is not spelled right, someone leave a comment about how to spell it correctly) without him many years later. Fascinating the stuff you learn when you travel.  

Because it used to be a train station, there is a huge clock inside the museum. This is the viex from the inside looking out. If you look on the left, in between the 3 and the 4 you can see the Sacre Coeur Eglise.  

La pyramide du Louvre. After the mus�e d'orsay we went to see the pyramid in front of the Louvre. We went inside where it was free but didn't actually do the museum. We were pretty museumed out by that time. The Louvre is absolutely enormous and surrounded by a beautiful garden. It is very impressive. So a petit history lesson on the Louvre. It was built for Louis the 14th, who called himself Le Roi Soliel. He was a young spoiled king who found that the Louvre was just too small for his needs and so he had built for himself a palace at Versaille, which has played many important roles in history since then as well. Voila, don't you all feel enlightened?  

Inside the Louvre there is an upside down pyramid, the exact location of the end of "the Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown (great book, if you haven't read it you should) This pyramid is in the middle of what I would call a shopping mall. Along with the usual tourist shops and postcard stands, there were clothing stores, make up shops and an Esprit. I found it a bizare mix between the old and the new all mashed together in the basement of Le Roi Soleil a few meters away from the Mona Lisa. 

The Eiffel tower. It was magnificent, and extremely photogenic as well. We got there just as the sun was going down and stayed till it was dark. Every hour the tower lights up with flashing silver lights. It was so cool to actually see it with my own eyes. Impecable. Thats one more thing crossed off my list of things to do in life  

This picture is so dark, but there you have it ladies and gents.The proof. I came, I saw I took a picture!  

Satuday night we hit the Champs Elysees, an internationally know shopping avenue, and the Bastille too which is where the French Revolution began. Off with their heads! Then we went to a really sweet restaurant called Hippopatamus for dinner before retiring to our hotel.  

Sunday morning we went to see the cemetary Pere Lachaise. It was beautiful. It was really more like an art mueseum with all the sculptures and stained glass windows in the tombs. There are some very famous people buried there such as Jim Morrison and this is the grave of Edith Piaf. 

Sacre Coeur Church. This church sits on on of the only hills in Paris giving it the nicest view in the city. It was incrediby elaboratly decorated but yet I found it looked quite tastefull in todays standards as well. I loved the atmosphere inside. It was just an amazing church. It was calm and peaceful yet not too serious. I can't describe it. I loved it. 

So at this church and apparently a few other very famous churches, you can climb up through the stairs and the passage ways that the priests and nuns, as well as the builders used to get up to the elaborate roof and bells, etc. It was pretty much the funnest thing I've ever done in a church. The fact that I really got to go inside the innner passages of this famous historic church was equally as exciting as the breathtaking view.