Hi everyone!! I know it has been a really, really long time since I have last written, but this is the first time in ages where I have had the chance to sit down and write. Anyway, wow!! Soo much has happened in the last month and a half that I don’t know where to begin.

       As I mentioned before earlier, one of my good friends from home came to visit me for a week at the end of November. It was so great to see her and we had an amazing time together. I got to show her my new school, city, family, friends, places, foods… it was tons of fun! And I even got to miss one week of school to show her around which was a plus. During the time she came to visit, it was Thanksgiving back home in the US so we decided, along with another American friend from Rotary, to make a Thanksgiving meal for some of my friends and family here in France. Us 3 Americans worked hard all day long to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for 10 people and it actually turned out really well! Everyone especially liked the sweet potatoes and cranberry jelly sauce that we made, and some people even made the recipes for their families when they got home.  It was tons of fun to create a Thanksgiving dinner and to share our customs with people from other parts of the world, who some of them had never heard of Thanksgiving before I told them about it.

         December seems like a blur for me as so much came and left in what seemed like by far the quickest month yet. December is the time of year where all the festivities happen and all the towns and villages set up to prepare for Christmas with their markets and lights all over the place. Everything looks so pretty with the twinkling lights and decorations that it just makes you want to smile. However, not only did I get to celebrate my first Christmas ever, and it happened to be in France, I also got to celebrate Hanukkah with a friend from my class… lucky me!

       My chirstmas experience I will talk about later, but first up is Hanukkah: My friend from school invited me over to her house one night to celebrate with her family so she could share her family traditions with me. It was really cool to see the different ways in which her family and the French values contrasted with the way we celebrate in the USA. They had different foods, different songs, different tradations…anyways, it was lots of fun  and I was glad I could take part in it!!

        My premier noel was also something I will never forget. To start it off, not only did I get to decorate two Chirstmas trees, I was decorated into a Chirstmas tree by my host father, followed by me making the rest of the family into Christmas trees too. It was a blast! Although people don’t really decorate their houses here as much as back in the states, each city and small town has festivities going on in the center throughout  the month of December. Toulouse, along with all the other large cities, had a HUGE Christmas market filled with many new foods and different things from other regions of France. I got to try these things called aligot and tartiflet which at the base are really whipped potatoes. With the aligot, you then add this cheese type thing and garlic, to make a really interesting textured and stringy potato type meal. It was reallllllyyy yummy. The tartiflet is a little bit more like mashed potatoes with different spices and meats mixed it… also really good. And of course they had one of my favorite things ever…spiced hot wine!! Mmmmm =] There were tons of other different foods and desserts which I can’t remember the names of, but everything was good and the Christmas market itself was all decorated and pretty.

         And then the festivities and gaining weight continued as I celebrated my 17th birthday here, went away on vacation with the family, and celebrated New Years. I love the French school system here with all the breaks they give us. I had a nice long 2 week break and then I will have another 2 week winter break at the end of February. It’s great! Anyway, over the last break I got to go to Grenoble (north eastern France) with my host sister for a week to visit some family. Her parents came up the following week because they still had work so we had a really nice time bonding together and spending our last few moments together before I switched families. I also got to meet up with a really good friend from Germany who actually lived with me in the US for 6 months because she was vacationing near Grenoble with her family… it’s such a small word, huh? There in Grenoble, is where we celebrated Christmas which was tons of fun and tons of food. I can’t really compare the Christmas foods here to back home because I don’t really know but everything was really really delicious and I even got to try a lot of new foods. The dinner started off with foie gras (still don’t like it hahah!), escargots (honestly, they really are not that good), and other things that I actually ate! Then everyone received their own little duck/turkey type animal to eat (I don’t remember the name but it was very yummy), salad, different vegetables, potatoes, etc. etc. etc….  and for dessert,” une buche au chocolate” a type of chocolate log cake which is very popular here. They also have these chocolates called papilottes which is a typical  treat here around Christmas time and they are sooo soo gooooddddd. I even got to try a fruit I have never heard of before. It’s called a “lychee” and it comes from warmer countries. It has this hard pointy outer shell and then on the inside this pinkish-white really sweet fruit… so good!

        After the week in Grenoble, my second week of break was spent in Ardeche, another region of France. This time we went to visit family on my host mothers side. She grew up in this really poor and really tiny village in the middle of nowhere. And when I mean tiny village, I really mean it. The village consisted of 5 houses! However, it was still really nice because I got to see the French country side which was gorgeous and there were about 15 of us piled up in one house which made for an interesting time. We played lots of cards, watched movies, and ate really good food. The style of living in countryside is totally different than living in the city and much simpler. But I’m glad I got to see how the other parts of France live.

     We returned home from vacation the night of the 30th and then we went to pick up a friend from Rotary at the airport because she would be staying with us for New Years. My family had a party at their house with some of their friends so we just stayed there and hung out with them. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun and we stayed up until 5 in the morning dancing and eating.

        Also, if you didn’t catch my drift from my first sentence, I am now in my second family! I changed January 2 into a house about 1 or 2 km away from my first house so I’m basically in the same area and it makes it easy to see my first host family whenever I want. I can’t believe I am already in this family as it means I am more than 1/3rd of the way thru my exchange now. Anyway, they seem really nice so far and I also have 3 host siblings too. One is 14, one is 19 and the other is 21 so I think it should be a lot of fun! And they even have a dog which I am soo happy about =]

Soo not much more to say right now except my language is really starting to improve right now and I am really getting comfortable with it and not being embarrassed to speak anymore. I know I have improved so much since I have got here, and my friends have been starting to tell me that too. Although I am still not near fluency mark yet, I can see how just 4 months has really made a difference.

Ok off to bed!! It was a looonng weekend =]

Bonne nuit!