89 Days

Ahh! I have suchh a headache today! It's put me in a really crabby mood, too. EVERYTHING is tickingg me offf! I need to get some sleep tonight!
Anyway, right now I'm at school. It's a little after 5 o'clock and I just finished my last course of the day, Français. My bus doesn't get here until 6, so I have a little downtime for writing. I'll pick up where I left off yesterday and see how far I get before the hour is up. Also, I don't have my journal with, so I'm going off of memory.

SATURDAY : I woke up early since I was sharing a room with little kids. I think Lilian was the first one up at 6:00. I fell back to sleep a couple times, and finally got myself out of bed around 9:30. After breakfast, some people who live in England arrived! They have been living there for 2 years, so I was told they knew English pretty well. The dad and the kid only spoke a teeeny bit of English to me. They told me I could speak English with them if I wanted to, but I never did. I can't even explain the feeling when I talk in English. It's soo weird. It feels so foreign to me now. I can still do it, obviously, but it doesn't feel natural. Anyway, we all went on a walk around town. There was an animal pond thing with ducks, swans, geese, etc in the water and goats and sheep in a fenced in area along side. After that, we came across a playground where we stopped for a bit. Then we moved on to an ampitheatre type area. There were some neat little houses built around the cement platform and benches on a hill for watching. Then behind the stage there was a lake. It started raining really hard, so we hung out in one of the huts and waited for it to pass. As we continued on, we found a waterfall which flowed into a stream which led to a lake. Then we turned onto a road and ended up back at the cabin. As the day went on, more and more people arrived, including a couple people my age. Simon was 14 and Lucie was 16. That was nice, because all the other kids were 12 and under, I think. Most of them were probably around 4 or 5.

Okay, I really am having issues remembering what I did on each day. Everything has kind of meshed together in my head, so I'm just going to quick summarize the rest of the trip. If you want to know more details, talk to me when I get back or send me an email & I will review my journal and respond.

Basically, one of the days, I helped Thomas and Nicolas make sailboats for the kids to race in the river. They were made out of plastic bottles, branches, and then some white fabric-y paper stuff for the sails. We went back to the river and the kids had a race. After that, a few people around my age arrived, Lucie (16) and Simon (14). We hung out the rest of the weekend together. We spent a lot of time playing ball outside with the little kids. We had another sailboat race another day (Easter, I think?). This time, Lucie, Simon, and I made something to race with, too. It took us about 5 minutes to throw together. A plastic plate was the base. We added two plastic cups to the side of that to trap air and keep it afloat, and then on top we had a cork covered with a flower for decoration & extra floatation. Ours ended up working really well and moved super fast! We passed all the little kids' boats in no time and would have come in first place easily, except our boat broke on the way down the little waterfall at the end... haha. We gathered up the parts and fixed it up for the second round, but by the time we got it in the water, the first place boat was too far ahead to pass. Ummm.. what else? ...Easter was not a whole lot different than Easter in Fargo. After breakfast, the kids got ready to go on an Easter egg hunt in the yard. In France, there is a bell who hides chocolate eggs all over the yard, not a bunny. Also, the candy is not inside plastic eggs; it's just the chocolate eggs who are hidden. When all the candy has been found, the kids throw it all in the same bucket and shared it. *** That prevented the bigger kids from hoarding all the chocolate. After the egg hunt, most of us went to church. Majority of the kids stayed back at the house with the few adults who didn't go. The service didn't hold my attention long enough for me to comprehend what was being said (although I have that same problem in English), but I'm pretty sure he just told us the Easter story. The inside of the church was interesting, though. You walked right into the back of the main room; there wasn't a foyer. The pews were made out of old wood and they had gates on the ends. There was a large painting on the wall behind the alter, and there were different sculptures of Jesus and the cross hanging down from the ceiling and on the side walls. The room was not very big, and I ended up sitting on a bench along the side wall with Anne and a couple other people. At communion, there was just bread, no wine. We greeted everyone with kisses instead of handshakes. Those are the only real differences I noted, though. After church, I think it was then when we made sailboats with the little kids back at home.. I dunno exactly. By lunch time, there were 80-some people at the cabin!! We ate in the dining house in the backyard since it was larger than the dining room in the cabin itself. The rest of the weekend was mainly spent playing ball and taking walks. We had a little soccer game Sunday evening and I met another kid my age named Gregoire. Lucie, Simon, Gregoire, and I had our own room the last night, and it was on the top floor so we weren't woken up by the kids in the morning. The ride home was long. I let Romane play games on my ipod, and she played until the batterie died. We still had another hour after that, so I played with Lilian a little. We dropped Mme Noëlle off at her house in Maroeuil (another village around the Arras area), and then I went back to Mt. Saint Eloi with the others. My host mom picked me up from Thomas's house that evening. I don't remember anything after that.

Today I had school again. I nearly missed the bus this morning because I was soo tired! I had Latin first, then French, followed by 2 hours of history and an hour of some class in the same room with the same teacher. I don't remember what it's called, but I only have it once every other week. We talked about the 6 presidents of the 5th Republic today. The onlyyy one I didn't recognize was Valéry Something. We have a quiz on the 6 presidents and their dates in office next class period (which isn't until after the vacation). I three hour break after that. Sabrina and I ate lunch with Marion, Laureen, and Virginie, and then left school. I wanted to buy envelopes (so I can finally send out my letters that have been sitting here for everr) and blue ink cartrages for my fountain pen. We went to a store called Monoprix (which is kind of like a Walmart), and found what I needed. Then we went up to the register and when I went for my money, it wasn't there! I forgot I took it out to bring with over the weekend! Luckily we hadn't gotten through the line yet, so I saved myself a little embarrasment. Sabrina and I went and put the stuff back and then left. I'm hoping to go back Thursday during our break. After that, we still had 2 full hours, so we went to a gorgeousss park! I decided I want to try and get my senior pictures taken there. It's got a really nice pond with tons of ducks and a few williow trees and hills and rocks and a bridge and ahh! I love it. After our time had passed, we made our way back to school. During the recreation time before class started, Wendie came up to us and told us that a Post-Bac teacher had commit suicide! I am assuming it had just happend, but it didn't take place at school. I don't really know a whole lot of details. We had French class, and after that, I went to the library and wrote the begining of this. After I got home, Pierre and I ate snack. Then we talked for a while until my host mom came home. She took us out to eat at a pizzaria with her friend, Pierrette. The pizzaria was located in the Grand Place in Arras, and there also happens to be a fair going on, so after eating, my host mom took Pierre and I on a little walk around that. Pierre and I played bumper cars three times, and then played an arcade game where you put your coin in and try and push the other coins off the edge up front... I don't remember what the name of it is in English, but I think they have one (or used to have one) at Chuck E Cheese. Most everything else was closed since it was late and a weeknight. We might go back Saturday. It wasn't until about 10:30 when we finally got home! I went right up to my room and got ready for bed.

Sorry for not finishing yesterday, but I did not have the time. I'm going to make a new post for today, though.