Merry Christmas

Okay guys just a real quick not to say merry christmas/joyeux noel/bons fetes/bons vacances/happy holidays....and so on and so forth. Also to say that a blog is coming...soon...but seriously I just got home after a seven hour car ride not one hour ago so give me time and if I'm not doing anything tomorrow there should be something up in 24 hours or so. Maybe longer because it's gonna be a MASSIVE blog with lots of MASSIVE news. So guys I'm warning you be prepared!
A bientot
xoxox

The Difference Between France and Australia

These are little things that I have been noticing since I arrived and I thought I would share them with everyone:

*Cars - Everyone drives a Citron or a Renalt or a Pergot. There are actually very few other types of cars on the road. Though I have seen a few ford mondeos, a couple of nissans and every now and again a Mini Cooper makes it accross the channel. I will also add that very few cars on the road appear to be made before the 1980s, unlike Australia where half the cars on the road look like they could fall apart at any moment (especially when driving through the likes of Elizabeth).
*Vans (By this I mean the cross between the 4WD and a normal car) - Many more people drive this type of car than in Australia, but you can not deny that they are roomy.
*Meals - The french eat so much more than us but less frequently. Lunch and Dinner are tres grand (breakfast being normal size). Every lunch and dinner contains a main course, bread, cheese (always the cheese!!) and then dessert. I have to say I really do miss a decent informal meal!
*Vegetables - No this doesn't mean they don't eat vegetables, in fact they eat a lot of vegetables but they don't have the same variety as we do. One night we only had broccoli to go with our meat but oh my gosh the amount of broccoli!!
*Bread - French bread is really good! My family make their own bread and whilst it is good it is alot dryer than our bread. That's okay I just layer on the Vegemite. Which reminds me...MY FAMILY LOVE VEGEMITE!!! They eat just as much as me!! (for those of you that don't know I eat ALOT)
*Cheese - I have never seen so much cheese in my life. I have found a total of three cheeses that I really like but I'm still not a fan of cheese all day everyday. My family even have cheese for desset! It's called "fromage blanc" or white cheese, It looks like yogurt but personally I think it is disgusting but they love it.
*Low Fat - I doubt the french know the meaning of this phrase. Something tells me there is an unwritten law against low fat food. Definately less preservetives though.
*Butter - I have not seen butter since the airoplane.
*Kissing (on the cheeks) - Here we kiss three times but it's not exactly a kiss it's more of a touch cheeks and make a kissing noise. Wow it actually sounds really funny when you explain it but that's what it is.
*School Breaks - We spend most of our 15min breaks in the toilets. That sound really bad but there is a heater in the toilets which we all gather around. The toilets are also in pristine condition compared to school toilets back home.
*Handwritting - Oh the trouble I have reading their handwritting. It looks ten times better than my handwritting but at least mine is readable to them!! My biology teacher gave me a sheet of notes to copy but I highly doubt that my notes are correct. The notes are probably not even in french!
*Fog - seriously when is the last time we had fog so thick that you couldn't see 50 metres in front of you that lasted past about 7 am. That's right last week, early afternoon and still can't see a thing.
*The Language - Okay so the fact that everyone speaks French is a no brainer but despite popular belief very few people actually speak English
*Australia - They actually know very little about Australia. They know what everyone else knows but other than that, not really. ACDC and Tina Arena are the only Australian musicians that people know but most people didn't know that ACDC was Australian.
*Power Points - Other than the fact that their plugs are different to ours I am still yet to see and on/off switch to a powerpoint
*Light Switches - None of this "little switch with an orange mark" business. The light switches that I've seen are these fat rectangles so you have to be careful not to slip and accidently turn the lights off. And yes falling and accidently turning the lights off is something I have done.
*Dressing for Winter - Take the coat out of the equation and we dress the same as them for winter. Jeans, t-shirt, occasionally long sleeved t-shirt, jumper, scarf. Why is it on this list you ask? Because there is about a ten degree difference between our winter and theirs!!! Yet they dress how we dress for our winter and none of there appear to be as cold as I am. Then again I would like to see them try and cope with our summer (I was told about thirty degrees on average)
*Music - Okay so yes it is highly unlikely that someone in France likes the same music as me but they don't even know the French music I like!!! They also like Simple Plan alot more than we do. We were over them awhile ago but now I'm actually hearing their new stuff.
*Disney - This should probably come under movies but oh well. All blockbuster films are dubbed...even the songs. But it's good to know that they get the same kicks out of the English version that I get from the French version. difference is only I know the english version.
*French Movies - The french movies I love are (or were) not big here. I have seen some great french films (ie. Monsier Batingnol, Les Choristes, Amelie, Le Voyage De La Balloon Rouge....) but know one seems to know them. Either that or my accent is just that appaling.
*Literature - It appears that the Twilight phenomenon has not yet made it to France. I have seen the books in a book store but that is it. There are alot of books in the teen section of the store that I know were originally written in English but when it comes to French (the lesson) I have never heard of the texts we are looking at. The teacher briefly mentioned Victor Hugo and after that I had no clue. I also think that we were looking at a text in old french which would be like a French person studying Shakespeare luckily I was excused from the test on it.
*Maths - I really wish they did things the same way because then I would have one lesson that I knew what was going on. At the moment we're doing congruencey which is all good I can do that easy peasy. Problem is I know how to reason in English but not in French.
*The Snow - The fact that you can go to the snow for an afternoon just doesn't happen in Austrlia (not for most people anyway). When we go to the snow we go for an extended period of time because it usally involves an extensive drive.
*Spiders - Fellow Australians I really hate to admit it but have alot of spiders and big ones at that. Here I have seen a total of 1 spider and it was the size of an ant (average sized ant not one of those puney ones or one of those massive ones). In Australia, whilst it would still make our heart skip a beat (in a bad way), seeing a hunsman the size of a small saucer would not surprise us but people here looked shocked at how casually I say that get that big.
*Flys - None what so ever. Thankfully I think they're all frozen.
*The Smell - Now when you look at a title like "The Smell" you would automatically think it was bad. On the contrary my dear friends this place smells so good. All you can smell is wood fires and I don't know about other people but I love that smell.
*The Heaters - My school has great heaters. There are probably many other heaters that would do a better job but you can sit on these heaters and warm your hands on them. Which is why in breaks the toilets are a great place because the corridoors are tres froid.
*Ruins - Australia doesn't have proper ruins (no, old houses destroyed in bushfires don't count). On a hill near (okay pretty much next to) Espallion is a castle. Ruins of a castle. People don't get why I take such an intrest in the ruins. To most it's just a incrediably destroyed, old building but I can't wait to see the ruins.
*Snow Days - People here are all "yeah, sometimes there's so much snow we don't go to school or work". If that ever happened in australia people would go to school and work anyway thinking it was a massive practical joke.
*Beer - No Aussie fridge is complete without beer. Here I've only seen beer in liquor stores.
*Christmas - Here christmas is not bigger but more.....advertised?? In other words everywhere is decorated in someway or another. The towns, the shops, the houses, even my school has decorations. Christmas trees are also different as I have not yet seen a fake christmas tree. In Australia real tree are normally really pointy but here no. The trees look so much better.
*Mobile Phones - I have only seen a few people with Nokia's where as nearly everyone has had a Nokia at some stage back home. Most people my age had a nokia for their first phone.
*Computers - Most people have a home computer but unlike most schools back home there is no computer lab at Imaculate Conception. I have seen a total of three computers and they were in the science lab and they appear to be vey old.

Okay something just happened that I have to tell you guys: I'm sitting at the table waiting for lunch to be served looking at the pot thinkning "that looks different". It gets dished up, "please please don't let that be what I think it is!!" Odile announces what it is and it turns out I was right.....Guys I just ate tounge of cow. It wasn't really that bad it was more just one of those things that no matter how good it is I can't not think about the fact that it is COW TOUNGE!!!!!

Well that is my list of differences that you may or may not have ever thought about. I'm in the process of writing postcards for family and hopefully I should be able to send them soon and since I'm here so long they should arrive before I do (please let me not have just jinxed it).

That's me over and out x.

My Host Family and School

My host family are incredibly nice. We have conversations in a mixture of English and French. I have alot of trouble understanding my host siblings but Gael has realised that sometimes I understand if he speaks slower. The other day I watched Ice Age 2 with him in french (which was amusing) and last night me Gael and Ophelie watched Nanny Mcphee but this time they got the subtitles so i got Thomas Sangsters Accent!!! Ahhh c'est tres beau!!!!
My host father is a fan of Croccodile Dundee which is funny and kind of let down by the fact that it's been years since I saw that movie. They even like vegemite!!! How cool/weird is that?

School is incrediably different. From 8-4:3o tuesday, thursday, friday. Monday starts later, Wednesday finish's at 12 and Friday at 3:30. The school's name translates to Immuculate Conception and it is probably older than Adelaide. I'm taking (I had no choice in these) French, English, Economics, History, Geography, Maths, Physics, Biology (great the science I'm not taking is the only one I do) and PE. Everyone else also take Latin and Spanish but since I've never done those subjects and I barely understand french, I'm excused. The school cafeteria is amazing compared to Glenunga but they don't have a morning food break which my stomach isn't ajusting well to.
Lesson structures are very different to Australia and even their paper is different. It's all grid like and in many ways more appropriate than just plain lines. They also have different handwritting so I feel like a noob when I copy peoples notes because I have no idea if I'm even writting down the right word.
On Thursday I did my classes English test. That was funny. I understood the English but not the French and many of the questions were things we would never think of when it comes to english. Like irregular verbs, aren't they all pretty much irregular!!! I really would hate to learn English but on a whole they're more advanced than I am in French. But that's good because for the moment I'm excused from homework because it really is too hard.
The people are really nice and many of them like to use me to improve their English skills. Which I personally have no problem with. who am I to turn down a conversation in English. As for French I just smile and nod and laugh awkwardly when someone makes a joke. But it turns out the people I've been following like basically the same music as me (alot they don't actually know) and like the same movies. The other day they sang Hakuna Matata BUT IN FRENCH!!!!! It was funny, for me anyway.
All in all I've found the best way to get a laugh is tell people how big Glenunga is!!! Oh people's faces!!! (IC is only 375 students).

Well I should being going as dinner will be very soon: Fish with I'll find out, Cheese (always cheese), then dessert.

Mon Dieu!! Amy your 18 tomorrow!!!! and in 2 weeks I'll be in paris (or almost in Paris)

Over and Out
Emma Louise xoxox

My Trip Over

Sorry it has taken me so long to post something but I have been very busy and I also forgot my login. Many things have happened in the past week so I'll start at the beginning. Also:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STELLA!!!!!!!!

Okay now for the first item on the agenda: The Trip Over

So i left for Sydney and that was all fine. I arrived in Sydney and found my way to the international airport easily enough. In the line for customs i saw the Sydney EF kids who i met up with at the gate. They were all going to France. We got on the plane but had to remain on the ground because of bad weather. We finally took off and about 8 hours later we were in Singapore. We had to take everything off the plane so we could go through security again.

Singapore airport is massive and quite pretty with the christmas decorations over the travalator. To top it off there was a Boost, but it didn't take Australian money. After about 40min we were back on the plane but we were delayed because the engineers had to fix something. Finally back in the air and on our way to London.

The first thing i saw when we broke through the clouds upon lqnding in London was stereotypical English houses. That was all good but because of the delays we had missed our flight to Paris by about an hour. So we rebooked and waited. That flight was then delayed by half an hour.

Going through London airport security was funny. I accidently left my mp3 player in my pocket so I had to be checked for concealed weapons and drugs ye ol' feel 'em up. Another girl had to as well because it turns out she had too much toothpaste. All in all London airport was fun and everyone was getting REALLY EXCITED!!! We talked all through the flight to Paris and had arrived within what felt like minutes after taking off.

Everyone was really excited when we arrived in Charles de Gaul because we were in France!! and everyone was speaking French!! We crossed the border and collected our luggage. I will add here that my suitcase is the worst suitcase to carry. My hand was literally bruised for three days.

I was flying to Toulouse with three others. We left the others to catch their trains and realised we had missed our flight. The next one was 4 hours later. At the time we were so tired and fed up it was depressingly funny.

We had dinner in the airport and had a good conversation with the guys that served us. It was funny and in a mixture of French and English.

When I finally arrived in Toulouse some forty something hours later, I met my host family. Who were extremly nice about it all. There was unfortunately a 3 hour car ride to my host family's house but i slept most of it. I arrived at the house and slept pretty much all the way through to Monday.

I should go now but I will write about my host fanily and school soon