A Year In France...

The Euro Trip: II

2006-05-17T08:56:00.000-07:00

Day 3

Direction: Strasburg to Munich

Well, we had a long road in front of us, and as we were passing into Germany, we soon noticed that there was still snow on the ground. There were lots of forests and it was alot colder too. As we got closer, we saw the BMW headquarters as well as a really big soccor stadium. We got to the center of Munich (see photo)

which is dominated by their Opera House. We took a tour on foot first, through the historical quarter, the most impressive things being the colorful lion statues (the symbol of Munich- seen here)
, a very popular bar where Adolf Hitler gathered with other Nazis (the Munichese drink, a lot. Our guide told us of over four, three-week long beer festivals that occur during the year and when we went to this bar, everyone was drinking from the largest mugs I've ever seen, each holding a liter of beer!),
and the Justice Palace, one of the most famous of Munich's historic buildings.

We also learned that traditional germanic dress stills rules during their festivals and that no Munich official attends a public function without it.

Day 4

Direction: Munich to Salzburg

After having gotten up and eaten etc., we were on the road again, this time headed for Salzburg. The closer we got, the more mountainous and snowy the landscape became,
though as we go within the city limits, things started to get greener (I love these two pictures, the mist and the farms and the mountains...).

Salzburg is a city in a valley, no, a plain bigger than a valley, but still between mountains, with a huge hill in the middle on which sits a large castle and a monistary were the real Maria who inspired the Sound of Music came from. We also saw the fountain were she sings "I Have Confidence" in the film version,
and the cemitary (that was reproduced in a studio) were the Von Trapp family hides from the Nazis,
though we didn't have time to go to the garden were they sang "Do-Re-Mi". We started with a tour on foot (needless to say, we did a lot of walking during the trip) and walked to the historical center. The large town square was the first thing, it has a statue of Mozart (who, by the way, is celebrating his 250th birthday this year) and leads down the main street to the tourist's main street on which lies the house in which Mozart was born.
The house next to his had a sign over it that showed what anyone who has read "The DaVinci Code" would tell you is masonic symbols (Mozart was a Mason too, for more info, check out the connections between "The Magic Flute" and masonery on the internet, or read "The DaVinci Code").
"Mozart" anything (particularly chocolates) is being sold in Salzburg this year, and the city is producing all twenty-two of his operas this year, an amazing feat for a realitively small city. The other really important thing that we saw was the church in Salzburg. This is were the Archbishop of Salzburg (who tried to restrain Mozart's work to Masses and religious music) held his services. The Salzburg Cathedral contains five organs, one large, full-size in the back, and four smaller ones in the four corners of the main hallway.
The guide told us that the Cathedral is a flocking place for music lovers, because each Sunday, Mass is held with a full choir and orchestra and organs, Mozart's Masses being a favorite, though those by other composers being performed as well, for free. There are also many concerts held in the Cathedral all year long.

Ok, gotta stop there for a while, until next time...

The Euro Trip

2006-04-27T04:21:00.000-07:00

How to begin? Well, the euro trip is an organized Rotary trip that lots of exchangers take near the end of their year abroad. Ours just occured last week, lasting 12 days. There were 55 students and 5 chaperones on the trip, I think about 35 girls and 20 boys (this is just some basic background info). So now I'll start

DAY 1:
Direction: Paris to Riems

The day started and I took the train to Paris early in the morning to be in Paris at 10:00 am. It took about three hours for everyone to arrive and get ready to go, so they let us go eat lunch before we had started anything. We ate at a pizzeria, and came back for the guided tour of Paris. On our guided tour we saw the main sites of Paris (for many of the exchangers, this was their first time), the most notable points of interest for me was Montmartre (a Quarter were you will find the Sacré Coeur, Moulin Rouge, and lots of painters), the Hotel de Ville or Mayor's Home and Town Hall, which is next to Notre-Dame (a splended building), the Opéra-Bastille (the modern opera house which is rather grey and depressing as far as buildings go), and the Place de la Bastille (were once stood the Bastille Prison, burned by Parisians as one of the first acts of defiance precipitating the French Revolution). The tour included lots of the normal monuments as well, such as the Eiffle-Tower, Notre-Dame, Invalides, Opéra-Garnier, Arc-de-Triomph, Champs-Elysées, etc.

After the tour, we headed out of Paris and drove toword Riems. It took us about two hours and when we had reached the youth hostel we unloaded all of our baggage, arranged rooms, ate and took a quick tour of Riems on foot, the most remarkable monument of which was their Cathedral. Unfortunately, it was too late and it was closed, though it is very pretty from the outside. After we got back, we went to our rooms and slept.

Day 2:
Direction: Riems to Strasburg

The next day, after a quick breakfast, we were on the road to Strasburg. The bus rides in general were not very exciting, so I won't mention them here. We got to Strasburg and ate right away, Emma (a good friend I met on the trip, we hung out the whole time together) and I went and got these hot dogs with sauerkraut that were one and a half feet long each! There is a very beautiful cathedral and a town center with buildings from the Middle Ages and the ancient canals and dams.

Strasburg was a town founded long before Germany became a unified nation and was for the longest time claimed by the French. During the middle of the 1800's, France and Prussia (the largest of the small "nation-states" that would later become Germany) fought over the region containing Strasburg, and thus the Strasburgians changed nationality from French to Prussian, back to French when Prussia surrendered her spoils later on, back to German in WWI, to French afterward, to German in WWII, and finally back to French after the war. Nevertheless, there is certainly a German feel to the town, though most everone speaks French, many Germans come to visit. We also saw the first of what would be many street performers acting as statues that suddenly moved as soon as you dropped coins into their hats. After our tour we went to the hostel, ate, and slept.

2006-04-22T05:45:00.000-07:00

Vacation with my sister and Aunt Marty and Grandparents was the bomb! Especially since it was my aunt who brought Bree, so we just did all the stuff we would have always done if we were kids, and took pictures of us doing stupid stuff like round-offs in the hotel hallways, dancing in a fountain, hinding behind these tapistries, playing arcade games, doing just whatever we wanted.

One night, we went to the Saint Chapelle and saw that there was a concert of Mozart's Requiem being held that night, so we got tickets and went! It was so cool, except the solo soprano had a vibrato that made her sound like an extraterrestrial, but oh well, the tenor was good! And then, we were visiting the Opera house, and guess what! they were having the last performance of their 'The Marriage of Figaro' on my birthday! This was also, however, the day of a major-planned strike against the CPE. So we went and asked the guy at the information desk if we could get last minute tickets, and he said come back two hours before the opera begins and line up at the ticket booth for the tickets, but he wasn't certain if the performance would be cancelled or not because of the strikes. Well, we came back Tuesday, and there wasn't a big line or anything, and the opera was still on, so we asked if there where any tickets left, and the guy was like, I have four at 130 euros each. AH! Too expensive, so we asked if there where any other tickets like for those who want to stand or no visibility seats, and he said, "Yeah, I've got no-visibility seats at 7 euros each, but it's certain that you're not going to see the stage" so I told Marty and Bree this, and that "you know it's a common practice to go get seats that aren't filled during intermission!" (and plus 7 euros is worth just hearing the opera!!!! and being at the Opéra-Garnier for an opera (they don't even produce them often at the Palais-Garnier, most operas go to the modern Opéra-Bastille, so when there is one, everyone buys tickets in advance cause the Opéra-Garnier is the prettier of the two) and so we bought them.

The tickets were third level, box six on the side, last three seats, which meant you saw the wall instead of the stage, but at intermission, we went down to the orchestra level and found empty seats. So, we were sitting in the 130 euro seats anyway! Audience participation was very interresting; at some parts the audience booed or cheered and screamed "bravo, brava" depending on what they thought of the performance. The producers had added a short song in French that is not in Mozart's opera, and though it was very funny, if you understood, there were some people who started yelling "Get back to the opera!" and "Get on with the show!" and things of that sort, while everyone else was laughing and/or applauding (cause it was a funny song). They are very opinionated I suppose, and speak their mind. Well, after the opera, we had a few problems, the metro lined that we had to take out of Paris and back to the hotel was closed because of rioting, and there is only one line, so I said lets take the bus around the riots (place de la bastille) and see if the line isn't running on the other side. Well, it was so late, that only the nite buses where running, and so they don't come often enough to have gotten to the other side of paris before the metro closes (and plus from the metro station at disney we would have had to take a cab to the hotel) so we checked out the schedule for the night buses, and there was one that went out, but not all the way, to our hotel, at 2:25 am, so we waited about an hour and a half outside with a bunch of strange people, and took it and rode it to the end of the line.

We got off, looked around, there were some hotels, so we walked (it was freezing cold) and asked the guy on duty if he could call us a cab or let us in from the cold, and he was like 'I don't have the right to do that' so we walked toward another hotel (all of these things where very spread out buy the way) and we found a 24 hour pharmacy, we asked the guy if he could call a cab or the police and he was like 'they aren't going to come out here for that' and he wouldn't let us in either, and so we walked to another hotel, and we looked in the windows at the lobby, and we didn't see anything, but then Bree saw a lady on night shift, and she runs up to the window waving her arms and yelling, the poor lady almost had a heart attack. We told her that we were lost and cold and needed a cab, so she let us in and she called a cab. We took the cab all the way back to the hotel and were in bed at about 4:00 am. What a night!

Other than that, one of the things that stood out in my memory was our trip to Omaha Beach and the American Cemitary with Grandma and Grandpa. It is a really pretty garden with trees and a small chapel and a monument to all who fought that had a belfry that whould chime the hour and then start playing patriotic tunes. When we went to Omaha Beach, there was also a Frenchman that came up to Grandpa and asked if he was an American and if he had fought in the war. When Grandpa responded in the affirmative, the monsieur thanked him for having done so and shook his hand. It was really moving.

A big humungous thank you to Aunt Marty for making everything possible and bringing Bree over and to Grandma for having arranged for the rental car. I am so glad to have seen you guys!

Tara

Happy New Year, Happy Birthday Mozart!

2006-01-25T05:41:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote, changing families, Christmas, New Years, school, Rotary, meals, it all adds up to pretty full days. which is good, but not conductive to writing. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas break, mine was full of food, wine, families and more food, wine, cheese, it was good, though I missed being at grandma's house, with grandma's cooking, and the family, nothing can beat that. By the way, a big thanks to the people who bought me "The Guide to Real Ultimate Power" by that wacky Ninja kid (aka, Carney, Mrs. Carney, Caa$, Kat, Mandy, Sonal, Alyssa, Nathan, Chris, I don't know who else had a part or signed it, but I can say that the day I got the package from Dad and saw that book inside and started to read the inscriptions, I burst into laughter [that kind my sis and I call "The Giggles" where you just can't stop laughing histerically for no good reason at all] and after I had stoped, had to try to explain what a black, ninja book was making me laugh, and of course, he can't read it, as it's in English and full of expressions only Americans would get, so I just said it was a joke between my friends and I) I'd also like to thank those who warned me not to read it, though something so close to home couldn't go unread for longer than an hour.
Thanks also to Mom and Dad, for sending me the books, socks, the exchange, etc. and to Grandma and Grandpa for everything, the chai was a big hit with Anne, my new host mom, who also liked the Holiday spicy tea you sent (me too). Thanks to Bree for the e-mails, keep 'im coming, and to anyone else who had anything else to do with anything (my intro is like something from the Oscars).

So what have I been doing? Well, going all the way back to a week before Christmas break, I moved in with my second host family, Anne and Dominique Menez, son, Valentin, 15, daughter, Justine, 13. I barely had time to move in before I was going to the Garnier Opera House in Paris with a Canadian exchanger for "Demonstrations of the Danse School" basically all the students perform little skits, but the coolest thing of all was after the performance when she and I went to box 5 and asked a lady if we could see inside, she confused as to why we would want to, said yes all the same and unlocked it for us (phantom fans, I checked the collumn beside the box and it was unfortunately pretty firm).

I went to Dunkerque again, and we went dancing at a Folk dance ball, which was really cool cause it was like old times, there was a good mix of old and young, everyone was really friendly, and I got asked to danse so much I didn't sit down for more than two dances in a row. The dances were easy to follow even if you'd never danced them before, the only bad thing about the whole night was that at midnight it was over, and I was still good for another two hours! The next day, the family that we stayed with (the same as the last time we went to Belgium, Jean's cousin) was so nice, they gave me a book, in french, called "My life with Mozart" by Eric-Emmanuel Schimt that is a story about a suicidal kid who discovers the music of Mozart and decides that life is worth living. There's a cd that comes with the book, and on it is the "Aria of Barbarina" a pretty song, so I asked Jean-Marc, singing teacher, if we could study it, so he got the sheet music, and it's a cool piece.

Others things planned:
Joined a choir with Anne's dad. They're really nice.
Going to take part in a show at a Chateau with a bunch of other people
Skiing to the Alps with the Rotary Feb. 11
Grandparents coming some time in March
Euro trip the 10th of April
Parents coming in May

Tomorrow is Mozart's 250th Birthday, woo hoo!

More later, we're going to eat dinner soon.

Trip to Belgium, Amsterdam, and a lesson about the French

2005-11-23T07:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is adapted from an e-mail to my Dad, but I don't have the time to brush up the point of view it's written in and I'll add little things here and there as clarification when needed.

We spent 3 days in Brugge and on our way, stopped at a fry stand and had some Belgium fries. They were, of course, really good and salty, and from the stand we had the good luck of being able to see the English coast (doesn't happen very often as it's clowdy), the white cliffs of Dover which are literaly white cliffs. That afternoon, we walked around Brugge, a very cute and quaint town, with canals and little houses etc. That night, we ate with Jean's cousin's family (Jean is the Rotarian who took me on this vacation, with his wife Cathrine) at a restaurant called "Mozarthuis" (literaly"Mozart's house"-did I mention they speak Flemish here and I actually felt like a lost tourist?) which proudly displayed busts of Mozart and other composers; who had dishes named "Beethoven salad" "Mozart salad" "Chopin salad" "Vivaldisalad" etc. but; who played "Carmen" (an Opera by Bizet, I find it has a lot of melody...) on the radio rather than any work byMozart. Strange. The food was good though, and many of the dishes were of aspecial kind in that you recieve uncooked meat and then cook it on a hot stone they put in the center of the table. Interesting but I prefered to have mussels (I've fallen in love with them, warm in a cream sauce, yum!).

Next day visited Dunekirk and it was really cold and rainy, but we walked along the beach, and in the morning, went to a store for shoes (did I mention I lost my tennis shoes in Italy?) and I found a replacement pair for 25 euro, and, more importantly, books in English! I bought four, "Jane Eyre" by Charolotte Bronte, "Emma" by Jane Austen, "Angels and Deamons" by Dan Brown, and the 4th Harry Potter (did you know that the film doesn't come out in France until December!). I also found in Amsterdam, three more books, the Diary of Anne Frank, "The White Lioness" which Jean had read in French and recommended to me, and "Pompeii" by David (or Daniel- I don't remember) Harris, suggested by our guide in Italy as a good read. I have devoured Jane Eyre, and only have a few pages left, I love it!

Next day we drove to Amsterdam, and visited the museum which houses an amazing collection of Rembrant and Vermeer paintings (they were so pretty in real life and full of such color!), after which we walked around (you must be very careful in Amsterdam, cars are charged a high rate to enter the city, and thus most people bike. There are separate roads for the bikes, which turn a simple four-way intersection into an eight-way intersection, and the bikers are hardly simpathetic to pedestrians) and ate. It was dark and late, and I was happy to get back to the hotel, as the rather obvious and impossible to overlook the presence of the legality of canabis made me rather nervous. Most of the tourist shops have socks, hats, scarfs, key rings, pipes, seeds, leaves, suckers (they actually put it in candy form), etc. and it gave the whole city a scandelous and immoral atmosphere.

The next day we took a canal tour (Amsterdam also has many canals) and stopped at the Van Gogh museum (he was born there) which successfully increased my appreciation for his art style. We then walked to Anne Frank's house, and the accompaning museum. It was very small, and I can't imagine living in the small apartment for more than a few days. We then hopped back on the canal bus and, as we had nothing planned to do, I asked if we could return to the Hotel a little earlier tonight (as I had not at all enjoyed being out at 11the night before-not that we were in actual danger- I think I was over-reacting,but all the same, I was much happier at the hotel).

The next day, we set out from the hotel, at which point Cathrine had to return because she left her watch after we had already gone a few stops on the metro, and we finally got off on the road close to lunch. Being near lunch time, we stopped in a little town, not far off, called "Gouda" where they make the famous Gouda cheese. It was a cute town, not too small, but all the same not too big, and we ate lunch at a lovely little restaurant. After that, we drove and drove and drove, I reading until the sun left us, and eventually arrived backhome. I was very tired of travelling, and luckily, though this is in no way against Jean and Cathrine, I am rather glad to have our plans to go to the Loire valley tomorrow upset by Didia's planning to go to Disneyland on Saturday.

Yesterday night, I arrived home to a package from Mom and a letter from Grandma. I opened Mom's package while everone was talking, and I, as well as everyone else in the room, was surprised to see toilet paper [I told her that the toilets in our school rarely have toilet paper in them], pj's, slippers, wonderfully soft socks, gloves, a scarf (both perfect, as it has started to get farely cold here), hand sanitizer (a necessity, I have learned, in Europe, if you wish to keep your American standard of sanitization thank you!!), and candy from Holloween. I did, however, have to sit through dinner afterwards, in which all of the family members made remarks about how you guys would next senda bathroom to go with the toilet paper. This discussion was cut short, however, by the growing subject of handsome men (started by Frederique and Cathrine, inthe presence of their husbands, who, likewise, started talking about women they liked) and eventually they got on the subject of the mostly-nude calender that the Men's French Rugby team does each year, which seems to be a popular gift from husbands to French (married) women. Frederique went to fetch her's, I complained, they told me I was being silly (and, consiquently, started discussing the "strange" Protestant views on taboo-ing subjects,) and claiming that it was "just natural". I protested that I was liberal compared to some and shut my mouth, but they weresoon calling me out to pass judgement on certain photos (thank God they weren'ttotally nude, a rugby ball stratigically placed replaced clothing) themselves commenting (again, in front of their husbands, with no restraint, no apology, and, with no apparent ill-will on either side) on this feature or that one. As a final and undisputable contest, I said, not loudly to interupt the women's discussion, rather for myself, that "To me, all the value of a man rests in his head and heart" to which the men nodded and the women did respond (I doubt they heard me).

It's important to remember that through out the world there are different view points and different ideas on what subjects one can talk about. Here, most everything is up for conversation. That doesn't necessarily make it right or wrong. Just a little lesson in the differences between French and American view points!

Photos from Italy

2005-11-17T18:41:00.000-08:00

Naples

Jean and I in Pompeii

Capri...

...Capri...

...more Capri...

...and more Capri.

with Jean and Catherine

My first trip out of France: Italy

2005-11-14T00:04:00.000-08:00

So, the Rotarians here are really nice. Ok, maybe that's an understatement, because "nice" doesn't really express the wonder with which I received their invitation to go to Italy with them for 5 days (the word invitation here means without paying)! Oh how I love Italy!

Our itinerary included a climb of Mt. Vesuvius (the one that covered Pompeii in ash and Herculanium in lava, perfectly preserving two ancient Roman cities, an unprecedented, archeological treasure!), the Museum of Natural History in Naples, the beautiful island of Capri, a guided tour of the Gold Coast, guided tour of Pompeii, and a quick guided bus-tour of Naples.

Italy:
Italy is awesome. I took it upon myself to learn a few words in Italian (mainly, Buongiorno, Hello; Buonasera, Good Evening; Quanto costa? How much? (though this can get you in trouble as it's no good knowing how to ask how much something is if you don't understand the numbers that follow in the response, so it's sometimes better to ask in English); Gratzie, thank you; Va bene which can be "That's good" as in "That's enough, thanks" or "I'm doing well"; Arrive Derci, Goodbye; and, most importantly, 'Una cioccolata, por favore.' or "I'd like a hot chocolate, please" and considering that Italian hot chocolate is literaly melted chocolate in a tea cup, -oh, so good!-it's a good phrase to know) and it's amazing how they warm up to you and go crazy (in a good way) if you just know a little. In fact, I think that all people feel that way (the French certainly do). It's a sign of respect to learn how to address them in their own language, and it helps dispel all of the 'ignorant and arrogant American' stereotypes. I was therefore surprise when the French declined (though possesing the knowledge thereof) to address any Italians in Italian, but prefered to continue in French. They also seemed critical of the breakfast served (the French, in general, are much more likely to speak their mind than give you the answer you want, a wife who asks her husband the classic "Does this make me look fat?" is probably going to get the truth; so when the bread, and I had to agree, wasn't of the same quality as French bread, and the coffee was stronger than French coffee, they were irritated). By the way, a "café" in France is a very concentrated coffee (an "espresso"?) in a tiny cup (I don't know how they drink it, I have problems drinking coffee in the States (the French Rotarians are always saying that drinking American coffee is like drinking water) and here I've only tried it twice, each time putting liberal amounts of milk and two packets of sugar and still I can't drink it all, I'm afraid I'll be sick afterwards) and the coffee in Italy is even stronger and you get even less (Far too strong, Italian coffee, the French said). Italian servers are also much more friendly and open than their French counterparts, chattering away in Italian etc. I found that the whole trip was worth just seeing the people. The weather is a lot better in Italy than here, it was a nice, 70° the whole trip, sunny, no rain, and there were tropical palms and olive trees everywhere. Italy itself is beautiful. As I soon found out, the entire Italian peninsula is a mountain range that juts out of the Mediterranean Sea, at perilous hights! We were staying at a hotel in Sorrento, a city just a few miles from Naples, but a whole lot safer, and to get into Sorrento, there is one, two-lane road in and out, that balances in between the coast and the mountains. Considering the traffic trying to flow through Sorrento, and the fact that there was only one lane, it took our bus an hour to move from the outskirts to the inner city (and it's not that big). Later in the trip, when we were touring the Gold Coast, the road was about the same, except that this time the road wound in and out of the mountains so much that our bus had to sometimes advance and reverse multiple times to get around a corner, and it was really bad when we met another bus along the way, only one could pass at a time. There are millons of scooters (an invention of the Italians) all over the cities and towns, that zoom in between cars, buses, and pedestrians, so be careful while you're walking. There were about 45 people in our group from three different clubs on our trip, just for your information.

Naples:
Naples is pretty dirty, with trash, clothes on lines, and homeless people everywhere, street venders selling cheap imitations of Gucci handbags and belts, not to mention dangerous with pickpocketers, but I loved it all the same. There are lots of beautiful churches to visit, plenty of little cafés to explore, pizza and pasta to be eaten (Oh my gosh is it good! Pizza in Italy comes as one for each person, (it's plenty big) with anything you could possibly want, from seafood to pruscetto to olives and it was born in Naples! And the pasta was exquisite as well, served al dente, or to the point were one would think it's not quite done, that is to say, still a little stiff). Tiramisu is another popular Italian dish, and is not exactly as I thought it would be. Tiramisu is a desert made of a light, whipped ice cream (vanilla flavor) with a biscuit and chocolate in the middle with powered coffee flavored chocolate on top, served in a bowl. It can also be a kind of layered cake with biscuits, ice cream, and powered chocolate. Either way, it's really good. Naples also has museums, most centered around the archeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum (unfortunately, if you're not European, or don't have a European passport, you don't get in for free and it'll cost you 9 Euros to get in [did you know that there is no Euro symbol on French keyboards? The keys aren't all the same either]).

Mt. Vesuvius:
The first day was spent settling in, and on the second day, Patrick (the president of the Bernay Rotary Club), his wife Nadia, their son, Melville, Fabian (a Rotarian), and I took a bus from Herculaneum to Mt. Vesuvius, and from there walked to the summit; about a twenty-minute walk. It was really pretty on top. Clouds everywhere, sunshine, and the volcano was still smoking a little bit. Unfortunately, because of all the clouds/smog around Naples, one can rarely see Mt.Vesuvius from the ground, nor Naples (or the sea) from Mt. Vesuvius. But you can see a the peaks of a few mountains popping up out of the clouds next to the volcano. There are lava slides, a huge crater, and a magnificent view. The rest of the day was spent eating lunch (pizza, so good!), getting lost on our way to the Natural History Museum, and, once we got there, speeding through the galleries as we had to get on the bus before 5:30 and it was already 4:30.

Capri:
Capri is an island not far from Naples, so on our third day we took a ferry to its beautiful shores (not kidding, check out the pictures!). The whole island is made up of gigantic mountains that shoot straight up out of the water and create a most amazing sight. Many times throughout our daytrip to Capri, the Rotarians would suddenly break out into song singing "Capri, c'est fini..." ("Capri, it's over...") and I was told that it was a song about Capri and a love that begins and ends on the island, well-known by the French, but that the author of the song had never visited Capri, yet chose the island's name because it rhymes with "fini" (pronounced "fee-nee"). He is now an honorary citizen of Capri. The whole island is supported by tourism, I'm sure, and it's not hard to see why. There are also a lot of up-scale boutiques like "Hugo Boss," "Prada," and "Gucci" in the town, lots of pretty jewelry etc. We ate all together at a restaurant called "Luna" and I managed to try everything, even the calamari (squid) that had been breaded and fried like onion rings, and the pasta containing shrimp, mussels (I actually really like mussels, in a hot, cream sauce, yum!), and the little tentacles of some kind of octopus or squid (needless to say, I pushed these to the side of my plate). We then visited the home of an Englishman who built his home on Capri (there's a book about it) in the 1800's and there is an Egyptian sphinx there that overlooks Capri, and it's said that if you touch it and make a wish it'll come true (if I had a dime for every time I've heard that!) but the rest of the house was really cool, with gardens, courtyard, house, etc. all built on the cliffside overlooking the island and sea. From the top, we could also see a football game being played down in the village.

*I'll publish this for now. More later...*

More photos from France

2005-10-04T19:38:00.000-07:00

One view of my room

Another view of my room

Town of Etretat on the Normandy coast

Another view of the Normandy coast

Tara's first France photos (Paris)

2005-10-04T19:21:00.000-07:00

The seatback display as we first crossed into France!

The Champs-Elysses

Tara at the Eiffel Tower

Tara and Danelle on the Arc de Triomphe

Guillaume and Danelle on the Arc de Triomphe

Mont Saint-Michel...

2005-10-04T01:04:00.000-07:00

After our adventure in Paris, the Mamez, I, Danelle, and some other Rotarians went to visit Mont Saint-Michel, a small village, dominated by a grand abby and church, built on a rock in the middle of an enormous bay that has some of the fastest tides in the world. You can also see Mont Saint-Michel for miles around. Danelle and I spent a day at the abbey together with Patrick (the President of our club) and Jean (the youth coordinator). It was there that we made plans to see an Opera in Paris, which resulted from a mutual liking of the musical "The Phantom of the Opera" (did you know that Andrew Llyod Webber is Australian? I didn't) but we later found out that, as operas at the Garnier Opera House (there are two in Paris, the Opera-Garnier and the Opera-Bastille. The Opera-Garnier is where the book The Phantom of the Opera is set) are rare, it is nearly impossible to get tickets, and, though Cosi tan futti is playing at the Garnier, there are no tickets available. The Garnier is mostly used for ballets now and the Opera-Bastille is the main Opera House. So, we settled for La Bohème by Puccini at the Opera-Bastille, Oct. 21 and it seems that some of the Rotarians are coming with us.

Anyway, We also visited some of the surrounding cities including Dinan, a charming town, and Saint-Malo, a sea-side, fortifided-city that was built by Louis XIV. On the sea side of the city, there are beaches and islands with forts on them, and many sailboats sailing in the bay. The weather was perfect, the sun was shining, and for a moment, I almost forgot I was in France it looked so much like the Caribbean!

Well, more later, my parents are going to post some pictures soon.

French School....

2005-10-03T04:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, school is very interesting here in France. First, we ride tour buses to school and the buses don't arrive at the same time for everyone. There is no school on Wednesday afternoon, nor on Saturday (but that is unique to Fresnel). The regular hours for school are 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, far too long for me, but you don't have school for that entire time as there are holes in the schedule. I'm in Première Literature (senior literature track) which focuses on French (which is literature) and history. I met some great friends the first day, Justine, Ingreed, Charline, and Marie. They have been a great help to me, getting me to and from class, letting me sit with them at lunch. They seem to be fascinated with Prom, and two of the four have taken my booklet home (the one we got at the end of the year with everyone's picture in it) to show their moms. Other than that, I only have 2 hours of math, 1 hour of science, 6 hours of French, and 4 hours of History. Strange for me, but it works out nicely. Lunch is very interesting. At 12:00, we all line up outside the doors to the cafeteria, and wait for the assistants to call our class. You go through the line, picking up as many slices of bread (they have a baguette-shredder here!) as you want, and a main dish, an entrée (which has to be eaten first, I was told), a yogurt or cheese, and a dessert.

Well, that's all for now!

Second visit to Paris, and everything else

2005-09-27T01:44:00.000-07:00

Paris
Ok, so after meeting Sophie, we set off for Notre-Dame and it was very lucky that we were early, as Dominique told me there is usually an hour, hour and a half wait to get in. Notre-Dame is wonderful right now, they have just finished cleaning the main facade and all around the back, so if you want to see it, now is a great time (and go it the morning, say, 6:00, to avoid the crowds). Pictures can do no justice to the expirience of seeing those enormous stained-glass windows letting the morning light into the vast space enclosed by the light, stone columns and roof. Go see it.

After Notre-Dame we went to the Eiffel-Tower, and again, being early paid off, as we were there before it opened and only had to wait ten minutes to get to the elevators and go up as opposed to the normal two hours. A bit of warning, it looks a whole lot shorter on the ground than it does going up in the elevator. Also, if you go in the morning, visibility is reduced due to morning fog. However, Paris in the morning is beautiful and the fog makes the whole scene look like an Impressionist painting.

We walked to "Les Invalides" after the Eiffel-Tower, and the weather was beautiful. Invalides is a complex built by Louis XIV as a hospital for injured soldiers and finished by Napoleon. Now, it is a museum for war artifacts, 1800 to 1945 and the final resting place of Napoleon's remains, which are kept encased in seven coffins under a gold dome. While we were touring the WWI and WWII sections of the museum, I mentioned to Dominique that many Americans I talked to thought the Normad people would be more friendly than the rest of France, and he replied that it might be true, as his father told him stories about an American solider giving him a piece of chewing gum as they were liberating Rouen. He also said that the restaurant, Le Soleil d'Or, was occupied by a famous German general under Hitler, and General DeGaulle during the liberation. After the museum, we visited Napoleon's tomb, and was it magnificent! Marble inlaid in the floor, walls, and railing; a beautiful painted ceiling framed by gold; and huge statues of Napoleon and others.

Our last stop was the Sacré-Coeur at Montmartre. Sacré-Coeur is a great, white church on a hill overlooking Paris. It is rather new for a French church, having been built in the 1800's. I can't say I liked it better than Notre Dame, but it was unique.

That was the end of our visit to Paris.

Meeting Sophie

2005-09-20T17:38:00.000-07:00

Forgive me, I know I have not written much for three weeks, but you must believe I have been so busy as to not have time to write until last week, at the beginning of which, the internet at our house promptly broke. Being too busy to write also implies a great amount to write about, and I have to talk about meeting Sophie, another trip to Paris, two weeks of school, a trip to Mont Saint Michel, and Frederique's surprise birthday party.

Sophie

So, three Fridays ago, the whole family got up early and went to Paris to pick up Sophie. She was coming back from a short exchange (3 months) in Namibia, a country in the south of Africa. As I soon found out, Sophie is a delightful girl, a little crazy, like myself, fond of silliness and singing, with an inviting and unassuming nature. Unfortunately, she seems to worry about things a little too much. For xample, she worries that if I hang around with Danelle (the Austrailian exchanger who wants to go home because she's bored), I'll start being depressed and want to go home, too. This doesn't, however, prevent there from being a friendship so natural that by the time we got home from Paris, we had already exchanged the serious and eternally-bonding vows of sisterhood, that is, we had both made sincere offers to share with each other anything we wanted including makeup, haircare stuff, clothes, shoes (though we aren't the same size), food (she brought beef jerky from Africa and I have peanut butter), jewelry, etc. She offered help with French, and I offered help with anything else.

[more to come soon]

French Televison...

2005-09-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I don't have a lot of time to write about my second visit to Paris (we visited Notre-Dame, Eiffle Tower, Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb, and Sacre-Coeur), nor all the foods I have tried since last writing (which include, but are not limited to: escargot, rice pudding, paté, many cheeses of which I love Camenberet and Pont L'éveque, sushi, duck, and muscles in cream sauce), so, I'm going to write about a subject which has greatly fascinated me for a while, French television.

Ok, so French TV is very interesting, almost all the sitcoms are American shows that have been dubbed, or are shows created in imitation of American shows (for example, the European version of American Idol is simply called Idol). So far, I have seen CSI, Spongebob Squarepants, Fear Factor, The Nanny, Friends, and a bunch of kids shows like Arthur. As exotic as it sounds, it's very hard to watch any TV show in French. Try it some time. Grab your favorite boxed-collection, and put it on "French," or, if the DVD doesn't have any foreign languages, try muting it and watching for half an hour. It's impossible.

Speaking of not being able to understand the TV, the worst part is the news. I know about Katrina, it's been the first thing on the French news every night for a week, but that doesn't mean I know any details (it goes without saying that the French have been very sympathetic, not to mention those of other countries. I was at the Eiffel Tower the other day and Sophie and I where talking in English and a couple behind us asked "Oh, excuse me, but do you speak English?" and we're like "Yeah" and it turns out they are Austrailians, and, after I explained that I was an American exchanger and they said, "Oh, it's terrible about Hurricane Katrina" after which I explained that I can't understand the news very well, which they responded with a general summery of what had happened, and, as it was time to go up the Tower, wished me luck etc). It is so frustrating to see and not be able to understand! It's even worse when they start interview the victims and I get a phrase of understandable English in before the French dubbing starts and I can't understand another word. This applies to the newspapers as well, it's just all above my head.

French Commercials.

Ok, so French public TV, has commercials only once or twice during a show (which would be nice, but at this point, the commercials are easier to understand than the shows, so...) and they only last for 20 seconds. They're pretty amusing, more so because I can't understand them, and the best ones are the American commercials (like the ones for hair care products) that have been dubbed in to French.

French Shows Part 1: The Copy-cats.

Ok, so in France, there are a lot of shows that are copy-cats of American shows, ex. Survivor (which is in it's first season here), Who Want's To Be A Millionaire (when they asked which actor played James Bond in Goldfinger I almost died! Sean Connery of course!), a few soap operas, and a French version of that show with a pretty girl who has to pretend to marry an actor who does everything to be rude, immature, and basically unbearible, etc. Most of these are pretty boring, but then again, I don't watch much TV anyway and a show in French is hard to enjoy this early.

French Shows Part 2: Star Academy:

OK, this isn't a real French show, it's Spanish, but it's dubbed in to Fench and all the kids like it, that is, except me, as I don't understand it, but it's about a bunch of friends in a dance school and their troubles.

That's about it. Next I'll write about school and my new friends, etc.

Tara

The Rotary Club of Bernay...

2005-08-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, so yesterday we went to Bernay, which is the town where I will go to school, and drove past the school (not much to report) and went to the super-market. French super- markets are the same as American ones, except that the cereal isle is a whole lot smaller and the cheese section is a whole lot bigger. Oh, and the yogurt section is huge! It took up one whole refrigerated aisle, like 20 yards or so! I have learned that yogurt is a dessert here and that it is a very hard word to say in French (like "Rouen"). Yeah, the building was different as was the product selection, but overall I got the same impression as our local Wal-Mart.

The Rotary Meeting.

So, at 6:30 pm (which felt like 3:00 pm cause I slept in again until 12:30, though you'll be happy to know I woke up at 8:30 this morning) Dominique and I went to the Rotary meeting, where everyone asked me where I was from ("Indiana is in the center of the US, non? Is that near Oklahoma?") and whether I spoke French or not. After sitting down and talking with Danelle, the exchanger from Australia, for a while, the other Rotary members started talking to me, asking questions, etc. As I was informed, my French is "very good" though I am sure that they are comparing it to Danelle's French, and considering that she knew none when she arrived, I'm sure it is at least passible. I was able to consverse, however, and thank goodness I took European History, because, when I mentioned that the Mamez's where planning to vist Mt. St. Michel soon, and they said "You know Mt. St. Michel?" I said "Of course!" and they asked me about what I knew about France and what I wanted to visit, yaddi yadda, I said things like Malmaison (Napoleon's home), Versailles (huge palace), the Opera-Garnier, Les Invalides, etc. and one of the Rotary members promised to take me to Versailles with his family in October. Also, we had a nice discussion about politics (in general, how the media doesn't give you the whole story, etc.) and about the difference in attitudes of the French and Americans. When asked what I wanted to study after High School, I said business and finance, they seemed to think it very admirable that I wanted to work hard and make enough to live comfortably on (though this is hardly unusual in America) they commented that it is unusual in France, that the goal is to not work and that there are too many lazy youth. Then we went into a discussion about the "American Dream" and how hard work is respected in America, and the popular American belief that you can achieve anything if you work hard enough (later, I was trying to come up with an example of this, and my thoughts ran across Lance Armstrong, who is a hero because, with hard work, he beat cancer and won the Tour de France seven times in a row, though this is a bad example for the French, because, as Dominique explained, the French are very angry about the drug results from the French lab, and don't like him at all any more). I also explained that many Americans admire the French way of life and believe that capitalism places too much importance on making money rather than enjoying life (though, as a disclaimer, I think I believe in a middle path; to sacrifice safety, comfort, education, etc. because you don't want to be "greedy" or "a part of the system" is a little silly, just as letting the want of more money control your life and keep you away from your family and friends is unhealthy). It was a very nice conversation, and I am glad to have such a wonderful club.

I forgot to mention that we had fish, oysters, and a shell fish that is still in the shell, which, after I had pulled it out, couldn't bring myself to try (seriously, I have tryed everything offered to me except that, oysters, and shrimp, which are served whole, head, legs, eyes, everything, while the oysters are served fresh, as in "not cooked," and before I could try some, one of the Rotary members explained to me that you have to chew them with your teeth or they'll wiggle in your stomach, which, needless to say, completely turned me off of ever eating oysters that weren't already dead). The shell fish was pretty scary too, greyish-green and stiff, it looked like a slug that was slimey and post mortum *shiver down the spine*. Danelle said, sympathizing with my look of horror (not that I actually made a face in front of the Rotarians), "The good thing about France is that you can always eat the bread," and that is exactly what I did.

That's all for now, Marie (12 year old host sister) is coming home today,
Tara

The First Four Days...

2005-08-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, there is a lot to write about, but let me start with the fact that everything is wonderful and beyond my imaginiation! Second, French keyboards are different, ex. the "a" and "q" are switched, you have to shift to type numbers, and you have to shift to type the period, not to mention that the blogger control panel is in French too, therefore, be patient with me. OK, now the plane ride:

It was mostly boring. The flight to Detroit was on schedule, and after that we had a three hour lay-over in Detroit (though some of the students had been there since 3:00, and we were scheduled to leave at 9:00 pm) that turned into a six hour layover when there was a mechanical problem. To pass the time, a few of the other exchangers and I rode the indoor train (which only went a few hundred yards before stopping) and ran through the tunnel that connects the other terminals together (it was a cool tunnel, with illuminated walls that changed color to the music that was playing). The flight was about 7 hours long, and mostly during the night, I had a seat in the middle of the plane, so I couldn't see out, it was pretty boring. When we arrived in Paris, we got off the plane and instead of being at a terminal, we were on the runway, where a bus met us and took us on a 15 minute ride around the airport, finally dropping us off at a terminal at ground level. We got our passports stamped and then went to claim our baggage. Then, we walked through some doors, and there were all of the French host families cheering and waving signs (there were about 25 exchangers on the plane, so you can imagine how many people were there). Dominique found me very quickly and took me to Frederique, Guillaume, and Danelle who is an Austrailian exchanger they brought along to help me the first day (although Dominique speaks English very well, and Guillaume too). It turned out to be a good idea, for although I understood much of what they said to me, and they understood what I said to them, Danelle was able to tell me, in more specific and clearer detail, what was going on. The Mamez's explained that, for my first day in France, we would go for a ride down the Champs-Elysses and around the Arc-de-Triomphe, perhaps stopping for a quick lunch on the way. (Additionally, we didn't have to go through customs, as there was none, so if you want to fly into Paris, I suggest De Gaulle Airport).

In Paris.

The airport was a little out side Paris, so as we were driving in, there was a lot of country-side that turned into suburbs and finally into the city. We drove past Sacre-Coeur, a magnificent white Church on a hill over looking Paris. Then, it was down to the Champs-Elysses, which is wonderful, and very large, Paris. I noticed that, unlike New York or Chicago, there are trees in the sidewalks, which, perhaps, is one of the reasons for it's rumored beauty. There are also flowers in almost every window, in the cities and in the country-side, which adds quantness and beauty to everything. We parked and Danelle, Guillaume, and I went up the Arc-de-Triomphe (there must be a million stairs in that thing! It was up, up, up, around and around and around a sprial-stone staircase) but the view was amazing. The Eiffel Tower is close-by, and you can see the towers of Notre-Dame, the Opera-Garnier, and the Musee d'Orsey from the Arc. This may be a good time to mention driving around the Etoile (the huge round-a-bout that surrounds the Arc). Ok, imagine a huge, five lane circle, around one of the most recognizable and visited monuments in the world, that connects to one of the most famous streets in the world. Now add a few thousand impatient and angry French drivers and stick shifts all around, shake well, and you'll get a ride worthy of a James Bond movie. In their defense, I think that the French are very skilled drivers to be able to navigate Paris streets without hitting anyone or thing. The stop lights are a single post on the right of the street and very hard to see, not to mention the fact that every few yards there are pedestrian crossings with lights. In the country, there are round-a-bouts, not intersections, and the roads are composed of three lanes, the middle of which changes between a lane for coming traffic and going traffic every few hundred yards. Strange. Perhaps it is the French system that causes crazy driving, not the French.

Lunch.

Ok, if you do nothing else in your life time, go to France and have a piece of bread. I am not kidding, it is THE BEST in the world. And it's good everywhere in France, the city and the country. For the record, I had a ham and swiss cheese sandwich on a baggette as my first encounter, and let me tell you about the best sandwich ever! It was 12 in by 2 in by 2 in and the ham was thickly sliced, the cheese was a perfect kind of swiss, not too bitter, not too strong. And the bread! Oh, it must be the butter of France, for, as far as I could tell, there were no witches or wizards there to cast a magical spell over the bread (unless all the French are magical, which would explain alot about their food). It was crunchy, but not hard, soft on the inside, yet substantial. So far I have had many pieces of bagette (they eat one to two every dinner and they are smaller than the ones at Panera) , one croussant (the perfect blend of sugar, flake, and butter), a pain-au-chocolat, a piece of bread with chocolat that was the single most amazing midday snack I have ever had, and a chocolate-and-bread roll type thing, also amazing. Dominique, after all of my exclamations over the bread, has suggested that I learn to make bread in France, and then open a Boulongerie (bakery) in the States. I told him I'd love to, and that I would have to import French butter all the time (which is way better than any in the States too). He laughed. Ok, enough about The Bread.

The drive home.

Ok, so on the way to Riviere Thibouville, there are many little villages, each with an old church and old houses. There are also many farms, and once you get outside Paris, the country-side looks exactly like Indiana. I'm not kidding, except for the fact that the felds are harvested and there aren't as many corn felds, it is the same. Forests, powerlines, and trees. We were listening to the radio, and on pops "Hotel California", giving me the sudden, if brief, belief that I was back in Indiana, and had not gone anywere yet. There is a lot of American music in France. In four days I have heard Michael Jackson, the Eagles, Alanis Morrisette, Usher, Avril Lavine, and, the funniest, "Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen.

My new home.

Ok, so we get home and I am amazed. The Hotel is on a hill overlooking the valley and village, a very nice, old style home, whose first story is a very elegant restaurant owned by friends of the Mamez. Up a stone-spiral staircase that goes all the way to the third floor, the second floor has hotel suite (I saw inside one the other day, and it was amazing. The first room was a spacious dinning room, connected to a lavish bedroom with three huge double windows, done the hall from which was a bathroom with a hot tub sized jacuzzie and shower). The suite in which I am staying is beautiful. My room is about 20 ft by 15 ft by 15 ft, very spacious, with a fireplace of beautifully decorated wood with a huge mirror over it, wood floors, a LCD TV, mini fridge, queen-sized bed, three huge double-door windows with a beautiful view down the valley and over the town, and an hyper cool chandelier that is stainless steel with lightbulbs at the end of 16 arms; it looks like a sun). The bathroom has two sinks with really cool faucets, track lighting, a shower with six different shower heads that squirt at your body, and those cool glass bricks used in showers. Across from my room is the toilette which is separate from the bathroom. It's got a cool seat with a rat eating cheese for the lid. Sophie's room is down the hall, and is very cute as well.

The third floor is the living quarters of the Mamez's and includes a kitchen, dinning room, living room, bedroom, toilettes, and bathroom. The fourth floor is where Guillaume and Marie have their rooms, along with a computer/sitting room. It is all very spacious and I am quite mistaken if it will not be hard to leave.

Second day.

Dominique and Guillaume went with me to see a Medieval castle near the Hotel, but it was closed, so we went to Rouen instead (let me mention here that the word "Rouen" is one of the hardest words to pick out of a French sentance. It is one sound, by itself, and when pronounced correctly, comes out as a sort of nasal quack, try saying "rahn" without letting any sound excape your mouth, and you'll get it). Rouen is beautiful. We went to the great Cathedrale first and it was amazing! A huge, gothic ediface greats you when you turn the corner from the parking lot, and they have just finished cleaning most of it, so it is glittering white. Inside, a magnificent hall, lined with huge stainglass windows and towering columns, streches for (I think) more than two hundred yards. The ceiling flys above you with great, pointed arches, and you wonder how it has stayed up all these years. Dominique explained to me that in WWII, the roof fell in, but was later restored. Amazing.

Then we went to a square of anicent buildings, that is now the L'Ecole des Beax-Arts Rouen, the University for Painters, Sculpters, and other Artisans of Rouen. It surrounds a square of large trees and a cross that Dominique says was the site where a great number of people burned themselves because they had the plague and prefered a quick death to that of the plague. the ancient buildings surrounding the square were carved with skulls, crossbones, and grave-digger tools because of it. It was morbid, but so fascinating. Then it was off to the site were Joan of Arc was burned (marked by a large cross) and her new church which holds the stained glass of her old church. Dominique explained that, during WWII, the Germans wanted to destroy her Church, but the French took out the windows and hid them underground, so that, although the old Church was destroyed, the stained-glass windows were saved, and are now part of a new church. Then we went to see the famous clock of Rouen, a favorite with tourists (by the way, the French are amazingly patient with tourists, they are every where in the big cities, blocking traffic, crouding monuments and streets, and I have not heard one single complaint). Also, there was a really cool street performer who was dressed in gray, with gray face and hair, but instead of standing still the whole time, whenever someone dopped a coin in his tray, he moved like a robot, making a bunch of whirring and wistling noises, as if he were rusted. It was way cool. Lastly, we visted the Palais de Justice or the Justice Palace. It was a beautiful gothic building, and they still use it for carrying out the law. We saw a criminal being escorted inside by the police.
We went home, and had dinner at 8:30 (the French eat late) and went to bed.

The next day.

Frederique, Guillaume, and I went shopping. Not much to report except that the exchange rate is really bad, I got 71 Euros for 97 dollars, Levis are really expensive here, 70 to 100+ Euros a pair. We saw a wedding at a Cathedrale and I commented that it must be expensive to have your wedding in a monument that was so pretty and old, and Frederique said that it doesn't cost anything to use a church for a wedding in France, you only have to paid for the priest to do the services.

When we got home, Frederique and I had dinner at the restaurant, which in in the town, away from the hotel, while we watched "The March of the Penguins" (a perfect film, as there is no dialoge to be translated) and Dominique took our orders. I had duck paté, with sparkling water and salad, to start (it was very good, very sweet, cold, and served on bread), after which, I had rabbit in sauce with potatoes (it was amazing). For desert I had nougut glacé, iced nougut with rasberry dipping sauce, which was the single best desert I have ever had. It tasted like those pecan shortbread cookies, in ice cream form, with a wonderful sauce. And the portions (though not as huge as places like Denny's etc. in the States, are well sized and plenty, not the tiny things you see in movies. They have a very cool restaurant, with glasses that are angled sideways, and a toillette that has a seat made of clear plastic, covering some dangerous-looking tacks, so that you aren't quite sure if it's safe to sit down or not. After dinner, the whole family went to a club, owned by a friend of the Mamez's, (don't worry, in Dominique's words "It is not a very lively club, it is a club for us," smiling and pointing to himself and Frederique, "a club for old people," I laughed). And that's exactly how I would describe it, though it did have a plesant atmosphere.

Yesterday, we went to Etretat, on the English Channel, where there are beautiful white cliffs with green grass fields and a beach of rocks. The weather has been wonderful the whole time, not too cold, not too hot, sunny, and perfect.

Future plans include Marie returning from Corsica this Wednesday, Sophie returning from the South of Africa on Friday (the whole day of which we are going to spend in Paris, sight-seeing) and going back to school on Moday, which, I have learned, is not a business school, but a regular French high school were, I have been informed, I will study Premiere (12th grade) L (the literature track-sorry mom and dad, I didn't have a choice).

I could go into more detail, but I've been on the computer for three hours now, and my bum hurts! Hope you guys are having fun, (I'm having a blast).

Much love,
Tara

PS: I'll probably write every week or so from now on. The computer is in the restaurant and a little slow, so don't expect daily journal entries.

Tara is in France

2005-08-26T05:16:00.000-07:00

Tara arrived on Thursday at 1:00 pm. Her flight was delayed in Detroit. She met up with several other Rotary Student. She said that the plane was about 25% Rotary Students. The host family met Tara at the airport and they did some sightseeing before heading to her new home. She is speaking in French and verifying in English. She is fortunate that her host family also speaks English. We are very glad that Tara made it and that she is safe and sound.

Tara's Mom

Two days to go...

2005-08-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

Hallelujah! My visa arrived today along with my plane tickets and passport! Thank the Lord Almighty. *sigh of relief* I was up way late last night (the last time I looked at watch was 2:00 AM) thinking "Oh boy, my visa won't arrive. Ok, if it doesn't come, maybe the other two exchangers to France who mailed their visas with mine won't have them yet and I will go on a separate flight. Will I go to school if I'm delayed? What if the Northwest Airline strike cancels the flight?" Thank goodness it's here. I not allowed to drive anymore, too nervous.

One week to go...

2005-08-17T00:14:00.000-07:00

Well, everyone's in school now and I'm worried about my flight. I'm worried about the visa, which isn't here yet, and crashing (there have been three plane crashes in the past two weeks although mom says plane crashes always come in threes so there's nothing to be worried about) not to mention rumors that Northwest Airline workers are going to go on strike this weekend, possibly delaying or canceling my Wednesday flight from Detroit, who knows? It's been hard to sleep the past few days and to focus on completing simple tasks like taking the keys out of the car before locking it, etc. Oh well, c'est la vie!

I'm working up some enthusiasm, thinking of all the things I'll do, trying to forget the things I'll miss. I've resolved not to worry about family and friends, you'll all be here when I get back and that's the small thread of logic to which my mind desperately clings.

Through e-mail, I have learned a bit about my host family. They all like the group U2 (my favorite) which rocks, I'm going to school with Sophie (evedently she's going to South Africa next year), and right now they have some British, Dutch, and Australian guests staying at their hotel. Also, they have reservations from some Americans for the 20th of September.

On the brink of the plunge,
Tara

The First Host Family

2005-07-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

OK, so I got my Host Guarantee forms back yesterday, and I will be staying with M. and Mme. Dominique (a man's name in French) Mamez (pronounced "mah-may"). They own a bed-and-breakfast called "Le Soleil d'Or" translated "The Golden Sun". I've included their website under "links" on the toolbar to the right. Also, it seems that their hotel is not in Bernay, but rather, a few miles from it in a small town called "Rivere Thibouville". The hotel seems very nice; they also have a restaurant that serves a variety of dishes. I am going to "Lycee Augustin Fresnel" (I have included the link to their website as well, though it's all in French), what seems to be a technical school, though they do have English classes. I'll include a link to a Michelin map (Mapquest for Europe). I have learned that they have three children, Guillaume (a boy) who is 19 and went to Argentina on Rotary Exchange for a year; Sophie, 16, who is going to South Africa on exchange; and Marie, 12, who is on vacation in Corsica (island south of France where Napoleon was born). I'll be a middle child for once!

The Variety Show: Photos

2005-07-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

Here are two photos that one of the Dads took of our performance at the Variety Show. One of the pictures is fuzzy, but I'll include it anyway.

Finally!

2005-07-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I got an e-mail back from M. Bernard Bannier, the district coordinator of 1640 (Normandy) and I am going to a little town called Bernay in Eure (that's the "department" or county). It's 90 miles from Paris and a short distance from the large cities Caen and Rouen (Bernay is in the bottom left of the map -->). Bernay has a population of about 12,000 (about one third the size of Noblesville) and has two 11-12 century churches in town. The high school I'm going to, a lycee in French, is called Lycee Clement Ader (French-speakers see link to the right, their website is in French). It seems that there is a lot of out-door type stuff to do in Bernay, horseback riding, parks, hiking, mountain biking, etc. and the architecture of the houses is in the "old-fashioned" style (<--see picture to the left). There is also a river that flows through the town, called "Charentonne." I'm going to fill the rest of this blog with pictures of Bernay that I am using from the Lycee website.Here are three pictures of streets in Bernay.

Here is the flag of the Bernay Rotary Club. Bernay is only 30 miles from the coast and the D-Day landing beaches. They also have many
parks in their town, as in the picture to the left (so pretty!). I can't imagine Bernay feeling too far home, once I had heard about their tractor-pulling competitions. They even have John Deere.

Grand Rapids Conference: Day 1

2005-07-12T18:58:00.000-07:00

Wow! What a weekend. I am going write about it in four different entries, by day (two for Saturday). I'll clarify a few terms right of the bat so as to avoid confusion. 1) outbound- exchangers like me who live in the US or Canada and are going to another country. 2) inbounders- people who live in another country and are in the US for exchange. 3) rebounders- those who live in the US and have just gotten back from their exchange. 4) district- the conference was made up of exchangers from several Rotary districts, mine is Dist. 6560 which is "central Indiana". One spends more time with the exchangers from your district than anyone else and the Dist. 6560 has had several get-to-gethers so most of the exchangers I know are my friends from 6560 (most of them are from Carmel High School and most of the inbounders in 6560 go to Carmel on their exchange). 5) "General Session"- a part of the conference where all the parents, students, and rotary members got together in the Arts Hall for a big meeting.

Day 1: Friday July 8, 2005

Got up at 4:30 am. Left by 5:30 am. Drove for 4 hours 30 min. Arrived in Grand Rapids, Michigan by 11:00 am Michigan time. Lunch was at 11:15 am and after Dad and I had registered we went down to the dining hall. I met Mari (outbound to Japan, from 6560, plays the Phantom-yes she's a girl) and we ate lunch together. After lunch, we had the Opening Ceremony (<--see pic to left), which was so cool!. In the Auditorium where hung flags from all of the countries that Central States exchanges with. Before the ceremony started, all the Brazilians where trying to get the exchangers (who were all sitting on the floor level, parents in the blacony) to do the wave, over and over again. Brazil is the country that exchanges the most with Central States, so the Brazilians have their own cheers that go like this: Caller: "Something, Something, Something" (it's in Portugese) Response: "Oi, oi, oi!" The Brazilians were a lot of fun. Then the ceremony began. The lights in the Auditorium went dark and a fog machine started hissing. Then "Thus Spake Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss (that song that plays in 2001:A Space Odysseywith the big black stone) started playing while red lights went on in the back and out of the orchestra pit came first the speared tops of flags, then the flags themselves, then exchangers standing next to them. As the intro to "Zarathustra" ended, the music broke into dance music and the exchangers holding the flags started walking quickly around the stage in a complex circle formation (one of the exchangers holding a flag was Hiro (pronounced like the word "hero"- he sings that song "I Will Be Your Hero, Baby"and it's so funny), an inbounder, from our Dist. He's Japanese-German and into soccer). Then we had a girl who sang "O Canada" who did a great job, and a boy (a rebound from France!) who sang the "Star Spangled Banner" and managed to add enough extra notes as to exclude anyone from the US who wanted to sing with him. *flashback* The funny part was that while he was singing, I could see Hiro mouthing the words, even though he's from Germany and at our previous Dist. get-together, he had asked me about the words to the "Star Spangled Banner," so I and some others that were still up (about 3:00 am) sang it for him and he sang the German Anthem. *end flashback* So, there were some speeches made and every one broke up for their Country Sessions.

Dad and I went to the France group and met with everyone going to France. There I learned that I want to go into the "premiere" level of French Schooling, not "Terminale" which is their last year and is spent studying for the "BAC" which is like our SAT but a thousand times harder (it includes things like Philosophy and taking dictation and you must pass it in order to go to a French College [all French schooling is paid for by the state]) so the French students spend their entire year studying for the BAC and basically ignore foreign exchangers who try to be their friend. Also, wearing short skirts will get you "talked about" in a negative way, so don't wear them. The teachers are not your "pal" but rather are strict disciplinarians and will not help you out. I also met a boy, Dylan, going to a city "Caen" (pronounced like "Khan") in Normandy, so he'll be in my district.

At about 4:00, I looked at my watch and was startled to find that I had missed our "Angel of Music" audition for the Variety Show, which had been at 3:40 pm. So I went and got Mari and Katherine (she played Meg and has a lot of experience on the stage) from their country groups and we went to the Arts Hall where the auditions were being held. When we got there, we asked the directors if we could have a chance to practice the piece, as we hadn't run through it as a group yet, and the accompanist, Chris, play through it with us twice. He was really nice to us and even changed a part in the music that Mari couldn't sing as it was too high, and gave her a note where she had none. Then it was time to audition. Unfortunately, during the audition, Mari repeated a section of her lines, having forgot them, so we were worried all night that we wouldn't get in.

After the audition, it was off to dinner on the Commons lawn, in the middle of the campus. After dinner was a "General Session" in which we heard a beautiful speech from a Sophie Chandauka who was an inbound from Zimbabwe 1994-1995. She talked about the problems in Africa, London, and how a dedicated group of people can accomplish anything. Also, we heard from the President of Rotary International (it was so cool to have the President there!). Then, from 8:00 to 10:15 every single rebounder came up to the stage and gave us advice. It was the longest two and a quarter hours of my life. There was one exchanger who caused quite a stir by saying, "My advice is that if your host mother steals 100 Euros from you, shoot her in the face." Dead silence. No one could believe that he would say something like that. Later, another exchanger said, "As to that rebounder who suggested shooting your host mother in the face if she steals 100 Euros from you, I had 180 Euros stolen from me and I'm sure that whoever stole them needed them more than I did." Rumors said later that some people tried to get him kicked off campus but I don't know what happened to him.

After the interminable rebound welcome session, all the exchangers went to the pizza party and dance which lasted until midnight. At the dance, we learned from Brent (from our district, outbound to Germany), who had also tried out for the Variety Show, that we, the "Phantom Trio", had gotten in, but that he hadn't. That made our victory bitter-sweet. After a bit, I left with some of the other exchangers in our district to go to bed, but, finding myself far to excited to sleep, ended up staying up almost all night. I contribute 85% of my mistakes the next day to this. That was the end of Friday.

Rotary Blazers

2005-06-14T12:27:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend the outbounds and inbounds of central Indiana had a blast at our last sleepover before the big party at Grand Rapids (it's at Grand Rapids Michigan). We had lots of fun playing DDR ("Dance Dance Revolution"- a game that makes you step on arrows in a pattern with music) all night and we had our blazer presentation in the morning (all the exchangers get navy blue blazers with "Rotary Youth Exchange" embroidered on them. Ours also have an outline of the US with an eagle's head on top on our blazers). Everyone wears their blazers to Grand Rapids and while going to and from their country (so Rotary members can spot them).

At Grand Rapids, all the exchangers buy pins, any type, and there is a huge swap on a lawn at the university we go to for the meetings. People from all over the world are there so the goal is to get as many different pins as possible and then attach them to your blazer.

Grand Rapids is a huge meeting of all the exchangers in the 6560 district (it covers parts of Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and parts of Canada. At Grand Rapids, everyone meets according to what country they are from/going to. There is also a "Brazil vs. The World" soccer game (Paula- the outbound coordinator- tells me that Brazil always wins) and if there aren't enough people from Brazil to play, then it goes "South America vs. The World".

There is also a Variety Show the last day of Grand Rapids which some of my friends and I are going to enter. Katherine (going to Switzerland) , Elle (going to Korea), Diane (going to Finland), Mari (going to Japan), Hanna (from Finland), and I are going to perform a short number from The Phantom of the Opera called "Angel of Music". Elle and Diane are going to be ballerinas, Katherine is going to be Meg, Mari is going to be the Phantom (yes a girl is going to play the Phantom-she can sing the part and with a mask and suit, no one will know, or at least won't care), and I'm going to be Christine. I've never had any experience performing vocally so wish me luck!

PS: If you guys have any pins you are using or don't want, I'd gladly take them off your hands and take them to GR. Also, if anyone has a business they'd like to promote, I could take some pins with your business on them to GR and they'd be distributed all over the world...good advertising!

2005-05-26T17:55:00.001-07:00

2005-05-26T17:55:00.000-07:00

Check out these views of Mont St. Michel...

The last day of school.

2005-05-26T15:31:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my last day in (Noblesville) high school. Next year doesn't count as it'll be in French, even my English Class. I don't have much to do so how 'bout I talk about the Rotary Club which has made this possible (FYI- it's the Rotary Club of Noblesville that is sponsoring me, which means they are responsible for my safe conduct and will send me $50 a month as an allowance. This is the same club that hosted Lillian at the end of last year) .
The Rotary Club is a philanthropic organization that is committed to humanitarian acts and projects. It's a huge organization with more than 31,000 clubs world wide in over 167 countries. It was a Rotary Club from Indiana that provided for the Afghanistan babes, Qudrat, surgery and trip expenses this year. Also, Rotary International (all the clubs combined) has been dedicated to the eradication of the Polio virus since 1985. Rotary International has set a goal to pronounce the world Polio free by the end of this year and has immunized over one million (1,000,000,000) children the world over. Rotary raised $118 billion dollars for eradication of polio in 2003! It really is a great group, the Rotarians are wonderful, committed people. For example, during our last meeting, the Rotarians told a story of how one of them was at Atlanta (Georgia) Airport and happened to see a girl wearing a Rotary blazer standing in the middle of the isle (all Rotary Youth Exchangers get a blazer jacket to wear during travel and to rotary meetings-the cool part is pins, everyone exchanges pins with other exchangers and in the end everyone has millions of pins). So, turns out this girl was from a foreign country (I think it was Brazil) and had been posponed over at the airport due to weather and she was supposed to meet with her host parents in Chicago that same day.
So, the Rotarian who found her called the Central States Coordinator (Central States is the region which includes Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, and parts of Canada -the one I'm in) and the Coordinator called the girls host family. Then the Central States Coordinator called the Coordinator for the region that included Georgia and they got a Rotarian to drive the inbound (inbound is the name for those students who are from a foreign country, outbounds have yet to leave (that's me) and rebounds are those who come back to do another year of exchange) all the way to Chicago-that same day! These are dedicated people and they take care of you. So, if any of you have siblings, relations, children, or are interested yourself, check it out at this link <www.rotary.org> - it's an awesome program.

A little about my stay

2005-05-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

Well, so far-this is not confirmed-I think I am going to Normandy. Normandy is on the North coast of France just below England. There you will find the D-Day Beaches and the majestic Mont St. Michael (a monastery built on an island that was only accessible during high tide until the French built a causeway) as well as many Gothic cathedrals and castles. I just received my forms for the student visa and it seems I will be leaving August 24, 2005.

In the beginning...

2005-05-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! This is my first post on my blog so there isn't much here. Once I get to France I'll have too much to share.