In Which Rayla Goes Into The Woods

Our adventure in la Fôret de Brocéliande was really fun. Let me tell you all about it:

Groups vert and rouge read Le Roi Arthur (King Arthur) in literature class, and it just so happens that the big forest that is featured in the legend is located in Bretagne, extremely close to Rennes. The forest is called Brocéliande and it’s absolutely beautiful, let me tell you. I’ll recount the whole trip.

The trip was on Friday, so we had to go to class in the morning. Friday first we have history, and we took a big test on Colbert, mercantilism, and control of religions. Knock on wood, but I feel really good about it, much better than any of the other tests we took this year in history. We’re hoping for an A (shut up, Arcadia High, you have no idea how hard it is to score 17 over here). Then, we had the best culture class all year, where we had a really cool discussion and debate about religious symbols in school. It’s so interesting to see the difference between French and American points of view. Then, we had art history (disco!), and English in our color group, which was really weird.

Finally, we had lunch and then the buses came and we set off for the forest. It only took about an hour to get there, and the first thing we did was drop off our bags at the youth hostel. Then, it was back in the bus for a mini drive and then we were standing in front of the giant forest ready to set off for our hike.

OK, OK, so they warned us ahead of time…wear boots! But I don’t have rain boots, and unlike Lilly and someone else, I didn’t really feel like rushing out to Aigle during lunch to buy a pair for 100Î, so I was hiking in Converse. I mean, how bad can the mud be? Answer: bad! Long story short, there was a ton of mud, and my Converse came out looking fully brown. Exciting! The hike was really fun though; we were all frolicking through the forest yelling “Oh mon Dieu! Je viens de voir Merlin!” And the mud wasn’t really so bad, actually. Once you accept the fact that your shoes, not to mention socks and probably pants, are going to be caked in mud, it becomes like a weird game of squishiness. I don’t even know how long our hike lasted, but two or three hours, and then we climbed back up the hill to the little, tiny village where our youth hostel is, and we all got ready for dinner.

Maggie, Lucie and I shared the room that was called “Arthur” – it said so on the door. This made us very happy in a ‘ha ha we have the coolest room name’ kind of way, although Lucie pointed out that it was probably cooler to be in Merlin, but quand même, Arthur rocks. As soon as we got our bed sheets from downstairs in a room that smelled of rancid socks, we made our beds and decided that we were literally dying of hunger. So, we got permission from Mme. Emmanuelli to dash across the street to the tiny tiny grocery store, and we went over there and bought much to much food (pain au chocolat, cookies, and Pringles) and then ran back to our room and ate practically all of it within a span of five minutes. Then, we all went to the kitchen to help Mme. Pallicot do the final preparations for dinner.

Cooking was exciting. Me and Maggie peeled pears, and then sliced then into tiny pieces for soup. I also tied ribbons around menus with Mike Deasy, and we made the dining room super festive. Lucie and Maggie discovered the relative difficulty in chopping up pâté, and we stole tiny bites of chicken.

Our dinner was amazing. All (half) of SYA sat at big long tables and ate a medieval feast, in honor of King Arthur. We sat with Danielle, Austin and Lela, and had an interesting meal discussing random stuff and random gossip (they’re kind of SYA’s gossip connection, and I mean that in a good way mostly). We had soupe d’orties (nettle soup), which was green and really good. Then pâté (Pascal gave us tips to avoid the liver bits) with bread, which was very French. Then, duck (yum yum quack!) and then quail (Danielle got kind of freaked out and felt bad, kind of funny) and finally weird cookies. The meal was so good! Mme. Pallicot is amazing.

Finally, we all wandered outside into the dark, following Pascal to a surprise event. (We thought we were going back to the youth hostel, but he suddenly turned us in the other direction saying, “I could have sworn it was over here, right?”) We ended up all sitting around and Pascal and Mme. Emmanuelli read us Breton and Alsacien ghost stories, during which Mr. Brochu fell asleep, much to our amusement. We were all really tired. Finally, the night came to an end at 11:30 and we were all released back to our rooms to sleep. Lucie, Maggie and I were out cold by 12:30.

The next day, we had breakfast of bread and hot chocolate, and then packed up and hopped on the bus for home. On the bus ride back, we listened to Max and Nick Flinn discussing politics, specifically Israel and Palistine, and learned that Max isn’t just cynical, but really a pessimist too. Hahahaha. Anyway, we were back at Fac de Droit before you can say “Oh my god, do you guys realize you argued about this for the whole bus ride?” and then our trip to the forest was sadly over!

I got postcards though, and I’m going to put them on my new postcard wall.

BLECH "GGGRUUUUUGHR!" - In Which We Practice "R" In TPL

TPL is the coolest class. We only have it once a week for forty five minutes, and it's forbidden to have TPL homework or tests. Thus, it's a class of no worries. Plus, we get to practice speaking our French. See, TPL stands for travaux pratiques langues which means practical language practice, which "wants to say" pronunciation of French.

So on Wednesday we were sitting in TPL practicing the "R", a very weird sound in French that is really hard to make. It's like in Spanish, when you roll the R, you know? Kind of like that but way harder because you don't roll the R in French (unless you're a spanish tourist, of course) and it has this kind of weird "GUUUHRUH!" sound. Mme. Pallicot was going around the room having us pronounce words with the "R" but we still can't do it because it's really hard. So she starts exaggerating this weird "choking" sound and it's absolutely ridiculous to listen too and we all start laughing and it's hilarious.

GUHHHHRHUHRRH! BLECH! GRRRRRRUHHUHHH!

And remember this: no matter what Pallicot says, SHREK IS AN OGRE!

In Which Rayla Experiences An Unfortunate Number Of Food Screw-Ups In One Day And Rambles About It

Current Mood: Quizzical, and (being finished with my homework), Slightly Bored

You know, there are some things that you just have to be in France to understand. For one, the pros and cons of different Nutella brands. And it takes trial and error to learn how to determine the taste and texture of French breads by looking at the shape and color of the loaves. You figure out which patisseries have pain au chocolat half off during the morning for petit déjeuner to-go. You taste test the hot chocolates of all the different cafés, factor in the price and speed of service, and subconsciously decide where to go again and again. You quickly learn how to tell a too-expensive “chic” we-glare-at-teenagers-who-come-in-and-obviously-can’t-afford-anything boutiques based on the window displays, and the facial expression of the ladies that work there. And after not long at all you become [annoyed] by the cafés where the waiters hand you the menu in English, and learn to avoid them at all cost. Avoid even walking past them if at all possible, they are that annoying. (I like French menus! But yeah...I know they're just trying to be helpful.)

This morning, I went to the boulangerie with Maggie, and the lady looked all flustered. She sold me a burnt pain au chocolat, and that made me a little sad. Stuff like that isn’t supposed to happen in France. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to sell inferior pastries in some French law – or at least cultural unwritten laws. Burnt pain au chocolat – c’est pas bon! Later when we got back to school, Thomas and Allen were jokingly upset about burnt croissants too… what’s up, Red Boulangerie?

Did I mention that my Wednesday is a total joke? I take the 7:20 bus, and get to school at the normal time, but we have a free in the morning so that gives me extra time to email/facebook/do internet homework for history and literature class. Then we have TPL – French pronunciation – which isn’t really even a real class (no grade or homework, and we only have it 45 minutes a week). Then, we have Culture – CESF – which is a real class, and my favorite class to boot… but after just one legitimate class I’m done for the day! It’s quite nice, and also annoying. Quite literally, I got out of bed for THIS?! I’m done with school at 10:35! (Don’t be too jealous Americans, my school lasts on the rest of the days until 5:05 PM, some days. Depends if I have free last period, but yeah.)

Lunch today was an epic fail. We went to Jean Macé, but there plate of the day could have been called “Processed Meat With Suspicious Sauerkraut.” Hot dog, weird sausage thing, mystery beef thing, and distasteful sauerkraut (“but when is sauerkraut even good,” I say). We all kind of picked at lunch unenthusiastically and unanimously decided to try that one more time – at St. Vincent this time. So we walked over to the other school, and were greeted by an overwhelming smell of fish. Fish stick day at St. Vincent… we all ate yogurt.

In better news, we should be studying the French education system soon in Culture. I am very excited, we already learned a bit about their system, and I really really want to know more. I think all of us find learning about their schooling to be really interesting. After all, we’re still in school so it affects us, or at least interests us a lot. From what we’ve learned so far, French education up through high school is amazing, but university is underfunded and needs work.

Oh also, something new! I’ve learned the value of a cell phone. I’ve taken to texting, and I find it quite fun and helpful in life. You know, communication? I only wish I had the equivalent of an unlimited texting plan; they don’t really do that in France for pay-as-you-go phones. It’s too bad. Me and Maggie are texting fiends. Text text text. Blah blah blah. I’ve learned how to text really quickly too, it’s amazing and undoubtedly a very important life skill.

The Grand Spectacle (SYA’s totally intense, awesome talent show for host/real parents and teachers and a bunch of SYA people) is in December and I really want to do something but I can’t think of a good talent…I don’t like singing which is the obvious one. Anyone have any genius ideas? Kelly and I were thinking of doing a skit or something maybe with the others, we’ll see. It reminds me of Laugh Tracks…SIG… (Nerd camp for life!) (“YOU’RE DATING A MARRIED WOMAN?!?! …inside jokes are amazing, but I forgot the rest of them!)

I’m rambling…je parle trop parfois. Oh mon dieu! Quelqu’un doit me faire fermer la bouche.

Je ne sais pas si la grammaire de la phrase au-dessus est bonne. Excusez-moi.

À tout à l’heure, tout le monde! Je vous aime! Laissez-moi les comments, s’il vous plaît. Et si on veut me faire heureuse, envoie-moi un peu de courrier d’escargot!

Important Snail Mail Info!

Attention everyone who has/wants to send me snail mail!

My postal code is 35700 NOT 34700!!!

3-5-7-0-0

If you write 34700, you will be sending my letters to Hérault in the south of France, and it takes them awhile to figure out that the postal code is wrong and get it to Rennes. So yeah, adjust your address books!

In Which Rayla Meets A World-Famous Chocolatier

Happy Armistice everyone! Apparently, WWI ended today, of so many years ago. In France, our holiday is called Armistice. The US is Veterans Day. Anyway, no school today; I get to stay home and do homework while texting Maggie.

Anyway, last night was very exciting! And yes, I did meet a world famous chocolatier. His name is Phillipe. [...]

So first thing’s first, they arrive and I go out and sit with everyone, since they’ve just sat down in the living room and what not. So I’m sitting there listening to the conversation and drinking grape juice (seriously) and eating mini sausage slices, and the chocolate man's wife turns to me and says: “So you had that test of King Arthur today?”

Conversation sparked, magically I find that they are turning to me more and more and asking stuff. We talk about King Arthur, school, and the Loire Valley trip. It’s amazing! After not too long (maybe three glasses of grape juice?) we’re ready for dinner so we relocate to the table.

In the last week I’ve done this weird dinner party thing twice. It's called raclettes. For dinner, there’s this giant kind of oven thing in the middle of the table. Everyone has a little metal tray where they put cheese and ham and thin sliced meat into, and put it in the oven thing to heat up. The cheese gets all melty and the meat gets kind of smoky. It’s pretty good. We had that for dinner today anyway.

At dinner, we talk about politics (“Are you happy that Obama won?” “Yes, of course!”), the American election (“Is the election always on Novemeber 4^th or does the day change?” “Oh, well, the day changes since it’s always on the first Tuesday of November, not specifically on November 4^th.”), wine (“You should try to the wine is you want, it’s very French.” “OK, I will try it.” – tastes wine – “That is very interesting!”), and national holidays (“So, Armistice tomorrow, nice to have no school.” “Yeah, there are a lot of holidays in France.” “Really?”), and then all about the differences between French and US schools. It was a really great conversation and one of the best I have had so far with my host family and with non-host family guests (who are usually much harder to talk to) so I felt really happy.

Oh and I left out the part about meeting a world famous chocolatier. After dinner, we had an amazing chocolate cake and mini chocolates. My host dad says, “Oh, he made these.” *points to dinner guest* And I’m like: “Really?” But yeah, it’s gets better. My host dad: “Yeah, he is a very well known chocolate maker. He has a chocolate laboratory and everything. He has stores in Europe, Japan and the US.” It was amazing. And the chocolates were so good too. Really. So I know a world famous chocolatier! I thought that was really cool.

Last night was my most fun dinner party ever. It’s fun to feel like you can actually communicate coherently with French people. Especially today it was great because it was people outside of my host family and usually it's really hard to talk coherently with people who aren't used to putting up with your bad French. (Which I really appreciate by the way...our host families go through a lot trying to understand us, haha.) Anyway, it made me feel like I had made a lot of language process. Such a great feeling.