So as everyone knows Christmas was just two days ago. This Christmas was especially strange for me because it was the first one I've ever spent without my family and the first one I've ever spent in France.  So obviously even in western culture, there's going to be a difference on how each country celebrates Christmas, and that difference further divides by region of that country and eventually by family. So that means this French Christmas blog will be about how I spent my French Christmas, chez Roux, Satillieu, Rhône-Alpes, France, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy, The Universe. If I missed any details about that address just let me know. Unfortunately the majority of what means Christmas to me doesn't happen in France, or at least where I am. So that means no waking up early to open presents, have breakfast and watching a christmas movie, which would most likely be the Grinch. Instead I woke up at around probably 10am and did absolutely nothing Christmas related until about 5pm, except for watching a few christmas movies on the TV which my host mom so aptly called "conneries" and/or bullshit, ha! At around 5pm we started preparing the appetizers which consisted of Salmon Roe (salmon eggs) and some other kind of fish eggs, various savory puff pastries, and of course  Boudin Blanc and Boudin Noir. Also everyone dressed up nicely even though we were all at home and no one came over, it was just us. I thought it was kind of weird.

The fish eggs were absolutely terrible and evil and gross in my opinion. It tasted of really fishy fish and dead babies. Not only that but the texture was terrible and each egg popped inside of your mouth as you ate it which in turn released more of the fishy fish/dead baby flavor. The puff pastries were really good and consisted of kiche with escargot, pizza, pigs in a blanket, and some other stuff that I forgot about. The Boudin Blanc and Boudin Noir are sausages and in spite of sharing similar names, are quite different. The boudin blanc is white and is just made of pork and sometimes includes gross things such as livers and hearts but I guess not always and its actually pretty good. The boudin noir is a blood sausage and therefore I have no idea how it tastes because I am not that adventurous and I don't want to eat blood. To accompany the appetizers we had rosé champagne, fake champagne and cherry coke, of which I tried everything and it was all good, haha.

For the main course we had raclette, which is basically potatoes, various forms of charcuterie (sausages and the like) and the raclette cheese. Apparently the name for this dish and the cheese is the same. By the way this cheese smells SO bad but it tastes really good. So what this consists of is your potato, your meat, the cheese and a device in the middle of the table which melts the cheese. You put the cheese in a little triangle shaped thing and then the triangle into this device which is kinda like a grill, and then your cheese melts. Once your cheese is melted you scrape it out of the triangle with a wooden scraper thing and onto your potatoes and meat. And then you repeat until your done. The one thing I really don't like about this dish is that the cheese used is so fatty! Like when you melt it, there is also some melted fat next to the cheese. We also had really cool rolls that had each of our names written on them which turned out to be written with cocoa power mixed with water on the prebaked dough. We didn't end up eating them (I didn't really want to anyway, because its not everyday you get a piece of bread with your name on it) and frankly I have no idea where they went.

For the dessert which we for some reason ate the next day for lunch (I guess we forgot? idk) it was a Buche de Noel which probably every French family eats for Christmas Dessert. Basically its a cake that is made to look like a log and traditionally it was accompanied by little meringue mushrooms but I guess they don't do that anymore. To make the log shape, what's basically done is they bake a really thin sponge cake, put the filling inside and then roll it up and apply icing which is then made to look like bark, sort of. Sometimes there are extra features, such as a branch or something added on to the log but not always.

French Christmas Tree + Presents

After we finished our meal, it was time for presents. That was pretty much the same as it is in the US except it was like 9PM. I am happy to report that I got everyone a present and everyone seemed to like what I got them. Which if you know me, I'm not always the best at giving gifts. Ok, I suck at it, but at least I own up to it. And I promise that for Christmas 2013 I'll at least try to give gifts, maybe. I guess I've always sucked at it because I always felt that getting gifts would be this terribly hard and frusturating thing to do, but in reality it isn't at all. I guess my fear of "what the fuck am I gonna do if I got them nothing and they got me something?" overwhelmed my misconstrued conception of buying gifts. Anyway, that kind of wraps up my french christmas experience. My next post will probably be about new years. Happy Holidays!

So this isn't really a post or even original content but I just have to post this because I believe it 100% accurately sums up what an exchange actually means. So without further ado... 

Exchange Students: 

Its going to be awkward when we aren't the foreign kid anymore when we go home,

nor will they care about us being exchange students. 

For a month they might comment on it, 

but our awesome stories will be forgotten to them, 

we will fade in with the others at school.

Family gatherings might bring it up or the curious teacher,

but our eventful life will be forgotten, 

except to us. 

The way we live from the day we return is influenced by our host country, 

with our self esteem boosted, amazing confidence, worldly humor,

and all our barriers broken. 

They may not see it but we will always be exchange students,

kids who actually grew up and saw the world. 

I would give credit to whoever wrote this awesome quote, but there wasn't anything to give credit to. So. 

Yet another little semester thing comes to a close here in France, which means that I've been here for about 3.5 months. Time here is flying faster and faster every single day, I honestly can't believe it. In just two more weeks, I will be here for four months! Definitely a lot has happened in the past 6 weeks (since the last vacation) so I'm going to try to summarize all that up here. So my French has definitely improved a lot! Except whenever I have to talk to someone to order food or something like that. I don't know why, maybe nerves or something. Even though I speak better and can say what I want without having to think most of the time, my vocabulary is still hopelessly small and I'm just starting to get used to using the conditional tenses (would, should, will, etc) which are a lot harder in French than in English. Also when I think back to how I spoke a month ago, I only see minor improvements, not major improvements like in other months which kind of scares me. Going at this rate I have no idea how I'm supposed to become sufficient and/or fluent in French by July. I know tons of AFSers have taken a fluency test in which you can take around April (I think) and totally passed, but I can't see my self doing that. Maybe I should ask someone who has already done this. That's probably a good idea.

Something really sad also happened in the last six weeks. One of my best french friends moved away! Which was totally a bummer and unnecessary in my opinion. Also I've been teaching random French people how to swear in English (besides the obvious words, obviously) which always turns out to be super fun because then I learn their French equivalents and everybody freaks out when I use them. Like yesterdat for example I used connasse which roughly translates to bitch and/or stupid bitch, to which my friend replied "Omg! Who taught you that?" (in French, obviously) To which I replied "you." Also another thing happening at school is that a new building where all our classes will be after the vacations was just recently finished and everyone is freaking the F*CK out. I don't really get why, its just a new building. But its a very interesting building for a school because its all harsh black, whites, cement and glass. In the words of my friend Alexia "C'est trop design. C'est comme une musée" (google translate, folks.) So of course that really just means that I'm going to spend all January and probably most of February trying to find out where just exactly my classes are, and I just got used to the old building fml. 

Of course things other than school have happened in these past six weeks! I went to Lyon with AFS for one, and you can read about that by scrolling down the page some more. Last weekend I went to Lyon again, but this time just with another exchange student (shout out: Svana) which means that we just went there alone. Gasp! We also met up with Isabela, another exchange student. It was actually quite simple to get into the city because France's bus system doesn't confuse me. So anyway around 10:15 Svana and I get on the bus and for the next like 30 minutes we sit there listening to the bus driver revving the engine with nothing happening. And then out of nowhere Svana sings an Icelandic go bus driver song and about a few seconds after she starts singing it, the bus starts moving. Thank you Icelandic magic. We got to Lyon around 12pm, ate lunch and basically shopped at the mall there (which is pretty big) until 6:30pm. Of course We took a train home, which was like a ghetto version of the Harry Potter train.

Anyway, since yesterday was the last day before vacations and more importantly, Christmas the school had like a concert thing. It was very n'importe de quoi and the room was hot and smelt like sweaty adolescents ew. So needless to say, I didn't really spend that much time there. The was also les repas de noël which everyone said was super amazing (but really, when is school food that good?) but it actually kinda sucked. The buche de noel was frozen, foie gras tasted like... poor exploded bird liver, the meat was either a choice between chicken stuffed with weird things, wild boar, or fish. So everyone agreed that les repas de noël this year were terrible compared past years. Whatever. The other day my host sister was brain storming on what we would be eating for our actual Christmas meal this year and she came up with foie gras, salmon, either deer/wild boar, among other things. I hope we don't eat deer though.

Anyway, thats kind of my life in a nutshell of the past six weeks. I hope everyone has a great christmas. I miss you guys!!

So yesterday, I finally got to leave French hickland and go to civilization! Wooo. So I woke up at about 7am.. on a saturday so I could make it in time for the train at 9. Since I live in the middle of nowhere the train station is just like a hut with some train tracks in front of it and of course its like minus a million degrees and windy and everybody is freezing. So we finally get on the train, reconnect with the other exchange students who live in our area but are too far away to see on a regular basis and generally annoy the old people by talking. Luckily the train ride is only like 30 minutes tops and then we all get off the train (duh) and are informed that we have an hour and a half hours to go to the mall! Thank god. I was  kind of expecting the mall to be super small (since the only other mall I've been to in France was small) but it wasn't! It was like 4 stories (3, if you're French/another nationality. You guys count floor levels stupidly) and had lots of stores and even an H&M where the clothes had US sizes on them. The sizes here confuse me because sometimes they're in centimeters but usually they're just in numbers that seem to start at around 30, and its impossible to find an online converter! I found something and it said to subtract 10 from the weird European sizes to get your American size, which I don't believe that because I'm definitely not small enough to wear a US size 28. Anyway, we're all at the mall for like an hour and a half and the only thing I bought was a chicken curry sandwich, which is kind of depressing.

(Square with the ferris wheel. Disregard Kamila and Carissa hahah)

After that we took the metro to some square (the subways in Lyon are fast by the way!) where there was a really big ferris wheel that I really wanted to go on but it was 10 euro. We were then informed that we will be going to the marché de noël (Christmas market) where there are things to buy and things to eat. (Watch out though, the food stands are hidden and I'm pretty sure they move around a lot) I ended up buying what was basically a French (Alsacien actually) baked potato with Isa and Bea aka my favorite Brazilians. haha! And I bought a dream catcher from a Québécoise lady, and I actually understood her accent. Woohoo! People from Quebec tend to have really strange and hard to understand accents by the way. I also bought a giant waffle, a hot chocolate and hot orange juice. It was cold! So after the marché du noël we started our journey to the top of a giant hill (mountain) where there is a Basilica called La Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourvière. Its actually pretty beautiful on the inside and out, even though they're doing renovations on the inside and in my opinion is prettier than the Notre Dame in Paris.

So before I continue, I'm going to explain to you why there is a light festival, etc. So the hill that this basilica is on is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and apparently the Virgin Mary has saved Lyon multiple times (from the Plague, Cholera and invading Prussian armies) so every 8th December everyone lights candles in their windows and there are light shows to honor the Virgin Mary. Voilà.

The Basilica 

After we did a little tour of the church, we all got coffees/teas/hot drinks etc and I made the mistake of telling some guy who I guess was a volunteer for the church that I wasn't religious. Woops. If I would've known he was a church guy I probably would've just said "Praise Jesus!" but I didn't because he was in plainclothes and I didn't even hear what the first thing he said to me was. So here's our conversation as follows:

him "jkjasd sdask sadjka ?" (probably will you except Jesus as your savoir)
Me "Pardon?"
him "What languages do you speak? and are you religious?"
Me " I speak french and english, and no why?"
him ":O! You need to believe in God, we're not alone... hasdjaskl. (I zoned out btw)"
him " (after like 10 minutes) here take these bible versus. Bye!"

So that was really annoying. After that ordeal we all went back down the hill (mountain) and stumbled upon a band playing some music in front of yet another church. We ended up dancing to them, which if you know me I don't usually dance. so yeah. By that time it was starting to get dark which means all the light shows were starting and which also means all of Europe somehow crammed themselves into Lyon. Because of this we all had to hold hands while walking through these giant crowds, which was a good idea because if we didn't we'd all probably still be in Lyon, lost and looking for where everybody else went. While the holding hand thing was good for us, it was annoying to everybody else as we created a moving wall of people, probably about 15 people long that prevented the others from walking in different directions than us, which pissed them off. I thought it was funny.

This light shows were pretty awesome by the way, and the involved some kind of projector thing projecting light show thingies on the buildings around us. The awesome thing about it was that the images that were projected onto the buildings matched like the windows, columns, and other architectural features so they could change the whole look of the building, make it look all stained glass or like on fire or like it was melting, etc. I have videos which I'll probably upload at a later date. (if I can. I just tried to and it said like two days remaining. fml)

So by this time we've all been standing/walking around for like the entire day and its decided that we go searching for something to eat, and of course every place is like packed, blah, blah, blah. So we keep searching and searching and searching but I think I'm the only person who realized that if we just stayed at one restaurant/food stand and waited we probably would of eaten about three hours before we did. So eventually we went back to the marché du noël where we all bought stuff to eat. I bought a hot dog, which instead of a role there was a baguette so that was interesting. So after we ate we just went to the train station and waited for about an hour and sat down for like the first time the entire day. I'm actually extremely surprised that my legs didn't pop out of their sockets and die. My right ankle still hurts. So of course we get on the train and there are like three billion people which means no seats for the majority of the trip and I ended up falling asleep standing up, which I'm pretty sure is a first for me. After the train arrived at the station at like 12:30AM I got driven home and finally got to sleep at around 1AM.

So to sum yesterday up in one word, it was amazing! Even though it was freezing and my legs almost fell off.

You know, its really amazing how when you move to a foreign country you expect to learn boatloads about the culture, the people, and the language. But you really end up learning about yourself more than anything. Living a whole ocean away from everything and everyone you've ever known forces your life into a clear perspective. As the time goes by, I realize more and more just how much my friends and family really mean to me. They help form the foundation of who I am, and it certainly has been unsettling living without them for the past 3 months (although it feels like a lifetime!) You also learn just how capable you are as a person. It definitely isn't easy changing countries, friends, schools, languages and even your family for an entire 10 months. And sometimes I don't know if it was the most sane decision I've ever made, because who in their right mind would want to do this?

Even though things like homesickness, shyness, and the inability to communicate fade over time, what never fades is how hard doing this really is. Sure, you think that after a few months its gotten way easier, but in reality its just you who has become a stronger, more confident person and therefore you are now able to deal with the hardships a million times easier. (Also doesn't hurt that your language skills have probably improve a lot) As I look back at these past three months and think about how quickly they've past, I also think about how much I've changed. Sure, I'm still the same person, I still have the same values, sense of humor, likes and dislikes, etc but what's changed is my ability to handle myself. When I think of who I was mentally and maturity wise in September, the first word that comes to my mind is baby.

Its kind of crazy in fact, because three months ago I already thought of myself as pretty mature in just about every way. Boy, how wrong I was. Before-France me definitely couldn't handle an average week that the me I am now can. I honestly don't understand how I managed to make it through the first month. The only thing I can think of is how ashamed I would feel if I ended up going back home after just a few weeks.

So anyway, enough with the feelings stuff. I just had to get that out of my system, and now that I've addressed you, my wonderful family and friends and how you mean so much to me. Well now that I think of it, most of my friends pretty much are my family, so my wonderful family, its time to talk about me. For the past week or so I've had an annoying as butt cold, like the kind of cold where it makes you cough so much that you almost throw up in your Italian class. Granted its almost over but my nose refuses to stop getting runny. I hate runny noses and even worse, I'm starting to get low on moisturized tissues. Having to used non-moisturized tissues is definitely in my top ten list of things I dislike the most. (was that a diva moment? probably)

Also, my grades in school are starting to get a little better! The other day in history I received an 8/12 for a paper thingy where I answered questions about Feminism and Socialism in West and East Germany! Wooooo. Actually my actually grades were 5.5/7 on my content and like 1/5 for how I wrote it. Which does that make sense to anyone? Because it doesn't to me, my teacher said she didn't like the "format" or whatever. So somehow those two grades fused to become an 8/12. On another note, its getting dangerously close to Christmas! Which is so nerve-wracking, like how is that gonna work? It just feels weird and super awkward that I'll be spending Christmas with another family, I guess. And I have no idea what to get anyone for gifts! (or where) Nor do I really have the time, but I'm hoping to force in some shopping while I'm in Lyon this Saturday, because according to some people there's a mall there. I have my suspicions about that though.

 By the way, I'm going to go to Lyon this saturday to see la fête des lumières ! (light festival) which I'm pretty sure involves people putting candles in their windows to honor a saint or something. Which is weird because only 3% of the population here is actually religious. But whatever. Also if you haven't noticed/ or been stalking my facebook recently I lost like 17lbs since I came here without even trying and eating bread at the same time. So needless to say, I don't really believe in diets so much anymore. I'd say that a diet is necessary if you're like 400lbs, but if you just are like 20-40lbs overweight you probably just need to get off your ass. (Although smaller portions help too!) So what I'm basically saying is that my vanity will probably force me to stay in Europe haha! Because its almost impossible to have the "walk down the street to go (insert place here) lifestyle" in the US. Its cars 24/7! Its kind of weird because I barely use cars here! Mostly public transport/my feet. I feel like the only place I could recreate that walk wherever lifestyle would be somewhere like Philly/NYC/Chicago, etc. And I don't know if I really want to live in a big city.

Even though I really don't want this to end, I kind of do want it to end. Mainly because I'll be 18 when I get home! woo! That means I can do whatever I want, as long as its law-abiding and I have the resources to do it. But lets face it, I'll probably end up going to NACC for the next two years like every other loser instead of actually doing something interesting. Or I could still end up applying for cooking school, I honestly have no idea. Because I want to do it, but I don't at the same time. So yeah, someone help me figure out my life before I get home! haha. But its just so me to make up my mind and then change it at the last minute. Bad idea.

So yeah, I'm done babbling. I might post something after my Lyon trip though!