Mes dernières pensées.

I remember how I wasn't at all sure how this year was going to turn out; it was like walking through a brand new door, but with all the lights turned off. My year here in Paris started out pitch black, but little by little, more lights were flipped on, until I could see exactly where I was going.

I've learned so many things this year. Yes, I've learned the obvious like how to speak French, but I'm not talking about that. I've learned how to adapt to a new culture, how to laugh it off when my math teacher purposefully humiliates me in front of the class for not understanding because of the language barrier, I've learned how to try foods like duck liver, veal kidney and liver, and steak tartar (raw beef), I've learned how to hold my breath for long periods of time while passing by groups of smokers, and I've learned how to not be embarrassed when boys asked at school in front of everyone if I wanted to kiss them. 

I was worried at the beginning of the year that I wouldn't make friends. Well, now I can tell you that I did. Actually, I have quite a few, but not all from my school. There's Laura, the Australian girl I met on vacation, and Lena, my French cousin. I have a few more distant friends at school, such as a French girl who's perfect in English and French since her parents are both American, but she's lived here all her life. I made one really close friend at school, Katie, who spent six months in my special adaption class trying to learn French before returning back to England. 


Do any of you remember my first ever blog post? I said how plane food tastes like dead skunk with lizard-flavored gravy? Well, it's going to taste even worse after dining as a Parisienne for the past year. 


Tonight we walked along La Seine for the last time this year. I surprised myself; I found myself wanting to stay in certain ways. I love the language, the food, and of course, the city itself. I thought, "What if I stayed?" before remembering my friends and family, who I could never leave forever. I have a life in California, but I also now have a new life here.


I've been telling myself that my life in Paris is over; but it isn't. Who says I can't spend time here in the future, whether it's to visit or to live here again? I've needed to look at the positive side, unlike when we first moved here and I was telling myself that I wouldn't make any friends. 

I've loved every last bit of living here in Paris, even when I've had to make adjustments to myself like being more open-minded about everything. 

But that's what living abroad is all about.

 

*Je suis une vrai Parisienne*

We did it!!!!

Les Vacances d'Eté

I sat there, on the same bench I did on my very first day at French public school, realizing that it was over. As much as I sometimes hated what was happening or even the people at school, it's something I'll miss. My math teacher's funny English, the way the some of my French friends say my name, "Ning-Ning," having a purpose to hide my terrible fatty beef in my empty yogurt cup in the cafeteria, my over dramatic French teacher; all things that have made me smile throughout this school year. But yes, there's a part of me that is SO happy that finally, I'm free from school! What does that mean? Vacation!

My summer vacation starting with bolting onto a train heading for Nice, just as it was about to leave. Getting on took even longer than usual, having had to be careful with the cage that brought the two frogs in. Very antsy after spending five hours sitting on a train, I was excited that my super cool au pair française, Marion, who also speaks English, would be arriving the next morning and staying with us through Sunday. 

Me, Nola, Marion, and... who's that guy?!

Our five days in Nice (which is very nice, by the way) were full of beaching (is that even a word?), sleeping in, eating a LOT of good food. One night when it was just Marion, Nola and I, we ate at an okay restaurant that also happened to be a karaoke bar, we just didn't know it yet. We probably didn't leave that place until midnight.I sang "Every Breath You Take," and I'm pretty sure I broke everyone's eardrums.

When Friday came, we packed up our now sand-filled suitcases and we were off to our next destination, Aix-en-Provence, this time by car. We'd been invited by our landlord to stay with her in her at her house there. How could we object? There's a swimming pool and everything. 

Relaxing. After all, it is vacation.

Two days later, we found out that thankfully, Marion isn't allergic to bee stings. Her finger hurt for a long time afterward. 


The next day, I'm surprised that Marion's big breakfast didn't come out of her ears with all of us giving her those big goodbye hugs. 


After having a great time in Aix, my dad used his old Domino's Pizza delivery skills to drive us to a town in the countryside, Sarlat.

We couldn't just sit in the car the whole way though, we had to do something, didn't we?...

We stayed at an amazing bed and breakfast owned by an English couple. Their dog named Oscar is one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met, even though he knocked me down the porch stairs once. There was an Australian twelve year old girl and her mom staying there too, and we all became good friends. The girl's name is Laura, and the first time we ever really talked was when we all got into the freezing Dough boy pool together. 

Oscar and his friend, Buster.

Then it was July 14, the French independence day. We were so close to the fireworks that night, that we saw them taking off, and some of the ashes even landed on the people in front of us! As my parents got closer and closer to Laura's mom, and us with Laura, we invited them along with us to "Le Gauffre de Padirac," a 75 meter hole in the ground, converting to about 246 feet! One descends the hole by staircase, and it gets colder the further you go. Inside the enormous cave, there are rivers and waterfalls, and part of the tour included being in a small boat on the river for about ten minutes. 


More goodbyes. *sniff* Soon we were driving to a small town of 200 people where my great grandfather's French wife's sister, her daughter, and her parents had invited us to their country house for the weekend. The daughter is eleven, Lena. We immediately started playing ping-pong together, and speaking French all at the same time, which I didn't even know was possible. Soon, I'll be playing ping-pong while speaking French and jumping up and down on one leg. 

We visited an amazing church made out of only rock, and while Lena was in our car, we introduced her to how the Kaplans boogie in the car. 

We also had a lot of fun insulting celebrities like Hannah Montana and Justin Bieber together in French.  

Just as soon as all the other towns, it was time to leave. Only five more days to go before coming home!

Têtards!

What do you think by the title? Why don't you try entering it into Google Translate. My dad's grandmother's cousin and her husband own a bed and breakfast in the French countryside. We went for the first time a few months ago, then went again back again last May. Because my mom had a friend visiting Paris, she couldn't come with us the second time. Next to the bed and breakfast is a really thin beginning of La Seine, the river running through Paris. We walked along the side, looking for frogs. Not being very successful in the finding of an actual frog, we came across an area of the river full of tadpoles; hardly any of them had legs yet, except for a few. My dad showed us how to trap them in our hands, so we brought a jar with us to put them in. We caught 35 with our bare hands!

Only 11 more to go!

 My dad said we could bring just one home, because he was almost sure it would die. We chose one that was already starting to get hind legs, and put it in a giant water bottle full of water in a backpack for the car ride back to Paris. At first, we named it Pepsi, then changed his name to Sparky. It's been about three weeks now, and he's still alive! We bought some fish rocks for him and put them sloped in a Tupperware container, so that he can climb up if he wants. He has all of his legs now, and his tail is gone! He's climbing up the walls and eating flies! Sparky may look like a frog, but is still the size of a tadpole. I hope he lives until we go back so we can smuggle him onto the plane, since planning a funeral anytime soon is SO not on my to-do list.

The bit** has a good appetite at eleven and a half on the beach.

"Good morning, childerens!" is how I'm greeted every morning in math class. "How are you this morning?"
"I am fine, thank you!" my fifth grade class replies like robots.
Because I've advanced in my French speaking, each morning I go to the normal fifth grade math and grammar class at my school. My teacher, who's name is Dominique, just loves to speak English to his class. Sometimes, when my CLIN teacher, Christine, isn't at school because she's sick, I have to go into Dominique's class for the whole day instead of half of it. Right after lunch, he teaches the class English. Now, I've been waiting for an opportunity like this, because I thought it would be really fun. Twice now, I've had English with him, and the first time went like this; he was teaching us in English the islands surrounding the UK.
"Islands," he would say, but pronounced like ice-lands.
Now, I'm NOT trying to make fun of him, but it's funny.
Before lunch, instead of bon appetit, he used his English translation and came up with, "Good appetite, childerens!"
Once again, we need to reply, "Thank you teacher!"
Recently, he has been saying, "Have a good lunch!" so I think he somehow found out.
Our class also turns into robots when he sneezes. "Bless you, teacher!" we're taught to say. Literally every single time.
"Thank you childrens!" If he's brainwashing them to say that with some certain device, I might ask him to borrow it, to make my mom think I did my chores.
Three days ago, he was going over the time with them, and Dominique changed the clock to say 11:30. "How do you say this, children?" Nobody said anything. "Eleven and a half!" he said, which made sense to him, because in French you say onze heure et demie, which translates to that.
I sucked in my cheeks so that I wouldn't smile. But that's not the best part.
Last Friday Dominique was looking through his English flashcards while the rest of the class was completing a math problem. He holds up a card with a picture of the beach on it. "Raelyn, how do you say this?" he asks me.
"Beach," I say.
"Yes, but there is a bad word very close to that, isn't there?"
I nod.
"Will you say it please, I want to hear it." Noticing I was hesitant, he adds,"It's okay, nobody will understand."
"Bit**," I say.
"Okay, so it's beach and bit**?"
I nod again.
"Thank you."
That was of the most embarrassing/funny/awkward things in my life. I've made up a new sentence for him, though...

"The bit** has a good appetite at eleven and a half on the beach."

Vacationing

Italy. I've wanted to go there forever. I was especially happy because my grandparents were going to be there with us, visiting from the U.S. again. We took a plane to Venice and spent a few days there before going to a city called Montorosso . Four days later we drove down to another city called Florence. Montorosso was my favorite- we stayed in a cute little bed and breakfast and took a four hour boat tour in the ocean. The tour guide was the Italian dad of an eleven year old girl named Valentina, who had an American mother, so she is fluent in both Italian and English. Last year, she lived in California and went to school in Oakland. When Valentina was out of school after the tour was over, we got to hang out with her and go swimming at the beach, which is right in front of their house. She has a miniature bunny named Pucci, and she's SO cute! Valentina even bought her a chihuahua harness (it's way too big) so she can take Pucci on walks!

Pucci!!!

At the beginning of our trip, my dad caught some weird sickness that made him look funny. Everyone else in my family caught it too, except for me and my grandparents.

Lemon pucker dad

"I don't know what happened, but it disappeared!"

Walrus woman

Do you ever hear how Italy is famous for it's food? I can personally tell you that that's right.

My dad's dinner

Glad that's not my head.

Hot dog and french fry pizza

Italian flag pasta

Pasta man (made of pasta!)

Rainbow striped pasta

After our voyage in Italy, there was no time to rest- our cousins (who are awesome, by the way) were here! Have you ever heard of the Astrix Park? It's a theme park based on the French Astrix characters. We went on roller coasters,  haunted houses, water rides, etc. One of the roller coasters that I went on had eight loops in it! We also got to "meet" the characters.

Asterix and Oberix

While we were at the theme park, I somehow shrunk, and then my shoes were too big!

I shrunk!

A few days later my cousins went back home, to Connecticut. School started again that week, but on Thursday, my parents pulled Nola and I out of school early to go to Holland to ride through the tulips. (I'd gotten back to my normal size) We took a train to a town there called Den Haag. Since Queen's Day, the biggest holiday in Holland (although I don't know what it's celebrating) was happening the days that we were visiting, they had a carnival set up around the town that we walked around before dinner. Since the legal drinking age in Holland is eight, I got really drunk off of tequila.

Looks like I drank too much.

 The bike riding the next day was really fun, but we were a few weeks late to see the tulips in full bloom so most of them were faded out and not so colorful anymore. We did come across one field that wasn't dead yet, and it looked like a carpet. Then, we looked around a flower garden. I shrunk again! I wonder why my shoes don't shrink with me?

What's happening?

The day we were going home I had a problem. A big one. Literally. When we arrived at the airport, I realized I'd grown so big I couldn't even fit in the airplane!

What the beans?!

Luckily I wasn't the only one who grew.

Since I couldn't fit onto the plane, we didn't know what to do, so we went to the terminal to find a phone and call the paramedics.When my dad was about to call, I shrunk back to my normal size *phew!* but the plane had already left! We took a train back to Paris instead. Lately, I haven't had any size problems. I think it was because I ate too much pizza and pasta in Italy.

FISHY WANTS A GOODBYE KISS!

Poisson D'Avril (April Fool's Day, the French Way)

April 1st. The day in the U.S. when you can get back at your evil teacher, friend, etc with a prank. Well, if you don't count sticking a fish on their back a good prank, April Fool's Day isn't exactly the same here. It's called "Poisson D'Avril," translating to "April Fish". As I vaguely mentioned earlier, the point of "Poisson D'Avril" is to tape paper fish onto people's backs. No switching the salt with the sugar, no putting ice down someone's shirt, just fish on their back. As well as winding up with a lot of fish stuck to me, I also got delivered this.

After (I'll call him A) A gave it to me, everyone huddled around us and tried to get us to kiss. Umm, HE-LLLOO! We're in 5th grade! Luckily the bell rang before... well, you get the picture. Hopefully. Wait, I'm not done. Well... should I tell you? Fine. My French friends told me that he likes me because he thinks I'm...

S

E

X

 Y.

Yes. Such 5th grade material.

French is taking over my brain.

TEST

Is French taking over Raelyn's brain? Circle your answer.

YES        NO 

 

 Correct answer: yes. Two times tonight, I have realized that I have accidentally spoken to my parents in French in the middle of our English conversation. In the first example, Nola was reporting to my parents that my CLIN (the special program for foreign kids) teacher will be taking a two week course in English starting Monday, and that there will be a substitute. Remembering that the fifth grade teacher will too, I blurted, "Dominique (the fifth grade teacher's name) aussi!" which means, "Dominique too!" A little while later, my mom was in the middle of talking to me and I wanted to go get some food from the kitchen so I said, "Attend," meaning wait. If you're thinking that just saying two things accidentally in French shouldn't qualify for taking over your brain, I have backup. I've had at least ten dreams in French, but unfortunately I forget what they were. Also, I unintentionally find that I'm saying things to myself in French, completely unaware. When I think in English, I always (it's become a habit) try to translate it into French. See? My mind is being taken over by a foreign language! Now I'm afraid that if I try to take Spanish when I'm in middle school and I start thinking in three languages, my head might explode! Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Neutral

Not wanting it to happen

Starting to happen

HAPPENING!!!