Probably the last time I'll ever drive one...

Last night, Mr. Calinon, Ludo, Lucille, Pascal (a family friend), and Alain (Pascal's son) went out to eat dinner at a beautiful lakeside restaurant. Pascal wanted to see how I would do as a designated driver for Saturday Night, so he let me drive his Mercedes-Benz to the restaurant.
When I asked him if he was scared I would crash it, he responded, simply, with, "I have Porsche at home. You can crash."

Sadly, after this France trip, I probably will never drive one of these babes again.

Fast Forward to Today!

Sorry, I've been WAAAAYY too busy to fill you guys in on what I've been up to on a day-to-day basis. I'll definitely add in a few posts about what happened post-arrival to Lyon at a later date, but for now I'd like to focus on what is happening "maitenant."

Last night, I went to bed with a scorching earache. I didn't know why I was hurting. At first, I tried inflicting pain on it to make the pain go away quicker (teen intelligence.) After, I tried sleeping on the other ear. It took me a good few hours to get to bed, with stops to check ma ordinateur to see if my mom was online. After I woke up the next morning after much angst trying to get to sleep, I woke up with an even bigger earache.

At first, I was not sure if I should bring up my earache to M. Calinon and Ludovich because of my limited french, but eventually I was able to communicate that "my ear has sick." Which, by the way, is exactly how it's directly translated ;)

They told me we would go to a walk-in clinic after Lucille, my good friend and translator woke up. At around 3PM, she did (she went partying last night) and we were off to their public health facility. It was a quick wait, and within 10 minutes we saw the docteur.

The critics are right when they say the French have a really good health system. The building was clean, proper, and very professional for such a small town.

A minute later, the docteur diagnosed me with "l'infection de l'oreille." He wrote us an inscription for the pharmacy, and we went to get our medicine.

Right now, I'm sitting at the poolside (I can't get my ear wet, alas I can't swim with my head underwater) writing this blogpost. Lucille is tanning (ohlala) and Ludo is spinning a football. The sun is blocked right now by clouds, but it's still VERY nice weather.

I love all you guys back home, and I'm reasurring you now that I will tell you if this sickness turns into a lifethreatening malade. Hey, it could happen. :P

Signing off.

The First Few

Ok, so...

Basically, one could say going to France is like going to a whole new country. Oh wait, it is.

As I only really described WHERE I was going in my first post, I'm going to take the first part of this post to describe the other 5 W's (I can't describe the How, because it hasn't happened

yet.)

What: I'm taking a treacherous journey across the Atlantic Ocean (9 hours isn't that bad.) After the journey, I'm taking a thirty day journey across the winter plains of France!

Who: Me, obviously. Oh yeah, the minor characters (very omniscient) are Lucille, Ludo, Kitty, Sebestian, Kaysus, Irah (sp?), Jerim-eh, and more to come that haven't been seen yet :)

When: July 10th-August 13th.

Where: On an unchartered planet.

Why: I'll be serious with this answer. I'm going to France for a few reasons. One, it was cheap. My parents were able to use their AirMiles points to snag an awesome deal for a plane ticket. Two, Lucille, an exchange student, lives in France, making translation/habitation/enjoyable-ation easier. And last, but not least, for improving my French. My current goal is to be accepted into Officer Training for the Canadian Forces, which requires myself to be bilingual.

'Nuf jokes, let's get to the meat of this entry.

My first day in France was not all that exciting. I arrived at Charles de Gualle airport on time, grabbed my bags, and attempted to find Lucille. My attempts were fruitless, as before I even started looking, she had found me. The system is, as my mother would say, "uncanny."

With Lucille was her sister Kitty. Kitty lives in a small ville called Etrechy outside of Paris with her fiance Sebestian. I was quite closed off at this point in time, because I didn't know whatquiteto expect. We "avons sorti" Charles de Gaulle, leaving behind me all of humanity I understood.

In France, people speak French. French is a language I'm familiar with, but I don't know completely. Haha, imagine that. Anyways, the people of France speak French very quickly and with a very thick accent, unlike my old French teacher

who spoonfeeds his students. As we walked towards the Metro, I caught a few words that Kitty and Lucille were saying, but wasn't able to piece together a thought. I was dissapointed...c'est la vie.

Lucille, being the grown woman she is, paid for my ticket for the metro. She said that it was her obligation, so I let her. I didn't even know what that word meant, and she said it in my language. Whatever. We boarded the Metro, which looks exactly like it does in the movies. Crowded, dirty, and full of life.

Here, I must take a break to explain French transportation. If you don't want to know, scroll down a paragraph or two until you see "Ok, so.."

France, in my opinion, has the BEST, and I mean the BEST, transportation system in the world. I think it has a population of around 50 million people. It's a decent population for its size, being not too crowded. The different densified areas require different types of transportation. I will do my best to describe each:

In a large, very dense city, there is usually a metro which makes it easy for people to quickly and easily go to all different parts of the city. Paris is a city with a very connected metro, making the tourists hardly have to walk at all to see all the monuments.

For the people living outside of the city, in less densified villes, they have the "gares" for getting into the cities. These double-decker trains are

for a quick commute to a jobsite or for communicating to other villes. During the first 3 days, I took the gare 6 times. :)

All over France, there is the regular train. I won't describe this. If you really want to know what a train is, type "train" into Wikipedia.

Ok, so...we took the metro to an area even closer to Paris, where we changed over to a gare, which brought us to her ville. If you don't understand that sentence, don't worry. It is supposed to be confusing. We arrived at Kitty's very cozy house in Etrechy where I met Ludo and Seb. After the regular salutations, I attempted to fit in. I smiled, said my "Merci"s and "Non, merci"s. They smiled back, and pretended that I was fitting in.

That night, we went to the Bon Marche. The Bon Marche is a very, very big supermarket where every family gets all of their groceries. One place for everything...isn't that a good idea, America? Their prices are all listed in Euros which is confusing for me. I keep thinking it's a 1.6 exchange rate, then a 1.8, then a 2.2...etc. Whatever. The supermarkets also let you self-checkout for a price. You can buy a self-checker, a hand-sized label checker, and walk around the store, checking the items you put in the cart. After you are finished, you hand the remote to the cashier, pay, and you're done. Voila! C'est incroyable, non?

That night, we ate a very french winter-style dinner. You take a slab of cheese and melt it in a pizza slice pan. After it's melted, you pour the cheese onto the meat of your choice....ham, bacon, beef, etc. It was really good, and I hope I get to try it again before I leave.

I was extremely tired that night, so I went to bed about right after dinner, which was 9:00 PM their time. I went to bed until 12:00 PM the next day.

On the second day, we had sugary foods for breakfast, which is normal for France.

Lucille then told me we were going to a Brocante, which is a French flea market. I'm sorry Mom, I have no pictures of it. But it looks exactly like a regular flea market, except with more inter-social happenings.

At the Brocante, they had a jungle-gym set up. Me, Ludo, Kitty, and Seb all went up and swung between the trees while Lucille took pictures. I should be able to post pictures of it later. I got a bruise on my shoulder, but besides that it was extremely fun. It's easier to show happiness rather than say it in a different language I decided at this point.

All thoughtout a French day, people choose random times to meet in the kitchen and just snack on bread, meat, and cheese. By the way, the bread is AMAZING here.

We went home that night, and had a meal that was good, but I forget what exactly it was. I went to bed after spending an hour or two in front of the TV with the others, deciding it would be good to get ready for Paris the next day.

On Monday, we went to Paris! All in all, Paris was amazing :) Kitty and Sebestian had to work, so Lucille, Ludo, and I all took the gare at a decent hour. Here are the pictures from that trip:

We went home. At this time, I was super tired. I was attempting to fight 24 hours of awake-time with 3 hours of sleep time that I got on the plane.

Here's a small-size post of my post-to-be. Sorry guys, I'm quite tired and must dormir :(

The French automobile companies are making the WIERDEST cars. This is one of their racecars that are set to be released shortly. Simply the oddest looking prototype I've ever seen. Ludo thought it was magnificient. :P

Us on top of "l'arc de Triomphe", which is a monument dedicated to the lost soldiers of previous wars. The woman taking the photo had no idea about current technology, so us telling her "Your finger is on the lens" was useless.

A very beautiful part of l'arc de Triomphe. I wish I had taken a photo of it, but lots of people were in front paying their tributes with tear filled eyes.

Me denying gravity infront of the monument.

The Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, we didn't go up on either of the days we were there. The line was 2 hours long on both days, and we simply didn't want to stand for that long in the baking sun.

We got to see a movie being filmed. Which movie, I have no idea. But there were tons of Chinese people, and they were filming a scene with a carousel and pigeons.

Right before a very large monument, there was water pouring out of very beautiful statues. The pool was a public wading pool, and it was a great place to cool off in the baking sun.

One of my favorite monuments. This one (I think) was a church, and inside was the LARGEST organ I've ever seen. It was almost as big as my house. I wish I could've played it, but I think the bishop would've murdered me.

A wall of l'arc de Triomphe. The wall contained the names of some of the missing soldiers.

Pre-Game Warmup

Not many people recieve the joy to be able to see France. Fortunate enough for me, I do :)

I sit here, looking at the clock, and realise that I only have around one more waking hour to go before I'm on my way to an undiscovered country! Ok, maybe I won't go that far, but France is a little huge step for me. Honest to God, Mexico is the only place I've been that I haven't lived in for a year or longer; that makes France my 2nd country visited.

I'm jittery: constantly checking my email for an important message from Luh-kill (this is my nickname for poooooor Lucille. Hopefully this nickname won't die off in my travels). I'm rendezvousing with Luh-kill and her brother (who's name slips my mind) at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. My parents think it would be a good safety measure to have a contact # of her's, and I wholeheartedly agree with them. Lucille laughed at me when I told her that landing in NYC's airport was scary, not recognizing anything, and then proceeded to she push the daunting thought into my mind that de Gaulle MIGHT have signs in French, rather than English.

I was terror stricken when I realised that I would have to take not one, not two, but three bags. Having one is perfect, having two is meh, but having three is like you're a mother goose, with all your baby ducklings behind you, trying to keep all of them in line and in order, whilst pushy men, loud voices, spectacular sights, and smells swamp your sensory organs. I'm hoping and praying that I don't lose track of any of them, but I won't be suprised if I do.

For the long plane ride, from Dallas, TX, to Paris, FR, I plan to write a short story, or begin writing a long one, and watch the presented movie. In my carryon, my all-too-gracious mother packed much-o grubb-o. I'm thinking of being the cash-only vender for food: I would gain an easy ten lbs if I tried devouring it by myself. I also hope I don't get food poisoned. If I do, you know who to blame. My mom packed chicken :/

For the most part, my summer has been all fun (staring at a screen) and games (for endless eternity.) This SHOULD change in France, as Luh-kill has prepared a fluently detailed itinerary of our stops in Paris, Lyon, and southern France. Oh yes, she also left out some special time for girl-watching. A sport restricted to anyone but travellers who are not staying very long. I plan to partake :)

It's nearing the tenth hour, so I must go get some much-needed sleep.

Wish me luck.

"I'm gonna need it."