It's like walking on snow, without leaving a trace...

...so the last bit of the title doesn't really apply, but these were the lyrics I heard when I opened this page, and I thought they were rather fitting to this blogpost.

Anyway. IT'S BEEN SNOWING! Yes, after never having seen snow in my life, I've seen it every day for the last 10 days... To be honest, I'm quite fed up with the -6 to -15 degree temperatures, and would just like to go back home for another few months, but the added bonus of snow here is making me stay put. It is the most amazing, magical, fun and pretty thing I've ever seen. Walking to school in the morning, under the still-dark sky, the old street lamps lighting my way there, with snow blanketing the roofs of the old, tall houses and stone streets is one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced. It's like it's not even real. This whole thing. But then I turn up to school and well yeah, it's less magical.

Aside from being in awe of the snow, and rugging up more than I ever have before, I haven't really done much in the last week...

On Saturday morning, Amy, one of my exchange friends, came up to Annecy from Aix-les-Bains for the day to catch up and do a bit of shopping etc. so that was a veeeeery fun day! We were out for about 8 hours, most of that in -11 degree weather. After lunch we met up with Daniel, the American rotary exchanger here in Annecy, then a bit later with Magdalena, the Swedish exchanger, to do some further shopping, and spend more money that I don't have... Afterwards we went to a café for coffee, and then Amy and I went and got dinner and went back home to the WARM. The day seemed to go for so long when I couldn't feel half of my body parts.

Sunday afternoon, my host mum and brothers took me on a tour around Lake Annecy, in car of course, because it was just as the day before (I actually wore my snow jacket when we were out this time). But the whole drive around took about an hour, and we got out and walked for about half a hour. That whole time I was just gob-smacked that I get to live somewhere like this, for a whole year. It was nothing like I've ever seen before. And every photo I took looked amazing, effortlessly.

So, uh, yeah. This is Annecy and surrounds. 

And this is all I've got at the moment. I have school holidays at the end of this week for two weeks, so hopefully I'll be out and about and I'll have more things to update you all on! 

A plus, bisous !

Mitch.