Last week of holidays!

Salut !
I know I know, it's been a while. I've been busy. It is holidays after all.

Anyway. Since I wrote last time, I've been to my first Rotary meeting, been skiing, saw the president, caught up with a friend who was an exchange student in Australia last year, been to Geneva, to Aix-les-Bains, Chambéry and La-Roche-sur-Foron and been snowshoeing.

Last Thursday, Mister President was in town ! Yes, it's only Sarko, but it was pretty damn cool to have the President walk past my house! Maggie, Ana and I waited outside a restaurant for almost half an hour, for him to emerge, but we seriously could not be bothered waiting so long, and figured he'd leave by a back door anyway. Afterwards we walked to Ana's house, drank delicious tea, ate chocolate and watched past Eurovision performances because we are cool, okay ?

On Thursday night was my first rotary meeting, and it was the most insane rotary meeting ever. It was at a very nice restaurant/conference centre across the lake. First we all sat in a conference room for half an hour for the formalities of the meeting, then we moved in to the restaurant for a delicious three course dinner consisting of gravlax salmon for entrée, pork filet mignon for main and millefeuille for dessert, with many bottles of wine being consumed between the Rotarians, this all being spread out over 2 and a half hours. So different to Australia.

Last Friday my friends Typh (who was in Bordertown last year) and Mégane came to Annecy for the day! I met them at their friend Marion's apartment where we stayed for a bit, then we went to an Italian restaurant for lunch, and then for a walk by the lake. It was a rather eventless day, but tonnes of fun nonetheless.

On Monday we went to Le Grand-Bornand and I WENT SKIING FOR THE FIRST TIME! Well, it was cross-country skiing, but it was still cool to be on the snow. Cross-country skiing is a workout, and then some. Oh man. I only did about 2km, and was almost paralysed at the end. Afterwards we stopped by a little lodge in the village and had crêpes and cider before we left to go home.

Start of the piste!

The ski village.

Cross-country skiis.

Tuesday I went to La-Roche-sur-Foron and stayed with Typh's family for the night with her friend Marion, so we didn't have to get up so early to go to Geneva the next day. For dinner her mum made lasagne, in a frypan. There's always a first for something! Then we made a lemon tart which was absolutely amazing! We ate it while watching The Best of Nouvelle Star (French Idol) until the early hours of the morning.

On Wednesday Typh, her friend Céline and I went to Geneva for the day to meet Typh's German friend Lars, who was coming to stay with Typh's family for a few days. In Switzerland their road signs are in at least 3 languages (French, Italian and German) but usually with English thrown in too. That spun me out. When we got there, we went straight to Starbucks! The most expensive Starbucks ever.. 8 Swiss Francs (roughly the same in AUD) for a coffee. We then went for a stroll down the Champs-Elysées of Geneve, with all of the designer stores, as well as all of the flagship stores for the Swiss watch brands. Nearby was the Jet d'Eau, a massive jet of water randomly placed in the lake. For lunch we went to the Globus food hall, which is like a David Jones, but classier, where they have food stores from all over the world, but naturally I went straight to the french food store right after I'd been saying how much I miss Thai food... After lunch we made our way across the lake to the main station, Cornavin, to meet Lars, although we had plenty of time, so we sat in the street and ate lollies that looked like eyeballs and almost threw up, then went to McDonalds. The best McDonalds I've ever been to. Toblerone McFlurrys, Ovaltine McFlurrys, 'restaurants' so much nicer decorated than any I've ever been to in Australia and they have these adorable little kids books that feature a penguin as the main character in their Happy Meals. And carrots in tall glasses on shelves for decoration... Bizarre... We had to leave in a hurry to meet Lars at the station, and once we met him we had to hurry to find a bus to take us to the other station to take us back to France, but that obviously wasn't an easy task. The ancient map of Geneva that we had was missing a few things. Like train stations, for example. So we took a bus to somewhere near where we thought we had to be, instead of just asking a local. We got off halfway through the line, to try and find our bearings again, which was almost impossible. Who would have thought the compass on my phone would have ever been helpful? We just started walking in the general direction of the station, with lost hope that we'd catch the bus. Just at the bottom of the hill where the station sits atop, we walked past the terminus for the bus that we were just on... Smart. Once we finally found the station, we started frantically calling parents to see if we could actually get back to France that night. Turns out another bus came only 20 minutes later. The bus only takes half an hour, and there was a half an hour wait at La-Roche to get the next bus to Annecy, so I was home by 7:45.

Typh made me be a tourist...

On Friday I went to Aix-les-Bains, half an hour away, to visit Amy and Monica, exchange friends. Amy and I spent about an hour trying to find a homewares store so she could by a cookbook, all to no avail, so we went to Carrefour and bought a less-cool recipe book, but still with amazing recipes. Afterwards we went to a café to get ice cream and a coffee. I had chestnut flavoured ice cream, and it was the best thing that I've tasted in a long time! We had to leave to meet Monica at the station, who had been waiting 20 minutes for us... Sorry Monica.. It took us a while to decide what to do, but we went bowling for a bit, then went across the road to McDonalds so I could try the amazing Magnum McFlurrys. They were really something. Rich, but delicious. When we went back into town we walked around aimlessly for a little bit, trying to find reasonably-priced restaurants because we are poor exchange students, found an Italian restaurant that looked nice and decided on that. Good decision. It was like real Italian Nonna's food. Even though I don't have an Italian Nonna, or know an Italian Nonna. But for dessert we went to another restaurant, where Amy and I got a "Dame Blanche" which was Hot chocolate, ice cream, meringue and chantilly. Sort of like an Eton Mess. My train ride home was on a TGV, so fast, quiet and comfortable. Australia really needs to take a leaf out of the Frenchies' book!

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday), we went for a drive to Chambéry, about 40 minutes away, just to have a look around, and it was Carnival as well! There was such a buzz in the city, everyone all dressed up, kids throwing confetti around on the streets (there was confetti literally everywhere you looked.) and a few floats waiting on the street for a parade. Annecy's Carnival is next weekend, and they dress up in old clothes, so that will be interesting..

Elephant statue in Chambéry.

And today, Sunday, we went to a place called Le Plateau de Glières, a site of the French Resistance where young men between the ages of 18 and 24 fled to escape being summoned to the French Armed Forces in World War II (If I understood my host dad correctly). More than 120 Frenchmen were killed by the German forces there. After that nice history lesson, we put on our snowshoes and set off along the pistes. We found a nice little chalet to sit and and eat, and each time someone walked past they wished us "Bon appetit!", which I though was really nice, and which would NEVER happen in Australia. After we'd finished eating, we went to see the igloo that my host brothers had made, and then back to the car to come home.

Now, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, warming myself up by the heater drinking cider while my host mum makes us crêpes and cupcakes pour 'goûter', which happens almost every day after school. A pretty good routine to have! I'm sorry for such a long post, but I haven't written in almost two weeks, so I've tried to put in as much detail as I can.

School starts tomorrow, which I'm really dreading. We'll see how it goes anyway.

Tchao !