Catching Up

Tuesday I cried at school because I got a big huge care package from home. Its the first mail I've gotten that wasn't tickets, and the first real sentiment I've seen from home other than the three times we've used the webcams. They sent this giant box of goldfish with three cereal bags full, plus a box of flavor blasted goldfish. I also got a bag of hershey's treasures, the regular assorted care package stuff i get from the mom's at home (including burts bees pomegranate chapstick, which is AMAZING), AND a giant stuffed Eeyore who now sleeps with me. Plus there was a really cute card...its a little kitten in a witches hat with a cape, sitting on a closed toilet. On the inside, it says "at the cat's halloween party, it was Arthur's job to guard the punch bowl". Isn't that adorable!? I thought it was.

Wednesday I had a complete breakdown while I was at school. I was on the computers, double checking all of my dates and prices for my trip when I realized that I had booked my flight all the way through to Oslo, instead of stopping in Copenhagen. That was okay, I just had to cancel the boat that I'd booked that went from Copenhagen to Oslo. Then I figured out that the dates on one of my hostels and my train ticket from Oslo to Bergen were wrong. Top that off with the fact that I hadn't heard from my best friend in days, and, well, I ended up in Madame Rouchet's office bawling into some kleenex. Incidentally, Madame Rouchet is the French version of Professor McGonnegal. Seriously. I explained things about the ticket and a little bit about you, and she told me that everything would be fine, and just kind of talked me through it. I ended up staying for classes, I had very seriously been thinking about going home and just burying myself under the covers. I went into grammar and we got our midterms (from Monday) back...and I failed. Literally, actually, failed.

Anyway, after losing it all over again, I had one of those, well, tomorrow has to be better moments. And Thursday? It ROCKED. We had our Halloween party at school....I went as Hermoine. I wasn't going to wear a costume, so I'd just dressed up. But then I was trying on necklaces with my outfit, and the thought struck me, so I wore a zip-up sweatshirt over a t-shirt like she does in the third movie and tried (tried being the operative word) to make my hair curly. The party itself was okay, you know me, I'm not really a huge partier. BUUUT....afterwards was the release of the 7th Harry Potter book in French....and I went to a book release party!!

It was SO much fun! We found a library that had this whole big party set up outside. There were four adults in costumes that stood as the heads of houses, and they pulled us in to get sorted and play a trivia game. I got put into Hufflepuff by myself, and it was SOOO hard! All of the names in French are different! Plus, trying to understand the question, think of the answer, then think of how to respond in French was just plain mean. My team lost, but we still got a free bag of really yummy chocolates. Caitlin and Christine, who haven't even read all of the books, were on Gryffindor and they won! They both got these huge boxes of really really fancy chocolates, it was really funny! We kind of milled around for awhile, the head of Gryffindor came over and we had a lovely conversation with her about the books and idiomatic expressions in French and English. Sky, my husband! Hahah sorry. Anyway, at 11:30 they started another round of trivia..but this time there was a big group of Chinese students there, who spoke English but not French, so we helped translate for them! My team cheated a little bit, because my two hadn't read any of the books, had only watched the movies, so now that I'd heard some of the questions I knew how to answer so I'd feed them the answers. Oh well! Then we all counted down to midnight, and two men carried out this big thing under a blanket, and at midnight they whipped off the blanket and it was about 12 of the books on a stand. We all clapped and whistled, then I went in and bought one!! It even came in its own really awesome bag. We made our way back to the bus, and ran into some other IES people. My friend Ben and his friend Brooke were there, and a little tipsy but funny for it. She had a ring that looks like the one from the book, and I had my horcrux, it was awesome. We all hopped on the bus together, and I stood with them. They were talking about what they'd had to drink, and I mentioned that I've now officially had about a dozen alcoholic beverages in my life. Brooke looked at Ben and said "awwwwww, she's soooo cute. Can we keep her?". It was pretty hilarious.

Friday my host mom came home, she's been out of town visiting her mother since Tuesday. She literally set out tea....fancy tea pot, fancy cups on saucers, little cookies, the works, just for she and I so we could catch up. It was so sweet!! We had a really nice discussion. Its things like that that make me feel like I am getting a lot better with my French.

Today my host parents, their 2..6? year old son Alex and I went to their "oceanside house"...it used to be the servants quarters for the castle that was in their family. How crazy is that? It is literally right next to the ocean. Right next to it. The tide was out when we got there, so we grabbed some buckets and went "fishing" for oysters, clams, and snailish things. Then, of course, for lunch we had raw oysters and snail-ish things. Hah! They were really good! After lunch my host mom and I walked down to the center of the little town, where she bought me a cone of supposedly world-famous ice cream. We took some time to walk back, and once again it was really nice to feel comfortable talking to her. Once we got back, I sat by the fire with a cup of tea for about an hour, reading Harry Potter while my host mom went to visit some relatives. It was wonderful to just sit and relax by the fire with good tea, an amazing book, and the tide coming in outside the window. Then we loaded the car back up, came back home, and had the rest of the seafood for dinner! AND I don't have any class tomorrow! Normally I've got grammar on Mondays, but my prof is also a teacher at a technical high school in the city, and its their vacation this week too so she's out of town. Oh, and not this Friday, but the Friday prochain I'm going to a football match here in town!! Bwahahaha! This week started out stinky but now IT ROCKS!!! YAY FOR GOOD WEEKS!! (PLUS: I've definitely LOST weight since coming here, probably because I'm actually consistent with working out, but who actually comes to France, eats well, and loses weight? I DO!!)