Bonjour!

First of all, yes I am fine. If you have no idea what I am talking about- http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/world/europe/mohammed-merah-toulouse-shooting-suspect-french-police-standoff.html?scp=8&sq=toulouse&st=cse

The past few weeks have been really busy and really fun! I have been able to understand more, my speaking has improved immensely (not really the accent but my formulation of ideas), and I finally feel completely settled in and comfortable.

School:

School is still challenging but I am enjoying it more than I did in the beginning. Here once you become a junior you choose a track. They are L (literature and languages), ES (economic and social), and S (Science and math). I am in L so I have been learning a lot about French writing! Another difference is that I have a block schedule here, which means each day I have different classes. This is really nice because not everything is due the next day and I don't get bored my having the same schedule all the time. They also have 15 minute breaks throughout the day and an hour and a half lunch period! At lunch I eat at school but on Wednesdays and Thursday I eat at home. Wednesday everyone eats at home because it is a half day. Thursday I have two hours of class and then nothing so I get to return for lunch and to relax! My schedule for the week is as follows: W1 stands for week one and W2 stands for week two.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
	French	French	Math	W1 : Math W2 : nothing
	English	French	W1 : English W2 : Math	French
Break	Break	Break	Break	Break
English Literature	Science	English		French
French	Science	History		W1 : nothing W2 : French
Lunch at school	Lunch at school	History	Lunch at home	Lunch at school
French	French		Philosophy	Geography
French	Math		English Literature	Geography
Break	Break		Break	Break
	Gym		English History
	Gym

Family:

I love my host family! They are very nice and have helped me with my french so much. I especially love all the traditions here. Saturday for lunch we always go to a restaurant and Sunday dinners are always pasta in front of the TV. This Saturday we went to a cute little restaurant downtown and I had a tomato salad which was sooooo amazing. Some Saturdays we go to McDonald's! McDonald's here is much better than in the states (probably healthier also). Last time we went I had a goat cheese wrap, salad and a Caramel Sundae.
This Friday is Léa's fourteenth birthday so I am going to try to make a card and go into centre ville to buy something for her. I wont get to be with her on her birthday because my host family is going to Amsterdam for my host moms work conference but we will celebrate it when they return!

That's it for now but I will update again soon!

One Month in France!

Sorry for the delay in blog posts- I have been super busy the past few weeks! From now on I will try to update very two weeks. School started Monday after a two week ski vacation but one of my teachers didn't show up for class so I got to go home at 2:00! You can easily tell you went skiing because multiple people have broken arms and ski goggle tans. There was one guy where you can see where his goggles ended, his helmet started and on his neck you can see the straps from his helmet.  Speaking of skiing, I went to the Alps for one week with my host family, which was so much fun! The first day we drove from Toulouse to Orange which was a 4 hour drive. The next day we walked around Orange for a little bit, but it was cold and windy so we only stopped to take a few pictures of a theater. We arrived in Bourg St. Maurice that evening, walked around the village and rented our skis. We skied for the first two days then relaxed on the third. Having not skied for 4 years it was a little difficult at first but after a few hours I got the hang of it. The mountains were gigantic and so beautiful! We went skiing one more day and did other activities on the other days. One day we all went snowshoeing and it was really fun. Our guide was super adventurous which caused it to be more like snowshoeing combined with sledding. We would go down huge hills where it was just easiest to slide down and hoped you didn't hit anyone or anything on your way down! Another day we actually did go sledding! This sledding wasn't like usual sledding though. First, you pay for a ticket for 1-3 runs down the hill. Then you take a chairlift up with the skiers and walk to the sledding hill. There you are given a helmet and a sled and taught how to use the sled. The sleds have steering levers on the side and you are strapped in around your feet and legs! The sledding path had so many twists and turns- which causes everyone to fall! The hill took about 10 minutes to go down, and 3 were probably spent waiting for people who had fallen or me falling and trying to get back into my sled (the buckles weren't that helpful). Sledding was definitely one of the highlights of my trip! We returned to Toulouse and the following week I got to explore the city more. One day I met up with some other AFSers and we had lunch and walked all across centre ville. We stopped in some famous churches and walked around those.  In one church we accidently walked in on a funeral! There wasn't a sign on the door of the church saying that anything was happening so we all walked in- being super loud. We then saw the casket and all the people and sprinted out as fast as we could! After that we shopped for a bit and went to a cafe.

That’s about it for now! I will post soon with more general stuff (school, friends, family etc.)

Also, the family computer has been acting up so next post I will also post pictures from vacation!