I Really Don't Want to Leave!

I never like saying goodbye. This time it is going to be especially hard. When the Frenchies left Nichols on Febuary 22, we were all sad but we knew that we would see them in a few short weeks. This time we will be leaving for good, no one knows for sure when they are coming back.

I honestly loved every sinlge moment during this exchange. I got the chnce to get to know my Nichols friends better and see them in a whole new encironment. I had an experiance of a lifetime. I met so many wonderful people I am going to be extremly sad to leave behind. I am going to miss my French parents and their deliciously cooked meals. If i had to list all the things I would miss, it would take until dawn. Earlier today some of my French friends and I found ourselve brainstorming ways to keep me in Le Havre. We came up with getting an illness and loosing my passport. Both plan had flaws. =/

I just hope I will return to this wonderful country in the near future!

Rick Bryan in Le Havre

On Friday, Rick Bryan, our headmaster, arrived in Le Havre. Although this was not his first trip to France, it was his first visit to Institution St. Joseph! Over the last 27 years Nichol School has had 25 groups exchange with students of St. Joseph.



In the five days Mr. Bryan was with us, he toured Le Havre, got a French cell phone (the SIM card for his US phone had not been activated), was the guest of honor at a special reception at St. Jo, went to the local tabac to buy a newspaper, watched St. Joseph in action on a Saturday morning, ate a wonderful salad at Restaurant Poi in the Andre Malraux museum with his fantastic and gracious colleagues, visited Honfleur with a teacher from St. Jo, had dinner with his peer, Mr. Bernard Demeillers and his wife, went to Etretat on Saturday and had a fantastic meal--seafood--you should have seen the platter...he'll have the picture in his office I hope. Sunday evening, we were invited to dinner at Mr. Demeillers home where Madame Demeillers prepared a fantastic coq au vin, with a creamy sauce filled with Morell mushrooms. Rick had the pleasure of meeting the teachers who had accompanied the Italian students from a school outside of Florence. The roomed was filled with Italian, French and English, and I personally enjoyed hearing and watching us communicate to make ourselves understood.



On Monday, Rick joined us for the D-Day Beaches. Rick has family connections to the history here, and it was wonderful to visit the museum at Arromanches to get a sense of the engineering feats which led to the success of the "debarquement" and the eventual liberation of France.











On Tuesday, Rick also braved the visit of Le Havre's port by boat. We all got a bird's eye view of one of the major industries here in Le Havre. Le Havre is the #2 port in Europe for containers. It is #5 in the world. Lots of goods come through Le Havre, and I learned from some of our students that two of the French fathers in their host families were involved in managing some aspect of this industry in Le Havre.

At the end of the boat trip, we said farewell to Rick who went off the catch the train to Paris from which he would continue to Spain where he was planning to meet up with our exchange in Asturias.

I think we all enjoyed having Mr. Bryan with us. He asked tons of questions, and learned a lot from the students about their stay here. And yes Rick, your stock is way up for this French teacher because you totally immersed yourself in the exchange experience and awakened your dormand skills in French. You showed the benefits of just a few days in country and your willingness to experience a new culture close up.

Your presence in Le Havre was history in the making, and I look forward to hearing more about the visionary ideas you shared with Monsieur Demeillers.

Etretat

Friday was spent following Arsene Lupin's track. Arsene Lupin is Marice Leblanc's fictional "gentleman thief", an equivalent to Sherlock Holmes. We watched the movie sometime last week, where we saw Arsene fighting men to attain three crosses that would give the key to open the hollow needle, all while seducing women and stealing necklaces. An interesting character, so on friday we walked around his town and visited a church that he had been in. Outside this church there was a large marketplace with meat and baguettes and seafood. Dr. Rockwell told us that this is where the sans cullotte has always been selling and working, so we took sometime to buy a few things before boarding the bus again.

Next we went to the house of Maurice Leblanc, where we received audio guides and toured the house. The audio guides were a tad peculiar because at one point Leblanc's fictional character began talking to us and telling us how he had to solve the secrets of the hollow needle and attain the treasures of France.



After that we went to the cliffs of Etretat which were gorgeous. We climbed up and there were a million photo opportunities, and we managed to see the hollow needle itself. At low tide people can actually walk out to the needle, but with the wind and rainy weather I don't think anyone was considering swimming. We did actually see some crazy guy in the ocean though on our way up to Etretat.

Paris 2

Tuesday night we were allowed some free time after the Eiffle Tower to find dinner. Given a curfew of midnight, we all manage to find ourselves restaurants to dine at. Rene and I found a little italian place where we shared tagliatelle pesto and a delicious pizza, but decided that this wasn't french enough we left after to purchase off the street a baguette, nutella, and frommage to eat back at the room. Having still a lot of time for our curfew however, we met up with Tarek and Larkin and attempted to find a spot where we could watch the Eiffle Tower twinkle every hour, but because of our distance from it we were unsuccessful and managed to waste an hour and a half of walking around Paris.




On Wednesday we went to another museum that had many artifacts, such as the Roman Baths and little keys and enfant toys. We also saw a grand tapestry with unicorns on it and a lot of ornate jewelry. On our way out from the museum, we passed the statue of Montaigne where we rubbed his foot for good luck.







On our way to the Arch de Triomphe we encountered a slight problem at the train station. Having all of our luggage with us, we could not find a locker or anywhere to keep our things. So we cancelled the trip the the Arch and made a rotation of luggage watch in groups of two at the train station so that everyone had time to go out and eat lunch and do some shopping. Most of us did manage to make it to the Arch though, for of course everyone wanted to check out the stores on Champs Elysees.

Paris

Tuesday and wednesday we took a train from the SNFC train station to Paris. There we stayed at the Luxembourg Hotel, right next to the Luxembourg Gardens. Here we all roomed in pairs and when we went out we left our keys with a gentlemen who refused to speak english with us.
Most of us were excited to be staying in a hotel for different reasons, but the biggest being the bathroom situation. On the way to Paris we discussed the pros and cons of the french shower and toilet. In most houses you will find two seperate rooms, one with the sink and shower, and another with just a toilet. The cons were that it promotes not washing your hands, it's an awkward distance away from each other, and it makes personal time more of a stretch. The only positive is that two people can be in the two different rooms at once. Overall, we prefer the American system of bathing, but this only shows that a small change in lifestyle really makes us think about how different our cultures are, because who really could expected us to have a half an hour conversation on bathrooms. Larkin was definitely the most excited though to shower because at his correspondent's house he can only take baths.

Arriving in Paris, we prepared to take the metro to our hotel. The metro we compared to NYC and even Buffalo's own one way subway, and we all agreed that the French metro was cleaner. There were even some metros that were double decks. Madame made us map out our route on our own before actually boarding so we could associate ourselves with it, and for those who are not used to the metro it was very confusing. The map handed to us consisted of a million different colored lines crossing and weaving all in a tangle, but of course with wonderful guides like Madame and Doc Roc we arrived at the Hotel with no problems.



Tuesday we walked around Paris a little where we saw many interesting statues and sculptures. We stopped to reenact a couple of these statues, before entering this grand church courtyard. There we found another statue that was currently dressed as snow white. This statue has gone through many outfit changes, because when the nurses our doctors go on strike, they dress the statue up as that occupation. The Show White outfit however was a joke played by the incoming interns.





We then went to of course, the Eiffle Tower. Here Tarek, Izzy, Illona, Will, Rene, Larkin, Caroline and myself chose to walk up all the steps to the top while Grace and Cokie took the elevator. around 700 steps to the middle deck, we had to take an elevator to the very tip top. With the wind, it was freezing! But we played the celebrity game to pass the time. The wait to get to the very top however was definitley worth it.

Euro Disney!

It was so much fun even though it rained and snowed. We rode Space Mountain 5 times and made a differnt face for each picture.

It was really nice to spend a day with everyone. Usually Nichols kids are always touring somewhere else. I had alot of fun. The parents were so nice to go out of their way to drive us. (Thank you Cecilia's Mother!) And I want to thank Grace's exchange student's dad for accompanying us everywhere and waiting outside of the Space Mountain ride for an hour! =)

The French Version of Wegmans

Many people looked at me funny when I got really excited and took pictures of everything in the Supermarket. Quite understandable. The food is amazing. I want to buy tons of food before I come back!

This was at fnac in the mall in Le Havre. There was this thing called a Sing Star competition where people sang a designated song for money.
One of my friends, Helene (Caroline's exchange student) actually won 50 Euros!

The guy who directed the whole thing was a famous French rapper. He had photographs in his iPhone of him and various famous people such as Cassie, Snoop Dogg, Alicia Keys and 50 Cent.

Caen was Cool

We crossed this famous bridge on our way to the memorial. The bus driver was so nice.

it was extremly windy.

There were tons of interesting exibits. Going to the memorial really gave me a differnt view of things. I had goosebumps while walking through the museum because everything was so sad. I always knew what D Day was but this was the first time I felt how bad it was. This was a very good experiance. We all learned alot. Thanks to Dr. Rockwell, students were able to connect what they read in the books to real life artifacts.

Thank You Madame for Lending Me the Camera Cord!

The plane ride was fantastic. Larkin and Will really enjoyed the games. Grace and I were way too excited to sleep.



Everyone was really tired on the bus ride from the airport to St. Jo. All slept besides me, I was way too excited. Sleeping was a good idea though since the day had not even started for us at that point.

Yay! Its the Weekend!

Yesterday did not feel like a Friday. This morning Cecilia and I had to wake up at 7 for another half-day of school. It was raining hard and of course we had to walk in it. Cecilia and I arrived at school looking desheviled becuase the powerful wind gusts just blew us away! First period was English Lit. The teacher decided to play this game called "one minute" where you had to talk about the given subject without repeating any words or say "umm...". it was very difficult actually. I repeated a word 37 seconds into the game! The highlight of the class was probably when the door fell off. When the bell rang everyone ran to the door, suddenly we all hear this woosh, bang, and a scream then the door kind of dissappeared. The wind just ripped the door right off! Then we headed back to the international room and enjoyed a fun history class with Dr. Rockwell (She was kind of sad because she did not have her maps to reference to, but we all managed to understand the First World War with her imaginary maps she drew in the air)

Cecilia and I then went shopping in downtown. It actually snowed! Cecilia said it rarely snows in Le Havre. Because we could not stand the cold any longer we took the public bus home. I think people thought I was werid becuase I was taking pictures of the interior of the bus.

I am looking forward to an very interesting night, I hope everyone is having a wonderful spring break!

Another Update

Tuesday we took a much appreciated tour of Le Havre. Of course it required a lot of walking, but it definitely proved useful when on thursday we were left with a lot of free time to wander the city for shopping and eating.
Our tour, or "Rallye dans Le Havre" consisted of stopping at some major landmarks such as a park with odd shaped bird statues, the Volcan, and the Charles de Gual statue.





After we visited these Le Havre landmarks (which took us quite a while considering some of us have the shortest attention span ever, making us stop at all the litle playgrounds on the way), we stopped at a small cafe for chocolat chaud and a few people like Ilona and Caroline ordered some delicious ice cream as well.



Yesterday we went to the Memorial in Caen, and Dr. Rockwell being the excellent history teacher that she is, was very excited for us to learn. The way everything was set up was very interesting, there was so much thought put into the building. The first part consisted of a downward spiral, which became darker as you kept walking down. This symbolized the failure of peace and stability. In another room that started the "Total War" segment was very bright, and your eyes had to adjust after exiting from the dark ages. This meant that the end was in sight and everyone was ready for it.







The rooms were filled with information and videos, all that gave most of us goosebumps. We passed blueprints of the concentration camps and even a wall that was actually the gas chambers. One thing Rene found really interesting was the different colors of parachutes (green for weapons, blue for medicine, and yellow for food).

After going through both World War II and the Cold War, we all decided to go out and visit the American Garden and the Canadian garden, although we all found the Canadian garden to be not as grand as the American Garden. We walked around there for an hour or so before we had to leave, and we welcomed the sun so it was almost warm enough to take off our northfaces. The weather here has been very rainy and quite cold, but definitely not as cold as Buffalo was when we left.