Salut!

I know this is super late but I am a procrastinator after all, and between my first exchange weekend, touring Chaumont and school, I have been extremely busy to say the least!

On Thursday, August 27th, I headed an hour-and-a-half away from my town to Lac de Madine for my first immersion weekend with the other inbounds and it was fantastic (almost 30 of us in total)! We went site-seeing, picked fruit (and made pie with it), paddle boating, biking, had some French lessons and then Sunday morning we had a talent show to do for our host families and it was a blast!

When I finally rested Sunday and Monday, I went out with my friend and was finally able to see and walk around Chaumont and it is the most beautiful town I have ever seen! I am excited to live here for a year and walk through the many small shops and bakeries with endless fresh pastries and baguettes.

I started school this past Wednesday, and despite my lack of French vocabulary, I was able to find a small group of friends that have helped me around school and introduced me to many more people! One thing however is extremely different from Canada…the school schedule.  It is by far the most bizarre timetable ever! Some days I start at 8,9 or even 10 and in the afternoon I end at 12, 4,5 and sometimes even at 6! I promise to never complain about school in Canada ever again! It is actually not too bad, especially when you sometimes have a 4 hour lunch… 😉

On Saturday, my host family took me along with them to a fair/festival, where two of their favourite singers were preforming, one on Saturday and the other on Sunday. We had a blast and it reminded me so much of the Markham Fair that my mum takes us to every year, I will definitely be missing that this year. 😦 Today it was back to school and learning. In my first four days of school I learnt a bit of French, made quite a few friends and even had two English ask me if they could use my knowledge of English.

It has been a packed, very full two weeks since I left my family behind at terminal three while I boarded that flight to Amsterdam. Everyone who was there meant something to me and I miss each and every one of them dearly… don’t get me wrong, I am having a good time here but there is something about certain people that once they’re in your life it’s very hard to let go. But as I walked home through Chaumont today, I realized that this is going to be a good year, a year full of memories and good times. Besides, no one said exchange was the easiest year of a person’s life, they said it was the best. ❤

Xo

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