Chiara ([info]forever_begins) wrote in [info]adayinmylife,
@ 2007-07-16 07:44:00
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Current location:Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France

Thursday, July 12th

Claire, 17, fourth or fifth post.
Currently in the south of France, attending French school. So I decided to document a day of my life here because it's so, so different to my life in Ireland. Thursday was a pretty average day for me here. There's only 42 pictures under the cut, so I hope I convey it well enough.




My alarm wakes me up but not my room mate Charlotte. It's early, so the view from our terrace is pretty quiet.

The wall of the bathroom is covered in these postcard sizes pictures/quotes. It's kinda cute, really. And a time check before I take a shower.

We are staying with a host family, to get the "true French experience" This, apparently, involves tea in a bowl and stale bread. I'm British, tea just isn't meant to be like that. After, I read. The day before we were 20 minutes late to school so we have time to kill now.

On the way to school, we seet a pair of shoes dangling from a liine over the street. We also stop for a croissant from one of the 3225353 boulanger's.

We were 20 minutes to early that day, so we chill outside school. In class, I sit beside a scary looking Thomas. We basically just sit there and colour in the rectangles in our copies.

But boredom does not last long because we're sent out on an assignment - ask random French people kinda random questions. Thankfully, I'm with Erina.

We get the assignment done quickly, so we shop for a bit then we find Thomas, who is colouring squares on his copy. On the way back to school, a police man is directing traffic. This amuses me, mostly because I don't remember the last time I saw it.

Several hours of French grammar later, it's lunch. We eat in the park, which has this really long walkway. Someone suggests they have a race. So Thomas, Danielle and Robert race. Danielle won which many protests of "I let her win" and "I was wearing flip flops!!!"

After lunch, we have to do this scavenger hunt with pictures. They gave us a list of 20 things to take a picture of. This involved a lot of walking around and sitting in cafes (and getting lost)

My group, minus Sarah, in the park. Charlotte and I were afraid to go into the park, because every time we walked by it there was an ambulance there. Anyway, one of the tasks was to take a picture of a canon. There was no canons in the city that we knew of, so we had a drawin contest to see who could draw the best picture so we could take a picture of it. Some of the attempts were brilliant.

I don't know what you call these in English or French. But it's like flavoured ice? It was about 15.00 by then and about 30 degrees so it was pretty hot. Ice cooled you off a bit.

We were meant to go to the beach but it was too windy so we decide to go a lake. The lake was in the middle of nowhere. We turn a corner and we see this complete barren land. When were eventually see the lake it's like 'IS IT A MIRAGE?!!" It was so, so hot and most of us had run out of water.

I read "the Kite Runner" a bit more until Ellen asked to borrow it. So I gave it to her and coloured some of my copy. I wasn't really concentrating though, which is why it's not right. But I have since finished it, front and back. That's what I've achieved in my time here.

I read the free newspaper (the "world" page) and listen to Danielle, who is in her element talking about rugby with a guy from Hong Kong.

The Italians play some soccer, though, frankly, it cannot be called soccer but just showing off. It's latish and we're hungry so I pull out some over priced cookies I bought earlier. We don't end up eating them though.

The pizza comes, thank god. We devour it. Robert becomes our resident bartender.

Leaving the lake, I take some photos that don't do the sunset justice.

A stage was being set up - in the middle of noewhere, I swear. There's always concerts going on, though. We take the tram home and meet an American!!! This is groundbreaking because I basicaly hadn't spoken proker English in the two weeks I'd been there. So it was nice to hear him speak normally.

The trams are funky.

Charlotte crashes on my bed and tries to hide form the camera. I glance at my side of the room and consider tidying it. I basically just close my suit case over, because I have another bag and far too much stuff to tidy up.

It's so early, but as I keep telling my family, school tires me. A lot. So I brush my teeth.

I'm not a big teddy lover but I got him last year at Santa Monica pier and I brought him with me because ... he was familiar, y'know? I try to sleep but these three chefs stand outside our window and talk very loudly for an hour. Oh, French people.



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[info]tiegra
2007-07-16 09:41 am UTC (link)
Whee! I lived with a host family in Northern France yeeeeears ago (lost what I did learn of the language since then, unfortunately)it was fun (and funny!) to see some of my similar experiences. Heh! I was about 4 months out when we hopped over to England for a little bit. I nearly peed myself with excitement to hear so much "real" english ;)

Thank you for sharing your day!! :)

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[info]forever_begins
2007-07-16 07:56 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I get it. I mean, I spoke English a bit but it was so ... forced, I guess is the word. Like, I had to think before I spoke, so it made sense. Europeans are so good at English, but I had to speak slower and clearer then normal (my accent is hard to understand)

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[info]emeraldetoile
2007-07-16 09:46 am UTC (link)
Ooh! Pretty day! Are you in Aix?

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[info]forever_begins
2007-07-16 07:58 pm UTC (link)
*thinks* No. I don't think so, anyway. But I couldn't swear to that. You mean the region, right?

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[info]bitch_box
2007-07-17 02:21 am UTC (link)
I lived in Aix! It was amazing.

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[info]avoisiner
2007-07-16 09:52 am UTC (link)
Oooh! Claire! I love that you did a adiml from your 'life in France'!

It seems like you're having a good time and meeting new people frm around the world. It makes me want to go and attend a language school aswell. And, the Kite Runner! I love that book.

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[info]forever_begins
2007-07-16 08:01 pm UTC (link)
I thought it'd be interesting. It wasn't.

No Norwegians though :( I met someone from Finland, that's as close as it got. But, yeah, it was cool meeting so many different people. And the school felt very strongly about culture and sharing costums and stuff, so I learnt a lot. As for the Kite Runner, I don't know how I feel about it. It was hard to read.

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France
[info]netprospect
2007-07-16 11:08 am UTC (link)
is a place of vicewiners of worldcup .New presidency is starting hard since acording to us he is very frenchy and a lot of you having now the feeling of to many of them deciding for me.
What do u think of posteastern soviet countries .Meeting friends .
France is 2nd place after americans .
Loving your tipical franchy day .Please support our favored new president .

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Re: France
[info]forever_begins
2007-07-16 08:02 pm UTC (link)
*blinks* I would have voted for Royal.

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[info]annabellabell
2007-07-16 11:10 am UTC (link)
awesome, I always wanted to study in another country when I was in High School... never got the chance :(

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[info]forever_begins
2007-07-16 08:03 pm UTC (link)
It's an experience. That's the only way I can describe it. Which doesn't really help.

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[info]gogojimmy
2007-07-16 03:24 pm UTC (link)
oh, that's "slush ice" !
or .. at least, that's what we call it in Denmark. :)

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[info]yogourt
2007-07-16 03:57 pm UTC (link)
here in québec that's a slush too! ;)

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[info]lady_novembre
2007-07-16 04:19 pm UTC (link)
Heh, in the U.S., we just add an "-ie" at the end: "slushie" or sometimes we call it an "icee". =)

I don't like them much though. =(

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[info]forever_begins
2007-07-16 08:04 pm UTC (link)
Slushy, that sounds familiar. Soi that could be right.

(it wasn't very nice)

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[info]cameraaahhh
2007-07-16 04:09 pm UTC (link)
what questions did you have to ask people?
and it's nice to see another Claire (spelt properly with all the vowels).

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[info]forever_begins
2007-07-16 08:06 pm UTC (link)
Umm, it was all about the city. So, who is the mayor and what's the university called and what's the local paper called. Another day, we got a survey about the mall. It had really strange questions like how much was a baguette and how long the sales were on for and what was the last perfume made by some designer. I'm not sure what we were meant to achieve, relaly.

And yes, it really annoys me when people spell it wrong.

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[info]sobota
2007-07-16 08:04 pm UTC (link)
:D :D :D

reminds me of my six months in france. lovely country it is!

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[info]forever_begins
2007-07-16 08:13 pm UTC (link)
It's so beautiful, I love it.

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[info]dipp922
2007-07-17 02:46 am UTC (link)
Yayy for studying in another country :) I studied in Spain in 2005, and I'm from the United States. What you said about it being nice about hearing English, shortly when I got back from Spain, I was out one night and was so surprised to hear English being spoken(even though i spoke english very often with my program friends).
to make a long comment short, thanks for the day :)

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[info]solo_summer
2007-07-17 08:04 am UTC (link)
wow that looks like such a fun day!!!!

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