Voulez-vous couchez chez moi, ce soir?

   The picture of my cat in last weekend’s post made my dog a little bit jealous and he insisted on being featured in this post. So here he is, sleeping in the bottom of my closet. Behind those bangs his eyes are begging me to take his picture!

   On Friday night I watched “Les Visiteurs” with my host family. It is my host mom’s favorite movie and I always knew when something funny, or rather, silly, was going to happen because she would crack up laughing a minute before anything remotely funny happened. But there is a lot of old French and slang so I was proud of myself for understanding the plot! (:


   Saturday morning we slept in and then went shopping at one of those outside outlet malls. My host family had given me one of their old phones with which I was using a prepaid card, but the first one I got cost me ten euros and lasted one week… so needless to say I was in search for a new method of communication. After waiting in line at a Bouygues in town and not being helped in the least by the only worker in the whole store (turns out phone services are just as tedious here as they are back home) we went to one at the mall where the lady was super super nice. I got a plan that costs 60 euros and has unlimited texting and two hours of call for four months. I was sold at unlimited texting.

   And then, because they don’t sell the card individually, my host family bought a new phone! I offered to pay for it, but they explained that they can always use an extra phone after I leave...possibly for another exchange student. So I got to pick out a new phone! Isn't it pretty? I am slowly but surely getting used to the French keyboard!


   While checking out I had a long conversation with the employee, remember the super super nice one I talked about earlier? Well she was young and excited to learn that I am taking the same bac she did (ES) and asked me all about what options I am doing and if I’ll stay in France, etc...


   That is all I got on our shopping outing because for now I'm spending all my money at patisseries, and saving shopping trips for once I need a bigger size! Which will not be in very long at the rate of pain au chocolats that I am consuming.


   After shopping, we ate lunch outside by the pool and then my host sister and I made chocolate chip cookies! I used chocolate chips that were sent in my birthday package, but it is rumored that they are available at the local grocery store (a long with peanut butter!!! If this is all true, the French have come a long way as the last time I heard these things were not available here!)

   My friend from school picked me up at 5:30 to go to a sleepover with two other girls from our class. As my host mom told me, when you go to someone’s house you have to bring something (which is not the case for teenagers in Maryland) so I put half the cookies in a box and since it would be evil otherwise, I left the other half for my host family.

   I was a little nervous about the evening, and felt way in over my head by going to a sleepover, a whole night, in French! But still, I was very excited to have been invited and to be able to spend time with my friends outside of school!


The drive to her house was simply gorgeous. She had told me that she lives up in the mountains and has a 40-minute commute to school but she left out the part about the jaw-dropping views, beautiful scenery, sheep and horses…


After 40 minutes of going around and around and around the mountain on an ity-bity road we had only passed two houses, but finally a third came into view and it was our destination!
We got out of the car, did la bise, and then she took us around back to feed her horses. On the way inside we picked strawberries, tomatoes and figs, from her dad’s garden.

   The second I saw the hula-hoop in her living room I knew it was going to be a fun night. I will take this time to proudly inform you all that I was the champion of a a hula-hooping contest in fifth grade after hula hooping for 15 minutes straight. 
Thank you, thank you very much.
   It was funny to listen to American music and the same songs that I dance to with my friends at home, but in the middle of the Ardech country side with three French girls. They gave me a few birthday presents, which was SO nice of them and two CD’s with French music that we made a pack I would be able to sing a long to by the end of the year…we’ll have to wait and see about that.


   Along with my chocolate chip cookies, the others brought another type of cookie (that I became addicted to throughout the night) and nutella cake (white cake with nutella swirls. yuummmm). And for dinner we had fish sticks, with Ketchup!


   After spending two hours watching movie trailers, again mostly American, we decided to watch my all time favorite movie, L’arnacoeur. It is a French movie that I have watched, and forced a lot of friends at home to watch, with English subtitles. Except this time there were no subtitles! All but one of us had already seen it but it never ever ever gets old.


   I slept well and for breakfast we had homemade apple juice and homemade jams on homemade bread. I am almost positive that that is not because the grocery store is light-years away but simply because their home makes for some very delicious home-made goods.

   I seriously could not stop smiling the whole night because I am just so happy to have found such great friends and to be able to have a good time in French. It just seems so crazy. Like how did I get here? I can't even tell you. 
   Not only was it a really really fun night but it also gave me the chance to see more of my region of France and how another family spends their life here.


   I got home around noon Sunday and enjoyed another lunch by the pool with my host family. Then they took me to the top of a mountain (one close to our house!) where I could see the whole area, and rumor has it, on a nice day, Mont Blanc is even visible from there. But since I took so many pictures of this outing, it will make for it's very own post!


   Now I have some homework to do for my last week of my first month of school! I won’t school Tuesday because my teachers are all on greve!