lauren: 1st Rotary exchange student weekend!! ...October 27th & 28th

Bonjour a toutes et a tous,

I hope that this blog finds you all in good shape!!

So the first weekend of the school vacations, the 27 & 28 of October, seemed to arrive very slowly because ALL of us wanted this weekend to happen fast!!... But when it rolled around we were all soo excited! So we went with Bertrand, the YEO for the other exchange students in Chelles, he is very nice; he is the one who found me my new host family! So we left Saturday morning and it was only about an hour and a half drive to Beauvais, where the weekend was taking place. When we got there the majority of the other exchange students were already there. We were figuring that it would be obligatory to speak French the entire time, which we were all really excited about because it was a great chance to improve some more, however we were VERY mistaken. All of the exchange students are either Canadian or American, except for 2 Mexicans, 1 Argentian girl, 1 Columbian boy, 1 Taiwanese girl and 1 Indian girl... all of who spoke fairly good english anyway. So that was a bit of a downer at first... however we had such a blast. We had a bunch of kinda boring presentations from the Rotary people to start off with, telling us all the rules, they would even translate it into english for us - that got frusterating because we totally understand french. Anyway after that we had a talent show... that was really cool. Of course I don't have a talent, but thank god I wasn't the only one - Hannah suggested striping however when they began to give us the lecture of the "Rotary Rules" - we decided to scratch that...lol (just a joke momma!! he he he) Man though they are seriously strict here, I was hoping that they would losen up with some time, but I am not so sure. We have agreed that they are basicly just paranoid!! Anyway after the talent show, we just kinda sat around and talked and by this time we were starving, here we eat supper at about 7 or 7:30, so for all us, not just the north americans, we were down right hungry. This weekend was a bad weekend for the "weight factor" as we call it, because we were all together and there was good food, so we just pigged out!! It was bad. Then of course after that was 2 weeks of vacations, so needless to say, we all gained a bunch of weight! ahhh!

Anyway back to the weekend, It was alot of fun, just talking to everyone about their experiences and seeing that it wasn't just us four in Chelles who were experiencing some crappy times, that it was district wide if not world wide. It was really really great to compare stories and meet some more really amazing and great people! I am really glad that even though it took FOREVER to happen, that retreat finally occured. So on satuday night there was a dance, which got a little wild - which was great!! then after that we all basicly talked until 4am in the morning... then you will NOT believe. It was daylight saviings time, and they had told us that we HAD to be at breakfast at 9 so we got up at 8am or what we thought was 8 but apparently it was 7am and they had neglected to tell us this very major fact. Needless to say, we were seriuosly lacking sleep! So after breakfast we had to go play badminton for 2 hours, and had a big tournament. Which was fun, except that there was like 5 of us who actually knew the rules.. It was pretty amusing! After this was over, we had our group picture, ate lunch and then had more "meeting" stuff... where they explained the Rotary trips that we can take. We also had to make a postive statement for the Long term Rotary exchange program, for publicity for the program.

So all in all it was a really great weekend where I met alot of great new people. When I returned that night to my house at about 6pm, My family and I were to leave for our vacations to Bordeaux an hour later. Needless to say I was freakin tired!! But very worth it.

YEAH Pictures!!

Julia, dancing Highland for the talent show.... very well done Jules!