Well y'all the time has come! I'm blogging from the Charlotte North Carolina airport! I'm so glad to be back state side for a month and a half to prepare for a semester abroad in Belgium! France has been a great life changing experience! I made excellent friends who really made this trip the best it could be and I'm thankful for that. I'm beyond ready to be back in Arkansas with that good ole southern hospitality! Stay tuned for blogs from Belgium!!

Well this entry is being written on my phone in a pub while I wait for my friends to arrive to watch the France World Cup game! It's been a crazy week that's for sure! I had to move host families because of different opinions on how to live life to put it short. I was not happy and has a bad taste in my mouth for France. Now I'm with a great family and I'm finally myself again! I've started to enjoy my time here and I know I will have a great last week! Tomorrow my friends and i are going to Switzerland with the school for a lake day and to the olympic musieum! It will be great! We have all enjoyed watching soccer in a country where people actually get into the game! It's been a fantastic experience!  It is hard to believe we only have 5 more days of class. It's bittersweet because I'm starting to enjoy my time here but I really miss home and the comforts of the United States! But another experience like this is close in my horizon and I can't wait! Stay tuned for pics from Switzerland! 

Michael's Misadventures!!

This is going to be really long I'm sorry but i didn't have my computer all weekend! So here we go….
      On Thursday evening after classes, Michael, Eric, and I began our adventure to Normandy for the 70th anniversary of D-Day.  We were taking the train from Besancon to Le Mans to meet our friend Ben who graciously opened his apartment to us for the weekend! We all made it to the train station just fine but thats when Michael's luck turned around and not for the best.  Us American kids are not used to train stations so we didn't know we had to go down to the basement to get from train track to train track.  We saw a crosswalk with no warning signs what so ever so we took advantage of those….Bad idea! We never would have crossed if there were warning signs but this was not marked in any way and looked just like a ramp for crossing! Then 2 maintenance men came to us and said its dangerous and you can't do that, we said okay and thought we were in the clear….NOT! 2 mall cop like dudes for the train station and 2 managers came and wanted to fine us! we eventually got out of that but learned that lesson! Then we made it to where we were catching the big train to Paris, not knowing there were 2 of them and couldn't find our seats! we got away with sitting in first class until the last 15 minutes of our trip when a mean lady came and yelled at us.  She checked our tickets and Michael did not have his youth card with him so he had to pay a fine! We eventually made it to Paris and managed to change stations via metro just fine! Then we finally made it to Ben in Le Mans!
     Friday morning bright and early before any rooster was crowing we caught our train to Caen, Normandy! We got to be on the outskirts of the speech being given by the president of France Francois Hollande.  It was great to be able to witness such a great event! I even shook a hand of a local mayor but i have no clue who it was!oops! While walking the streets of Caen, we met a 93 year old veteran named Tom Blakely of the 82nd Airbore.  He was a Paratrooper who was one of the first to land in Normandy at the age of 20!  He still to this day volunteers at the World War II Museum in New Orleans! Hopefully I get to go see him there.  Its hard to think about the fact that there are very few vets still around who took part in D-Day.  Meeting Tom was the best part of the trip!  After that, we went to a restaurant to watch the international ceremony with all the world leaders….what an experience!  We called it an early night and the next morning took a train to Bayeux to see the famous tapestry then a bus to Omaha Beach where we went to the American Museum and Cemetery on the beach.  Reading the stories of all the men who served and watching videos was very eye opening.  However, standing in the cemetery looking out to the English Channel was the most surreal part.  We were able to hike down to the beach and collect rocks from the shingle that was used as protection.  We got to look back up the hill and see the old bunkers that were still standing.  We also got to go touch the water of the English Channel.  After a long muddy hike back up the hill, we were waiting for our Bus back to Bayeux when we realized it was late because of the traffic and we would miss our train!  We found a nice man from Virginia who graciously gave us a ride to the train station in Bayeux! But in the hurry to get in his car, bad luck struck Michael once again and he lost his phone! We got back to Le Mans just fine and that was the last hick-up Michael had but we gave him a lot of grief for his experience over the weekend!
     When we got back to Besancon, my host mother was there to pick me up and take me to their Mountain house because it had gotten too hot in Besancon.  We spent the night and the family and I went over to Switzerland to see where they make Gruyere Cheese in believe it or not Gruyere, Switzerland! Then we went to a chocolate factory for the Nestle brand partner Cailler! My host dad works there so we took a tour and got to try all the different chocolates! I was in Heaven!
     It has been a long weekend and I am ready to get back into the routine of classes tomorrow morning!

Here we go!

Tomorrow I head off to Normandy for some D-Day Celebrations! I am so excited! I really love history, especially WW2 history so this is great! We have started classes at the C.L.A. after taking what seemed like a French ACT test to determine what class we need to be in.  I feel like I'm where i should be but its hard because my teacher and some of the kids don't speak english so its all french all the time and i feel like i have fried my brain by the end of the day but i think its for the best to only speak french! I love living with my host family! The food is great and we have family dinner then my host mom and I eat breakfast every morning with a big cup/bowl of coffee! its great! I have a host sister who is 20 and speaks really good english! we get along great! tonight she made a fantastic chocolate cake from scratch of a recipe she made herself! It has been nice to walk around town in between classes with the other students, especially the other Americans who are from Penn State.  We all run errands together, like today we went to get bus passes so its nice to have something in common with the kids when we are all doing stuff in the town.  This place is so charming and the buildings are beautiful and old with a lot of character! I hope it gets better from here on out with my understanding of the language but they tell me practice makes perfect.  We keep dry erase boards at the dinner table for mini french lessons every morning and evening! I feel like being with a host family really helps! I hope to be as close to them in 12 years as I am with the kids that lived with us from Germany and all the Baseball boys we hosted! I am making the best of this experience for sure!

the city river

view from a huge mountain i climbed

the boys!

bread outside the palace 

all that sparkles and shines

my idea of a museum!

Hi y'all! Just checking in after being in paris for a few days! I'm sorry I haven't posted sooner but my computer has a mind of it's own!! Paris was beautiful! It was great to see all the monuments you only dreamt of seeing! And let me tell you, figuring out the metro is a great accomplishment. It makes traveling around the city much easier! The food and shopping was great! I love the cafés on every corner! I also got to visit a Christian loubitan flagship show store that my cousin was the architect of and it was amazing! Just like a museum for shoes I think I cried! We had 4 exhausting days in the city but I am with my host family now in Besançon for the rest of my stay! They are a great family and showed me he city today! All in all it's been exhausting and I will post more later but now it's time to catch up on some sleep! Au revoir!!