: : Untitled [[ j'ai besoin pour une peluche... ]] : :

Tuesday morning was rather difficult after the long weekend; however we survived...although that may have been due to the fact that we finished at midday :).

The day started at 8am - Droit, maths, Espagnol, English.

During maths I mostly spent my time trying to get the teacher's racist comments recorded onto my camera, although I think someone had a good talking to him as most of them were silent and didn't have the same impact...

I brought one of my new books for Spanish, which was nice : ). Although I couldn't really concentrate due to the heat and ended up only reading 12 or so pages in the hour. Or maybe that was also due to me being distracted by so many people im the class choosing Australia as their dream destination (that was the topic : )).

English : |. English was loooong. Very very very very very looong. And for some reason we were learning about the history of South Africa??? How is that related to the English language? Hm...interesting. Oh well, I guess I learnt a little bit, all the same...

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At 12pm, a very hungry Marine and I made our way to Sawdatou's bus stop...taking a little bit of a detour to two nearby shops to see if they told any icecreams (we nearly died of heat in the English classroom!)...no luck there, so we turned around and waited for her bus.

We said our goodbyes and then the two of us wondered up to the minibus stop. Where we waited, and waited and waited...it was late...again :S. Didn't really help our hunger and heat :S. Oh well, at least it was cooler inside : ).

When we got home, we made sandwiches with this herby sandwich chicken and smoked bacon.

For the rest of the afternoon, we had the whole house to ourselves and had a bit of a nanna-nap too : )...

I was boiling hot when callapsed on my bed, just after Marine went to her code...and was woken up later on to the sound of a...thunderstorm? Yup. Looked like the hot weather finally cracked it : |. Although it was nice and welcomed on my part :D.

That night we didn't have all that much electricity as it kept cutting out.

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Wednesday we finished at 11! Whoo!

The only two classes that morning were Droit and maths.

Droit was the normal crazy teacher/tired students mix...

During the 10 minute break at 10am, Marine, Sawdatou and I went to the main office to hand in their subject choices for next year as it was the last possible time they could do it; stopping on our way to take a picture of the sitting area which had filled with the rain from the day before and now resembles a lake...that one's going to take a while to evaporate ; )



Due to this, we were three or so minutes late to maths...The teacher, who usually doesn't care, wasn't happy and made us go get a late slip. When we gave our response to the lady in the office she was a bit confused as to why it was a problem and told us that it wasn't a reason for a late slip and that she'd give us the paper for the teacher but not count it...:D

Maths was spent doing the first, of the five revision sheets for the maths exam...all those topics from the start of the year I had missed...whoopdidoo! Haha, no, luckily it's easy and I understand.

---

For 11am-12pm, Marine and I went into Soissons to look in the shops for a dress for Aurore's communion...didn't have much luck there :S. Although Pimki was a little promising with one dress, but they only had size L. Two sizes too big...

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Natacha's mum picked us up and took us home where Marine and I made cheesy pasta for Aurore and ourselves for lunch.

That afternoon, Marine and I fell asleep on her bed while we were on our computers and were woken by Aurore scavenging through our rooms to find things that we had done wrong to take her mum...Marine copped it there :S. Those numerous breakfast plates that she never took downstairs from throughout the week :S.

---

At 5:30pm we went to the Centre Cultural to see Didier who has agreed to host my going away party :).

He was in La Salle de Fete as part of an aged ball type thing where he was dancing with a very dazed and happy looking woman in her 70s.

Hehe, he seemed rather pleased to see us and to stop dancing with the apparently love-stuck woman, haha.

He introduced us to some of his friends and some of the young girls our age who were helping out.

He then dragged me onto the dancefloor, with Aurore on my tail, and then I got Marine and her mother to join us. We didn't have that planned at all when we were told we were going to discuss the party with Didier at the Centre Cultural! Haha, it was good fun though.

We left at three to six to take Marine to code...wherre she didn't end up going anyway. Instead we went to the factory type clothes stores where Marine and I tried on all the dodgy sunglasses and rings hehe.






We then went home and Marine and I prepared the salad while my host mum went to pick up my host-dad from the train station.

We were a little bit naughty and changed the dressing a little...hehe, shhhh!

Normally it would've been:

3 large tablespoons of oil
2 small tablespoons of cider vinegar
1 teaspoon of mustard
1 diced shallot

We decided that normally, the salad was a tad too oily...so we swapped around the proportions of oil and cider vinegar...: )

...And forgot the mustard...which we added two teaspoons of later on.

The family actually quite liked it but couldn't figure out why it tasted any different as it was "the same recipe as normal". Hehe...comme d'habitude indeed :P

: : La table [[ qui pète ]] : :

So, yesterday afternoon, once Marine and I had popped into Natacha's to ask her if she wanted to come over later on (and had panicked a bit when no one was answering and she was the only one home...turns out that she was still asleep adn woke up when Marine and I decided to sneak into the house to see where she was).

We had a BBQ for lunch which was nice (we seem to be having an awful lot of them lately, hehe).

The rest of the afternoon was mostly spent outside with our computers, a lot of bickering from Marine and Aurore (it was hot and they were both taking too much of eachother's space, haah), Marine attempting to read one of my English books and me writing my blog for the week.

After I had finished my blog I moved onto my Snapfish book : ).

When I was about 3/4 of my way through, Natacha arrived (6:15pm).

We sat outside and talked for a while, although the heat started to get to us and we wondered inside in search of something to do.

We decided to set the table and prepare the aperitifs (finally figured out that they're "appetisers" in English...took my time there, eh?); however we finished at 7pmish and still had a while before dinner so we ended up just taking pointless trips in and out of the house (we were having a BBQ outside for dinner).

My host dad gave in in the end and we just ended up having an extended appetiser-eating period.

WE had a rather interesting topic of conversation that night...Farting.

We shared all our embarrassing farting stories - Natacha (who was staying the night because her parents were out of town), Marine, Aurore, my host-parents and I. We also talked and discussed how people used to act in school when my host-dad was a teenager...Apparently he had a guy in his class who peed on the floor...in the classroom...during class...:S

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That night I was rather tired, so after watching some Youtube videos and singing a bit, I went to bed at 11pm. Marine and Natacha went to bed a whole three hours after that when I was fast asleep :).

---

The next morning, after eating my breakfast and showering, Natacha left, and headed home for lunch.

She called later on and invited Marine and I over to go swimming in her pool.

In between lumch and Natacha's, my host-mum called me down to speak to one of her English students. A 16 year old boy who had recently lost his mother...She got me to tell him that "il n'y a pas longtemps que c'etait mon anniversaire" in English.

"Not long ago it was my birthday."

Soon afterwards, I got changed into my bathers and swimming shorts and waxed that other leg...Yes I know, I know. I walked around for five days with only one leg waxed...

SO at 3:45pm (after our BBQ lunch...again :P), changed from 3pm, we headed down the street to Natacha's.

The pool was...COLD! It was horrible at the beginning :S. Horrible, horrible, horrible! The day was 29 degrees...and the pool, 14 :S.

At first we played volleyball in the water. We stayed in the shallow end and Marine and I formed a team on the steps where we were thigh deep : |...still too cold :S. The losers had to swim two laps of the pool in two breaths or less...Hehe, I won each time, so didn't have to do it, hehe. Even when I was paired with Aurore! Or maybe that was because I bribed her and said that if we win we could jump off the diving board in the deep end :).

Afterwards we pumped up the floating deviced and lounged in the water. Marine, Natacha and I put our feet on our neighbour's device and formed a triangle - each one fighting for the sunshine and clinging onto the edge of the pool. Marine proved to be the sun hog :P.

WE got out at about 5.30 and ate Nestle cornettos on the deck. Coffee for me and Natacha's mum, Rhum and Raison for Aurore and Marine and a White Chocolate Magnum for Natacha.

We left at around 6:15 to go home and eat yet another BBQ :O.

The topic of conversation was something I would never have thought I would be able to discuss and give my opinion on in FRENCH. WE discussed religion and whether we thought there was something after death...Which then led onto the secrets of the universe and those little miracles that science just can't explain.

---

: : Sweet sixteen [[ en France ]] : :

: : Monday : :

Monday, aka my birthday :D :D :D (May 17th hehe), Marine was suffering some sort of tired spell, haha (teenagers, says my host-dad) so we spent the day at home. To be honest I was a tad disappointed as I would have liked to see everyone on my birthday, but as they say here, "c'est pas graaaaave." I got a tonne of Facebook messages anyway, : ) both from France and Australia :D.

My morning started with a phone call from mum. She had mistaken the time difference between France and Australia and panicked when she realised that it was 9.30ish am (she had planned for 7:30ish am, so that it was before school). My English was absolutely horrible!

I couldn't stop myself from using french connectors [such as, parce que (because), mais (but), c'est (it's), tout ca (everything/all that), oui (yes), je sais (I know)...etc.], correcting myself, then forgetting where I was in my sentence and then just telling mum to forget whatever I was on about, eh he he?

Anyway, after my shower, I brought my laptop down stairs to the dining table where I started my blog entry. Not too long after, Marine came and joined me and we prepared our lunch of leftovers, as it was just the two of us.

I wanted to help Marine, but she insisted that I sit down and let her be my servant for the day. She even tucked my serviette into my shirt like a bib and tucked me in at the table while she cleared it. She told me not to move...so when she exited the room, I ran and hid behind the couch...Too bad she's not as stupid as she seems :P (BIRD'S CAN'T FLY!) haha.

For dessert we finished off the flan that my host-mum had made the night before. Marine had stuck in the massive number candles (1 and 6) in my slice...I don't think she thought about the weight and force of putting in the candles and the softness of the flan...it was a tad crushed and mangled, but again, "c'est pas graaaaave.", it still tasted the same : ).

Marine insisted on doing the dishes...pfft...the one time I actualy WANTED to do them : ( hehe.

My afternoon was spent finishing my blog and replying to my many birthday messages : ).

: : Tuesday : :

Tuesday morning we didn't go to school as Marine had to have a blood test and that left us with only half an hour or so of classes, so her parents agreed that it was useless to go to school for that period of time and then have to catch the minibus home for lunch.

Marine had to get up at some rediculous hour...4.45 I think, as the line at the doctors is always long.

At lunch, it was me who prepared everything :P and it was me who did all the dishes :P I don't think that Marine realised that my making me do the work, it kind of undid what she had done for me on my birthday : | haha.

While we were eating, a package arrived for me :D. It was from my mum, step-dad, and sister. It was in a cute little (okay, it was a lot bigger than my mum had told me on the phone :P), Winnie the Pooh box : ). Inside there was:

- a pen
- a contact book
- three books (IN ENGLISH!)
- stawberry lipgloss
- some Caremelo Koalas
- a KING size Cherry Ripe (which I've already eaten :D I shared it with Marine as she loves them)
- two sketch pads
- three sketching pencils
- pimple cream (hehe)
- a scented rubber

(I think that's all)

and a card : ).

At 2om, Marine and I had to go to school for a French exam (written) :S. We were a bit crazy and really wanted to get out of it (mostly because I was freaking out that I would get a 0 and Jean Lin would send me back to Australia and my average mark would die). So we tried falling down the stairs (haha, although in the end, we didn't have the guts so I ended up sliding down on my butt with my jacket under me...ouchies...: ( haha.

Anyway, we very aprehensively got on the mini-bus and went to school...for the four hour exam : |.

When we arrived at school, I got some "Happy Birthday"s in person, which was nice :D.

Well, we can safely say that it was a disaster. We left at 4pm, after two hours and went to Coximart and bought this refrigerated chocolate thing with vanilla mouse on the inside. I ate one...sugar overload and Marine finished the other four before we made our way to her Code.

During Code, I read one of the new books I had recieved in the post :D which was nice, although a little difficult as the lights were off and the curtains were shut.

When we arrived at home, Marine and I went to our rooms and revised for the maths test and the Communications test for Wednesday morning.

: : Wednesday : :

Wednesday we began the day with the maths test. I stuffed that one up a bit : |. I misunderstood the questions and ended up rushing and trying to do it right after the bell ahd gone and we had to hand in our sheets...didn't really help that I didn't know how to use my maths teacher's calculator :S (he couldn't figure out how mine worked for the sbuject we were doing).

Afterwards, we were all pretty stressed and knowing that there was again another test really didn't help. Although it turned out that it was really simple :D. It was just on the exercises that we had done in class the week before, organising timetables, etc. :D

We finished the day at 12pm. My host-mum had bought three sandwiches and three mini-cake things (some sort of pastry filled with vanilla cream and covered with puffed sugar crystals) that morning and had filled three bottles with water. We drove to the park and sat at a bench and ate the sandwiches...Which are half a baguette (no, seriously...: |) filled with chicken, mayo, lettuce, tomato, and egg. Luckily I was hungry, or I wouldn't have been able to get through the 4/5 that I did :S. Although I did manage to each one of the balls, but I was way too full : |.

We then dropped Marine off at Code and I went home and finished the book I had started the day before.

At 5:30pm, we went to singing. Marine and I prepared ourselves for MUSTANG SALLY!

When we arrived, we waited outside next to Le Centre Cultural for Natacha...Marine had a little problem with her eyesight there, sending Natacha a message saying that she could see her coming...only...it was Alexis : |. Which she told Natacha (who was about 4 metre behind him) and we had a good laugh when they both arrived...although I don't think Alexis understood...

We stayed outside talking to the two of them until it was 6pm, when we entered the building and waited some more.

It turns out that Mustang Sally wasn't so flash afterall, with Karine telling Marine, Natacha and I to go have a look at Alexis' group as it was the only singer. Marine and Natacha prefered the song...and it seems that Karine made it clear that she didn't want me singing : ( No idea why.

: : Thursday : :

Thursday we stayed home from school yet again as there wasn't anymore Communications which meant we only had two hours of classes in the morning and Marine had her Code which finished at 11:30am.

I waited all morning for Marine to return to tell me if she'd passed her Code or not.

She didn't.

And she was worried what her dad was going to say...but as it turned out he was completely on her side : ).

We prepared the left over quiche and some salad for lunch : ).

That afternoon, Natacha dropped by to choose and rehearse a song for the concert Friday...a bit last minute but "c'est pas graaaaaave" ; ). It probably wasn't the best time as I was in the middle of waxing one of my legs which had gotten to winter-carpet level...I ended up abandoning the task...walking around with one waxed leg...and one gorilla leg...WHOO!



I filmed while they sang, "Qui a le droit?". Love that song : ).

It wasn't sure whether or not they would sing it Friday, but nethertheless they had to have a song to sing at the nursing home in June : ).

: : Friday : :

Friday morning, it turns out we didn't have maths, so we finished at 11am and started again at 2pm with two hours of Gestion.

Marine, Sawdatou and I walked to the supermarket where Sawdatou bought a sandwich and a bottle of juice (Marine and I already had a packed lunch) before making our way to the park by the lake.

We fed the swans a bit and then Marine and Sawdatou got a bit excited (I think it was the heat) and decided they wanted to jump off the bridge (which was about 11 metres above the water), into the lake. I didn't want to break my neck, and tried to convince them otherwise...but no such luck.

Marine and I made our way up to the top of the bridge (I was just there for the photos Sawdatou wanted to take), Marine in her socks (haha, she STOOD IN DOG POO!!!!). Marine backed out when she realised how high it actually was, so we made our way again and then Sawdatou and Marine went up, Sawdatou was determined! However, she too got a bit of a scare at the height, haha.

Crazy girls! : )

We finished our lunch and then went for a little walk across the lake where there was a school - turns out it was Sawdatou's little sister's school : ). We said hello and then went and sat by the bank. I played Paparazzi a bit with the swans while the three of us talked.

We took some pictures of the three of us balancing on a the measuring bar : ) and then proceeded to lie down on the jetty where I had a full on laughing fit...don't ask me why or how...:S haha, scared Marine and Sawdatou a bit there, but it didn't take them long to join in, hehe.




We then made our way back to school for Gestion...where....we had a test. Which Marine, Sawdatou, and a bunch of others didn't know about due to the teacher giving out all the test times at the start of the French school year :S. Which meant it had slipped the minds of most people, ten months later :S.

It was reather disastrous, and let's just leave it at that.

That night, Marine and I got ready for the singing concert where she would ye again be singing L'aigle Noir.

We had to take two trips with the car. One with my host-mum, Natacha, me and Aurore, and a second with my host-mum, host-dad and Sawdatou (my host-mum picked the two up at the train station). Due to their timing, Marine had to postpone her song or they would've missed out.

After she sang, she texted Alexis asking where he was...turns out he ahd only found out that day that there was a concert and that he wasn't coming. We decided to tell him that I was going to sing, so he decided he would try.

During the break, Sawdatou, Marine, Natacha, Aurore and I went outside and find a nice block to jump off : ) hehe.

Soon after the second half of the show started, Marine received a text from Alexis asking if we could come and get him. When we went to go look for him outside, we saw a person dressed in a purple jumper running across the massive carpark towards Natacha Marine and I. Marine said, "what the hell is that?!" before realising just who and what it was which cracked us all up.

Turns out he had been on the go the entire day and had a party after the concert :O. Marine's mum ended up feeding him the left over cheese and bacon cake, which he was greatful for. While I was gone, fetching it, apparently Aurore had aggrovated the guard for another even next door...:S.

She was a bit hyper and continued to provoke him. I ended up pulling her away, but she was heavier than me and fell on my butt :S. OUch.

I didn't end up singing, nor did Marine and Natacha. I told Alexis that perhaps next time I would...dot dot dot...




When we got home, Sawdatou, Marine and I got ready for bed; however we had a bit of a problem as Aurore wanted to sleep with us, and that wasn't the best considering the amount of people who would be sleeping in the same bed, the temperature (too hot :S) and the age difference. She ended up protesting, throwing a bit of a tantrum and falling asleep on my floor.

Marine, Sawdatou and I were a bit naughty and decided to play a trick on her. We semi-heated some water in a bowl downstairs and dunked her hands in it (well, TRIED to, as her hands were a bit weirdly placed)...didn't have the desired effect...because, as we found out in the morning, you're only meant to put the PINKY finger in...hehe.

We then proceeded to arm ourselves with eyeshadow, textas. lipstick, and mousse. This was the result, ahah.



Halfway through, she had woken up (Sawdatou and I saw her eyes opening multiple times) and pretended to be asleep (maybe the waking up part was due to Sawdatou and grabbing eachother, gasping and jumping onto the massive matress, pretending to sleep whenever she moved...). We decided that if she wasn't protesting, then we couldn't be blamed for coninuing :P haha.

Although she waited aot half an hour after we had finished to come and confront us...she was not happy at all, haha, and stayed up until we'd gone to bed. She slept with Sawdatou which got annoying as she kept talking in her sleep and moving around, so poor Sawdatou didn't get much sleep.

: : Saturday : :

We woke up at 10.30 and got everyone showed before Marine, Sawdatou and I ate a communal brekky...and, not long after, a lunch of a lot of different types of salads, which was nice and light : ).

We spent a while outside before Sawdatou decided to go to sleep for a little while longer before we went and saw a movie (Plan B).




At 3:40, we went to the cinema, where we had the hole room to ourselves : ). At one stage the ads finished and the screen turned off. We thought that they thought there was no one in the room as our feet were up on the chairs in front and we were unnoticable.

Marine and I went to investigate, knocking on the door of the guy who controls the movie...no answer. We then snuck into the room next door and saw that the screen was the same...must have been a tempory power outage as when we returned, the movie started again : ).

The movie was absolutely hilarious, with the three of us laughing and clinging onto eachother, shrieking, ahah.

Marine, Sawdatou and I went and bought some ice creams before Marine's mum picked us up at the cinemas : ). They were nice and refreshing considering the temperature : ).

When we got home, we prepard the table and everything for my birthday which we celebrated that night.

Didier was the first to arrive with Oceane, then Mammie Blanche, and then, finally, Mammie Noire.

We ate outside and had a BBQ which was nice. Marine, Sawdatou and I sang with the computer which we had brought outside to show the pictures of Marine's competition.

Didier had also bought my host-parents some rather...amusing...presents...Haha, no comment there :P.

Mammie Noire got me a baby blue bag for summer, and Didier a full French/English dictionary for apparently Errorless French : ).

My present from Mammie Blanche and my host-family still hasn't arrived as apparently the post is late...all I know, is that Marine picked it out :D.

My host dad had made Tiramisu for my birthday, which, for the first time in a long time, I went back for seconds for.



That night, despite her parents and us saying no, Aurore made a point to "accidentally" fall asleep in Sawdatou's bed again :S.

No one was happy with her at all, her dad even went to get her out, although he was convinced that she was truly asleep (which she proved otherwise after he had left :S).

: : Sunday : :

This morning, we woke up at 10.30am yet again, showered and got in the car (none of us having eaten) to drop off Mammie Blanche's cat and Sawdatou.

: : The week of the stars : ) [[ Mathieu, Ramon, Benji, et Miss France/Europe! ]] : :

: : Lundi : :

Monday was a long day. We started with a Droit test...it was truly horrible...:S I read each text about seven times and all I got from it was Louis Vouiton bags and sports sponsors :S. Oh well, got it back Tuesday, didn't go tooooooo badly, haha, 8.5/20...better than my usual 7 :).

During managememt, we got our marks back too...he wasn't very happy with that, hehe. Apparently the marks were "catastropique"...Ooops?

Lunch was absolutely disgusting :S...It was meant to be this zucchini cheese bake, or something...Let's just say that the water from the zucchini mixed with the cream sauce and the cheese and ended up tasting like weak tea with milk :S. The parmagiana was good though :D.

During French, the teacher gave up on teaching us and decided she wanted to read her book, even though the students here have their BAC in three weeks and they've only done 11 or so of the 18 texts...hm...

Ludmilla and Jennifer had two bags of lollies and a two litre bottle of what I think was apple and cranberry Oasis juice which they drank and ate when the teacher wasn't looking, even though the two litre bottle was a bit obvious...

We spent the next hour talking between the five of us on the right side of the room (Ludmilla, Jennifer, Marine, Sawdatou and I).

Phrase of the convo:

"Tu coupes avec ciseau? :O" - Marine Wlodarczyk

Hahahahahahhaha! Apparently we were a little loud and that meant that Yanis had a good lead on our convo :S. Not the best person, in relation to the topic of conversation : |.

That night Marine didn't go to do her Code at 6pm as apparently the secretary wasn't there.

: : Mardi : :

Tuesday was Sawdatou's crazy texting day :S haha. With Johany - her kiddy boyfriend from when she was six who she was reunited with via Facebook a week or so earlier.

We took our time at the conteen for once...talking...a lot. Sawdatou and I were a little lazy, what can I say? Haha, and Marine was obliged to stay with us, muahahahahaha!

Oh! And that was the day that they served cow's tongue at the conteen...Now, normally I can put up with cow's tongue as it's quite tender and all...cut into tiny little pieces and covered in a hell of a lot of non-transparent sauce...but this was the WHOLE tongue with that shape and all plonked on a pile of chips :S. I think it was even steamed or boiled. I stuck with a massive pile of green beans :)...and we stole a few extra desserts ;) which we didn't end up eating anyway...oh and a few extra cheeses :D.

: : Mecredi : :

Whooo! The day I woke up sick! I spent the morning falling asleep in maths - thanks to my wonderful sick head :D. We didn't have Communications, so we finished at 11am and made our way into town to Mammie Noir's house where we had arranged to eat lunch. On our way, we stopped through the market and Marine bought a new pair of flats as her three pairs of shoes had broken in the last week.

Her high healed sangles on Monday, which we taped together in French...Her boots which have broken on the inside and now make music when she walks, and her flats when we went to the Potaterie with Natacha.

We then proceeded to go to Mammie's where we ate melon, ratatouille and yoghurt cake with creme au chocolat. I then slept at Mammie's for two hours while Marine did her two hours of code. At 3pm, my host-mum and Aurore came and picked me up, before picking up Marine at the Auto-ecole.

We spent the afternoon lounged on Marine's bed, waiting for 6pm when we were planning to go to the group singing lesson for Mustang Sally. It wasn't until 5.30pm when Marine received a text from Alexis asking where we were...turns our Natacha had mistaken the dates and it was a normally singing lesson...When we called Natacha, she was tranquil and shopping at Cache Cache, haha. That made us laugh a bit.

Karine agreed to take us at 6pm though with the other singing group which was good :). I got a bit excited when one of the older women was singing Time After Time and she saw me and spent the rest of the song looking intently at mee as I mouthed the words which was a little freaky. Marine and Natacha where laughing and me, haha. Then there was another who killed the song, "Je Suis Malade" :S. It started off really nice but then she stopped the music completely and started screaming into the microphone which wasn't so pleasant :S.

: : Jeudi : :

Thursday was spent getting ready for "LA NOUVELLE STAR"!!! Hehe! At 3.30pm or so we left the house and drove to Sandrine's cousin's house where we said goodbye to her family and then headed to Paris, speaking the whole way. The 1.5 hours really flew by! A lot quicker than those numerous trips taken to Sorrento with my family each year :).

We arrived at 5pm in the ourskirts of Paris. We drove around a bit at first, just to get to know the area a bit better before making our way into the carparks and down to Baltard.

When we arrived there would have been about 200 people already in queue...we thought we were a bit late and wouldn't get a seated place in the audience : | But as it turns out there were only about 20 people who did.

At about 6pm, people we were really beginning to arrive and there were more than 600 people behind us in line and a group of michievious teenagers who were trying to sneak in and were dressed a bit...*cough cough*ly, asking people if they had tickets or if they could go in with them. At one stage, one of the boys chucket a lollipop at an expensive car who tooted at him when he was in the middle of the road. In the end, one of the nigro guards came and gave them a piece his mind which the three girls in front and the father and his daughter behind us really enjoyed watching.

At one stage the whole queue started taking out sandwiches etc for dinner...that was when we started regretting leaving our dinner in the car for after as the last time any of us had eaten was at 1pm.

After we got through the front gates (and the group of teenages decided to try and sneak in as VIPs...HAH! LA BLAGUE!) and Marine's godmother/Sandrine's cousin was hit on by the nigro guard (which was rather funny), there was yet again ANOTHER queue! Where we waited for another hour or so...oh and went to the toilets that were portable and didn't have a light...hehe, that was a bit interesting...

We got severly crushed by the time we were close to entering the building with my holding onto Marine and me, her godmother.

When we entered...there was...wait for it!...wait for it!...ANOTHER QUEUE! Haha, we were able to cut this one though as it was for hunging up jackets and getting metal detected.

When we finally got into the fosse (that part on the floor), Marine and I were behind two little kids and that was that. We had a pretty clear view :D.

Once everyone was seated or put into all five fosses, there was a man who came on stage and started explaining to us all that we had to watch him to know when to aplaude and scream and shut up, etc. He also entertained during the ad breaks, which was good. On and that guard found Marine's godmother, haha, telling her that he had searched the entire building for her, hehe, was quite funny. Didn't really help that she's really small.

The performances were AMAZING! Even though the sound was a bit strange and sometimes it was hard to hear the microphones, etc, it was absolutely awesome! Marine and I screamed still our throats hurt, hehe but it was worth it :D.

It was really interesting to see how the cameras worked too, with the cameramen running around the stage spinning cameras and hiding behind boxes and the piano.

At the end we were able to get autographes...I got one from Ramon (the Spanish guy on French Idol singing English songs...really really really really really well :D!), and really wanted one from Benjiman too but he gae his pen away to Francois just after he signed Marine's paper as his pen had run out :(.

When we got into the car at 11.30pm, we were all starving and dug into the sandwiches, apples, cakes and chips that my host-mum had prepared earlier :).

Marine had also received a message from her mum saying that we had been on the tv, just the two of us :D. Hehe...at first we thought that she was having us on a bit - but Alexis had also left me a message describing exactly where we were...

Marine and I slept on the way back and we arrived back at the house at 1am.



Here's a pic of Marine and I in the bottom right hand corner behind the two little kids that we took off the internet.

: : Vendredi : :

Friday was a rest day for Marine and I after La Nouvelle Star and for Marine to prepare herself for her singing competition in the small town of Guisse the day after.

: : Samedi : :

At 11am, the whole family left and were on our way to Guisse (pronouced: Gwi-iiis) for Marine's singing competition after Marine practicing the morning three different ways of singing L'aigle Noir and her parents harrassing her a bit :S. They were all nervous...apart from Marine.

When we arrived at Guisse, we ate lunch and walked around the small (kind of freaky) town for a while before dropping Marine off at the Salle de Sport at 2:40.

My host-parents, Aurore and I were left to explore the town a little further until 7pm.

We walked up a small hill to a castle which we had seen in the distance and waited outside for about half an hour before someone came by and opened the doors. We didn't end up exploring like we thought we would as Aurore and my host-mum weren't sporting very suitable shoes...Instead we descended again and walking around, trying to find something to do. We walked back to the car numerous times, sitting down for about 5 minutes and deciding that it was useless, got out again and walked around...again. We ended up spending a while in a park where my host-dad told me stories about his army days and Aurore lay on the bench opposite, drawing in the dirt.

At 4pm, we went to the billeterie to collect our museum tickets. I was quite surprised at how much I understood! : ). We then proceeded to look around the old appartmenst which were part of the museum.

At 6.15pm, we were back in the car in the carpark, waiting for 7pm...our feet aching from walking so much.

At 6.40, a queue had started to form outside the competition arena. We jumped in before it got too long and spent a long 35 minutes awaiting entry.

When we finally got in we ate croque monsieurs and slices of flan while we waiting for the concert to start.

It started a whole hour late...:S.

After Marine had sang, I went with her as she bought a third and fourth croque monsieur and a slice of flan (after her two waffles with sugar earlier on...haha, I'm guessing she was a little hungry...). In the end she sent me to do her food buying as she was a little enbarrassed.

We spent the rest of the night with Eloise, a girl who sang in the same catagory as Marine. We went backstage and took photos with Miss France/Europe, who was presenting and some other guy who's apparently really famous in France and sings really really really well! He managed to wake up the audience, which was something!

Marine ended up coming 2nd, and eloise first.

The concert finished at 2.30am...and we arrived home at 4.30am.







: : Dimanche : :

Sunday we woke up at 11pm, ate breakfast, then lunch two hours later, then slept and did our homework.

I also received a really nice card from Didier for my birthday (I swear the guy remembers EVERY birthday he comes across!). And at dinner my host-family gave me a nice card too :D. Aurore had also bought me a present with her own money which I thought was really sweet :D.

She bought me a little mouse keyring (because my host-family calls me "little mouse" in French) and a broken "Best Friends" heart keyring that was really solid. She bought it for me because it had some English on it and she understood the meaning. I gave her one half and told her that that way when I'm back in Aus and she's in France we'll still be there for eachother : ).

Marine and I couldn't sleep last night so we ended up in my room talking and laughing silently.

: : Doing what one thinks only happens in movies [[ x3 ]] : :

: : Wednesday [[ the rest ]] : :

Soooo, can't really remember where I got up to with Wednesday, and seeing as I'm feeling rather lazy and can't be bothered looking back on my last entry, I'll just go from after lunch.

Well, Marine went to code and I think I wrote my blog entry (???)...anyway, I decided I would have a nice little nap on my bed at about 3:30. What I didn't expect was to hear massive thumping up the stairs and someone trying to hide their laughter when my host mum called, "Aurore? Auroooore??? C'est toi? Aurore???".

When I opened my eyes, I saw Marine standing at my door laughing...wasn't expecting to see her until 5pm...hmm...

She then called downstairs after a little while, telling her mum it was her.

Apparently she had mixed up the times of her driving lesson and her code and when she went and sat down to do "code", Jacki (the driving constucter...old, scary and likes chatting up young girls :S) came in and told her that she had her driving lesson at that moment.

She told us about Jacki and is sleeziness and how he told her that she needed to drive smooth like her cheek whilst slowly brushing it with his fingers :S *cringe*.

Afterwards, Marine was driven home by the guy who had his lesson after hers...and she was a bir freaked out when she learnt that it was only his 2nd lesson, haha. I don't get why people are scared - I've been in the car when my SISTER was learning to drive (hehe, just kidding sis :P...but you know I didn't freak out like our darling cousin there who was pretty much having a heart attack next to me :P).

Anyway, I continued to sleep for a little while (which only turned out to be an "eye rest" as it was only for 15 mins or so, and then I got ready to go to singing.

Singing was...strange. Alexis, Marine and I were the only ones who really talked at all : |. And everyone sang well and were all rather serious. Interesting, but again, fun - maybe it was to do with the amount of people absent due to recapping classes at school...hm...perhaps...

---

Wednesday after dinner I decided to try and teach Marine some Aussie slang for when she comes to Aus. She started panicking when I told her that we all speak like "that" (meaning with Aussie slang) and that it's the same at school sometimes. Haha - she's going to enjoy herself decoding our language, eh?

I then quizzed her - she got -3/25 hehehehehehe.

-1 point = WRONG with a clue used
0 points = WRONG
1 point = RIGHT with a clue used
2 points = RIGHT

---

: : Thursday : :

The day started interestingly for poor Marine, haha.

When we were in Gestion at 8am, Marine decided that she was hungry (after eating breakfast only 1 hour before hand :P ahaha) and opened her bag to find the little chocolate swiss role I had put in there for her (hehe, me aways making sure she has a little snack in there :P). Clement and Thomas saw and started to say loudly, "OH! No, not in class Marine - no stop! Don't eat! Oh no! You're going to fatten up!" so that the teacher would see, haha.

That continued throughout that day - haha. Along with Thomas practicing his "dirty" English word knowledge on me, asking me if I knew what certain things meant. My reactions were mostly, closing.eyes-exhaling-smiling.a.pained.smile-slowing.saying.oui...Thomas, Thomas, Thomas.

Lunchtime was spent with Natacha and her friends - Natacha and the girl kept randomly bursting out with laughter and Marine and I felt a little out of place...it was funny all the same, though : )

Natacha, Marine and I spent an hour outside (I think I had consumed a little too much sugar or something :S)because I was a tad crazy and wasn't making much sense at all.



Afterwards, Marine and I decided we would join Natacha in Portugese apparently a lot of random students turn up...interesting that...

Anyway, Natacha warned us that Portugese was always a bit of a mess - but we were no where near prepared for what we encountered!!!

After 11 minutes of class, which was spent with students making themselves comforable to sleep on the desks, taking out rediculous amounts of chocolate bars and cans of coke and laughing, all the teacher had managed to do was write the date, in Portugese, on the black board...

It was rather funny, as Marine, Natacha and I were three of the fie who actually worked within that hour - haha, even though two of us didn't even know a word of Porugese! Haha...it was a good experience, I'll give you that!

---

Communications was rather good, and I managed to work all alone! Hehe, I was rather proud of myself : ) although, when the teacher announced that I had finished and told me, personally, that it was really good, the people in my class said, "yeah, but she got help from Marine and Cindy"...Aha, they confirmed otherwise :P hehe

We had to make time tables and work deadlines for a buisiness with a set of rules - we had to do three tasks like this, and at the end , we had one hour spare, so Marine and I did our Gestion homework to get it out of the way for Friday.

---

My host mum had attempted my host-dad's cheese, bacon and potato quiche for dinner - she was stressing a bit as he's one for good food, especially after a full working day. I thought it was pretty good, and even better for her first time - and who said savoury wasn't her thing, eh?

---

After a dinner of dripping cream all over the floor, thinking the open carton of cream was a box of cheese - Marine, Aurore and I left to go for a walk around Vauxrezis.

After walking up a small path, discussing life in general, we stopped and chatted to two sheep, a bunch of chickens and a rooster. We even picked some lunch green grace to give to the sheep which they appreciated as it was a lot better than the completely munched down paddock they had.

When we let them, our sudden standing up frightened one of the sheep and he ran off, trpping over a chicken, while doing so, hehe.

---

We then came across a brilliant field of yellow flowers which came up to our shoulders in some places. Marine, Aurore and I looked at eachother, all with the same idea. The sun was setting and there was the perfect moment. A once in a life time oppertunity...which we took, wondering through the flowers, completely hidden and in our own little sanctuary. Probably a memory that will always be with me - the three of us holding hands and jumping into the field, falling and realising that, yes, indeed the reality was harder than that in movies :P.





We were in the flowers for what seemed like only 10 minutes, but was really 45...hehe. We exited, with me leading the way, through a clearing where Marine had a clear view of a house close to our street. When we arrived at the clearing we realised that we had to jump over a river.

Aurore was first - pretty smooth landing ; )

I was next...a bit wobbly on the second ankle...

And Marine...Full face plant - letting the packet of tissues she had in her hand fly and get stuck in a mini twig tree thing that was growing next to us.

It was then that we all looked down at our clothes and realised that yes...we were yellow. My jeans were a lovely shade of green...my bootss too...and we won't even start on Marine's black winter coat!

---

When we arrived home, the three of us finished off the strawberries that my host parents had eaten while we'd been gone, before heading upstairs and making a card for my host mum telling her how much she meant to us (she was having a bit of a hard time) which we gve to her before going to bed.

---

: : Friday : :

Friday was mostly spent with Sawdatou..plus we started at 10am :D hehe.

We ate lunch with Ludmilla and Jennifer, which was nice - Ludmilla got rather excited over our lunch of Tarteflette, which is like a potato bake but with slices of Mareille cheese melted everywhere and mini chunks of bacon. At one stage we saw a guy with dread locks that was dressed in a hippy/hobo type fashion (there seem to be a lot of "individuals" here, hehe, "la fille verte, la fille fluero, Dracula") who had put the wax of the wheely cheese on his nose like a clown. Our whole table had completely turned around to look at him and discuss him when he looked at us, which sent us all into panic mode and we all turned around again, bursting into a fit of laughter.


After lunch we went to the library, Sawdatou, Marine and I - apparently we were a little too loud as well got told off three times by one of the moodier patrol ladies :S.

At two, we had two hours of gestion...whoopdidoo! Marine was feeling rather sick and Clement and Fabien were feeling rather cunning and yet again the hour was spent with them mucking around with her things. When we went to the sick bay, they took her thing and jammed her ruler in between the surface and leg of the desk...haha, made her laugh though and lightened the mood a little :D.

At 4pm, my host mum came to pick up Sawdatou, Marine and I. The car was already full with Deborah and Aurore in the back - but Sawdatou and I squeezed in the back with them anyway. I ended up half sideways, sitted wonkily on Sawdatou's lap.

Oh and I got my maths test back on Friday - topped the class :D hehe, 18/20! Whoo! This time I actually understood most of the questions : ) (which were, as usual in French).

---

I decided to dig out the iSnack 2.0 (as the Vegemite had mysteriously disappeared...cough cough...Suspects: Host family - most likely a mutual dicision) for Sawdatou to try...hehe, luckily I had a Tim Tam to give to her afterwards! Hehe, although the bite was tiny - she still spat it out, cursed at me and then ran downstairs to drink from the tap, hehe, before asking me what it was : ) I'm such an angel :D.

The three of us spent the next 2.5 hours lounged on Marine's bed - at one stage I got a bit excited by a video and threw myself across the two of them, where I stayed quite confortably for the next 45 mins...Marine, however? I'm not so sure :P hehe.

After Sawdatou had left, Marine and I were a tad crazy...We danced as we set the table with the music on full blast (haha, we were the only ones home :P)...Apparently it was a little too loud, because when Marine went to shake out the table cloth outside, the neighbour mocked her, singig, "la lala la lala". Pfft!

We documented out craziness in photos ;) haha.





When we were both in the bathroom later on, we were spying on the mocking neighbour...hehe, I called out numerous times, "JE T'AIME!!!" before slamming shut the window, haha. Take that neighbour! This Aussie aint scared of you and your mockingness :P!

That night we ate pizza...not so nice. The first one, salmon, seemed to be pure salt :S and the second one didn't really have much taste :S. An epic fail in the world of pizza : |.

---

: : Samedi : :

Saturday, after lunch, Marine, Aurore, my host-mum and I went to the new shops yet again. I found the shirt I really liked from the time before, which I didn't buy because they'd run out of my size, although this time they had my size and I bought it :D.

While we were there, we tried selling the three tickets Marine and I had won to see a Comedy Night in Paris. Hehe, we were on a bit of a winning spree - we won tickets to see the Nouvelle Star for the SECOND time too : )! This time we have someone to take us :D. We even have Thurday and Friday off from school and it's on a Thursday night, so it's perfect :D. I'm going to finally get to see the Eiffel Tour at night! :D

Afterwards we went into a few other shops, and ended out little shopping trip with rhum buying for a cake my host-mum was going to make for when my host-grandma came at 7pm.

We were all running a little behind schedule and when she turned up, we were still drying the plates to put on the table (my host-dad had used a tonne to cook the Paela : )).

Ate a hell of a lot last night :S let's just leave it at that! Hehe.

Marine sang for Mammie, even though she's sick, because she can't make it to her competition next Sunday - surprisingly, her sickness didn't sound at all!

We also quizzed my host-family on:

What's greater than God? More Evil than the devil? The poor have it and the rich need it, and if you eat it, you die. *NOTHING*

My host dad really enjoyed that one : ).

---

: : Sunday : : AKA today...

This morning before going to eat at Mammie's, Marine, Aurore, my host-mum and I went into Soissons outside the Centre Culturel to look at the prices for AMAR, the circus the was visiting Soissons, after two things had happened the night before...

1. The bus that was meant to take Marine and I into Paris to see this massive open day thingo that's really popular, called us last minute to tell us there weren't enough people going so our bus had been cancelled...AFTER we paid.

and 2. Sawdatou send Marine a message telling us that she was at the circus and it was "SUPER" and "MAGNIFIQUE".

We decided to go for the more expensive ticket (although, not the MOST expensive, as it was 25 euros :S) as it meant we were given seats in the centre :D.



After lunch at Mammie's, we made our way back home and Marine and I did our homework at rocket speed...leaving some of it until after the circus as we had arrived home at 3.30 and the circus started at 5pm.

When we arrived, we expected there to be a lot more people. Marine and Aurore bought two massive fairy flosses (oddly, they were white...) and we met up with Marine and Aurore's Godmother who had agreed to take Marine and I to Paris, Thursday. We talked for a little while with her two children (6/7 and 9/10, I think).

The Circus was amazing! It had everything!

- fire juggling
- acrobatics
- elephants (who stood up on their two front legs...rather cool!)
- clowns with their whistles, dressed a bit like Nanny McPhee
- tigers
- horses
- ponies
- motobies in a ball (that was freaky...:S it started with only one, then two, then three, and then all three with a woman standing in the middle of the ball dancing. It wasn't even that big! Perhaps 2mx2m :S)
- elephant rides during the break

Oh and the trumpet player in the band! WHOOOOUUUUUAAAAOOUUU! Magnifique! Tha motivated me to play my trumpet again : ).




After the circus, the three of us, Marine, Aurore and I were all too tired. To make things worse, I still had the History work to copy out and nothing was making sense at all. Trust me, it's a weird feeling when you go from understanding everything easily to not at all and the frustration to know that you can do better but you're being tripping by a language.

Let's just say I left that work for the morning...

: : Written Wednesday [[ for Tuesday ]] : :

So, yes, I know, my blog entries are currently the wrong way around, hehe...

Anywaaaay, yesterday we started at the dreaded 8am :S.

After a bit of morning bustle for the bathroom (ha, had a chat the night before about what time each person had to get up to shower - there were four of us, because my host dad had to work...Marine wasn't too happy about that extra presence in the bathroom...), we arrived for two hours of droit and a Sawdatou who had yet again decided to play with her boyfriend (she and boys really should not be allowed on the same planet :S...he tortures the poor things :O but it's quite funny watching it all, haha).

Anyway, we were all a bit crazy throughout the day and snuck through the lunch line (even though we were priority :D hehehe). We stayed at the canteen laughing and joking around for a lot longer than usual (1 hour I think...). Marine wrote a text to the guy saying sorry etc etc (apparently she has a way with her poetic words on nearly everyone!). Sawdatou told her not to send it while we read it and laughed about it...but did Marine listen? nooooope! Haha - that was hilarious!

We then spent the rest of the day wondering whether sh would geta response or not...as it was obviously not her who had written it.

We also got our English results back...I swear that teacher needs to explain herself better! She's probably the vaguest teacher ever :S.

We spent the ride home and the time when we arrived home at 3pm discussing her with my hostmum and when we showed her what the questions were that she'd given us and her corrections, she demanded that we go see her.

Last night, before dinner, Marine and I were rather motivated and actually did some sprot for 20 minutes! Whoo! Haha that was fun ; )

: : ALWAYS destroy [[ the evidence :O ]] : :

So, just want to apologise for my incomplete last entry and the days missing after Friday which I'll hopefully catch up on soon...I decided to go on a bit of a no-blog-writing strike because I was all up to date when my computer decided to crash and everything I had written was annoyingly deleted (GRRR!!!)...and then I realised that my blog didn't have any actual feelings and that striking wouldn't make them come back...petty sad I was actually under the assumption that they would...hm...France is messing with my brain *scratches chin, looking like I'm deep in though when really my ever shrinking peanut brain isn't even big enough to be filled with a single though*...hm...

SOOOO, today today today...whath happened todaaaaaay?

Well. Today is a Wednesday. Incredibly interesting info that is! :P hehehe

Today I also started at 9am. Again, truly fascinating! :P

Hm, anyhoo, when we were outside our Droit classroom this morning, Clement and Thomas started quizzing Marine on random common sense...she seems to be proving herself to be the Blond Queen...Especially yesterday during maths! :O DISASTER!

Anyway, in Droit, the teacher apparently asked me a question to see if I was okay with the work (hm...teachers asking me stuff is becoming unusually common these past few days...)...I didn't realise I had been asked anything (hehe, I was copying what Marine had written as I still can't fully keep up with Frech dictation) until everyone was looking at me and the room was silent...ooooopsies!

Theeeeen, Marine was looking through her papers and put a sheet randomly on the desk...not realising it was completely filled with notes we had passed during Gestion one time...The teacher took it and started to read it, laughing every now and again and looking at us oddly (luckily he's nice :))...Marine was stressing unbelievable about WHICH conversation it was...not that I could especially remember a conversation that was particularly bad...Anyway...tuns out it was our Sac-o-potate convo...hehe with a few other things chucked in there : |. Hehehehehehehe...Marine then told me that everyday I've been here, there's been something weird that has happened...Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing...

Maths was again filled my maths teacher chuckling loudly to himself and picking on Sawdatou (hm...yes, he was the one who admitted to being racist in front of the whole class...).

In Communications we had two students from Terminal (the last year of school - most people here finish at 17) who came and talked to the class about the subject choices next year. Marine's still as confused as ever as what she can do at her school for Tourism in the future.

---

We finished at 12 : ) hehe...I love Wednesdays!!!

When we got outside (the sun's disappeared again : ( and replaced itself with cold cold wind :S) there was a guy from, "La Banque" (The Bank) handing out little plastic bags while saying, "un cadeau : )" (a gift). Inside were different CDs (one per person, but each person with a different one), a slip of paper and a lollipop (which Marine and I ate in the car...we were hungry!).

We waited for Aurore to return home a lot longer than usual...It was 1:05pm the time she returned from school, when usually it's 12:35 at the latest. It was only the four of us (the girls of the family ; )) for lunch as my host dad has started work again after a 6 month break.

Marine's now at her code (2pm-3pm) and afterwards she has her driving lesson (3pm-4pm) and I have no idea what she's going to do at 4pm-5pm before singing :S. Haha, she even got herself all made up for the driving constructer who we refer to as "yeux bleus" (blue eyes)...Although she pretended that wasn't the reason...too bad I know her too well, eh? :P

: : Pour mon futur mari [[ Cyril Bass ]] : :

: : Tuesday : :

[[ INCOMPLETE ]] --- Due to both personal reasons and my entry deciding not to save itself :S

Anyway - just for keepsake, I'll write a little dot point summary...Although the little details aren't really there anymore as it's the 19th of May that I'm writing this...

- Marine left her computer turned on, on her bed
- [classified info]
- Marine, Aurore and I had a heart to heart in Aurore's room
- Marine left the house, and I followed her, sitting her down outside one of the neighbour's houses, another heart to heart for about 45 mins at 8.15pm
- returned home, Aurore had taped something which she showed us in Marine's room
- [classified info]

: : Wednesday : :

Wednesday was rather emotional, yet again due to the night before...So after a teary car ride to school, followed by a two hour rapid waterfall during Droit and an agro outbreak in maths...and ending with a sentimental note writing session behind the math teacher's back...everything was reasonably good again during Com; however the nerves did build up again when we were waiting for my host mum or dad to pick us up.

We both knew that there had been some talking done as, for the first time in picking-up history, it was both my host parents who came...That drive home was rather tense, followed by a silent lunch...yikes.

After lunch, however my host mum took Aurore, me and Marine to the new shops in Soissons where we did some summer shopping for me and Aurore and searched for a dress for Marine's performance.

Our hit shops were Grain de Malice and Cache Cache. At Cache Cache, I bought a shirt, a white cardigan and a black top, and Marine finally came across an amazing dress for her performance...only to find that Aurore had already bought the exact same dress after seeing that she had taken it into the change room...same size and everything...:| didn't have some very happy sisters there...

Anyway, when we went to pay my card stuffed up their system and they had to shut down all the payment machines before trying again...hehe whoooopsies...

---

At Grain de Malice Marine found a long cardi, and I found a shirt...this time my card behaived himself : ) hehe.

---

Our next stop was Cora were we did some grocery shopping and my host-mum sent Marine and I to the perfume shop to get a sample of some really expensive perfume...

Marine and I did the whole Australian thing...too bad the girl who served us was young and kept telling me that the perfume was really a bit too old for me and that it sells quickly so I really should just cough up the 79 euros right there and then...but we got away with it anyway ; ).

We then took a quick detour back to the house to drop off the stuff we'd bought for the BBQ. I changed into some of my new clothes in the car, hehe.

Afterwards we proceeded to the group singing lesson (Mustang Sally with Natacha, Marine and two other women). Marine hunted down Alexis when we arrived (we all got out of our cars at the same time...so I guess that doesn't really count as hunting...) as she'd left her phone's memory card at his house on Sunday...After putting the card in the phone and having a heated discussion about whether it was the right card or not...we figured out that Alexis had brought his own card to give to Marine...Haha, she wasn't happy and burst out laughing.

Alexis then told Marine that his Grandma had the same shoes as her (haha, it's fun to wind her up ; )) and that landed him with a few blows to the head and arms, haha.

He then decided that he was going to find me a French boyfriend and reached behind my head where he tore off a name and number from a sheet with little tags at the bottom. "Cyril Bass"...haha, for bass lessons...hm...I think not, Alexis...

Mustang Sally was rather disastrous :S to say the least...let's just say there were some people, *cough MARINE cough* who can't count bars :P haha, just kidding...^^

After singing, we waited for Mammie to come and pick us up outside with Alexis while he continued to tease Marine (he realised that she was a bit down and managed to keep that smile on her dile :)) and pointed at an ant, saying, "I FOUND YOUR GRANDMOTHER!" in English when Marine asked where Mammie was.

When we arrived home, Marine had a bit of a talk with her dad and things were a bit calmer and more relaxed during dinner...thank god...

: : Thursday : :

Thursday morning meant that Marine and I had to pack a lunch from home to take to school as we finished at 12 and would normally eat at 1, but Marine had her driving lesson then...so...yes...it was brioche and fruit and chocolate biscuits for us!

We had a test in French on POIL DE CAROTTE which was an absolute disaster...I didn't understand a word that was the basis of nearly every question...I ended up writing 4 sentences for 11 questions...hehe...oops...

In English we also had a test - on irregular verbs (I had a special one where the teacher gave me 40 verbs in English and I had to translate them into French...I was rather surprised that the only one I didn't know was "to dig" : )) and a reading comprehension on slavery.

Marine got up to 110 km/h in her driving lesson :S. The guy keeps telling her at the beginning of each one that she HAS TO SLOW DOWN and that she goes way too fast...does she listen?...apparently...but I think not :P haha

When we were returning to school, we saw Myrium and her friend who waved at Marine while she was driving...Man she's a dangerous one, taking both hands off the wheel to do a two handed wave ideed...

At two, we headed to the library to finish off my Communications work so that I would only have to presentation to do in our last 3 hour session which started at 3...I mangaged to get most of it done : )

During the three ours I was rather disastrous...I printed to stupid thing about four times! Each time there was something or another wrong :S...But I finished all the same, with one hour free which I spent talking with Thomas and Marine...Apparently boys are more like us girls that we think...: |

Afterschool, at 6pm, my host mum took us to a little shop to buy a few things such as snacks, appetizers, juice, onions and apples.

: : Aujourd'hui! : :

[[ INCOMPLETE ]] --- okay again, this is a day that I'm writing on the 19/05/10...so I can't really remember all that well what happened (why thank you for stuffing up in the first place bloggy)...

Anyway, the weekend : : So the family was planning to go to a market in Pasly on the Sunday, 2nd of May (usually they're always on a Sunday) so we spent Saturday mostly resting and lounging around after going to Cora and whatnot (at least, I think that's what we did...).

Sunday morning, Marine was talking to Clement on msn and she told him that we were going to the Pasly market that day...haha, he laughed at us and, living in Pasly himself, told us that the market was the day before and we had missed it (apparently there were animals and everything!).

When I was downstairs later that day, my host-mum asked me honestly if I wanted to go or not...That's when I let the cat out of the bag and told her that it was actually the Saturday (hehe, Marine wanted to play a trick on them and get my host parents and Aurore to go and realise that in fact, there was nothing there...evil child she is...). Anyway, my host dad told Marine and I that we should get out of the house and do something anyway...so we got up, finally motivated and then...pitter patter pitter patter at Marine's window...welcome rain! Haha...greeeaaatttt....

Anyway, we decided to get ready anyhow and got dressed up in my beanies (hehe, one that I stole from my sister's wardrobe in Aus...wonder if she noticed...oh well, she probably will now as I'll probably put this in one of my Snapfish albums, eh he he?) and made our way outside where it had cleared up a bit.

Unfortunately, the neighbours saw the way we had dressed ourselves and laughed at us from the kitchen window, only to race up to his bedroom window and continue watching us as we cut across the paddock into the woods. I kept close to the fence, not wanting to satisfy him and his mockery, pfft.

Anyway, Marine showed me how to look for "lillies of the vally", or "Muguet" (pronounced, mew-gey) in French. They were delicate and at first I went around pulling the whole plant out of the ground by accident or "snapping them off at the neck" as mum would say...

After a while I got the hang of it, getting a little cocky and getting stuck with one leg either side of a fallen tree and my head stuck in a spiderweb :S trying to get to a nice juicy muguet ; ) hehe. Epic fail :S.

Marine and I ended up getting fairly attacked by the other plants in the woods...They had thawns and didn't appreciate our cut free fingers :S...OUCH!

The higher we got up the hill (and the less people we had to hide from) the hotter we got...not so great the way we had rugged ourselves up with woolen jumpers and beanies haha, at one stage Marine tripped and her/my sister's beanie ended up hanging from a tree branch, hehe :S. We ended up ditching the beanies...using them as bags for our every-growing collection of muguet shoots. Marine didn't think of tying the end strings of her beanie to make a handle so her muguet kept falling out, haha. The fourth time it happened she reaslised that the handle was the thing that cradled the muguet nicely in the head-pouch...haha.

At 4.30pm/5pm we decided to head back home as we were kinda lost and didn't really know how to get out of the woods...again :S hehe. World's worst navigators ; )

We ended up getting excited when we found a little path whih we THOUGHT led out of the woods, that ran along our neighbour's backyard. However, when Marine led the way, she let out that oh-so-familiar, "euuhhh...". DEAD END.

We ended up being lazy and decided not to bother losing ourselves more than we needed to so we climbed over the fence into our neighbour's backyard (hm...not sure how many French Privacy Laws we broke there : |...Nevertheless, we ran behind trees, keeping a stern eye on the windows of the house. I found an old vegie patch which made a little hill up to the top of the fence which divided the backyard and the paddock leading to our house. I handed my muguet to Marine and made me way up, getting a little stuck on my way down as there was a mound of old sticks and branches knotted together. Marine followed, stressing about what would happen if the neighbours saw us :S.

My host-dad had prepared two vases for us to but our muguet in. We ended up having too many and having to stuff them full :S. We them placed the neatly on a shelf just above the muguet Deborah and Aurore had collected a few days earlier.