First Days

 Welcome

Welcome to my inner most thoughts. Just kidding, this is not a diary. It is, however, my top secret travel blog that will inform you about every last breathe I take while roaming the great place of Europe and most specifically, France, and even more specifically, La Roche Sur Yon, the delightful town that I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a year of my life living in. Now before I tell you all about the mayonnaise here (best darn thing I ever tasted) or what it feels like to go to a school 10 hours a day where no one understands a word you say, I ask that you pardon two things. First: my utter lack of appropriate grammar and correct spelling. Not only are French keyboards 100% different from American ones (if you know where the apostrophe is on this thing, please let me know) but the spell check is set, of course, for French, so apparently the only word I spelled correctly these past five minutes was 'I'. Second: Please pardon my crass humor and random thoughts that probably don't make sense. I would give an excuse for this one, but I don't have one. Before I delve into this, here are some adjectives to describe France and ultimately, my experience thus far:  Wonderful. Beautiful. Charming. Scary. Exciting. New. Perfect. Confusing. Insane.

Mayonaise

Every person I have told about my adventures in France has proceeded to exclaim how wonderful French food is and also ask me what I think of it. The most commonly spoke of food is the bread, the cheese, the crossiants, the cakes, the hot chocolate, the cold chocolate. It seemed that before I came, each person had a new food they insisted I would love and every person had their own particularlly exciting and mouth watering experience to share. This is all good and fine but I'm a bit disapointed that no one cared to share with me about one particular food item...The mayonnaise is deliscious!!!! The first time I tried it was when I went out to dinner with my amazing host family. French people like to cook their food always and going out to eat is a rarity, howver we were traveling back from their beach house and went to a buffet type of place. I got the most crispiest, yummiest, warmest French Fries (get it?;) of my life, and I decided to eat them the way my host sister does, by dipping them in ketchup and mayonaise. One bite and BOOM. Every cell in my body was grateful for this wonderful contiment. i could almost hear my stomach singing for more. It was like the first time you try Nutella only a crazier experience because you finally understand that all your life you haven't been eating turkey and mayo sandwhiches, you've been eating turkey and a fake plasticy substance and you will never go back! The consistancy is creamy and it tastes like heaven. I can't believe how uneducated my mouth has been before coming here.


Family

Right away meeting my host family, I knew it was meant to be. Since I had only ever recieved one email from them, I was very worried about going to their house and what they would be like but seriously, I have the coolest family ever. When I first got there, I was introduced to my host sister Victoire and my host mother Valerie. They made my feel right at home and communicated in the best way they could about where my room was and when dinner was and how things worked. When my host father got home, the real fun started. They told me they were going to give me a tour of their gardens. Now maybe I live a very sheltered life, but I had never visited someone's garden in a rusty jeep with no roof that needed to be jumpstarted. At that moment I knew this was no ordanary garden. My host father, Philippe immedially stepped on the gas and took me through what could only be described as a jungle. I hung on for dear life as we went over huge dips and curves and ducked to avoid being hit by trees that loomed  overhead. When we finally got into free space, I saw a massive cabin, a huge tree with a bathtub next to it, and two roaming horses. WHAT STRANGE HIPSTERVILLE AM I LIVING IN? Victoire pointed upwards and I noticed a tree house in the branches of the tree. That's when the car broke down.
As we walked back, leaving the car to deal with later, they explained how that wasn't even half their gardens. I decided to love my host family.