I have yet to be here in France for over a week, but I feel like I've already been here for a month or so. This morning I woke up to see my little host-sister Jeanne who had brought me a slice of cheese to persuade me to get up. It's fortunate that my host-parents are goat cheese makers, because I love cheese the here. For breakfast I had yogurt with lavender honey, tea, and bread with cheese. I found out the other day that there was going to be another exchange student in our town, from Mexico, who doesn't like cheese. In January we'll be switching families, and it'll be interesting for him to live with a family who eats so much cheese.
My host-mom went to buy vegetables in the town this morning, so she brought Jeanne and I. My town is called Lauris, and I live a short drive away from the village itself. When I first googled my town after I found out where I'd be going, I was surprised to see how small it was. Despite the small population, it's nice to see that there are always people walking around the town. Almost everyone we saw in the streets downtown stopped to say bonjour to Jeanne. She showed me around the town, and eventually brought me to the castle. It's crazy to think that I'm currently living on a farm in a small town in southern France with a castle.
Because the only thing that comes up when you search my town is the castle, it was interesting to finally see it in person. As you would imagine, it's also a lot prettier in real life as opposed to the low-quality google images. It's on the side of the town and looks out to the Durance, the river that passes through our region. I ended up playing tag with Jeanne around town in the hot weather, so we decided to sit and relax at the castle.
We visited jeanne's elementary school in the village. All of the kids in the area go to Lauris for elementary school, Cadet for middle school, and Pertuis for high school. Pertuis is a town about an hour away, so I'll be taking the public bus in the mornings. After we got home in the afternoon, I spent the day making peach tarts with Jeanne.
In the evening we had a bunch of family friends over to celebrate my host-dad's birthday. I got to meet my second host-parents Véronique and Éric and my third host-parents Pascale and Gérald. I also met my future host-siblings: Louison (6 years old), Antoine (14 years old) and Lucille (19 years old). My third-host family came with Lara, an Australian exchange student from Marseille. I spoke with Lara and Lucille, who had just returned from an exchange in Boston, in English. We ate pizza for dinner. I had heard about how French dinner parties are long, but it's true. We started bread an cheese, then olives and salad, then quiche, then the actual pizza, then tarts for desert, then more salad and snacks all in the course of a couple hours. I entertained some kids and went to the zip-line then spent the rest of the night on the patio with the others.
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