And we’re back again! I think this part of my two part blog post will be shorter. I think. No promises. I’ll start by apologising again – for some reason, I can’t put pictures into my posts. I don’t know why, and it really bugs me, but I’ll see if I can figure it out soon.
We left off with a depressed, post-Eurotour Grace, who has arrived back home in Chaumont. Dramatic, I know, but anyone who has done Eurotour will understand. So, three days after Eurotour was over, I changed host families. I am now with my second host family for the year. I have my host mum (Delphine); my host dad (Stephane); a 16 year old host brother (François) who will go to Argentina for a year, starting in September; and a 9 year old host sister, Juliette. This host family is fantastic. I got along with my first host family, but first host families are always difficult, especially if you don’t speak the language upon arrival. But yeah, I love my new host family.
About 4 days after moving families, the coughing began. The coughing lasted another 5 weeks. Gotta love bronchitis. Not much happened in these 5 weeks.
As I started to get better, my host family took me down to their beach house in a place called Île de ré for the long weekend. It was beautiful!!! I loved every part of it. The beach, the copious amounts of ice cream, the bike rides, the sunsets, the shopping, there was just so much to love. I am happy to announce I will be returning to Île de ré for 15 days in August, so get ready for another blog post 😉
After Île de ré, I had another painful three weeks of school. Disclaimer: I actually like school here. The only reason those three weeks were painful was because I had gotten a taste of summery freedom and wanted more. So after those few weeks, I was finally done with school for three months! YAY! But… NO!!! Summer time on exchange for an Australian means saying goodbye to their oldies. Quick explanation: your oldies on exchange are the students in your district who have done half of their exchange already when you arrive. For Australians, it’s everyone else from every other country in the world. Normally, Aussies get about 30 oldies. Vice versa for everyone else – they get one or two Australians.
And so began my second summer in a row of goodbyes. Remember, I left Australia in Summer too (and said goodbye to my friends and family). Mum, Dad, don’t get offended, but this was so much harder. Again, let me explain: these are my best friends. My other family. My brothers, my sisters & my cool aunts (again, a certain person will understand this reference so hopefully they read it). These are people who became my family in a matter of months, and who I had to say goodbye to, possibly forever. That’s the difference. Saying goodbye to friends and family in Aus was hard of course, but I’ve always known I’ll come back.
Anyway, the good news was at this point, Summer holidays meant lots of time to meet up with people before saying our goodbyes. There was a memorable gala evening, a goodbye to my Exchange Mum at the train station (thank you for everything, Rogger. Can’t wait to see you at my graduation.), and the hardest goodbye I’ve ever had to do. Metz that weekend was full of memories. I could write an essay on how much these two people mean to me. They know who they are. Thank you for everything, and I’ll see you both down under soon.
After the goodbyes and the sadness (which isn’t really over and never will be, but it’s getting easier), there was quite a happy note. My host family has a lil speedboat! Guess what that means!? Water skiing! Wiping out on the water-doughnut! Blow up lake parks (like Total Wipeout but easier)! Getting sunburnt! It was a good day (minus the sunburn).
And so, here we are. Half way through. The language has improved massively, although is definitely not perfect or even close to fluent. Hopefully I’ll get close to that point by the end – it’s quite a big goal of mine this year.
Sorry that this was such a long update. I felt it was necessary. If you made it this far, congratulations. You REALLY deserve a medal. I can hear my mother saying it – “You know if you posted more regularly, they wouldn’t have to be this long, Grace” – and I’ll try from now on, I swear!
I’d like to thank everyone who got me through this far in my exchange. I’m so grateful for this opportunity and have officially reached the point where I can’t imagine going home.
Until next time,
Grace
Leave a Reply