one more thing!
look I made it online!
http://www.tfc.info/fr/Actualite/101002/Dernieres_news/38056/Division_3_Feminines
That's the game from my birthday, I'm the sub! wooooot!

Break is fun !

Hallo !!
The past week and a half have been crazy and busy, but really fun. Birthday festivities and then a week in Germany, I got back today at noon. So my birthday was really fun, can't believe I'm 19...we made a crazy cake on Saturday then had dinner together, then took advantage of some of the nightlife in Toulouse. Here's me with my cool cake...it was supposed to me 2 layered chocolate, but technical difficulties arose...I'm pretty proud of the final result, it looks more like for a 6 year olds bday party, but hey, it tasted pretty good. Chocolate. And 19 candles. (I don't know why this is underlined)

Here's everyone eating in the kitchen, my host mom made yummy chicken:

Here's us ready to go out:

I didn't get much sleep before I had to be at the stadium for my game at 1:30, it was a beautiful day and I was happy when I got there because the pro men's team was leaving and I stood for a couple minutes like only a couple feet away from the pro players...you can tell when they are there because the parking lot is full of luxury cars. Johan Elmander ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Elmander , and check out his picture...he is wearing the EXACT same jacket as I have bc we are in the same club, obivously. cool, eh? isn't he hott!!) is Swedish and he's the star and he doesn't speak French and he was standing and talking about the game of the night before like 2 feet away from me! He's was so tall and cute! We played Olympique Lyonnais, lost 3-0, they are the best in the league, in every division. I took a self portrait in this uniform because I never know if I'll play in another game...no, I was not goalie, the uniform is really pink, and black shorts and pink socks! The purple stripes were more striking but this one was pretty comfy!

Then no one came to watch so I walked to the metro station 20 min away and waited for the bus home. Here's a picture from the walk...pretty day! The stadium is on an island in the river (La Garonne), so you must cross a bridge.

I came home and hung out till we had dinner. In my fashion of taking pictures of food, here's the cake my host mom got from the patisserie...pretty, eh? A bit different than the one I made haha. I was layered strawberry and apricot mousse and had candied fruits on top and says Joyeux Anniversaire Liz. They spoiled me with presents, I got some keychains and candy and then J'adore fragrence by Dior..oh la la!

Tuesday I went to my first host family's house for a birthday lunch. Here's Nadine and I with the champagne they opened for me:

Then with my cake...again different..a raspberry tart:

I would say that I mastered how to take some good food pictures with my camera...mm raspberries:

Then the next day I took a 2-hour flight to Hamburg. Yay vacation! I love travelling! After a minor delay, Svea and her dad greeted me at the airport. I was so happy to see her! I missed her so much! It was like a bit of Champaign in Europe! Thursday I went to school with her...pretty different that French lycée, and American HS. Here's a pic of the outside of her school:

The architecture of the place was pretty cool, kind of like a ship. So different than French lycée! They have 7 periods from 8am to 2pm, with breaks inbetween, but no lunch. Major snacking action happens in and out of class, then everyone goes home at 2 and has a pretty big, hot meal with their family. I like it. You are in class the same amount as in France (and US) but it feels a whole lot shorter. I guess it's just so much part of the French culture to stay in school till freaking 5 or 6pm everyday. It is a big part to have out big meal at the cantine everyday, I'm not complaining about it...it's just so interesting that it's SO different. This trip made me game for a contrasting cultural conversation..anyone? France and Germany are neighbors, yet lots of things were really different. Soooo interesting. I'll add more about this at the end. So Friday we went to Hamburg..such a beacutiful city, I want to learn about like mideval history in Germany, the architecture was so interesting and different than mideval and renaissance things in France and Italy. It seems like when we study "Europe" in that time in the US we only cover like France and Italy....never the rest. Friday Svea and I took the train to Hamburg, went shopping in the morning and too a sight-seeing tour in the afternoon...lucked out bc that's when it started raining. The city was really becautiful, and more Americanized than Toulouse with KFCs and Starbucks and bagels (got one..first bagel in 6 months!). I generally found that Germany was more like the US than France, opposite of what I expected. Here is the townhall, pretty striking square and building. So different that in France, I find that so interesting.

Here is one picture from the bus...it was raining so they are all kinda bad, it's of the Speicherstadt, which, as much as I understood, was originally built for storage, but it was so striking, near the port, all these buildings that are identical, built in the river, with canals going inbetween them. Kind of looked like a humungeous prison. Google it if you want better pictures:

We came back in time to have some supper then go to a birthday party of a couple girls in Svea's school. Pretty interesting and fun. The least I can say is that German teenagers do like to drink, and that made for some pretty interesting conversations with them trying to speak English to me.
Svea and I:

One of her best friends, Dominique, another boy, and her cousin (and me)

It was fun, they played Spice Girls and we danced crazy. It's interesting which American hit songs all of them knew by heart, mostly from a couple years ago, but I didn't know all the words to them. I think different ones were big hits in France. Interesting.
So Saturday was Svea's 18th birthday! Happy birthday! In Germany you pass your driver's test when you are 17, then automatically on your birthday you can drive, then you go and pick up the actual card during the following week. So nice not having to spend you birthday sitting in the DMV, or equivelant, as so many Americans did/do (myself included). We go to sleep in a bit, then had a big breakfast, which included hard boiled eggs, yummy rolls with lots of different things you could put on it, meat or cheese or jam or nutella. Then we drove like an hour to Bremen. The cutest city ever! Here we are on top of the statues of the fable of the streetmusicians of Bremen...you know it..where the animals get on top of eachother to look in.

The streets were all narrow and cute and my pictures do not do them justice. Here's a pretty building, I think it was a museum, but it was built in the 1500s!

Here is the group in front of a statue...unfortunately you cannot see the statue, it rises vertically. That's Svea's mom on the right, brother on the left, and boyfriend behind her.

Here's us on a bridge:

Then Svea got to pick what we had for dinner, so we went to a Mexican restaurant! First Mexican food in 6 months! I love Germany! There are no Mexican restaurants in France (ok, I know that's a generalization, but still...) It was so delicious, and so different how I've been eating the whole year, like using your hands, that wouldn't happen at a restaurant in France. I think my stomach was in shock. The food was so good and filling, and you eat so much at one time and quickly. Saturday night we went back to Bremen and we benefited that everyone was now over 18, here's a pic of her and her friends, Svea bought us leis to wear for her birthday!

Sunday started by playing volleyball with a mixt team with kids from her school, who only had 3 players, so they needed 3 more. It was really fun and I've now played in a German volleyball game! Then we relaxed the rest of the day, her relatives came over for the birthday and we ate lots of cake and drank coffee. Monday we went to school, I learned how to high jump in PE, and ten I went to badmiton practice with her. Now I can say I've been to a badmiton practice! It was pretty fun and I learned a lot! Tuesday I went to school again and then we had a big meal when we got home then went out and went a bought some pens and got my hair cut a little, now I have some bangs! I guess I'll always remember my trip to Germany like that...and this morning I flew back to Toulouse. I can speak to people! For the last week I was just in my little world of just speaking to Svea. I want to learn German in college and go study abroad there when I'm a junior.
So...observations... I felt like I was more in the US there than in France, I guess a lot of our culture is taken from Germany, at least in the Midwest. I mean the majority of the settlers were German, right? Like the houses looked similar to houses in Champaign, and they were normal with front yards and little fences and driveways and made of wood and brick. I didn't notice until I left France and came back how different it is. Every house here is made of cement and sometimes brick, with a large wall around the front. My host family saw pics of my house in C-U and asked if I was scared bc we didn't have a wall...noo.. So yeah, that was nice. And the food is similar, I guess mostly bread. Actual loaves of bread, whole grain, no more baguettes and little brioche white bread. Yummy whole grain bread. And more cakes and less tartes. I guess bc she didn't live in a big city like I do, since she drove to school everyday it felt more like Central, their school had a parking lot and trips to McDonald's in the their cars during the free hours. The kids in her class were so nice and dressed normally, not all fashiony like at Ozenne. And since the girls play sports, in PE they were dressed normally with shorts and t-shirts and tennis shoes, not it all crazy sport clothes and wearing converse for PE. One of the funniest things is when I said I live in France, their reactions. And likewise to the French ppl who I told I was going to Germany. It's like they're still rivals, when I described things in each of the countries, like school and food and houses etc., noone said really "oh, how interesting", most "well that's weird". I think that's funny. Everyone in my family here said that they had no interest in going to Germany for a vacation, I think that's funny.

So yea.

Here's a cultural link....remember that tecktonik dancing I was talking about earlier...mostly dominates boys fashion here and that's what people do in clubs. Well here's the link to the like most populer music video in France right now. The movement started in August or September in Paris, and I didn't even see ppl doing or dressing like this in Germany. But soon some American star will have someone dancing like this is their video and then everyone will be doing it and France won't get any credit for starting it. At least that's what the kids tell me here, pretty good theory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5XN-yiAj0Y&feature=related
I like when they dance together at the end, it looks cool.

Here's another one... this is what a lot of boys dress like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bytf3gZMFkY&feature=related

Then here's one of the most popular pop songs the whole time I've been here. I think it's brillant. This guy maked fun of things in every song he does. I think it's funny b/c he makes fun of the teenagers that want to be american, the mowing of the lawn and the outfit, and the video is set like in an American suburb, yet the cars are cleary French or European, then you can see the "guys" standing there wearing the Lacoste warmups, that's what kinda of the french gangsters, north africans wear, yet instead of the lacoste hats they have american ones. The the high school is supposed to be american bc that's where like the majority of american music videos are set, but it's funny bc..they're french!! There are no lockers here and the pay phone in the video is french, clearly not france telecom...anyways, I could go on and on. This one even has the enlish translation next to it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4FamibkUH4&feature=related
I'm on break for 4 more days! Yay! The I basically start school fresh with my new class. I'm gonna be so nervous. Hopefully I'll have friends.

hello
2 more weeks have gone by, very quickly it seems like. I can't really remember anything super special happening at school, except being really surprised when the history teacher said that WW1 is the most studied war in France, yet we only spent 4 class hours on it. 14% of France's male population was killed in it and our class mates couldn't even name a battle! Crazy! Then we spent time on the Russian revolution. But the big thing that happened on school was on Thursday when Liza and I decided that we should really be separated so we make good french friends, so after this 2 week vacation I will be in one Terminale ES class, and she'll be in the other one. This'll be so scary, like the frist day of school! I hope they're nice! It's just since all 3 of us are in our class, we are kind of like think block of kids that the others don't try to be friends with. So I'll have philosophy, economy-sociale, english, german/spanish, math, and hist-geo. And being 19 (my birthday is tomorrow xD ) is a little weird. I went to soccer once last week and 3 times this week, it's kind of a hassle since my host family won't pick me up now. I ran home the 5.2 miles last week, then this week I walked most of the way, then thursday and I friday I rode a bike to and from. But with now being moved up to 12th grade I have a lot more school so I get done a lot later every day so my whole riding-the-bike thing to soccer will have to be modified. But I don't want to quit! I actually have a game tomorrow now! On my birthday! Hopefully the weather is nice bc I'll be on the bench most likely. The weather has been so nice lately, all sunshine and in the 50's everyday. Last weekend was the 2nd exchange student weekend of the year. There were 17 french outbound kids and 11 of us inbounds. Saturday we had a meeting then lunch, then visited the chateau in Foix...9th century! Then drove to a village called Gouliers in the pyrenées, so cute and picturesque, and stayed at a gite. The rest of the night we just hung out, played hide and seek, ate dinner, listened to music, played cards, etc. it was pretty fun. Then Sunday we went on a hike the whole day. Such beautiful scenery and weather. I love mountains! It was fun talking to people and stuff. The group was big enough that you could separate into smaller groups without feeling like you left people out. We found some snow and it was fun throwing snowballs, especially for the australiens who never have snow. The third one came, Josh, total surfer guy from north of Melbourne, he's so nice and funny! The weekend was fun and went by super fast, and it was nice getting some sun. Last week I saw the movie Juno, so good! and this wednesday we did some shopping. This weekend should be fun, a friend is coming over soon and we are making a chocolate cake for my birthday. Next week I'm going to my first host family's house for a birthday dinner and then off to Germany on Wednesday! Yay! I'm so excited! The sad shooting this week made my hometown known for a horrible reason, and my deepest condolensces go out to all those who were involved.
I want to thank my family for their thoughful birthday presents they sent me. Dad(dy), your present was the best thing I've ever gotten. I love you.


ok so photos might not be a possiblity this time, it's taking forever. more later! bisous!