100

100 days. Only 14 weeks. Just 2400 hours. 8640000 seconds, that's how much time is left until I'm on my flight back to the United States. It's gone by so quickly. It's so hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I've been living in France for 7 months already, because it already seems so familiar and normal, the fact is, this has become my life, my "norm" and to leave it again seems just as strange as when I left Minnesota in August. I don't think I'm aware of how much my exchange year has already changed me, but I know it's made me grow in ways that I can't even imagine. I've had a lot of people ask me why I'd want to leave my home for one whole year and my response was usually something like why not? There are so many incredible opportunities and things to see and do during our lifetime so my response really should be how can you not? The current average life expectancy is 78 years, I'm only taking less than 1/78 of those years for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so when put in perspective my one whole year in France doesn't seem like that much and well worth the ten months out of my comfort zone.

I can't imagine saying goodbye to you guys.

Only 3 months left I'd better make them count!

A Glimpse of St. Vallier

If any of you have looked up St. Vallier on the Internet you'll see photos of the river and their basketball team, but not much else. So, this post is to show you a little more of where I live.

Beautiful, old doors that face the river.

Garage doors have signs like this to tell people they can't park in front because tons of people use street parking.

Pretty keyhole.

View from the bridge.

St. Vallier.

Le Rhône

A view of town.

I find it kind of funny that I live in a town of 4000 and there's a Louis Vuitton factory right across the street.

Being a tourist in a very non tourist town.

"Downtown"

<3

Typical French street.

Send me some!

Place de la Fontaine. The library is the building that's a bit hidden with the large blue square.

The church. In every French town, no matter what the size, there's a church.

The town hall with France's motto (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity)

Similarly, in practically every French town there is an area dedicated to people who were in the army. Each memorial has a list of their names, and, if it is known, the war they fought in/when they died/served.

Me on the bridge where La Galaure meets Le Rhône.

I live in La Drôme!

Around town with Jonnie.

There are almost always swans on the Rhône.

My town has a "castle" where Diane de Poitiers lived. She was the mistress of Henry II. No one lives there now, but it is well known because the gardener who did the garden of Versailles designed the garden for this castle as well.

My street.

This last Sunday, my host family and I went for a walk in the hills just across from our house.

The view from the kitchen window and where we walked.

It's getting warm here, almost everyday is around 20 degrees Celsius/68 degrees Fahrenheit. One day it even reached 31 degrees Celsius/88 degrees Fahrenheit!

An orchard with an extremely old stone fence.

Wild Rosemary plant.

Sacha, my host parents, Vidocq, and Sarah.

A view of town from the top of the hill.

Another view, and look, you can see my house!

An old gate. All of the flowers were starting to blossom.

An abandoned shed.

Alex and Sacha setting off sparklers.

Wild cactus.

St. Vallier used to have a tile factory, you can see St. Vallier written on this shingle.

Hey there goat.

Let's climb the wall.

Alex.

Sacha and my host Mom.

And me.

I hope you have a better idea of where I live now!



The French Lunch Room

Yes, this is another food post, but I couldn't help myself food is such a huge part of life here that it's impossible to avoid talking about it. Since food is so important in France the school food has to be up to par, because the French are used to eating well. When I first tried school food in France I was blown away, the fact that we were given real silverware, the food resembled something like food and we always have at least a four course meal was a huge change from the cafeteria in the US where we're given less than half an hour to buy and eat our food.

Now, here's the whole process on how the school lunch room works in France;

In the morning you have to pass your school lunch card to" reserve" a meal for lunchtime, that way the cooks never make more than they need.

The machine which counts how many lunches you have left and reserves your meal.

The lunch line empty...

And how it normally is. I think of the lunch line as a corral for cattle, we're guided completely by the railing and we're pushed by other students with no personal space until we finally get to the door and the lunch lady lets us in to eat.

Once you're finally in the building you have to swipe your card again for another machine to give you a tray, the tray literally pokes out so you can take it, if you forgot to swipe your card you have to wait for everyone in the school who ordered their lunch to eat and hope that there's food left for you.

There's always bread, fruit that's in season, a dairy product, an appetizer, a main course and sometimes a dessert.

This video gives you an idea of what we eat for lunch at school in France. Jealous?

When you've finished your meal you put all of the trash on your plate and the tray rolls on the conveyor belt to be cleaned.

My Christmas meal. The day before Winter break we were given a special meal which is supposed to be "better" than normal. My friends here find the school food terrible and inedible, but compared to what I'm used to in terms of mass produced meals it's great. Anyway, for Christmas we had a foie gras creme brulee with toasted spice cake on top, sweet potatoes, chicken, mushrooms and an amazing chocolate cake.

My chocolate cake with a truffle on top!

My friend's Christmas meal, she got shrimp.

More food.

Me and my friends. The consensus was that the Christmas meal was better than what we normally eat but nothing special, if they ever eat in a high school in America they're in for a big surprise.

Yesterday at school we had an Irish meal in honor of St. Patty's day. I know that other French schools have themed meals quite often but this was the first time we've had a themed meal at Lycée Henri Laurens.

My tray. We had a scone with cheese and smoked salmon, Guinness stew, an "Irish" flag, and a tiny apple pie. Happy St. Patrick's Day!