C'est La Vie: C'est la printemps

IT'S SPRING ( translation of title)

Yes folks it is officially Spring here in the Cote d'azur! This past weekend it was 70 and sunny although it is raining as of now, I choose to believe that from now on the weather will only get warmer! Since the last post I started school up again which to be honest was a bit of a drag but am getting back into the swing of things I suppose. My French, Philosophy and history teacher were absent last week which cut off 11 hours of school so I can't really complain ( don't worry mom I am studying very, very hard :P). OH and today we got our history tests back which was a 2 hour essay based on the question " How did France transform politically from 1848 to 1914?". That was the only prompt we were given and I will admit that I did not study in the least for it because I was not aware that we were taking it so I was basically writing whatever cam to my head. So, when we got our tests back today I was happy to see I got 8/20 which sounds really awful but is actually equivalent to like a C / C- and she said she graded mine exactly how she graded everyone elses so I felt pretty good. The girl next to me got a 7 and the other girl got an 8 too when she saw that I got the same grade as her she asked me if I just memorized it from the book and I told her I didn't even know we were taking it. Some people in my class don't understand the fact that my French isn't were it was in the begginging of the year and still attempt to speak broken English which annoys me sometimes but I understand they are trying to be helpfull and I normally just respond in french.

My Host Parents are In Turkey right now on vacation so my host grandparent's are staying with my host brother and I. Maria, my host grandma is Polish and moved to France when she was 28 so she speaks French with a very thick Polish accent- she prounouces her R and E's in a way that to me sounds more like german then french but I really, really like her- she is the sweetest lady you could meet and altough she's only stayed with us for little over a week she feels like my real grandma! I asked her to teach me some Polish but gave up that after it took me a 1/2 hour to say "hello" correctly ( Dzhen Dobry - prounced Jen Dobre). Friday was my friends 18th b-day so we went out and celebrated, it was a good night :) But, I wanted to go to the market with Maria on Saturday at 10 so I got approximatley 5 hours of sleep! However, it was worth it becasue I had never gone to the markets in Antibes before plus afterwards we went out and got pizza and nutella icecream. We got home and I was so exausted while I was reading my book in the backyard I ended up falling asleep for 2 hours. I got up and looked at the time expecting it to be late but when I saw it was only 1:30 I remebered that I hadn't actually slept in till noon as i normally do on Saturdays- it was a nice feeling having a full day ahead of me ( i think Im gonna make it my new goal to wake up earlier on weekends from now on...we shall see how long that lasts ;) ). Since It was such a beautiful day I wanted to get up and out so I called up the exchange student in Cannes and we meet up at the beach. While we were attemping to burry ourselves in the sand we heard some other teenagers beside us speaking Englsh with little english accents so we decided to go over and talk to them. Turns out they all live here and go to an International School in Mougins where the majority of the classes are taught in English. We ended up going to dinner with all of them and had a great time just talking, again sometimes it's nice to hang out with english teenagers where I never have to worry about language and also the humor and behavior between French and English people are different aswell. Sunday it was raining and I was extremley exhausted so I basically slept the whole day and started cleaning my room and getting ready to switc host families. I am amazed at the amount of stuff i have accumulated through 7 months, it has been quite the hassle trying to get everything organized but j'arrive. As of now I am planning to switch this Sunday but since my dad comes to Visit in Thursday and leaves on Monday they said I could wait untill after he leaves to switch. Which brings up the fact that MY DAD IS COMING THURSDAY ( so excitied to see you dad ) !!! Im taking a bus to pick him up Thursday afternoon and it will be cool to show him around and stuff, although it will be strange to have a piece of home here in France because I have my life in the states and my life here so separated in my head. Yesterday marked my 7 month anniversary in France...yyooowzaa but i am enjoying these months and wouldn't nessecarily choose to go back to day one if I had the choice mostley becasue now I have friends, I speak French and overall I have a life that I didn't have when I first arrived here. I wish everyone a happy spring and will see most of you in 3 short months....
Much love
-Hannah <3