5 Months

Monday, January 28th marked the end of my fifth month living in France.

I do not really have a lot of words that come to mind when I think about it.

I am in the very middle of my exchange, I arrived in France only 5 months ago, and I will be leaving this wonderful country for who know how long in a short 5 months. The time both feels like it has passed really slowly and really quickly. Sometimes I feel like I have lived here for a long time (despite my lack of friends and language skills), but when I look back, I feel like I came here only a month ago.

Looking forward, I am not sure whether these next five months will take as long or as short as the previous five months. (If that makes any sense, lately I have been losing English skills.) Right now, I feel like I do not want to go home in five months. I do miss my family, friends, school and my church, but I do not feel like I want to completely move back. I would like to visit for some time then be on my way, off to another adventure. I want to continue this experience I am having, I want to move in with people I do not know in a country I do not know and learn everything about the culture and language first hand.

Part of me feels like I could form a life here. I would have to try a bit harder in school and such, but I think part of me will always be here and never want to leave. I want to stay yet I want to see everything else the world has to offer. I want to visit a lot of places, but it seems to me like I can not be somewhere without leaving  a piece of myself there. I guess I will end up leaving parts of me all over the earth, and all the places of the earth and experiences and people I meet will always have their imprint on me.

Sometimes I feel more homesick than not or just feel really down, but lately I have been pretty great! I had a great time the other weekend when I met French students who will leave for exchange next year and we all had a dance together. This week my class gained two new exchange students from Paraguay and Chile. Today I received a package from some of my greatest friends from school and I have four boxes of Mac n Cheese sitting on my shelf, so you could say my mood is pretty bright!

Seeing the amount of people I have met, the relationships I have created, the places I have seen, and the things I have learned in the first half of this exchange, I can only imagine everything that I will experience during the second half. I have created friendships with people from all over the world, and I know that we will always keep in touch and possibly find ways to visit each other. I am looking forward to my Euro Trip in April when I will be visiting other countries in Europe and, no doubt, meeting more fantastic people!

This exchange is sure to change who I am, the way I think and the perspective I present to different situations, and it probably already has. I'll always be me (the loud, obnoxious, fun-loving, off-key-singing Lydia you all know), but this year will give me insight that I would otherwise have yet to discover. I can not wait to see what is in store for me, yet I can because I do not want this year abroad to end.

Now that is one way to turn "I do not really have a lot of words..." into about six hundred.

Vacances de Noel (Part 2)

I finished off my Christmas vacation in the Alps. Saturday, the 29th of December, my first host family and I departed on a six hour car ride to Notre Dame de Bellacombe. The following morning we woke up early to rent skis, boots, poles, and helmets for the week. After we dropped those off at the house we bought our ski passes. Before our ski lessons my host family left to ski together. I stayed at the house with the family's friends that we shared the house with.

My lesson began at 12:30 that afternoon. I shared an instructor with the other children in our house: a boy and a girl, both younger than me. The moment we began it was clear that I was the worst of the three. We started out in what I like to call the "Kiddie pit". It was very difficult for me to catch on.Eventually we were able to move on to a stretch of land that gently sloped down. After a bit of practice on that we moved on to some small hills. My instructor adopted the term "Stay cool". I wasn't really scared bit I didn't want to fall, I was just anxious I guess. After that first lesson I had pain in my right calf and decided that i did not like skiing at all and that it would be impossible for me to learn how to ski. I was definitely not looking forward to skiing the next day.

December 31st was "Kiss an Exchange Student Day". Haha! Maybe for other exchange students but certainly not for this one. We all skied on the easy hills before our lessons. I thought I was doing better but a video shows me slowly sliding down the sloped stretch of land with my feet turned in and my knees bent. What progress! At least I wasn't sliding down on my booty. After my second lesson I was sure I didn't look so much like an idiot. We ate pizza and relaxed at the house for the rest of the day.

Now, that day was New Year's Eve, so I was expected to stay awake until after midnight. Thing was, I was so incredibly tired from skiing that I knew it would be difficult for me to stay up that long. I also knew that I would get emotional thanks to the fatigue and I was thinking back to last year's new year. Last year I spent the night with my best friend and her family. We all ended up crying after midnight because we had lost someone close to us in that year. I eventually did have to explain myself because I didn't want to seem like I was trying to be rude. The moment I managed to say "I miss my family" to my host sister I had to run upstairs so the others wouldn't see me crying. She followed me and I explained that I was missing my family a bit but mostly missing my dad. She asked if she could do anything and I just asked for her to explain to her mom why I was acting the way I was. My host mom understood, I wiped away the tears and after eating candy and playing Angry Birds I went to bed. So that's two New Years that I've ended up bawling my face off.
That's alright.

Anyhow, the following day during the lesson we warmed up by skiing down the small hills then moved onto "La grande piste". This slope is apparently one of the easiest, but it sure was challenging for me. First we had to take the "Tire fesse" to the top of the slope. This is a bar with a seat at the bottom. You grab the pole and sit before it pulls you up the mountain. I remember I was fervently praying that I wouldn't die or hurt myself all the way up. I'm not afraid of heights, I actually love heights! I am afraid of falling and hurting myself, I tend to fall a lot. We were just above the halfway point when we stopped to watch people practicing slalom racing. My legs were trembling as we stood there because I was so scared!  We turned to continue on our way but of course I managed to slide down a couple feet and entangle myself in a net fence that separated the people leisurely skiing from the people training. Eventually we continued on our way, the younger kids and I forming a line directly behind the instructor. I was in the back skiing as slow as humanly possible. We probably took twice or thrice as long to get down the rest of the slope as it would have taken the instructor just with the two children. I was going to fall, I was going to tumble down the mountain, I was going to zoom down and crash into people, I was going to break my body, I was going to go into a coma. Those were thoughts of mine while we made our way down. I was so relieved when we were back at the base of the slope. I was glad that I did ski down the piste, but I was terrified the whole time so I didn't really enjoy it. Part of me wanted to go again to prove that I can do it, part of me wanted to run back to Bourges. I wasn't looking forward to the following lessons. After the lesson Marie and I bought postcards, filled them out and sent them off, then played in the snow until we were too cold.

Wednesday Marie and I skied on the small hills before our lessons. She wanted to ski on the grande piste but I was too much of a sissy. I told her I would ski the piste with her the next day. I was afraid to do anything without my instructor. During my lesson we skied down from the halfway point on the grande piste then skied down the side I wasn't familiar with. We were going to different slopes. It was pretty easy, but I'm sure I had already psyched myself out too much therefore I still fell a bit. We reached the bottom, had to remove our skis to walk up stairs, then skied some slopes in this new area. We took the ski lift back and had to ski down the grande piste. Fell a few times again. I loved the opportunity I had, I loved the Alps, but I still wasn't catching on to this whole skiing idea. We ate lunch at the house, played in the snow again and relaxed until dinner. Most of the days I had to take a nap before dinner because I was so exhausted.

Thursday Marie and I practiced a little on the small hills before taking the tire fesse halfway up the grande piste. My host mom and the younger boy were with us but the boy and Marie ended up skiing ahead. Eventually my host dad caught up with us and I followed him the rest of the way down. I was uncomfortable choosing my own path, I felt like I had to follow directly behind someone else. I practiced on the hills a few more times before my lesson began. This time we took the tire fesse straight to the top of the grande piste, took the ski lift, and went to another slope. This slope was supposedly the same level as the grande piste (green) but I felt it was easier to ski down. Maybe it was the angle we approached it, but I'm not sure. After skiing down that slope a few times we took the ski lift back to the grande piste. I felt like I was doing a lot better than earlier that morning. After lunch Marie and I did the grande piste twice, each time taking about 10 minutes or less. Much, MUCH better than I could do the day before. I was definitely sore all over my body by the end of the day because I had skied about 4 hours. (Yeah, that's probably not a lot to some people, but oh well.)

Friday, I'm pretty sure Marie and I skied down the grande piste before our lessons. During the lesson we went to all kinds of other slopes, thankfully they were never harder than level blue (which I find easier than green). I had the idea of skiing by now and found it easy to follow the tracks of the instructor and the kids. If someone told me I'd be skiing that easily four days earlier I wouldn't have ever believed it.

Saturday was the last day of skiing. We went to a bunch of different slopes again with my instructor. We of course had to take ski down the grande piste near the end of the 2 hours to get back. My instructor asked us to try switching directions quicker which meant skiing down the slope quicker. I was the last to try, and due to the lucky hand I was dealt at birth, I ended up crashing into my instructor and the younger girl as I was trying to stop. I tumbled about fifteen feet below them. I had broken my instructor ski poles and my wrist hurt a bit. We continued down, he switched his ski poles, and we went to the halfway point to finish up the lesson. I noticed that my wrist was hurting more than it did when I fell. I told my instructor  he pressed on some points and asked if they hurt, the didn't so he told me it wasn't broken. That, I had already figured because I could move it. After my lesson my family and I went back up the slope and took the ski lift to get to a restaurant that you can only get to by skiing to it. We ate hot dogs and had dessert then started the journey back. I had already skied this area, but I found I was more hesitant than when I had skied the area with my instructor. I was following Marie, but at about a 50 foot distance rather than a 10-15 foot distance. I had to make my own path.

Back in the town we went to the pharmacy to buy a wrap for my wrist, gel stuff, a icy/hot pad, and Tylenol type pills. We moved from the house into a hotel for the last night, and Sunday we returned back to Bourges.
Overall, sure, I like skiing now. I'm going on a ski trip with my school in February. It's not my favorite sport, but it's alright.

Oh! This sprain I got is my first injury....ever. Also, I earned my "Deuxieme Etiole" that is now displayed on my Rotary blazer. Yep, this clumsy ballerina chick learned to ski in a week, let her be proud.