Recap

This is a recap starting from the 14th of July, which happens to be the French Independence day. I apologize for not posting at all during this rather long period of time, we've been rather distracted what with things being more French than we expected. Plus, finding internet when you have none is fairly difficult. All right. Here goes.

The 13th was our first day at French school, a place called "Fondation La Navarre", which, or so I've heard, is a place where all of the trouble children go during the school year. Which makes sense, considering there's a huge gate up front, all of the glass has cracks in it, and every single window has bars to prevent the children from escaping. A veritable prison. I'm in the highest level class with about seven other people, and it's hilarious because all of the teachers just love making announcements to our section because they don't have to speak slowly and use hand gestures. Just another ego boost to make me all the more hated once I get back. Or maybe before. After we went to school, we began preparing to meet the Mazzeis, a family that my mother has been following considering that we share some ancestry with them: If we can prove that we share ancestry with an Italian family, and that that family emigrated to the United States and had a child before they renounced their Italian citizenship, then we ourselves can become Italian citizens and therefore European Union citizens, which means that we can actually work in Europe. It's a rather long story.
Anyways, after we left, our GPS ended up taking us to the wrong place (oops!) and we ended up being 20 minutes late getting there. Great first impression, but I've heard that the Italians can be up to 1 hour late and not notice at all, which makes me feel somewhat better. We met them in Bandol, which is really a wonderful little town right on a huge harbor. After meeting them out in front of the town casino, we went to a little cafe and talked a bit. After that, we went to Lenou (the mother)'s brother's shoe shop, which was, funnily enough, called "Scalise", which is another Italian family name of ours. After that, we headed back to our minivan, which they found absolutely enormous, and went up to their house, where they literally stuffed us to the gills with a 3-course lunch: Paté, ham, sausage, and bread followed by a pasta dish and some salad (with olive oil as dressing) followed by pastries, followed by fruit. My mother explained to us that the more food they offered us, the more they liked us, and that we should try not to offend them, but I literally have never eaten so much in my life. And that was only lunch. After walking down to the harbor, they bought us ice cream, and after returning to the house they decided to serve us dinner, only it was the very same food that we had said we weren't able to eat 3 hours ago. So we stuffed ourselves again. With the same food. Later on, my mom admitted that at the time the only thing she was thinking about was how much she'd have to work out to lose all of the weight that she had likely gained from that day.
So, after nearly exploding, we went back down to the harbor to watch the fireworks (it was Bastille Day, and I was anticipating making up for what I had missed the 4th, considering the fact that all we really did was sat and stared at each other while a huge party was going on back home. And I was somewhat disappointed, but only because I was expecting American-size fireworks from a tiny beach town. They had anchored a battleship in the middle of the bay, and I was amazed at how many bottle rockets they could fit on the thing (although it is a battleship, I suppose). The show lasted about 20 minutes, and then everyone and their mother began running to the car to beat the end-of-fireworks rush. So we all returned to the house for a glass of water, and then we managed to find a clever way of avoiding the traffic that knocked at least 45 minutes off of our journey back, which was already a good half-hour. Plus, it was about 12:30 AM, meaning that we were going to be zombies when we went to French school the next day.
The next day was fairly uneventful: we pretty much went to school, got back, took a little nap, and then the Mazzeis arrived. We talked, ate (less) food, and skyped with my father, who was in Germany at the time. The funny thing was, my dad hasn't seen us in at least 1-2 weeks, and after speaking Spanish and German to everyone for that amount of time, he was absolutely craving an English conversation. Only thing was, the Mazzeis were over. So he was greeted with "Ciao Henry! On va parler en Français maintenant, ou si vous voulez on peut discuter en Italien!" For those of you non-French speakers, that was basically the Mazzeis telling my dad to speak in French to them, or Italian if he wanted. It was all he could do to not explode. Lucky for him, though, that he was arriving in Marseilles the following evening and would stay at our apartment for the next two days. The only two problems were that Marseilles was about 90 minutes away from our apartment and about 50 minutes away from the Mazzeis, and that their prioritization was more oriented to finishing the meal that they had made for us. So he ended up waiting for about 15 minutes, just about ready to start looking for hotels (the shuttles stopped running at midnight). Once we picked him up, the back of the car immediately went to sleep while my dad told me and my mom about his adventures in Spain, Holland, and Germany.
Today we went into town and watched Toy Story 3, and even though it was in French I found it absolutely wonderful; I really love sequels that don't make me cry. After that, we went and saw the old town, which forced me to imagine my mother trying to navigate the 2-meter wide streets in her minivan (we came very very near to that particular situation, she had to pull back her mirrors just so she could fit in the street). Once we got up to the top, though, it really was amazing: you could literally see the entire village (old and new) sprawled out in front of you, with the structures terminating where the sea began. I love views, but unfortunately my camera's been acting up lately, so I'm afraid I can't share it with you. I hope my readers (if I have any) are actually appreciating the fact that I added pictures to this post, though.

Homestay

So after a really long train ride with a bunch of screaming Americans, I got off the train. The train ride itself was pretty cool, it was like being in an airplane that was continuously taking off. Me and Gowri went to the bar upstairs and ate lunch, watching the entire French countryside pass before us. It was absolutely stunning. As if that weren't good enough, after we got off the train, I met my family, who lived in front of an amazing view of the "countryside"; apparently, it's not the countryside here. If this isn't the countryside, then I really want to see the countryside.

So after I met them, Nicolas decided to take me back home with his dad. He still has a learner's permit; in France you get it at 17. I felt kind of bad for him, they were all talking about how everyone wanted to be in the US so that they could get their licenses early. I told them that the food, fashion, and pretty much everything else was crap compared to here, and that if they went to the US, they'd have to wait until they were 21 to drink or 18 to smoke. Speaking of which, when I went to his school, everyone was smoking out front, and when I arrived at his house his sister was drinking a rather large glass of wine. Definitely different, but I'm keeping an open mind. I'm amazed that they let people make decisions such as whether they should be addicted to certain things before they do something as simple as driving, but I guess it's better to be addicted than dead. Whatever. I'm just being observant.

So I got to their house, pretty much just in time to unpack and eat dinner, I met his parents, who were very nice. There isn't much to do here when there isn't internet, though, although they have a gorgeous view outside their back windows. We talked with his neighbors, apparently one of the people from our group lives right next door, so we're pretty much all we have right now. Or at least, she's all I have, considering that I don't have a cell phone out here and my internet is restricted as per Nicolas' discretion. That being said, they're very nice people and I doubt that I'll have any problems, other than the obvious language barrier.

So, after I went to sleep, woke up, and got dressed the next day, we went to his high school to study for his BAC. It was fairly boring, but his friends were incredibly nice. I had no idea that cards were so popular here, but they really are, and I spent a fair amount of time playing cards with his friends. After about an hour of "President" (card game) at his high school, we played pictionary (in French) for about an hour, then went to his physics class, where I proceeded to be bored out of my mind until the teacher inadvertently spelled out "Fap" in a mathematical equation and I tried my hardest to keep myself from laughing. As soon as I told Nicolas what was wrong, he became extremely interested and wrote it down in his notebook with a star next to it. Look at me, teaching the French the intricacies of the English language. I ought to be ashamed, but it was pretty funny.

Then, after that, we ate lunch, which, for a public school cafeteria, was pretty good; I'd say it was better than some of the restaurants I've dined at. At that time, I learned that the letter I wrote to my family was filled with double-entedres, and that he thought it was so funny that he showed it to all of his neighbors. That was a little embarassing, but I was glad to have made him laugh so much with my terrible French. After all of that, we went to his friends house, a girl whose name I have completely forgotten. I think it's Marion, I'm just trying not to name her after some marinade or something. If I get it wrong, she'll have to sue me. It's my first week speaking legitimate French. So we went to her house, went swimming, where her and her boyfriend decided to start making out in the middle of the pool while me and Nicolas just sort of stared awkwardly at each other, which was great, and then we went back inside to play more "President."

Speaking of President, I forgot to spell out the rules. It's sort of like crazy eights mixed with BS; you put down cards in ascending order (you follow the standard order, except 2 is the best), whoever wins the hand serves next and can put down however many of a certain card they want (but they have to start out with small ones, so, for example, I would put down 3 3's, and everyone else would have to put down 3 of something as well. If not, then I win the hand, and I get to serve next.) Whoever finishes first is the President, second is the Vice-President, and then the last and second to last are Asshole and Vice-Asshole, respectively. I like how I understood that word. I felt a little guilty, but it actually turned out to be useful.

Anyways, after that, we went back to Nicolas' house, where we hung out with his neighbor, her respective buddy (from my group), and Nicolas, playing soccer, ping-pong, and billiards. Which was pretty cool. Then we ate dinner, which was also really good, and I'm going to go to the neighbor's school tomorrow because Nicolas has to study for the BAC, and I really don't want to. So right now he's sitting behind me on his bed, playing Guitar Hero, and I'm trying to use complicated words to keep him from understanding. But I'm probably being kind of mean, and he's a senior, so he can probably understand a great deal of what I'm saying. Nicolas, if you read this, bravo! You're ready to take your English exam, and I have to pack up and run away before you kill me. Bye!