My first real soccer match

Last night I was lucky enough to go see my very first professional soccer match. I went with my host brother and a few of his friends, it was at the new stadium in Lille. The game was Lille vs Copenhagen (Denmark). We had awesome tickets, we were right behind the goals. My host brother gave me a jersey of his and a scarf to wear, so I looked like a real Lille fan. The stadium was so big, and there were so many people. The cheer squads were massive, it was pretty funny, because I didn't know any of the cheers they were singing. (I had never heard of them considering they were all in French), so when everyone would go a bit cheer together, I would just mumble something out loud and throw my arms in the air. It was an awesome game, Lille won 2 - 0, I just loved the atmosphere of the whole game. The French take soccer so serious, and they get really into the game. Apart from the soccer, there is a lot going on at the moment. All of the new exchange students from the Northern Hemisphere arrived in France on Tuesday, I still haven't had the chance to meet up with them but I will meet them all next weekend at our first rotary get-together. This Sunday I will be changing to my 3rd and final host family, I have already met them and they are really nice too. It is going to be sad leaving my old family behind but I know I will keep in touch with them. I start back at school next week after an amazing summer break!

Italy with my host family

Two days ago marked my 7 months in France, which means I only have about 5 months left, I cannot believe how fast it is going. It seems like so long ago I got on the plane to saying goodbye to Australia, but at the same time, doesn't feel like I have already been in France for 7 months. It is almost the end of summer here in Europe, and so far, I have had an awesome summer. After I spent about 2 weeks in the south of France my host mum, and some other family friends (there were 2 kids my age) picked me up and we headed towards Italy. It was a long, hot drive from France to Toscane Italy, which seemed even longer when the air conditioner was broken in 35 degree heat. But the freeway we took was the most amazing road I have ever seen. We went past the coast of France and Italy, passing through Nice, Monte Carlo ect. There were so many mountains and houses right on the coast of the water. After a nine hour car trip we had arrived in Toscane. We stayed in a huge, old house in the country, in Toscane. I was in Italy for two weeks, half of the time we were in Italy we spent travelling around (Rome, Toscane, Perugia, Florence, Siena and other little towns). My favourite town was most likely Florence, the streets were so cool, lively, the houses were all orange and there was a lot to do. The other half of the time we spent relaxing by the pool (which we had at the house), reading, studying a bit of french, watching a bit of the olympics (understanding nothing because it was all in Italian), eating amazing Italian food and lying in the sun. I had a great time away in Italy, I got a lot closer with my host family, improved my french after not speaking any english at all for 2 weeks, and learnt a bit of italian too! We took a different route home, heading through Switzerland and Germany then into France. We were excited to finally get away from the heat we were experiencing in the car (still with no air-con) as we were passing through the Swiss Alps. Little did we know, there was a heat wave in most of Europe at the time, we took the heat with us. It was still 33 degree Switzerland! We stopped over near Strasbourg on the France/German border for the night and then returned to Lille the next day, where it was 38 degrees (the hottest it ever gets in Lille). The heat wave only lasted about 3 days, but it was kind of funny seeing everyone freak out and make such a big deal out it, because it isn't very common in the north of france to have such high temperatures. 

Summer Holidays - South of France

I was lucky enough to go to the South of France with a friend at the end of July, I stayed at their grandparents house in Nîmes. Their parents also had an apartment right on the beach of Grau du Roi, we went to the beach every day because it was so hot. It was usually around 35 during the day and 22 at night time. I loved the beach, it felt so good to see the beach again. There were heaps of markets on around the place, and a lot of people on the beach. The main difference I noticed between the beach in Australia and France, was the amount of clothing that they were, none. French people don't really like to wear clothes on the beach, it was funny at the start but after a while I got used to it.  The family I stayed with were so nice, they took me to see a lot of the South, and taught me a lot of differences between the south and the north (where I am from) of France. For examples the language is actually a lot different, they pronounce pretty much all of there letters, which for me sounded really funny, because in the south they speak with the Paris accent, and we don't pronounce the last few letters in words. They fed me a lot of amazing food, they had a fresh garden in the backyard, so each day we would eat fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden, and me and my friend would walk down to the Boulangerie to get fresh bread. My favourite place in the south was most likely the pont du gard (the gard bridge), which is a huge bridge which runs over a river, water runs through the top of the bridge and carries it from one side of the hill to the other. We could jump off the bridge into the deep waters below, swim around and there were even people kayaking. After ten days it was time to move onto another voyage (life is hard). I took the train to another town in the south, where I met my host mum and we started driving, direction Italy!! I will post about Italy in another blog.