A biggish update

Well, well, well. Two months in France! As many times as I've looked the wrong way crossing the road cos the cars drive on the WRONG SIDE, I have NOT yet died or had an accident. Good news!

We'll start with the most important thing here... FRENCH TOAST!

A few weeks back, my Rotary club (Rotary Club of Loudun) organised a "Salon du Chocolat" as a fundraiser. I got SUPER EXCITED because I thought this meant that I could sit in a room for 10 hours with my face in a chocolate fondue machine - THIS IS NOT WHAT IT WAS, much to my disappointment. It was actually lots of local businesses (not just chocolate - wine, biscuits, macarons, cognac!) who were giving out samples - people go in and taste stuff and buy it if they like it.

Don't get me wrong, there WAS chocolate there!
Ie. the GENIE FROM ALADDIN!

By the end of the day, I ended up being initiated into an old and official Loudunois society - this is  a really big honour for Loudunois folk, so I am proud to say that I am a (junior) member of "La Confrérie des Hume-Piot du Loudunois"! In short, La Confrérie is a wine-tasting club, but MUCH more serious. All the members (the NON-junior members, that is) have robes and a hat and (this sounds much more understated than it is...) a teacup on a ribbon. No, it's more like a tiny jug!
But I will treasure it forever and put it on my blazer as soon as I find something strong enough to keep on there (so probably never, cos it's so heavy).

The Loudunois jug (red and blue are the Loudun colours
and that's the town crest).

I should mention what happened at the actual ceremony - one of the members of my Rotary club mentioned that "they have a SURPRISE for me!" early in the day. I secretly hoped that they were going to give me the huge chocolate genie...but no cigar. Then this huge ceremony began on the stage during the salon, with drums banging and all these people in ROBES! I got a bit freaked out when they made me go on stage in front of all these people, but hey! There's a light at the end of every tunnel! The "test" to get into the club was to taste some the Hume-Piot's wine (or whoever's it was) from this ENORMOUS glass. It was about as big as my HEAD, although the photos are a bit too fuzzy to tell - you'll just to trust me. I said (being a good little Rotary exchange student) "only a little bit!" because I didn't really want to swig what would be about a quarter of a bottle's worth of wine and go staggering off stage. I needn't have worried though. I'll admit, I'm not a big wine drinker, but THAT WINE was the BEST THING I have EVER TASTED. I am DEFINITELY taking a bottle home with me (and not to share)!

THAT is how big the wine glasses were!

http://www.confreriedeshumepiot.com/ - official website! You can change the language at the bottom of the page.

Signed my name (in BLUE QUILL, I might add) - I'm IN!

Next weekend we haaaaave...DISNEYLAND! THE HAPPIEST PLACE IN THE WORLD!!!!

Testing out the awesome hats

The queues were ENORMOUS but the rides were really really really GREAT!!! We had to wait around an hour for each ride but entertained ourselves (and the people around us) with TWO HARMONICA PLAYERS!!

Joseph and Ingrid busking in line at the Star Wars ride

Obviously I'd already met Mariana before, because she invited me to Disneyland in the first place (see how saying "yes!" is so good! You get to go to Disneyland with awesome people!), but I got to meet two other students from my district (Joseph and Ingrid, mutual love of harmonica) AND a student (Juan Pablo) who wasn't actually on exchange with Rotary (another program) but was staying with my district co-ordinator who organised the trip. Cool, eh?

I don't know what else I can say about Disneyland!!!! It was terribly good fun. I bought the COOLEST souvenir EVER. I assume you're all familiar with the Disney movie Ratatouille...?

BON APPETIT! I will wear this hat whenever I cook!

THE DISNEY CASTLE!

 Last weekend was the 1720 DISTRICT CONFERENCE! That meant that I got to meet all the other students in my district AT LAST! There are 17, including me. It was held at Fontevraud Abbey (only 15 minutes from my house) which I HAVE already been to, in case you missed that blog post. I don't blame you, it was short and a bit boring. I did buy a pin though, which was a highlight!

I thought there'd be a handful of people there at the most, maybe 100? No. There were 500 ROTARIANS that turned up! But whereas they had to sit through a day of speeches and exciting stuff like that, us studentios practiced our sketch for Annecy (all the exchangers in each district have to perform a skit/dance/whatever to everyone else next weekend) and had a look around the Abbey.

Joyeux anniversaire Josefina! As you can see, it was her BIRTHDAY.

So that was a fun day! It was just a day. Saturday, in fact.

Driving home we found the Nuclear Power Plant... next to the CREMATORIUM?!

Next up: BIKE RIDING IN THE COUNTRY 101

Sylvie (host mum) and her friend (I was riding behind being official photographer...
and because my bum hurt from not riding a bike in MONTHS)

You know you're in the country when...

...YOU FIND COWS AROUND THE CORNER FROM YOUR HOUSE!

Aaaaand remote-control car races?

Took refuge at Catherine's place for a while, managed to catch a lift with her to Marie-Anne's house and had a skype with Jade! No bike-riding for me, MWAHAHAHA.

This was ALL planned beforehand, obviously...

So the last couple of weeks have been pretty great! NEXT weekend will be even better - ANNECY!! It's a biggish town in the east of France, where ALL the exchangers in France will be staying for a whole weekend! That's 437 students - in two hotels. Can't wait!
But more on that next post. AU REVOIR FOR NOW!

Nawwwwww...