School, Calcédoine & Courgettie

Well, I've started school in France. I wasn't too pleased about the whole thing initially, however, it's actually turned out to be pretty cool. No uniforms, a one and a half hour lunch break as well as morning and afternoon tea. And before you laugh at me for having to be at school from 9am to 4:30pm, I also get Wednesday off as well as the weekend! (Oh yeah, and all the pretty French girls aren't bad either.)


The school's in a lovely spot. This is the view of the river just down the road from my classroom. Not bad, hey?


Yesterday, on my day off (ha ha to you losers in Australia going to *school* on Wednesday), I met my new best friend, Courgettie. He was in the garden under a few weeds. I've been carrying him around as he comes in handy in loads of situations. (Pretending to shoot people or pretending to be an annoyed call centre employee. Stacks of situations...) My mum even accused one of us of being smelly but it certainly wasn't Courgettie. (Courgettes are what we call zucchinis which I suppose is the Italian word. All courgettes grow this big here - all vegetables do - and lots and lots of them. Certainly nothing like the veggie gardens at home.)


And today, I joined my first club. Clubs/associations are really big in France. There are clubs for everything and people of all ages take part in them. School children usually take part in a few club meetings on their day off on Wednesday. But everything in France starts in September, including school, so if you miss the initial sign up, it's hard to get in. It sucks that I can't go kayaking (Canoë-Kayak) with the other kids on Monday because I wasn't there to pass a test in the first week. Anyhow, I'm now a member of the Club «Eymoutiers-Minéraux». They have a huge and fascinating museum, which I visited today, and will attend my first meeting early October, on a dig with a bit of luck. The man at the museum could speak a little English and was super nice, he even gave me a present - a bit of Calcédoine. Once again, the French people are *so* nice!!

We finished the day off with some delicious pizza with *more* lovely French people. (And the French really do say hello to everyone in the shop when they walk in - it's so sweet!) The owners were really helpful too and could speak a little English which is lucky because our French isn't improving at all.

That's all going to change though now that I'm at school. Or so everyone keeps telling me...

De Luxe Deluxe. Was playing Monopoly yesterday and I noticed "Taxe de Luxe" - the nasty little tax for those nice rich people between the two dark blues. Which made me think that perhaps the English word, "deluxe" comes for the French "of Luxury". Googled it and it does. English is kind of interesting when you learn where it all came from!