Un jour à la Marché

Today I went to the market with my host mother and her friend. It was a really cute place, with German influences I do believe. There were all these cute stalls, 25% of them just selling cheese...Like one of the ailses at the supermarket - a whole aisle (and it was a big supermarket) - just for le frommage.

Excellent Foie Gras...which I tried in the spirit of trying everything once and it wasnt nearly as bad as I expected it to be, knowing what it is

Mandarins are a sort of delicacy where I am staying

Cheese...

Lots of cheese...I knoz my Dad wouldve liked this stall (not that it was the only one of its kind, there were many many cheese stands). My host mother bought €35 worth of cheese - thats almost AUD50

My Mum wouldve liked this stall - Les Macarons

Thats Horse meat...

If the chick with the ciggie was standing in front of a cheese stand it would sum up France in one photo :)

This was another cheese stand, but as far as I could tell the only one with red and green cheese

I just found this guy to be pretty awesome...

Right now I am eating chocolate escargot...its amazing

Chartres and lots of Photos

This building is typical of Chartres...when they are literally everywhere it is almost overwhelmingly beautiful

My host mother in the bottom corner

Yes that is a 'Poissoniere' you see (a fish-ery I guess is the English translation)

You can't really tell but these are the skins of foxes and rabbits and birds and stuff

Thats the Cathedral of Chartres in the background

They had all these kids rides and stuff in what is a Vegetable Market in the summer. I really like this photo

 Cathedral of Chartres. All the photos of this are blurry though because it was night time and my camera was having trouble.

Anyway, the story behind these photos:

If you hadn't already noticed I went to Chartres today and it is stunning. So beautiful. It has some good shopping as well, and I shopped for a couple of hours with my host lother whiwh was nice. Alot of it was spent in silence though, not because there was nothing to say just that I wouldn't be able to say it and if she said it I probably wouldn't understand. But it was nice all the same :)

School...

So yesterday was my first day at school. It is a beautiful old building in the middle of Chartres - the prettiest town I have ever seen to date. Here was my itinerary for the day:
6:00 am - Wake up. Its still darl outside and about -6 or -7 degrees
6:58 am - My bus comes. I'm pretty scared when I realise that I'm getting on it alone, after a scare on the train my first day
7:30 - Arrive in Chartres. Gilles was there to meet me thankfully although that didn't comfort me until I actually saw him because the part when he told me about that plan must have been one of the parts I didnt understand but nodded my head and said 'Oui oui, bien sur'. We walk to the school
8:30 - Some students meet me to be my 'tour guides' for the day
8:50 - First Period starts (Maths). It is insanely hard. I didnt understand any of it. I was stared at alot of the time but all I could understand of their conversations was 'Australian'. You might be under the impression the French dont take that well to foreigners, but the fact that I was trying to speak French went a long way I think. They were all pretty nice. As I met everyone I kissed them on both cheeks whiwh was cool.
9:50 - End of class. Almost the whole year level cogregates at the front of the school for a smoke.
10:00 - Science. I can understand some of it because the principles are the same in English.
11:00 - History/Geography. Everything goes over my head.
12:00 - Lunch. The people Im sitting with are rolling their own cigarettes haha. Lunch comprises of 3 courses. You have a choice of salads for the entrée, choice of different meats with rice for main, and a choice of chocolate mousse or yogurt for dessert. You also have a rather large bread roll with a choice of spreads. Take that Australian Canteens.
1.00 - Lunch still.
2:00 - English. This was pretty fun for me. So easy. My teacher is crazy.
3:00 - History/Geography. Goes over my head again
4:00 - Meet my host father and go home.

Des photos

 Packing...

Still in Melbourne with Mum

In France