English - Anglais - Enska!

So today I'm going to make many people's wishes come true and write in English for the first time! Whoooop! Everyone then better read this and leave atleast one or two comments ;) The reason for why I'm writing in English is because some people have been wanting to read my fabulous blog and tell me to write it in either english or french. Since I'm to lazy to write it in both French and Icelandic (and also my French skills aren't good enough) I'm just gonna write in only english. Icelandic people who aren't smart enough to understand, you can use this link.

Today is the 19th of may, that means that in only 3 weeks I will be on summer holiday, I know that everyone at home is already on holiday and I don't like that. It also means that in 7 weeks I will step foot on 'klakann'. I'm still not sure if I want to go home or not... I think that I'm ok with it since most of my friends here are also exchange students so they will be going home too. I think it wouldn't be as great here if it weren't for them.

I went to Paris the other day. Twice actually. The first time was only for a day with my Spanish friend Carolina. I went to visit her for 5 days in the north of France. We did basically all the Paris tourist stuff in one day. It was really fun and we were so tired when we got back to her house, specially since we had also spent the day before walking a lot. A little tip for all the girls reading this though, don't go to the Moulin Rouge alone, or just with another girl.. Well unless you want a bunch of creeps to offer you a special show etc. We also saw a hooker there, she looked nice. Though it might have been a 'he'.

We didn't really go shopping in Paris, but we went to h&m so I can say that I went shopping in Paris which is totally awesome. I also spent a lot on souvenirs and now I have like a billion little Eiffel Towers in a lot of colors. And around 30 postcards that I have no idea who to send to haha. In short we went to see the Eiffel Tower, the Arch of Triumph, Outside of the Louvre, the I love you wall that btw no one seems to know exist, I don't even know how I found out about it. We also went to the Notre Dame but since it's a church we just stayed outside of it for like 5 minutes and then moved on to the lock bridge which was cute.

Le mur des je t'aime

Then when I got back to Annonay it was summer.. for 3 days. I still managed to get a sunburn. The day after I got back I spent the whole afternoon tanning and I thought I was really tan and was so proud of my self. That was however ruined the day after when I met Andres who is from Colombia and is therefore way tanner than me. But I'm pretty sure that I'm tanner than Marina who's from Brazil! Since then it's pretty much been raining everyday except for a few sunny days. I don't like the rainy days. Somehow the sunny days always end up on a monday when I have school until 6 and the bad weather days end up on a wednesday when I have the whole afternoon free.

Tan uujá! 

Oh and one day, I don't remember exactly when, there was a carnival at the other school where all the other Afsers in my town are at. I went with them and we all wore tshirts that say 'Keep calm and French kiss an exchange student'. We didn't get any French kisses but it was cool haha. And all the other exchange students are jealous of our super cool t-shirts.

Then I went to Paris with my hostfamily. 6 hours in the car with one stop. I just love being carsick (y). But seriously, the months of april and may i've been high on carsickness medicine pretty much all the time. Anyways, we stayed at this hotel that btw does not have a view of the Eiffel Tower from the window, what a rip off, I thought that was the law or something. That you're supposed to see the Eiffel Tower from every window in Paris. I didn't like the hotel at all. It was just like a tiny little room and the toilets and showers were outside for everyone to use. Kinda reminds me of those public outside toilets.. (þjóðhátíð).

But Paris was fun though. We didn't do as many things as with Carolina though. This time we climbed up the Eiffel Tower. Sadly the top floor was closed :( We also went up the Arch of Triumph, during the night and it was really pretty. Then we went shopping in a huge mall. Like it's so huge. I'd totally want to live next to that mall. I'd probably go broke in an hour though.

The 30th of April me and Sophie went to a One Direction concerts. We bought the tickets back in like november when I was all into 1D, but I haven't really been listening to them since then at all so I wasn't really looking that much forward to it. But it was really great and they are so HOT!!! And they did the Harlem Shake. The concerts however were somewhere in the north of France which only meant more car rides. Oh and also a 1 hour wait in the parking lot to get out of there, where I managed to get a bit carsick.

Day after got back to Annonay again I went to a birthday party of an Italian girl who's in my Afs chapter. She lives kinda far away though so we took the bus. I got carsick again. The party was really fun though! We ate real Italian pizza, that tasted way better than the candy. Day after we got a little bit lost in Privas looking for the bus stop. Then Isabela, Kobi and I spent the day bored as hell in Valence with a lot of bags. Also, shoutout to my friend Annika from the U.S. who was definitely the life of the party.

Monday and tuesday in the week after were schooldays, I don't know why since the rest of the week was holiday. Those days were kinda pointless, then again, most schooldays are pointless to me since I'm not exactly working my ass off here.

Wednesday it was back to the car. This time we went to Alsace. We were going there because a cousin of my hostfamily was doing his confirmation. We also spent a night at a nun convent in Strasbourg, this time thankfully we didn't have to eat there, because last time we did and the food was.. well I don't know how to say it in a polite way, so yeah, the food was gross. Strasbourg wasn't that much fun either. It was a holiday for I don't know what so almost everything was closed except some travellers shop that we stayed in for like 2 hours. I spent my time learning Spanish and Portugese and helping my hostsister learn Japanese with the help of some very helpful books the shop was selling. That was a blast.

The day after however was very secretive. My host dad told us to dress up for walking and that we would spend the day walking a lot in the mountains. I know, sounds really fun. We went to the car and all of the sudden we were in Germany, just like that. Cross a bridge and you're in another country.. that's a bit strange but cool at the same time. My hostparents didn't want to tell us where we were going and that was a bit annoying. But in like an hour we arrived at Europa Park which is an amusement park in Germany that is split up in sections of the European countries that are cool enough to be there. Iceland of course had the biggest and the best section. No question. And yes, I went to a really big rollercoster that went upside down, and I did not scream at all. Promise. When we drove back to France in the evening we took another way and there was only like this small blue sign with the European Union flag and said France in the middle. That was the border, just like that.

One of the days in Alsace I decided to go for a walk in the small village we were staying in. It was raining and I was alone. As I said before the village is really small. We had driven through the town a million times so I pretty much knew how the town center looked like. Finding the town center was really hard though. I walked up those 2 streets a hundred times that looked like they were the center but I could never find the center that I'd been seeing from the car. Eventually I found a town map and apparently those 2 streets I'd been walking so much were actually the town center, it just looked different from the car I guess. I felt a little blonde then.

Town center

Then on the sunday we went to a confirmation. I went to the church and it took freaking 1 hour and 45 min. It was boring. And then we ate and then the cousin opened his gifts. In Iceland the gifts are better I think. Also, when he got money his mom or sister told him that he wasn't allowed to show the money to the guests and should keep it in the envelope. The guests btw were just his closest family and me. In Iceland everyone tells everyone about how much money they get for their confirmation. Then in the evening we drove home and the day after school started again. Fuck, I didn't do my homework.

Monday was boring. Tuesday, was slightly better. I didn't have english so I finished at 3 and it was sunny so I went out with David and Vicky and we had Ice cream! I also managed to get sunburnt that day which wasn't as great. Wednesday was wednesday, The afternoon is always fun because it's exchange student wednesday! In the end it usually ends up as just me and David, it's still nice though. Thursday however, was a bit of a mess. First of all, I start school at 9 am on thursdays. This week my hostparents are away and my host grandmother is babysitting us. In France doors are weird and you have to open them with a key from the inside aswell. I was already running late when I realized that the door was locked, and no way for me to get out of the house. After around 10 minutes of trying every key I could find I heard my little host sister who didn't have school that day, wake up so she let me out the patio door. I got to class late.

For lunch we ate with the exchange students in town and then because France's school system is weird we had sports at 2 instead of 4. Well, the bus we have to take from the school was at 1:50 apparently. Me and Merilin showed up at the busstop at 2 and whoops the bus was gone. Then we went to the office and I think the man that works there thinks we're really dumb but he just told us to go to the library until the class was supposed to be finished. That's still better than running for 2 hours in the rain.

Friday was horrible. First of all, I usually start at 1 pm on fridays, but this friday my French teacher who btw hates me decided to have an extra 2 hour french class at 10, just for fun. Then in the afternoon I always have a 1 hour break from 3-4 and I walked to the pharmacy. When I got out of the pharmacy a thunderstorm had begun. I was wearing a t-shirt and a denim jacket and it was raining like i've never seen rain before. Also the thunders were really loud and lasted for at least a minute each. I was scared and walked as fast as i could back to the school.

Yesterday I went to Lyon with some really awesome people.. and I'm not just writing that because one of them is sitting right next to me with a knife to my neck. It was raining though. So to start we went to the mall, like always. In the mall me and my sweet Americans, Olivia and Annika, bought dresses and put them on because that's how we roll. We owned the streets of Lyon. They somehow also managed to get me with them to a museum. Needless to say, that was the worst hour I've spent in France outside of school, and maybe except for the car rides. Lyon was fun though, Lyon is always fun. I'd like to make a shout out to my friend David though, who was a bitch and didn't come with us!

So me and Annika were walking out of the mall and into the train station and we were in kind of a hurry and i noticed this guy in his late 20's trying to talk to us. We just walked faster and he did too and eventually got to us and telles me that he finds me very beautiful and asks for my phone number. Before I can even answer Annika telles the guy with a really straight face that she and I are a lesbian couple. I however did not hold a straight face and the guy didn't buy it. Annika keeps on telling him that me and her are together and he tells us to kiss. Oh hell no I'm not doing that. I then took matters in my own hands and lied to him that I had a boyfriend and was leaving France next week.

Sad thing about this is, I really wanted to give him my friends Heiðrún's number but Annika ruined that for me. So Annika, next time a creepy guy hits on me you let him ok?

Sadly, Annika's host parents couldn't pick her up at her train station so she was forced to spend the night at my house, dommage haha! We bought a LOT of candy in Lyon and watched Eurovision on the computer in my room. It was really fun. We stayed up late and talked and I messed with her Facebook a little bit, haven't done that in a while and I've kinda missed that. I just walked her to the bus stop now, I'm nice aren't I? I mean, I could've just let her go by herself but she's never been to Annonay before and doesn't know where the bus stop is. So of course I helped that poor little thing.

Tomorrow there's no school because of reasons that I don't know. Some religious thing, no one I asked knows what it's about either. Wednesday I have classes in the afternoon, great. I don't get that about France. If we get a day off we have to have a do over of the day on a wednesday afternoon where I normally don't have classes. That kinda sucks!

I get out of school June 7th and I'm working on my plan for my month of summer holiday in France. I really need to hurry up with that though since Afs needs to know everything in like a billion years of advance.

I might write one or two more blogs before I come home. I might, don't count on it though. In what language that will be I don't know.

I'll put a few photos, though I have a bunch of photos on facebook that you're all welcome to look at as well.


xxx

Svana Björk