Photo bomb!

Photos as promised!

 My host mom (black hair) and her grand daughter

  The two older boys are my host brothers Florian and Pablo, but only Pablo lives with me. The little guys are some more grand kids.

 Family photo taken this past summer, the two blond girls are also 'sisters' but they're much older and I don't see them much

 A bit of an older photo, but voila the 4 sibs! Ignore the floating alcohol :P

 Pablo and I at the repas de la classe, this is a French school tradition. Every year the whole class (since it's not like in the US where everyone changes classes for each subject, you're always with the same people) goes out to dinner then to a bar together as a "bonding" experience. Fun night!

 I convinced him to help me make an American treat- chocolate chip peanut butter cookies!

 Google maps image of where I live.. just in case you were wondering :)


Whew! There's a quick glimpse of my sitch. Maybe I'll post more pics after Christmas. It's a difficult time of year to be away from your friends and family, I miss everybody lots!

Joyeux Noel :)

These last few weeks have been crazy, I'm off to a new start yet again!
Long story short- I changed host families. I'm not really going to go into detail as to why, but it just wasn't working out. That explains why I was so hesitant to post photos of everyone! It was a long dragged out process of AFS meetings and phone calls, but eventually an AFS volunteer came and picked me up and I spent a little over a week with their family. I'm lucky I live in a friendly community here in Périgueux, I was told if I couldn't find a host family here in two weeks I would have to change regions, but after spreading the news in my school I was happy to find two amazing teachers and five awesome students were eager to help me stay! Needless to say, I found a great family rather fast.
Now, I live in the city. Ten minute walk to centre ville and fifteen minutes to school. I live with an intelligent boy who is in my French and History class and his single mother. They are very nice and I already feel like I can be open with them. Though the decision to 'adopt' me for 7 months was made in just a week's time, they were very welcoming and acted as if they'd been awaiting my arrival for ages!
I'm looking forward to the rest of my stay here. Though these last few weeks have been super stressful, I feel grateful to have been able to see how four French families live their lives (Marignier welcome family, Grignols family, AFS volunteer's family, and now Périgueux family).
Pictures coming soon-- for real this time :P