School.

This has been my first normal week in France. It was good to arrive back in Mormoiron from Paris to a hearty lunch at Pascal's house with all his relatives. It was huge! We had spaghetti with steak and a type of fish cake. The dessert was really nice with a chocolate and bread base cake. We all went home to made beds and warm rooms for a deep sleep. That weekend was lazy with winds and a little bit of rain and relaxing all around. I started Monday with a spring in my step and excitement with the fact that I able to go to school finally! After two weeks of holidays I was rearing to get back to the school of good food and friends.

On Monday I had all my usual classes like maths, French and English. The difficulty of my English class was notched up a few levels as I was expected to answer all the questions in French. Lunch has become more fun lately as my friends and I have adopted the recreation room as our official hang out place. We all play table soccer and watch movies like ET. The food at the cafeteria is definitely improving with my last meal being chicken, chips and calamari. Calamari is considered disgusting by a lot of the kids at my school.

All the circuses are in town at the moment. There are different circuses in Mormoiron, Mazan, Carpentras and Avignon. At one point, we were all sitting in maths doing a test when a car advertising the circus came chugging up the road very slowly. It had two speaker phones on the top of the roof. Suddenly it started singing and blaring out things in French. It totally ruined the calm class atmosphere and made everyone crack up laughing.

My soccer training on Friday was called off because the coach couldn't make it. I had a check up the day before to see if I would qualify to play soccer. It's all very official, here. Today is Saturday and I am going to play my first game of soccer. YEAH! Go the Loriols! The Loriols is the name of my team. It is a suburb outside of Carpentras, the closest big city near us. I am leaving soon to go to Raphael's house to get ready for the big game. I'll update you next week.

Au revoir.

The Eiffel Tower!

We started our week on Valentine's Day with a trip to the Eiffel Tower. Words can't describe what the view was like. It was beautiful. We started our tower adventure at a huge museum called Trocadero, which is about the history of Paris. The museum leads on to the Trocedero gardens, which overlook the tower itself.

We climbed the whopping seven hundred steps to level two which is as high as you can walk. The view got better and better as we climbed. From level two we caught an elevator up to the very top. Wow! The view was magnificent all around the tower.
It is so grand that it's hard to believe that it was built as a temporary structure. Inside, on the roof were signs that said how many kilometres it is to all the capital cities of the world. After admiring the wonderful view we all trekked down the monster of a monument and walked home.

We were anticipating the next day to be a good one as we visited the Palace and gardens of Versailles. The building was originally Louis XIII's hunting lodge before his son King Louis XIV transformed and expanded the building. He then moved his court and subjects to the palace in sixteen eighty two. Each of the kings during the revolution have made there own modifications to make it more beautiful for the residents.
After walking in the grand rooms of the royal family we all went for a stroll through the gardens of Versailles. The view was magnificent because of the Grand canal in the middle of the garden. The Grand Canal is a huge canal dedicated to the French kings and queens. We all went home exhausted from all the walking that we had done over the past few days. That night was full of singing, as we attended the Gregorien Chanting concert at the Notre-Dame Cathedral.
Thursday was our second last day in Paris. We decided to visit Palais de la Decouverte. It is a museum that was created by a physicist in 1937 for the world fair. The exhibition focused on inventions and certain scientific sections like biology, astronomy and space. It was a hands on museum with a lot of hands on activities and demonstrations. My favourite was the interactive NASA computer which showed you all the planets and statistics of the weather on those planets.

On Friday we relaxed and fitted in a last session of ice-skating. I am getting better! We were all sad to leave the rink for the last time but made us remember all the good times we had. On Saturday we woke up at 6 o'clock to catch the TGV.

This week has been one of the best weeks here in France.

Au Revoir.

Paris

Wow! Our time in Paris has been amazing!

We started our week with a walk down Avenue Champs des Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. The avenue itself is very posh and upper class. After numerous photos and a lot of staring at the beautiful shops and boutiques, we all gathered up the courage to climb the Arc de Triomphe. What an effort! Climbing the 246 steps resulted in a beautiful view of the whole of Paris including the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. The arc is beautiful. It was constructed in 1806 after Napoleon won "the Battle of Austerlitz'. It is a huge Arc built in the middle of a roundabout. The arc is so big that a plane flew through it to celebrate the election win of current president Nicolas Sarkozy.

For dinner we went to the 'Chartier' restaurant in Montmartre. The locals like it very much and is full every night of the week. I had spaghetti bolognaise, followed by the best profiteroles I have ever tasted. It was all delicious.

The next morning we went to the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. It is the highest point in Paris. In English it means sacred heart basilica. It was built in the 1800's because of a private religious vow made at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war.

The next day we went to the Salvador Dali museum. It was a museum full of his work. He lived in the 1900's and was famous for his dripping clocks. His work was all surreal art. My favourite was a sculpture of Alice from ' Alice in Wonderland'. She has a skipping rope and is looking into the distance. One piece of his work that I found fascinating was a picture drawn on a table of a dragonfly. At the end of the table was a vertical mirrored tube. When you looked into the reflection on the tube you saw a bizarre face.

After our adventures of the last few days we decided to have a relaxing morning in the house. That afternoon we went to Centre Georges Pompidou. It is a modern art museum. There were some pictures from Picasso and Matisse which were very different. My favourite was a lump of triangular metal. I mean how does that get into a gallery? The design of Pompidou is strange because it is a modern art gallery. The building was designed like a piece of modern art, with the building being built "inside out". Brightly coloured pipes, elevators and airconditioning ductwork can all be seen brightly displayed. Inside the building there are a lot of pipes exposed on the underside of the ceiling. They are all coloured either green yellow or blue. Green is for water, yellow is for electricity and blue is for air-conditioning.

We started early the next morning with a trip to the Catacombs. There were a lot of bones and skulls. We went for a really long walk through the winding tunnels. The catacombs were created in the 18th century, in a disused underground quarry, because the cemeteries in Paris were filling up quickly and they had nowhere to put all the bones. The bones were dug up and then dumped in the tunnels. 20 years later the bones were stacked up in a decorative formation.

That afternoon was interesting with a trip to the museum of natural history and evolution. There were countless stuffed animals and display cases. My favourite animal was the cheetah. There were 4 whole levels of animals and information! After the museum we managed to squeeze in an ice skating trip after our packed day. Ivy and I were crashing and dashing with each other. Which of course was a lot of fun.

The next morning we went to a Fauchon shop, which is a famous Paris institution. It is a very expensive shop were they sell all types of exquisite foods including chocolates, cakes and caviar. One particular type of caviar cost $3500 for a tiny 100 grams!!! They gave me a chocolate and 2 macaroons to try. Heaven!

We are having a blast here and hope you are enjoying my blog!

Au revoir!

Paris

It was an exciting day last Thursday. It was my 12th birthday party! When the guests arrived we brought them inside from the freezing cold. My friends gave me a great DeeLuxe T-shirt and a digital photo frame. From my Mum and Dad I got a Swiss army knife, a tennis racquet and a walking book. There was one other gift that wasn't delivered in time, so I have to wait until we get back home. That will be a surprise.

I got to start my birthday with a trip to Paris! We woke up at a ridiculous hour - 6am! Here that is a crazy time. The sun only comes up at 8 o'clock. We drove to the train station in Avignon with Pascal. We took the TGV which is a high speed train. It goes at over 300 kilometres an hour! When you are actually on the train, you don't really feel the speed. Only in the tunnels do your ears pop at times. We arrived into Paris in an amazing two and a half hours! Wow, fast....

Our first day of Paris sight-seeing was an exciting one. We went to see the Louvre! The Louvre is a huge art museum. It is so big that it would take 9 months just to glance at every painting or piece on display. Wow! There were some beautiful art works including the Mona Lisa and King Louis the XV's coronation crown.


The pyramid above the Louvre is unbelievable. I got a big shock when I saw it from a distance. It is beautiful. There are three smaller glass pyramids around it. But the big one is the best for me.The Louvre is huge, so we only covered a littler bit of it. Looking at the paintings in the Louvre was a very interesting experience because it was hard to believe that some of these painting were painted 800 years ago. The Venus Milo was sculpted maybe 2400 years ago!

Today was a great day. We all went to the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The cathedral itself was built in the 1100's. It was then restored in the 1800's after it was nearly destroyed in the French Revolution. This is the cathedral where novelist Victor Hugo based the story 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. It's about a hunchback called Quasimodo who falls in love with a gypsy. The novel was later made into a film.

The church itself is very beautiful. There are three very old rose windows which have figures in them of Jesus and Mary. We visited the treasury which was very bright. When we got outside, we saw a sign that said if you want to climb the bell tower to wait in line. After an hour of waiting in the cold we eventually got into the tower. It was so tall! When we got to the top, we had a wonderful view of Paris. As the 13 tonne bells started to ring, we realised we were at the top right at midday!

After the Notre Dame cathedral we went to the Shakespeare and Co bookstore in the Latin quarter of Paris. It is a huge book shop full of.... You guessed it! English books and English people. Yes! I got a few books to read. I have started on one called 'Mortal Engines'.

To finish off the day with a bang, we got to go ice skating! There is an ice skating rink set up right along the Seine in the centre of Paris. As Ivy and I suited up Dad ran for cover as it had started to snow. Ivy and I had a blast! I was getting pretty good by the end. I think...

I look forward to sharing more of my Paris adventures with you. Stay tuned.

Au revoir!

Luging

Hello!

I went luging on Sunday. Luging is tobogganing.

It was really fun!

We arrived at Chalet Liotard to a chilly minus 10 degrees! Gosh, it was cold. We went with Raphael, Elisa, Serge and Isabelle. When we arrived we geared up with numerous layers of clothing. As the parents ran inside to get out of the cold, we jumped over the ice packs and started down hill! We had so much fun.

There was a particular bit that if you went over it you got a massive bruise! I went over it quite a few times. We all had races and we surfed down the hill. You had to be careful about what you did with your go because you had to walk up a big hill to get back! We were quite surprised when we found out that it had no chairlift or pulley. But there was no turning around. We went into the bar a few times for a hot chocolate and muffin. We were luging until lunch.

When lunch came around I had a sausage and some chips. I also had a big steak with chips. My chocolate mousse was really good. With our tummies full and our spirits high again, we leapt back into it. There is a big hill that leads down to the tobogganing field. Raphael and I then jumped off it. It felt like we were flying!

We had another hot chocolate at 3pm. We finished with a really fun ending of racing, screaming and wrestling in the snow. It was getting late so we all went home. At home I thought about what a great day we had and laughed at the endless hilarious moments we had.

See you next week for more. Bye!