BIG UPDATE!



    Sorry I havent blogged in a while, Ive just been involved with alot of things here in France and its really starting to feel like home :) Well I'm just going to update you guys on some things that have happened, that are happening, and whats going to happen :)

HALLOWEEN

Well to start things out, Halloween! This year, sure Halloween wasn't the same as the usual years because hardly anyone really knows how to celebrate it like Americans do, lol. BUT I love my friends who know how to make my time in France the best they can be, and so they threw a Halloween party for me :) and since November 1st is my birthday, it was a birthday party too :) Before I went to the Party my mom had great timing with my Halloween package and it arrived the very same day! So i went to pick that up, and it was filled with CRON candy and the necessities of Halloween. When i got home me and my younger sister Manon started carving her VERY FIRST PUMPKIN.....its unheard of in America being 15 and never carving a pumpkin. BUT we carved a darn good pumpkin I might say :) Looked fabulous.

Then before I went to the party I made a CRONIC American food for my friends that you all should know the heavenly...SLOPPY JOES!! YUM YUM YUM Soo i made a perfect batch of them goodies then it was off to Gauthiers. When i arrived Baptiste, Charles, Emeric, and Gauthier surprised me with another pumpkin to carve :) oh how I loved it. Gauthiers mother brought me a cute apron to wear while I carve the pumpkin :) and then we let the carving begin, or well I told them step by step, Ill give you the steps.

1. Get a pumpkin

2. Go online and pick a pumpkin stencil

3. Cut a circle around the pumpkins vine stick thing and that becomes the lid

4. Start ripping out the inards of the pumpkin (my favorite part)

5. Tape the stencil the side of the pumpkin you want the face to go on

6. Then with a small nails make little indents along the stencil to make an indented outline on the actual pumpkin.

7. Remove the stencil and begin carving :)

After all of these steps the boys came out with this finished product!



I carved the sinister eyes :)



Baptiste carved the beautiful smile :)



My Loving Family's Birthday Surprise Dinner :)

    November 2nd, my family said "Hannah nous sommes aller au Restaurant ce soir" DAK :) j'adore cette restaurant mais j'ai jamais vu mais c'est pas grave, c'etait chinoise :) The chinese restaurant couldnt have been more cool, they had seats where you could sit, or they had a raised floor area that you could sit of the floor but hang your feel a a whole thing and, idk you see the picture, it was so cool! Then we began to order our food! I ordered something like chicken with rice lol, my normal thing to order, since my taste buds refuse to like alot of different types of food. BUT here are some pics of the food we ordered :)

Some type of tofu with just soy sauce



Some really good soup that i cant remember the name of, but it has little strange noodle and what not in it



You should all know what this is

Little fishes(brown) and seaweed(black) and they seaweed wasn't all that bad



Balls of chocolate ice cream lol...

Overall it was a very satisfying evening with my family :) love them <3



Thanksgiving...:(

  

    Well, my thanksgiving was a sad yet a changed perspective of the whole thing one. There was no "real" turkey, ham, green beans, mashed potatoes, cornbread, or even stuffing. My Thanksgiving involved me and some lunch meat turkey coming together and me eating plain turkey rolls. After that I went up to my room and did my homework. That, for real, was all my Thanksgiving was. BUT earlier in the day me and my friends walked to a bread shop and bought pizza and food to eat for lunch and all sat down and ate together is happiness :) so i consider that a little bit better, I mean, that's what Thanksgiving is about. Everyone coming together in happiness to eat a good meal together. So what if its not turkey, were still together, and were still happy. <3

Volleyball, and other Activites 

     Volleyball in Aix is very very very fun! I love it because I play with men, and the men make you do better then you expected, just because they're beasts. lol So far Ive been going to volley every Tuesday and Friday, and sometimes Saturday. Yesterday me and my volley friends had a little soiree together at the gym. We played volley for about 2 hours and then sat down to about 6 pizzas, sloppy joes, bunches of chips, and muffins, breads, pasta salads, and brownies. Also everyone had some beers <3 Oh how I love this culture. Overall their were about about 15 of us, then as the night went on 4 or 5 more people showed up. <3 Making the night even better.

  

     School is going great. I mean sure the classes are still hard and math is kicking my butt, BUT I have bunches of friends and a great class :) The class I'm doing the best in is my English class of course, and then History, then Science, then Math...I need an english math and science credit to graduate...SHITTT. BUT when i become fluent I know I will have great marks in all my classes :) Including my French class. Ive just been having some trouble with not going to school sometimes, lol, its just that my SES class(economiques) is too difficult for my to understand because they use very large words that I cant understand, so my teacher told me that I don't have to take tests, or take notes, or even do anything. SO in my mind I think "ummmm then why go?" BUT the schools not happy with this, but when I have to get up at 6 to make a 2 hour class that I do nothing in, I'm not happy. So were discussing these issues, and hopefully they agree with me, or else they will just be unhappy.

    Some other activities that I'm trying to get involved in is local piano lessons. I miss them alot, sure i groaned about the work of practicing, but I'm a little more determined now. I bought some piano music offline that I really wanna learn to play, so I'm hoping these piano lessons will be good :)

Well this is the Update :) hope you enjoyed hearing how I'm doing and what I'm doing. Thanks for reading, whoevers reading <3 Ill try and update more frequently now :)





Welcome to the country of Beautiful Men

Italie <3





Me and Manon waiting for the train to Chambery then Torino :)



     For my first vacation me and my mom and sister went to Torino Italy :) AND let me tell you what a beautiful country. All the coblestone roads, and shingled houses, and strange parking spots in the middle of the road.

   When we first arrived in Torino it took us a little while to find our hotel, lol this means my mom trying to understand italian :) haa funny, but about a hour later we finaly found our hotel and could finaly reast our arms and feet. Beaucoup beacoup de marchais. (alot alot of walking) The hotel was small but cute, the room was decent with three small seperate beds a small t.v and a small bathroom, the basics in a hotel.

Jour 1

In the first day we went to visit a museum of movies :) it was cool, they had alot of cool things to look at and take pictures of. Firstly we had to find it and get there, which was fun because we took a tram that was one of those trams connected by whires and tracks. Then we had to walk around and find it, again. The museum of movies was big and bizare. Strange seats everywhere, and a funny looking big statue :) that i got an illegal picture of because we werent allowed to sit on it...buuut :) i did anyways. Then there was an awesome bed that you could lay down and watch a movie above you <3 my dream bed ofcorse.

Jour 2





Me in front of the head of the church



The second day consisted of looking at all of the old churches and all the palaces :) they are soo beautiful and have amazing architecture. Also we got to see the planket that the think was used to cover jesus christ when he was in the stone cave, which was cool. Also there were church services going on in the church so it was cool to hear the hymes and listen to the bible verses in italien. More pretty then english, thats for sure.



The blanket thing, dont know the name

I also bought some pretty roasary beeds that i liked, white beads. Beautiful. The catholic religion is really pretty, the churches anyways, and it has so much history. I wish churches were like this in America, and i wish the citys had more of a history, americas too young.

Jour 3

Im wearing my Dr.Martins :)

   The third day was one of my favorite days :) the day i give my dad a heart attack along with new clothes shoes earrings and much more :) Their is fabulous shopping in Torino, i bought 4 pairs of shoes, 1 pair of pants, three shirts, five pairs of earrings, and one pair of sunglasses :) oh how i love to shop. I also bought some cow figurines :) i still love cows people. We walked for miles each day, which i liked, i love walking, somthing you cant get a whole lot in cheboygan because youd have to walk on the highway, but c'est pas grave. (no big deal) My shoes i love the most :) i bought one pair of furry heeled boots then another pair of oxford heals :) their beautiful, then a pair of grey Dr. Martins :) love love love, then a pair of tall brown flat boots. Just for winter :)

One of the large churches :)

   One last thing that I did in my trip to Italie was go up in a tower and view all of Torino <3 it was beautiful. And here are some picture :)





Another beautiful view :)



One of the beautiful views :)

Just the begining

Ma nouvel vie <3



This is my school with the beautiful mountains behind it :)



   Ive been living in france for two months, and I have neuf more months to go. My first few weeks in France were pretty fun but also very hard. I loved getting to know my city of Aix-les-Bains and getting lost was the best way in my mind to do so. Ive gotten lost prolly more times then i can count but now I know my way around pretty well ^^ The hard things were not having any friends or even a decent relationship with someone. && on top of it you cant hardly have a good conversation not being very good in french, so things were difficult. But once school started and things began picking up so did my life here in France. School was a lifesaver. School, school, school. Not many people like school but i was sure glad to get some friends <3 Also school helped my french immensely!

Mont Blanc

  

   This is a picture of me at Mont Blanc. Its Europe's largest mountain. Mont Blanc means white mountain in english. Where I'm standing we werent supposed to be, but hey jumping the gate isn't too bad of a thing when you can get great shots like this. Also the climb down was easy, mais the climb up was killer. Definitely burned off some of them french bread calories^^  Overall Mont Blanc is 4,810 meters high which equals 15,782 feet tall. Mont Blanc lies on the boarder of France and Italy, it was cool to know that if i just went down the other side of the mountain id be in Italy :)

  

 

Life in General <3



Le centre ville



 Life in general here has been a dream. I can remember me telling all my friends that I was gunna live in France one day, and then me telling them i was gunna be an exchange student, they all laughed and didn't think i would follow through with it :) but guess who laughing now. One of the first things that i got involved in here in France was Volleyball. The volleyball club here is Aix is a co-ed team :) I love when men and women play vball together :) it just pushes you to play to much better. There is this boy, Hovig, holy mother of god, he is the best player. I'm sooo jealous of his skills. Hes just perfect with volleyball, and he knows it ;) Also i love going out at night in the city, its so beautiful. Makes me think of when i lived in Detroit.



Me, Emily, Valancy, Samantha <3 Love you girls



CONFERENCES

These are some of the other exchange students in my district :) They are all very nice and i love them because there people to talk to about your exchange and you can finally relate to someone about something :) During one of our conferences we went to Annecy and got to walk through the city, go paddle boating, have some "fun," and have a awkward picnic in a street of Annecy lol ^^ Overall the conferences help to feel better about France and your experiences. Thank god for conferences sometimes.