Good afternoon guys. How are you all? It’s been about -4 degrees here for the last couple of days, and ironically it is too cold for snow. The water fountain in the middle of the roundabout near my house has grown some glorious hanging ice chandeliers from underneath. I’ll have to get a photo of it and post it on facebook.

Thursday was a special day in France for the catholic religion. It celebrates Jesus getting taken to the temple... i can’t remember for what though. So ANYWAY, to celebrate this event in history, we got to eat crepes as part of the annual tradition. My first crepe was full of sugar and lemon, and my second was full of nutella. All i can say is, thankyou Jesus for going to that temple all those years ago, because crepes are amazingggg......... xx

On Friday, I went to school, and it was freezing. Inside during class is warm and snugly but during the breaks, all I can think of it how much I want to go back to class. At Lunch time, jean made a spontaneous decision to go to the “burger bar” and have lunch with me and his friends Sara and Jamie. By the time we had walked there (i am not exaggerating) i could not feel my face and it tingled strangely if i pushed hard enough. I think it is the first time my face has ever had pins and needles.  But once inside and defrosted, the burger i got was... awesome. I didn’t want to scare anyone and come across as a raging tourist if i took a photo if it, but i so wanted to. It was an egg, beef, aioli, burger, with literally a ‘bucket’ of fries, and some salad on the side which cost 12 euro. That was nice that i was invited J

Friday evening, Charles and Anne invited me out to a dinner party of sorts with an “American girl and her French husband”. We drove up a beautiful road with rock walls covered with vines and powder with snow. It was quite an ascending drive, and the higher we went the thicker the snow! When we got to their house, there was a substantial layer of snow over their yard, so i got some photos! The couple’s names were Kim and Terry. Kim is from Atlanta and has an awesome American accent and she is really beautiful, and terry speaks really good English because he has lived in the states for 20 years with Kim. And they have now lived back in France for 6 years. There were two other couples there, and thank god they all spoke English. guess what was for dinner.... crepes! Savoury and sweet! After the pre-dinner nibbles, an excess of crepes, and finally coffee, I was ridiculously full and really sleepy!! So at 12:30 we headed home.

Yesterday (Saturday 5^th), Anne took me to a gigantic sports store, because after all this eating I have been doing, I feel pretty terrible about my physical condition. I know rotary has said “don’t worry about your weight, you’re going to get fat... but you can work it off when you get home to Australia”. So I’ve figured, I’m never going to learn to eat less – especially when the food is so amazingly great and wonderful in France, so I’ll do exercise (let’s see how long this lasts). Where was I... oh yeah, at the gigantic fitness and outdoor sports superstore i got some joggers, tights, and a tracksuit! And then because my family is going skiing in Italy in a couple of weeks (not sure if i mentioned that before... I’M GOING SKIING IN ITALY – well, actually I’m going to attempt snowboarding), i have bought some skins/thermals too.

Then last night Anne and Charles went to a comedy evening with Kim and Terry and at about 10:30, they all came back to the flat and we had dinner. After talking to Kim, we are going to go to Marseille some time to a cafe called “book and bar”, that she, along with a lot of other English people in France, go to read English book and drink coffee. We’re going to go to star bucks and shopping.... ahh shopping. It was another late night last night so i slept in until 11:15 this morning. My host dad Charles is probably going to read this – hi Charles – but I’m going to tell you something i think is funny! The pillows on my bed are square, which is alright by me, except that my feet now poke out the end of the bed because I’m too tall!! So I borrowed a rectangle pillow from the couch and put my own pillow slip on it that mum gave me as a goodbye gift, and now I sleep with that :D

Guess what Anne and i did today? We went for a run - a big, hearty run. I have discovered that even though the temperature is below zero, it is so much easier to run in France, because you don’t get hot, and ... i don’t know. It’s like running in air-conditioning. The run was very necessary because i woke up to find that jean had gone to the bakery and bought croissants and pain de chocolates for breakfast... and yes, they were simply delicious.

p.s. i finally figured out how to put photos on my blog. i was so not meant to be in gen Y when it comes to technology.

Until next time! Love you all xxx

Danika

i am so excited..

so excited that i didnt realise my feel were numb.

breakfast..............

wait what? BREAKFAST!