Livin the Good Life

Salut mes amis!

Well basically life is good. A little awkard at times but good.  Spent the weekend with my new and wonderful host family. Im living with my friend Hailey so that makes the awkward moments or misunderstandings less difficult.  But I guess i need to rewind a tad...

So on Friday we went kayaking!  Youre probably imagining beautiful calm blue water and scenic views right? Wrong. Change that image to a torrential downpour.  Ha. So the rain is nuts here. Its like a sneak attack when you least expect it it starts dumping rain. Usually it doesnt last very long but it rained pretty much the whole time we were kayaking. We were drenched. It was pretty epic. The waterer wasnt super clear or blue but it was still beautiful. For the most part we were in a mangrove - SUPER cool ecosystem! Theres trees in water with roots sticking up like snorkle tubes, little crabs everywhere, and it all functions as a sort of filtration system, basically its awesome. Its a type of ecosystem id really like to look into studying more or researching or something.  After the kayaking we went to a beach but it was still rainy on and off. 

We all spent the weekend with our host familys.  Hailey and I thought that we were going to get dropped off at a shopping center on Saturday.  Ha. We got in the car and just kept going all these different places we were not expecting...for example: an eyeglass shop where we helped her sister pick glasses, an overstock-type store, a random mans house to buy fish, outdoor markets, their other house (ya apparently they have 2 houses) where we picked fruit, and finally to our Moms sisters house where we talked and ate lunch.  We looked on a map and basically we got a whole tour of the south.  It was so nice, just driving not knowing what will come next and watching all the beautiful green mountains and crazy blue coastline.  Our parents are very kind and would always stop to let us take pictures and tell us about stuff.  Im really glad i switched houses to live with them.  My host dad was a math teacher and he drives a fun snazzy sports car.  My host mom works at the hospital and she is a wonderful chef.  We have 2 host brothers but one is around more than the other, his name is Jean-Yenn and he works at a bakery, hes very friendly and he usually eats diner with us.  They said theyve hosted students for the past 20 years so they know what theyre doing.

On Sunday we were going to go to this nice beach but you have to take a ferry to get there. Our host dad dropped us off but then we discovered that there were no ferries going.  Zut alors.  So we went to a beach behind a nice hotel, we had already gone to this beach earlier in the week but this time we went with our host brother.  It was luch more crowded this time and full of topless old european women, whoa.  Also a very persistant man kept trying to practice english with us.  But it was still a nice time.  Afterwards we just sat on the veranda and worked on homework and then watched a movie.  Pretty relaxing evening.

This morning we had french class and then a man came to teach us about traditional music here. It was pretty interesting and it made me miss playing bass and bass clarinet... now its our lunch break and afterwards we have a dance class - ha that will be entertaining!

Overall things are great here!  The people are very nice and were trying to explore as much as we can. Its nice that they have a bus system because then we can almost always find our way around.  Its crazy that its already been a week and theres only 3 more to go!  Time is going very quickly, but its all good.  Ill try to figure out how to post pictures...or some of my friends have put some up on facebook so you can see what Im up to there.

Have a great week everyone!  Lots of love!

Jessica