The Area I live, French Humboldt

The place where I live is basically the French version of McKinleyville and the Arcata bottoms. I am surrounded by farms and farm animals. The roads are incredibly narrow, and I'm very impressed with the ease that the gigantic school buses maneuver through them. Many times I catch myself cringing, expecting a collision with a pole or a tree but the bus driver just dances around it like the bus is a bicycle...
Something very bizarre about France is that the sun comes up extremely late in the morning. The sun rises around 7:30 in California but here, it rises around 9 and sets by 7. The days are extremely short and very cold.... its funny because my school is so long that I get to school when it is dark and I leave my school when it is dark. School here is totally different than American school; French school is going to take up a whole blog on its own.
Yesterday I went on a bike ride with my host-brother Noé. I saw lots of sheep and a very strange type of tree ornament. The little town next to where I live is called "Le Temple-de-Bretagne", and there are 5 little shops there.
It's incredibly cold here, sometimes it is 30 degrees Fahrenheit at midday, but I've heard that it never snows. Super!!
The other day at school while I was waiting for the bus, a horse and buggy went down the street in front of me. This was no tourist attraction, not at all. It was just two dudes having a good time going where they wanted to go. I thought "at last I know I am in France". There are other obvious signs of where I am in the world, like how I'm eating cheese all of the time, especially old and salty cheeses. (But I don't prefer those, I like the chevre) I also have nutella at least once every day with something, and the lunches at my school are amazing. I eat so much food at lunch here, as it is supposed to be the biggest meal of the day in France. I always take the fish and whatever sort of delicious vegetable they are serving. I'll take some pictures of the incredible lunch food. But there are cheeses and fruits and yogurts... speaking of yogurt, my host-mother makes some pretty awesome yogurt, among other things.

Tonight I tried Andouille sausage for the first time. It tasted like a farm, like the smell of a pigs pen. Later I found out that Andouille sausage is actually ground up pig intestine. I kindly let my host-family know that I didn't like the sausage even when I didn't know what it was... Many more food adventures to come I think. I will be trying escargots and frog's legs....
So my first week here is almost over and I am finally settling in. By no means can I understand everything that people are saying, but I know that I will improve. While I am on the subject of language I have to mention that my awesome host-father and I started the same incredibly difficult calculus problem and we both came up with the same answers so... as a nod to Ms. Susavilla, math can be pretty cool sometimes. I suppose it is a language that can be understood by all... I am just pretty excited that my host-dad can do calculus, maybe I won't fail my class the second semester...

my bed

this is where my scarves live now...

Some proof that I'm in France

As you can see, this place is very similar to the Arcata Bottoms

The Cheese selection in the French version of Roger's Market, there's plenty more to the right too

A Church in Temple-De-Bretagne. Very old, very cool, and needs to be rotated

yummy, simple dessert. Eggs, sugar, and milk

A nasty phone booth in Temple-de-Bretagne. xD

I have to mention that right now in France everybody is super crazy because of the "Soldes". The word "solde" is French for sale. In France, there are sales at preset times every year, and for the rest of the year everything is full price. No ever-present sale rack in France land... What happens is that at the end of a season the stores mark down all of the clothes in order to make room for the new clothes of the coming season. The sales, like all sales all over the world, are full of hit or miss clothing. I bought a fat scarf on sale for 6 euros. Right now, humongously long and thick scarves are TOTALLY fashionable in France right now. I'd never seen scarves as huge as the ones I've seen here. And me, being a lover of all things soft and thick, had to buy one. It's black but it gets the job done, I can wrap it around my neck quite a few times and tie it in a knot in front of me and it still hangs to my belly button... love the fat scarves here. I didn't buy anything else because I'm a penny-pincher and hate spending my money on clothes...

This is my new adorable French home situation on a lot of acreage used mainly for horse pasture....  My room is the top floor, where the central window is. The red things are shutters that are for protection as well as asthetics, at night they are closed and at daybreak they are opened. Note: Everyone here has shutters.

This is my new brother Noe. (Pronouned know-AY) He is eleven and loves Kesha.

Perrine and I on the tram in Nantes, heading towards the Soldes!!!

The French know how to do some tight graffiti

That's the Black Eyed peas on the TV there.

I don't know if you can see the bags full of colored sand hanging from the branches of the tree, but that's what those things are. Bags of colored sand. I thought it was interesting...

 A regional specialty of Alsace that is incredible... super thin crust with fromage blanc, thinly sliced potatoes, a ton of onion, and little pieces of ham. Everyone must try this some day, it's incredible French pizza.