The Last Entry - 150 days in France

Hi there. Bonjour. Salut.

I’m writing this from the train to Paris. As in Paris, where the airport is. I’m going home. A strange feeling, honestly. Do I want to? Yes. At the same time, I could not have imagined how hard it would be to say goodbye to my friends and family. My some of my friends came to the train station and having them there as well as having to say goodbye to my host family was so hard. I wish I could use another adjective than “hard”, but that’s just it. I don’t know what to say. I remember five months ago, almost to the day, when I was writing a blog post in the train GOING to meet my host family. I could never have imagined the friends I would make or the bond I would form with my host family, and now, having to say goodbye, was so difficult. I know I will go back and visit and they’ll come to LA, but still. I won’t see them everyday, around the house or in the classroom and in the halls of Saint- Sauveur. I cried a lot, leaving Redon. I am going to miss everyone I met and the town itself.

To the Lecointre family, if you’re reading this: Merci pour tout et j’ai hate de vous revoir a Los Angeles. Je vous aime fort.

To Julie and Anne-Elise: Les filles, merci pour votre amitié. Je suis trop contente que vous m'avais accepter dans votre cercle d'amis pour ces 5 mois. Je vous aime fort! Je vous revois le plus vite possible!!

To Djovanni: Djo, merci pour m’avoir parler le premier jour de Walking Dead, d’avoir toujours lu mon blog et de m’avoir appris le langage familier de la France. Meme si j’aurai pas de blog maintenant, je te donnerai des nouvelles de moi. A bientôt a Los Angeles, d’acc? ;)

To Enzo and Louise and the rest of the classe de 2nde6: Merci de m’avoir acceuillie et de m’avoir toujours inclu dans la classe. Je me suis beaucoup amuser avec vous cette année!!

To Margaux and the club APR: Bonne chance pour le reste de la saison et merci de m’avoir inclu dans votre équipe. C’etait vraiment un plaisir. A bientôt!

To everyone back home who followed me along on this adventure, MERCI!

This is the last entry on Une Amercaine à Redon. It was really a great adventure and I am so grateful to everyone who read my blog and complimented me, you are the reason I am writing this last entry. Sometimes I was so frustrated and this is where I went to vent. Thank you for listening from across the world. 

Au revoir. Mille fois merci.

Cecilia

5 Months Ago - Week 21 (the last week)

Let me tell you a story. It starts with a girl who lives in a bubble. All her friends and family live close, and she's happy like that. About a year ago, she started to get anxious. Anxious to explore, to get out of her bubble. When I first applied to study abroad, I thought it would be simple. Go to France, stay with a family, work on my language skills and go home. Sounds simple enough. I was so wrong. I laugh now, thinking back on that. I can't believe I thought I'd be the same person who said a tearful goodbye to her mom on January 10th, 2015 when I step off the plane in the US on June 10th, 2015. Everything about studying abroad was so black and white to me then. My home was in the US, and France was just somewhere I was visiting for a bit. Now, I am torn in two. I never thought about the grey areas in the middle. All the friends I would make and the new love I would find in the form of my host family. How do you tell two 8-year-olds that you've become so attached to that this time, you're not coming back, at least not for a while? I am dreading June 9th, the day I have to say good bye to my host family, because they're not my host family anymore, but a real family. I can't really wrap my head around the fact that I won't be going back to St. Sauveur on Monday, and seeing my classmates. I won't be giving bises in the morning and thinking in French. It's still a thrilling feeling when I think in French. It gives such a feeling of satisfaction, you wouldn't even believe it unless you've experienced it first hand. 
I didn't think, before I came, that I would be sad to leave. I thought that I would be ready to go home and see my home and family and don't get me wrong, I am. I really can't wait to see my sister and dad for the first time in 5 months, but I definitely feel like I am leaving a part of me here in France as well. I'm leaving what, for the past 5 months, has been my home. It's crazy to think that, because I moved houses right before I came here, I have lived in my French home longer than my American one. I feel like a part of me will always be stuck in the middle, in the gray area. I will always be missing someplace or another. When I try to explain this to people, they all say the same thing: "You can always go back!" This is true. I'm not arguing. I'll be back as soon as possible. The thing is, it will never be the same. Yes, I can come back and see my friends and family, but I will never be 15 and studying abroad in France ever again. Every time I think, "Wow, I'd really like to be home right now", I contradict myself, saying that when I'm back and in my regular routine, I know I will miss the days when I would take the train to visit Conner in Rennes or when I would take off to explore the South of France with my friends or when I would sit around the dinner table, cracking jokes with my host family.
These are the things you don't think about when you leave for a study abroad. You don't think about the middle and then all the goodbyes you'll have to say that will break your heart over and over and over again. I know my experiences and memories from these 5 months in France will stay with me for my entire life.

Bises,

Cecilia

La classe 2nde6 

Nice (pronounced knee-ce) and the French Riviera - Week 20

South of France, round 2!!
Wow so yes, I did go to the south again, but this time it was a trip organized by my program, STS (basically the french counterpart to CIEE). It was a crazy trip because I saw my friends from orientation again (after 5 months! what!?) and it felt like no time had passed, the only thing was that we were all a lot better at french than on that cold week in Lille in January. I also made new friends who are all people who have been here for a year. The trip started by me taking a train from Redon to Nantes on Tuesday, May 26th and then I met up with Conner and Ida, who took their train from Rennes. We all took the shuttle to the airport and sat for about 2 hours waiting to get on our plane. When we finally got on, it pretty much hit us that we were going to the French Riviera for a week and we got really excited and it kinda stayed like that for the rest of the trip. When we landed, we met up with Liz, another girl who came for a year and Georgia (!!) who was at my orientation. After our reunions, we all set off to find the shuttle, all talking loudly in English. So great. We waited for a while but the shuttle didn't seem to be coming, so we set out to find the train station (this was all to try to get to our hostel in the center of Nice). After Conner's several near-death experiences with Nice drivers, we finally got on the train. We rode it one stop and then had to get off. We still hadn't eaten lunch at this point, so we found a café and all sat down and ate lunch. While we were eating more people from our trip joined us until we were about 11 sitting around this little table in this café. We finally left to go to the hostel and we met up with one of our two supervisors, Muriel. She gave us our room assignments and we went off to unpack and settle in. Georgia and I were then joyously reunited with Kayla, Avery and Cole, our friends from the January orientation. When everyone else was introduced, we went off to the beach to check out the scene. The water was so inviting we almost jumped in fully dressed (but we didn't, haha)! We then had dinner at the hostel and stayed up late talking and catching up on the last 5 months, and our lives in general.
In the morning, we got up and had breakfast at the hostel. We set off for a walking tour of the Nice castle, well, it was more the remains of a castle! The only thing left was the foundations. It was on this very high hill and we got a great view of the city. We all got some great pictures and got to know our new friends better whilst sweating profusely climbing up maybe a million steps (I didn't count). It was a struggle climbing up all those steps, let me tell you. After we had finished the castle, Sophie and Muriel told us that we had the afternoon as free time and the only condition was that we had to be  back at the hostel at 7 for dinner. We were thrilled at the prospect of a free afternoon in Nice. We all went back to the hostel, got our beach gear together and then went out to lunch. When we got to the beach, I'm pretty sure it took us about 2 minutes to get out of our clothes and into the water. There is no way to truly describe the water to someone who wasn't there but I will do my best. It was bright blue and warm and just perfect for swimming. Once we had gotten back from a little swimming excursion to some rocks, we went for a walk along the beach to check out what was going on. That was when we saw the sign that said: "Parasailing". Yes, you guessed it, we went parasailing over the Mediterranean!! We thought about it and decided that even though Sophie had warned us against drugs and alcohol, she never said anything about extreme sports being off limits. While I was up there, I just kept thinking, WOW I can't believe I'm here and doing this with my friends. It was an amazing feeling. After that thrill, we headed back to the hostel for showers and dinner. We stayed up again that night: Monaco tomorrow!
Thursday morning, we got up, had breakfast and rushed to our bus to Monaco. After about 45 minutes of beautiful Côte d'Azure (blue coast) scenery, we got to Monaco. We walk around for about 2 hours and just take in the interesting skyline of buildings before us that was so different from Nice. Let me say something about Monaco: its interesting to visit, but was really not my style. It felt fake. So I was happy to go and visit, but I don't know if I'll go back because it wasn't really the kind of thing that I like. Anyways, when we got back on the bus, we rode for about 30 minutes and then got off at a little town and had lunch and went to the beach! Victoria (a girl from Brazil) had brought her GoPro and so we had a lot of fun with that, taking silly underwater pictures!
We got back to Nice and wandered around a little bit before going out for our last dinner.
Woke up on Friday morning and packed up, said goodbye to the people who were't coming with us (Kayla, Avery, Georgia, Haley, Conner, Liz, Ida, Sophie and I) to the airport. I was super sad to leave my new friends, but I promised to come visit them in their various home countries as soon as possible.
At the airport I then said goodbye to my orientation friends. It was super sad, but at least they live in the US so I can see them soon. On our plane to Paris, it was Conner, Ida, Liz and I. We parted ways with Liz in Paris and then caught our train to Rennes. In Rennes, I cried saying goodbye to Ida, and then Conner, who both were not coming with me on my train to Redon. It was a great week, and I made some amazing friends who I can't wait to see again on my travels.

A bientôt!

Cecilia

Blue waters in Nice!

The view from the Castle

These are the memories we will remember forever.

From left to right: Haley, me, Georgia and Kayla

The whole group at the castle!

Me, Haley, Kayla, Avery and Georgia: beach day 1

Lunch day 2!

The group in front of the Prince's palace in Monaco

Beach day 2

Squad takes Monaco!

Conner and Cecilia Take Rennes: Part 3 - Week 19

Yes, I went to Rennes AGAIN.

My host family told me that there was a weekend long soccer tournament, so that was what fueled me to go and ask Conner if he was going to be free that Saturday so I could do something instead of stay in the house all day. He agreed, but he met me later because he wanted to sleep in, which was fine with me. I think I needed to do some shopping therapy and just be by myself. We met up and then we walked around and got salads at a restaurant at Place Saint-Anne. After we ate, we met up with a good friend of ours, Ida, and then helped her do some shopping for a party she had to go to that evening. After we said goodbye to her, we wandered around for another hour until I had to get my train. It was a good day. Very relaxing and good for getting myself ready for the fun and exciting week ahead (going to Nice!).
Sunday, I was in Rennes again for a track meet. (No, I didn't see Conner again). It was fun and we stayed there the whole day, only getting back at about 9pm.

Thats about it for this week!

Lots of love,
Cecilia

"Les Lices" Flower market

Salads!

Gotta take snapchats, right?

Selfie

"No pictures please"

Interclubs!

Margaux!

Beautiful day!

Bus ride home

Mom - Weeks 17 and 18

Hello everybody!
So a thing happened a week ago... My mom was here!! She came on the 8th of May and stayed until the 17th! I had so much fun showing her what my life had been like for the past 4 1/2 months!
On Friday she got here and was pretty exhausted from a long day of traveling so we just had a traditionally breton dinner (galettes, my favorite, duh) and then she went to sleep. Saturday (the 9th, if anyone is already lost) we went to the Bretagne coast, specifically the little town of Le Croisic, which is on a peninsula and is super pretty. Sunday, I had a competition in Rennes, so we went there and met up with Conner afterwards for a picnic and a tour of the old Rennes. Let me pause here for a moment and tell you something about french towns. They are really old. That is a know fact, but because of that, there is always one part of the city that looks a lot older than the rest, and so that is what we visited. It was all in all a good day.
On Monday, my mom left for a little 2 day trip to Normandy, so she could still have fun while we went to work and school. She picked me up on Wednesday morning and i showed her around my school and Redon. We spent the rest of the day with my family and pretty much just hung out. Thursday, it was raining, typical Bretagne, so we stayed in for the morning and then went to discover La Gacilly in the afternoon. (see my previous posts for more info on La Gacilly). Friday was the big day because we went to two really famous places in France! In the morning we went to the Mont Saint Michel, which is a an abbey built on top of a hill in the sea. Its not exactly an island, because when the tide is low, there is no water around it, but when it's high tide, the water surrounds the little hill. It was so amazing to walk through the streets and see a tour of the abbey (it was so big, it took two hours to get through it all!). After we had had our fill of St. Michel, we drove about an hour and a half west to Saint-Malo, a beautiful walled city in north Bretagne. My mom and I were particularly excited to go here because we had both read a book called All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (so great, everyone should read it!!) and it takes place in Saint-Malo. We even went to where the house was after we had walked along the walls of the city. It was a bright sunny day and it was just so beautiful with the sound of the ocean all around us. We went to a restaurant and everyone got seafood, except me, who doesn't like it. Whoops. I got a galette. Surprised? I sure was!! ;)
On Saturday, we went to Vannes and did some long-awaited shopping ( mom had been talking about it all week!) and then we went out to eat again. The burger I had there was probably one of the most delicious ones I have ever had in my entire life!!!
Sunday was packing day and eating. In typical French fashion, we spent almost the whole day eating. We dropped her off at the train station at 17h (5pm). Laetitia and my mom cried but just out of happiness and mom-ness. I think it must be a mom thing because the rest of us were able to be happy without crying. Whatever!

I'm sorry that these weeks are mixed together because my mom was only here for one week, but the other one is really not interesting enough to have its own blog post!

See you soon, same place, same time!!! (<< not sure what that was. I am just re-reading after typing this at midnight last night. ok bye bye)

Cecilia

She's here!

Le Croisic!

Look who I found!

Mont St Michel

Saint-Malo

Vannes

Vannes

Vannes

And Then There Were 2 Americans in Redon - Week 16

Contrary to the popular murder mystery by Agatha Christie, even though the title is the same, this is not a horror story, its actually a really happy story. (I tried to make that funny but now that I reread, its not all that great, oh well).
It was a good week for a lot of reasons. The first was because I went back to school and I really like school so going back is not a big problem for me. Second, it was a four day week, because we had Friday off ! I know I just said that I love school and I do, but seriously who doesn't like weekends better? ALSO (there's more), Conner came to stay with my host family on Thursday night and we hung out on Friday! It was so good to see him and speak a little english again. It's honestly so cool that I can say that I have friends all around the world now. We had a really good time with my host family and also just walking around Redon. It was slightly overcast but that was ok. I liked showing Conner around my new home because I validated something that I've been starting to think more and more: I feel more and more like a local and less like an "étranger" (a stranger/foreigner). On Friday night, we went over to eat at some friends' house and got home super late (1am). Saturday was a pretty big day as well because I had my first track meet here in France! I actually did pretty well, and so I'm really happy! I ran the 400 meters and the 200 meters and for the 400, I came in 2nd in my heat and 3rd overall with a 1:05min time and for the 200, I came in first in my heat with a time of 28seconds!
Now its sunday and we are just doing homework and relaxing. I'm going to Skype with my family in LA tonight and so that's fun. I am going to Nice in 3 weeks with my friends from orientation to kind of, "go out with a bang" because I go home a week after that!
Well, lunch is ready so I gotta go, but I will write again soon! (hopefully next week if I can motivate myself) ;)

Lots of love and bises xx

Cecilia

Pictures!!

Rare footage of Conner singing.

Hello.

It was really pretty even though it was overcast!

Redon Fashion pt. 1

Redon Fashion pt. 2!

It figures that this is how you dress in Bretagne on the first of May.

Pear and chocolate crêpe!!

Running the 400m!

400 meters pt 2

Race selfies

Results

post-race selfies

South of France and Barcelona: A Real Life Thing that Happened to Me (!!) - Week 15

I am still a little in shock (refer to title of post). I actually drove 9 hours from Redon to Argelès-sur-mer and stayed there for a week. It was so amazing! We stayed in a little mobile home not even a mile from the beach and I would run on the beach every morning and it was just like a little piece of paradise.
Ok, here's the story... (I feel like all I do on this blog is tell stories and I don't really make deep refections about my time abroad but talk more about the different ways I manage to embarrass myself in another country. Oh well. Anyways.)

We left Friday midday and drove about 6 hours to a town just below Toulouse and we stayed the night in a motel and then left by nine the next morning for another 4 1/2 hours of car time till we arrived in the south. While on the road the second day (Saturday), we stopped at a town called Carcassonne and toured a walled city, (typical) and it was really cool! There were shops and restaurants and people walking around and it was just a good atmosphere. We continued the trip and got to Argelès about 4pm and then we just unpacked the car and explored the campsite, which we discovered had 2 really big pools with impressive slides!! We ate dinner and went and explored the beach a little afterwards as well.
I got up and went for a run and then, since it was Sunday and we needed groceries, we went to a little village called Collioure and got some fresh fruit, veggies and seafood for the coming week. We did a little bit of walking in the tiny, winding streets but it started pouring rain so we cancelled our day and just went home and to the pool for the afternoon (the heated, indoor one, obviously). Monday was a good day! We got up and decided to go to Spain (because that is a thing that's casually done here) and do some shopping. We were only 30 minutes from the border so we packed a picnic lunch and just...went. I don't think any of the members of my host family realized just how cool it was for me that we just drove through a little box (the border check) and suddenly we were in a totally new country with new customs and even a new language. Now that I mention it, I actually was quite useless with my Spanish in Spain because where we went was the Catalan region so they barely even speak Spanish they all speak Catalan, even the road signs... so yeah. So much for that.
Anyways, we shopped in Spain for a bit and then we came back to France (!!!!!) (still not over it haha), and went to see an old fort that was the primary lookout fort on the border between France and Spain in a war but I don't remember which one. We went back to the campsite and spent the rest of the day in the pool. Tuesday was BEAUTIFUL! It was so warm and sunny (I wore shorts for the first time in I don't know how long) and we went back to the little village of Collioure and it was SO MUCH BETTER in the sun!! We wandered the little narrow streets filled with painters shops and little apartments above and Laetitia and I picked out about 10 that we would move into in an instant. I also ate the best baguette of my life (but if we're being honest here I say that after every baguette). After we had had our fill of Collioure (actually our parking ticket ran out but whatever), we went back to the camp and guess what we did....? POOL TIME! (You're super surprised, I know).
Wednesday, we went back over to Spain and toured some little villages on the coast. I had paella which was very good but I do prefer it when it is from the Valencia region, where it originated. Can I say that without being stuck up? I don't know.
THURSDAY. BARCELONA. WHAT?!
I still cannot believe I went to Barcelona. We drove two hours down south into Spain and after the hour we spent trying to park, we started the visit. I wish I could say it was everything I imagined it to be, but honestly I had never even imagined I would get to visit Barcelona so it kind of blew my mind. First we visited the Barcelona '92 Olympic stadiums (the pool and the track) and then we went and just wandered around till it was lunch time and time to move on with our tour. After lunch, we took the metro to the center of the city, called "La Rambla" and since it was the Catalonian National day, there were people selling roses everywhere. I bought one for myself, knowing full well that you are supposed to buy them for your "amoureux", if you will, and I just didn't care. When in Spain, you know. :) After that we went to the Sagrada Familia and even thought we came at the wrong time to actually go into it (there were specific viewing hours), I was still content to stand outside and be awestruck. My dad told me over Skype before that it was one of the coolest things he had seen in his life and I have to agree with him because it is honestly just stunning. After that, we went to Parc Guell, which is another art masterpiece by Salvador Dali. We didn't go in there either but I got a picture for Instagram and in this day and age, we all know that that's all that matters. We also went to "Camp Nou", the FC Barcelona soccer stadium and it was actually really cool even though I know absolutely nothing about FCB. By this time, we had walked almost 23 kilometers (11.5 miles for you americans) and our feet were killing us so we took the metro back to the car and headed home.
Friday. The last day. How depressing. We spent it packing up the tiny house and going to the pool (again).
Saturday. 11 hours in the car. Get home exhausted. Felt like I was actually home, not somewhere makeshift for the first time in a long time. :))

Muchas besos y amor de Francia!!! (lots of kisses and love from france)

Cecilia

Pictures are on my Facebook because I can't upload them here for some reason !!! :))