First day of school!

I have to say that I was very nervous abou the first day of school! But I had no reason to worry because it went very well!!

My host mother helped me take the bus and the metro this morning, to make sure I got there ok. She also helped me find my class. In France there's one main classroom where each class has their classes. My class has 28 students. There are three other exchange students from Ecuadore, Venezuela, and Canada! It's great that I'm not the only exchange student!
I am in the class 'Premier L'.. which is like 11th grade in the US. The "L" stands for Language. I am taking a third language, I believe Spanish. There are two different Premier classes.. the one I am in focuses more on languages, French, and History. The other one is more Math, science, etc.

Today I met three girls in my class this morning, and the befriended me automatically. The also ate lunch with me, and basically took me under their wing. They are great people, and they are in my opinion, a good crowd. haha.
It is a little hard for me because I am 18, and the students in my class are mostly 16. But if I were in the next class up (terminale), it would be way too hard for me.. according to the school. I think I will be able to make some friends my own age once I get the language down a little better!!

Today I met my french teacher, who is really nice!! She is also the teacher who is in charge of our class.. so if I have any problems I can ask her.

It was a short day today because it was the first day... different than the US.

Another thing that is different is that in France, most middle school and highschool students have a half-day of school every Wednesday! However, many students, because of that, have to go to school for half a day on Saturday! I got lucky because on Wednesdays I don't start school until 9 oclock, and get out at 12 or 1. And I have no classes on the weekends!!!

A funny story from today:
My Rotary club in France is paying for my meals at the school. So I will be eating there everyday. This meal plan is called "demi-pensionaire"... the other students who dont have this meal plan have to buy a ticket to eat lunch at school.
So.. Today I got my lunch.. and was ready to eat, and there was a man collecting tickets.. he asked me (in french of course) "do you have a ticket or are you 'demi pensionaire'.. so I said "demi pensionaire", and he said "ok, what's your name" and I said in an American accent "Julia Karpinski" and he said "what?!?" so then i tried in a French accent "Jeulia Kaerpenski" And he said "what?!" again with a confused look. So finally I said " Je suis Americaine" (i am american).. Then he had a huge smile on his face at exclaimed "OHHHH.. Julia, of course Julia Julia Julia, the American, go ahead! I'm sorry, go ahead Julia, go with your new friends!!", (he went on and on in french) Then in broken English he said cheerfully "have great meal Julia!"

Hahahaha.. what an experience. I am a celebrity!

A day in Rouen

I spent a day in Rouen with my host parents, the pictures explain how beautiful it is... and this picture explains how good I am at speaking French so far! HAHA
It was a great day, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I am so lucky to live in such an amazing city.

A typical street in Rouen

Another beautiful street in Rouen..

The oldest restaurant in France!!!


The menu: La Couronne "the oldest inn (restaurant) in France" 1345


Another street.. I believe that's the side of the town hall on the right..

Inside the Joan of Arc Church

The baptism basin

Beautiful stained glass windows

The Church from outside, the circle of purple flowers is where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

Gros-Horloge (big clock)It only has one hand to mark the hour.

I thought this was adorable.. the man was also collecting money but it's still really cute!

Another veiw of the Gros Horloge.. there are actually two.. one on each side of the archway.

The Rouen Cathedral

The ceiling

Another veiw inside

This is a unique street in Rouen because you can see on the right there is a little river..

Abbataile Saint-Ouen (Saint Ouen's Abbey)

The inside

Adelaide's birthday!

Everyone signing a poster for Adelaide's new room in the United States.

Madeline and Marie-Lo

Adelaide and I with our parents!

Ade and I with the Grandparents... What is Grandpa doing??

Ade with her Grandparents!

Rotary sisters...

Yesterday was Adelaide's birthday but we celebrated it tonight because she also passed her road test this morning!! It's really hard to get your license in France and really expensive. Usually there are ten students who take the driving test in one day and only five get a license!!

Good job Dede!!

It was a great night, grandma and grandpa came over for dinner. they are so cute and so nice!!

Adelaide leaves on Saturday. My host parents and I will be going to the airport to drop her off in the morning. None of the other siblings can go for one reason or another.

But I said. of course I would like to go!! And I think we might spend the rest of the day in Paris?? Yeah, that's an added bonus!! haha.

It was kind of sad tonight because I really really really am going to miss Adelaide. She is the sweetest person, and we are really alike. When our younger sisters are acting.. well.. crazy. Adelaide and I are always together, laughing and rolling our eyes HAHA. We just understand each other. It will definitely be different without her. She will definitely be a great exchange student, I can guarantee that!

another exciting day

Today I met Eloise, a friend of Adelaide's that goes to my school. She is so nice, and she says she really likes the school, which is kind of reasuring for me! She is also a really fun person, I'm glad I got to meet her. Adelaide, her, and I hung out a lot yesterday, and had a lot of fun as you can see in the pictures above!

I finally met my host brother Paul-Etienne! He is a really funny guy! He's great to have around, and it's nice to finally meet him after hearing so much about him. His girlfriend also came over yesterday for dinner. She's also really cool, she goes to our church too!

Yesterday, I met the Martin's, who will be my second host family. Didier and his wife, I can't remember her name. But they were both really nice, and Didier is sooo hilarious! Thier daughter just left for Ecuador last week, and I'm not sure that any of their other kids are living at home. However, there is a girl from Ecuador who will be going to my school, and they might host her at the same time too!

I also found out that I have a third host family! They live right in Rouen, and the house is within walking distance of my highschool. I'm not sure if they have any kids, but Etienne (my host dad) said that thier house is bigger than the house I'm in now!!!! WHAT?!?! I was amazed.. i still cant really believe that...

But that will be great because there should be enough room for people to visit me!!!

Dinner with my new family!

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The past three days in France have been so amazing! My family is so nice, always helping me with my French, making me feel welcome, and doing lots of fun things with me.


I have to say the best part so far though is just being a part of the family! Lunch and dinner times are my favorite. Every day my host mother prepares a huge lunch at one o'clock. She rings the bell and all of us come downstairs to have lunch together as a family. I help make meals sometimes too with my sisters which is fun and interesting. Dinner is always good too, we eat at 7 or later every night. As you can see in the picture we had crepes for dinner!!! we put ham and cheese and other things in them.. and then for desert we put jelly and nutella and sugar on them! yummmy...

I also went to a light show in Rouen, they project Monet's paintings on the face of the Cathedral. It was so cool and so beautiful.

In the last two days I have been swimming twice. Once to a sports club that had three indoor pools and a water slide! and today we went to a friends house and swam in their pool. (the picture below)

I am having so much fun so far. My French however is not so good, but it gets better and easier every day.

Adelaide and I have a really good time talking back and fourth between broken english and french about the united states. I will miss her soooo much when she goes the the US, she is the coolest girl, and she has been an amazing sister. I think we would have been really close if she wasn't leaving in a week! She leaves one week from today! Her english is not bad at all, I know she's going to do really well, and I know she'll want to meet my family!
She is going to introduce me to one of her friends that goes to my school, "Lycee Rey".

I got to visit my school on Friday. It was really cool. It's an old school right in the center of the city of Rouen. I met the Principal and he was so nice! There will be three or four other exchange students going there! I also found out that I will have a shortened school day on Wednesdays, and I will have weekends off! (some students have to go to school saturday morning!)

I am having a great time so far!

Getting there!

The plane ride over was both exciting and scary! I didn't know what to expect at all!!
Fourtunately, I was able to sit with my friend Katie on the long flight over the ocean!
When we finally arrived in France we had to wait about 40 minutes to get to customs. There were three international flights that came in at the same time, so it took us a while. It was funny thought because when we finally got to the window at customs, the man took a glance at our passports, said "bonjour", we said "bonjour" back and that was it!

This one girl said that she kept saying "hi" instead of "bonjour", and the customs officer just kept saying "bonjour" until she caught on, haha. this girl also claimed to be the validictorian of her class of 550 students?!?! LOL....what?!

After that we went to baggage claim where we waited an hour to get our bags! We were on our own, we hadn't met our families yet!!! But Katie and I kinda worked together, and we got our bags, and found carts to put them on.

Finallyyyyy, we exited the baggage claim area and found our families! My host mother and father, and a man from Rotary, were there to welcome me, and they were so nice!

I felt very welcome right off the bat. We got into the car and by that time I was so exhausted. My host mother said to me, "you look so tired Julia, please, if you want to sleep get some sleep" So I literally passed out for about an hour.

Then we got to the house and I met my host siblings, everyone except Paul-Etienne who is on a Scout trip i think??

But my sisters are so nice and so funny! It's really fun to be a part of the family so far!

My Host Family!

After much anticipation, I have received my host family!

I am living in a town called Rouen in Normandie in the north western part of France.

Meet the Kauffmann family:

Etienne is my host father, he is in the red and he works as a purchaser for Nestle.

Veronique is my host mother, she is in the middle, and she is a stay at home mom.

Madeleine is 21 years old, she is wearing the glasses. She is studying to be a teacher at a university about an hour and a half from home.

Paul-Etienne is 20 years old and he goes to school in Rouen, and he is studying to become a lawyer.

Adelaide is 18 years old, she is wearing the orange necklace. She is going to be an exchange student in Rochester next year in the town of Livonia.

Hortense is 16 years old, she is wearing white. She is in high school in Rouen.

Marie-Lorraine is 14. She is to the right wearing the blue jacket.

Below is a picture of my house! C'est tres grande...

I am soo excited to meet my first host family!