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!

so why would you ever want to leave your family for 10 months!! I could never do that?!

People ask me all the time.. "why?? Julia, how are you going to stand being away from home that long, with people you don't even know, I could never do that?!"

Well, that's just the way I am. Ever since I was little, I've had a sense of independence and adventure that I just can't ignore. As much as I love my family and friends, I've never had a problem leaving home. I find it so amazing that I have the opportunity to experience another culture and live in a different country for a whole year! What really inspired me to do this exchange was really my mini-exchange to Rennes France last year over spring break. A group of about 12 of us from my school went on a 12 day exchange! The picture at the very top is of part of our group on our visit to the Normandy beaches... I think it kind of sums up my whole outlook on this adventure.. it was my idea to go in the freeeezing cold ocean barefoot! Why not get your feel a little wet, you only live once! Everyone thought I was crazy at first, but we ended up having a BLAST!

We spent 8 days with a family in Rennes, and 3 days in Paris. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. As you can see in the next picture, I met so many amazing people over the course of such a small amount of time, and to this day we still keep in touch. The French students who hosted us actually came to Rochester for about 2 weeks in October. The connection we all have and the friendships we have are amazing even though we live across the globe. I love exchanging emails with them on a weekly basis, and they are all so excited for me to come to France. I could go on and on about all the things I love about the country. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and contrary to common stereotype, French people are very friendly. The picture below is a street in Rennes. It's so beautiful, and so old, compared to America where everything is so new. Of course I know this will be a challenge for me. There will be times when I want to come home, or want to take the easy way out, but in the end I know I will get so much out of this experience.

The other thing that has influenced me greatly to follow through with this exchange is my sister Lucie. The last picture is of us on New Year's Eve 2006. Last year our family decided to host an exchange student for the year, and her name was Lucie. She is from Germany. From the beginning, Lucie fit into our family perfectly, and we became very close. The bond we had was truly that of siblings. She is my best friend, sister, and the best exchange student ever. We shared stories, secrets, sorrow, laughter, victory, and defeat. I don't know how I would've survived my Junior year without her, and I also don' t know how I would've passed math!! haha. She called my parents Mom and Dad, and we gave her a few nicknames of our own.. Luce, Pooch, Lou, and my personal favorite miss new booty(don't ask). I also caught on to some German, and Lucie and I called each other 'Schatzi', which means 'hun' in German.

Lucie had such an amazing time here in the U.S. and made so many amazing friendships. It was impossible to say goodbye, and we talk on the phone, email, and chat online all the time now. She now has a second family here. I really do consider her my sister. She overcame every obstacle she faced, and made it through the tough times with grace. She showed me that there's no reason to be afraid of such an amazing opportunity!