Ma Novelle Masion, Famille, et San Malo

It has been a crazy couple of days.  Everything at this point is sort of a very french-like blur.  I can't even speak English anymore!  I don't conjugate my verbs in english and say sentences that don't make sense and my writing is really suffering! So I think this blog is going to get progressively worse each day.   I can't even think of the things that are the most important because EVERYTHING is so new and interesting and vibrant and beautiful and foreign. We met our host families today (ah!) but before that on Monday and Tuesday (Lundi et Mardi) we were in Normandy to see the D-day beaches and the American Cemetery.  My friend Megan and I were talking about how each historic site made us feel a certain way.  The Cemetery was beautiful and peaceful.  My favorite part were the quotes and the white crosses like the picture below.  There are thousands and thousands of white, evenly spaced, pure white crosses.

On the contrary, when we went to the place where the Americans had to scale the cliffs as the germans shot down on them, it really felt evil.  The german hide-a-ways were small and damp and dark and cramped.  The landscape was torn apart by the bombs still. Huge fissures some 15 feet across or bigger.
     On Tuesday we visited Mont St Michel which is a major tourest site and the castle from tangled.  It was cool to see because it is this huge monastery built up in the middle of the ocean to keep it safe from intruders. Our professor got us audio guides all in French. We all laughed because after about the 3rd place we had to play our audio guides we admitted that we really didn't understand anything. So I pretty much know that it was a big Monastery   Which is all I really need to know anyway.  Also, me and three other girls walked in real quick sand! Not the kind that goes fast, but the kind that goes real slow and you don't notice until your up to your knees in muddy sand trying to get a picture.
That night we landed in Saint Malo which is by far my favorite place so far.  Its a small Medieval City where people still live but it has kept all its old buildings and charm. Its in Brittany which is known for being cold and rainy but we lucked out with warm dry weather! Which sort of sucks because all I packed was sweaters!! Saint Malo is also on the beach.

(Yes that photo is just edited to bring out the colors! But the water is literally that beautiful turquoise green) And the people are so nice.  We talked to one old man in his antique shop and he told us we had good french! But I'm sure he was being nice... or creepy and hitting on us.  But I felt bad since we didn't even look at the antiques. It was a little out of price range.  Also Brittany is known for cooking in Butter!  I ate 3 crepes yesterday.  They have this famous crepe with carmel and salt I think and its not super sweet like other crepes but very good.  I bought some caramels with my friend Savannah and they taste like butter! The crepes taste like butter!  The pastries too! I also ate an apple pastry made pretty much purely out of butter.
On a side note. There is a lot of bread here. I eat bread in 3 different forms each meal .
Finally in Saint Malo we ran into these 18 year old (high school seniors basically) who lived right outside the city walls.  We talked to them in French for 3 hours and then we took rides on their motorcycles. Yes. We did. This is Megan with "Martin".  But it doesn't really sound like Martin at all.  Also there was a "Ranon" and a "Pierre-Olivier". Imagine that name!

That van is a little creepy. And was WAY out of place in the tiny French streets.
Just quickly since this post is taking an hour because all the wifi here is so slow and pictures upload in a little under 15 min, I will talk about my host family.  My host parents are at a funeral in the South of France so my host brother and sister came to pick Kiana and I up!  He is 22 and is named Quentin.  She is 14 and named Joan.  We basically had a huge party with 20 of Quentin's friends and his beautiful girlfriend tonight. The 14 year old just left.  The house is tall but still small.  3 stories and we have the basement to ourselves!  We have separate rooms with a bathroom and small kitchen area and access to the washer and dryer. There is a beautiful garden where we spent the whole night.  There is a big  dog. Not small and cute but big and slobbery and VERY energetic.  They named the dog "winston" because that is an English name and its an english dog! I loved that. The rooms are color themed a little bit. The kitchen is the most beautiful thing in the world. Its purple. The dining room is green. I will try to snap secret pictures.  Tonight we ate the grossest food of my life.  It was Ratatouille, "bbq" which is just meat (i'm honestly not sure what type of meat I ate" and a salad with tuna in it.  I didn't know that it was so hard for me to eat strange food!!! I didn't know I was like that because I consider my palate quite adventurous! I tried so hard to swallow the food and think of other things and quickly drink water but it was hard.  I've talked in french for so long today, I can hardly think in any language. They smoked so much .Everyone smokes. All ages. from the age of like 14 up.  They all drink so much too.  Its funny that I don't even drink soda. Not soda, not alcohol, i don't smoke... nothing. They laughed. And asked different ways 5 times.  I was offered Vodka.  And champagne. Tomorrow is a holiday so I think that could have a hand in things. Either way, I excused myself at 10:30 to come in and figure out how to find the RER and the metro and all for class tomorrow! Quentin is so nice. The best host ever and he drew us two adorable little maps of how to get to the train station!!! Ok. So tired. Thats all. This is a very long post.