Vendee

So there is a lot of places that I’ve visited over my past fifteen weeks now. I’m just going to spend a week updating everyone on where I’ve gone. This is Vendee. I went here with Rotary. It was a exchange weekend for all of the exchange students in France. It was an advertisement for peace. Look see all these young children from different countries can get along so everyone else can. It was surprisingly fun. I went for four days. My host sister from my fourth family came with me. She was one of four French students who were there. For the peace we marched through the freezing ocean. We were going on a peace walk and the Rotarians forgot to count the tide into their plans so we had to wait for it to go down. Eventually they just gave up and made us walk along the road still flooded by the ocean. It was so so so cold. But once you were in the water your feet went numb so it didn’t hurt as much. When I got out of the water the South African student and I ran back in so our feet could renumbify and stop hurting. We made a giant sand sculpture for peace where everyone made a face. We each laid a tile for a peace mural that had Rotary’s emblem on. We each had to perform a skit from our country in a talent show other people actually paid to be at. An Australian girl got up and called out ‘Aussie’s where the bloody hell are ya?’ and so I was pushed on stage. We sang Waltzing Matilda, I Still Call Australia Home and Give Me A Home Among The Gumtrees. No one had actually planned Australia’s skit. We just got up and someone would start singing and all would join in. I was the one who was given the microphone so I just held it up to someone else. I had no sleep that weekend. When you go on a Rotary weekend you set your expectations at that you’re going to be sleeping in a old warehouse building. So it was brilliant when we arrived at an actually camping park and we each got a cabin for four. Ours didn’t have hot water though but that wasn’t too disappointing because the fact we had electricity was keeping us all very happy.

All of the Australian exchange students in France. The only other one in my Australian district is Melinda who is in front of me in a white coat. Lloyd is the student in my French district. He lives in Perth. Hes the first boy on the left at the back with blond hair.

Some of the students from my French districts. We are about to go walking through the freezing ocean. We are all wearing a white shirt that says Rotary, pour la paix. It was our district that started the trend of wearing the shirts over the top of your giant coat. Made you feel very fat but jeez did we look cool. It was hilarious to try and get those shirts off afterwards though. Everyone had to go and help everybody else.

 

Vendee’s Beach. It’s pretty. I’m quite impressed as to how this photo turned out. It was at Vendee that I broke my camera. I dropped it in the sand and sand got stuck all through the lens so it doesn’t open and close very well now. It does if you shake it. I just took photos for my brother and managed to drop my camera then. Sorry mum. I backed up all my photos today too. I burned about nine CDs. I will send them home soon with my next parcel. Did it arrive yet?

On a random note I would like to include a whinge. I’m that kind of person who likes to keep text messages. And after I go through them every now and then. I still have messages on my Australian mobile (cause I have an Australian one and a French one now) from a year ago. Just because I liked the message. So my French phone apparently only holds 250 messages. My inbox is full. My phone is cranky at me because its trying to receive another message. So I’m sorry whoever texted me. I haven’t replied because I don’t want to delete messages to free up space for your message. And when I do delete messages it had better be the holy grail of messages that contains the freakin’ meaning of life.

I have a day off tomorrow from school. It is the day that the World War stopped for France so they have a national holiday. Unfortunetly my family will be studying for their end of year exams so I think I will take the day to keep reading my French book. If all the other kids are studying then there will be no one to watch me look up every second word in the dictionary.

Mother, tell me when my package arrives. Thank you for my jacket too. It was hot today. I was only in a short sleeved shirt. Apparently it was 28 degrees but it didn’t feel like it at all. I would have said maybe 24 degrees. We had a BBQ. The BBQ’s here are smoke BBQs. The literally build a fire and then stick meat over the top. I don’t know how to explain how Australian’s BBQ. Just going to go with we grill things with beer.