Joyeux St. Valentin!

It's been a a little while since the last time I posted, so here goes!

I feel like I'm really settled in now. France is now "chez moi" and I'm not at all excited to change that. There are times when I forget that I'm in France, or rather everything has become so routine that it's no big deal to be living in France. Every once in a while, it'll hit me that I'm in France. I'm living my dream. Usually though, I go about my day like any other "french" 17-year-old.  I go to school, come home, do my homework, complain about doing homework, chat with with friends in class when we're not supposed to, go out on the weekends and just have teenage fun in general. I'm doing things that I would be doing at home, so just because I'm in France doesn't mean life stops. My hair still grows and I still need to go to the hairdresser, there's still homework that always needs to be done and I still watch the evening news every night. I still do normal people things! To me, this fact is comforting. It means that I'm doing all of these normal people things, but in French. That's a nice feeling.

Next topic of business: "fluentness". So, I feel like I can say that I am officially bilingual. This, however, doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes...I do, all the time. It means that I'm at the point where I understand nearly everything that comes my way, and I can make myself understood with very little effort. I like to think there are different levels of "fluentness"and I'm still pretty low on the scale, but hey, I'm on the scale. It's an awesome feeling (though rather annoying) to have translate phrases from French to English when writing my blog.

I must go, but I'll leave all of you some french scenery.

Côte d'Azur

First sign of spring: daffodils!

Marseille sunset

Hey everyone!

Here's a quick wrap-up of everything that happened after Christmas!

Marcelo, another AFSer in France from Brazil came to Marseille for the second week of vacation. We did some tourism around Marseille, a day in Monaco, and a day in Cassis.

Emma, Marcelo and me in Cassis

Julianna, Marcelo, Emma and me in Monaco

I spent the new year in the Vieux Port (old port) in Marseille. Marcello, Emma, my friends Roxane and a couple other friends went out to dinner at a nice little restaurant in Marseille. After, we spent the countdown at an Irish pub right on the port. It was great to have an exhilarating atmosphere. Everyone around was celebrating and our group of about fifteen was no different. At midnight, tout le mond a fait des bisous (everyone kissed both cheeks) and we all wished each other a "Bonne Année" good health, humour and numerous other good things. It's tradition in the US to kiss your significant other at midnight, but I was surprised to find that it's not a big deal here in France. It was more of everyone wishing everyone a happy new year with the bisous than sharing a special moment with a special someone.

The Vieux Port at midnight

A little bit after midnight, we went to a party to ring in the new year. It was pretty odd to think that here it was already 2011 while there were still hours to go back home until they were in the new decade as well. 

Sorry to be so brief, but more will come soon :)