Toussaint Vacation

So this blog post is long over due, In France there are four main school vacations. The first is for Tousaint and you have a little over a week away from school, the next is for noel and you have another week of no school, the third is in Febuary for Winter for a week, the fourth is in Spring for a week and then you have Summer vacation for 2 months. Toussaint or in English All Saints Day occured Saturday the 25 and lasted until the 5 of November.
I went with my host family to their second home in Auvergne. We had a really great time there. Anne and I read Les Fourberries de Scapin by Moliere. She helped me understand what was going on because Moliere is the equivalent to Shakespear. Reading with Anne helped my pronunciation A LOT. Anne and I did lots of mother daughter stuff like watching girlie movies and cooking. We walked to the next village to buy things for dinner one day and she introduced me to the butcher. From what I was told the butcher hates everyone and is somewhat rude, but she was really nice to me and wanted to know how much meat we eat in the states and what kinds. It made me laugh a bit. It made sense to me why a butcher would love an American.

Something really bizare happened while I was in Auvergne. I was relaxing in our home about to take a nap when I heard a knock on the door. I got up and it was a little boy. I invited him in and he asked me if I wanted to play in the snow with him. I said yes and put on my coat and gloves. We went outside and he yelled out snowball fight. I of course was ok with that because I love snowball fights. We started throwing snowballs at eachother and he kept getting closer and closer to me so I kept backing up and eventually he tried to tackle me. I grabbed him by his shoulders and swung him down to the ground. I started running to another yard because ours was scarce with snow. He started rolling a huge snow ball. I kept rolling little ones and throwing them at him. He was kinda fat and he couldnt really keep up with me so I ran way down the street. On his way to me he kept rolling this big snow ball. When he got to the spot where I was at I could see that the snowball was the size of a snowman's head. There was no way I was going to let him hit me with that, so I cut through the yards of some people and eventually when I ran past him he threw the ball and he missed and it smashed a little bit on the ground. He picked it up and I knocked it out of his hands and we ran down the street again to my yard and continued playing. The kid was so weird, he kept asking me if I was afraid of him and things like that and I kept telling him no then asking if he was afraid of a me. We were hiding behind bushes, so he ran up and I threw my snowball, he kept running and tried to smash the snowball on my head. I didn't let him so he took my gloves then tried smashing another snow ball on me. I told him to give me back my gloves or I would quit playing. He kept saying no so I went and tried to take my gloves. He tried to smash a snowball on me and I pushed his arm away and told him to give me my gloves again. He tried to smash another snowball and this time when I pushed his hand away he grabbed my hair. He said he wouldnt let go I yelled at him in French to let me go, that didnt work so I yelled in English. I am quite pleased that I didn't swear. Eventually he let my hair go, I quit and told him to give me my gloves, he still wouldnt do it, he kept acting like he was going to throw them onto the roof. I was mad beyond belief. I told him I was going inside. He gave me my gloves and I said Merci Au revoir and shut the door. His name was Maxime and Gilles started calling him SuperMaxime. I told Anne and Gilles and Gilles told him to be nicer with the girls. Maxime came back the next day and we played soccer. It was pretty funny that he came back.

One day Gilles and I went searching for a tree to plant. We found it but when we came home we also had icecream and candy. The look on my host mother's face was hilarious. She hadn't seen the tree and I am sure she assumed we had only bought candy.

The last two days of our stay in Auvergne there was a lot of rain so Sunday, before we left the village I heard a siren and I started to kinda panic. I asked my family if there was a tornado and they laughed. (There are no tornados in France). I asked them what the siren was for and the told me flooding. On our way back there were bridges that had been destroyed by flooding. We had to take an alternate route back home. Monday I went to my friend Jade's with Zoe. Their neighbor wanted to meet me because I am American. That was a little bit weird, but I understand and I think it is good to be curious about other cultures. I came home late Tuesday evening and relaxed Wednesday. I started school Thursday.