Pays-Basque

Posted by Aaron in Journal

Friday, we didn’t have school for a French Memorial Day. My current host family went to go see their daughter in Marseille, and so I went with my second host family (with whom I have not yet moved in) to Bayonne in Pays-Basque. It is absolutely GORGEOUS there! It has a very particular style of architecture throughout. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen!

I went to le Musée de la Mer (Museum of the Sea) and saw the seals being feed! “Seal” in French is “phoque” and it’s very easy to laugh whenever you hear that. I also learned “pieuvre” and “poulpe,” which both mean “octopus.” It’s really interesting learning words just in living. It’s like I’m a child all over again!  One of the difficult parts about learning a new French word is learning if there are any accents on the letters (there’s the possibility of 5 different accents appearing é è ê ë ç, but accents kind of come naturally after a while) and the gender of the noun.  For those who don’t know, in Latin languages all nouns have a “gender.”  There’s no rhyme or reason to it except with humans and animals, but otherwise you just have to memorize if the noun is masculine or feminine.  For example, “a table” in French is “une table,” and a store is “un magasin.”  Table is feminine and store is masculine, but there’s not really a reason why.  That’s just how it is.  And so for us English-speakers who have the habit of ALL nouns being neutral, we have to learn whether a noun in French is feminine or masculine.  It’s generally easier for people who speak Spanish, Italian, Portuguese or Romanian to know which gender each noun is, but they might not always be correct.  Some noun genders differ in the different languages.

And so, today I got back from Bayonne.  I went to mass at 6:30p.m., but it didn’t start until 6:45p.m..  There was some kind of dispute between people from the church and some weird man (I think he was homeless/drunk).  It was kind of scary because this man started walking around near the congregation.  We had no idea what he was going to do.  The police eventually came and escorted him out of the church so that we could start mass in peace.

After mass, I come home and cleaned my room a little.  It’s usually just my desk that is messy.  After I finished cleaning my desk, I wrote an entry in my journal about today.  I hadn’t written in my journal since October 22nd, and I never even completed the entry that day.  I’ve been really lazy with my journal and with my blog, evidently, but I know I am going to regret that severely in the future, so I am doing my best to start writing again.

Template Update

Posted by Aaron in Site Updates

I have updated my blog’s template, finally.  It’s not a custom made template, but it looks really cool in my opinion!  It’s better than the pre-loaded template that I had been using.  So all is well.  Please be advised that all blog posts are longer than what you see on the home screen.  If you want to read the rest of the blog post, you have to click the “Read More” button.

I am also working on creating a gallery where I can directly upload all of my photos.  The only thing is that it takes a long long time to upload all these photos since they are in their original high-definition format, so it might be a while before all of the photos are uploaded.  But I will get to work on that.  I love vacation periods!  It gives me time to relax and get work done!

Les vacances !

Posted by Aaron in Journal

So far, the vacation period has been fun!  The beginning of it was a bit rough since I had absolutely nothing to do.  But for the past three nights, I’ve had a sleepover with my friend from Hawaii, Renée.  Yes, she’s American even though she has a French name.  ;)  The first two nights, I spent the night at her house, and then she came to my house last night.

We went to see Paranormal Activity 3 last night.  It was a bit creepy.  It was better than the first one, but they’re not very scary.  They’re suspenseful, but not scary.  We also ate at a Chinese restaurant last night.  I couldn’t understand the waitress because she had a Chinese accent in French, and it’s difficult enough for me to understand people who have a French accent in French.  So I have no idea what I ordered, but it was good.

Tomorrow, I am supposed to go to Arcachon with my host family, if the weather is nice.  If the weather isn’t nice, I’m not sure exactly what the alternative plan is.  But I’ll find something to do.  I’m reading a novel (in English) called Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.  It’s an excellent story, and very easy to follow.  It’s a fairly big novel, which usually discourages me from giving books of that sort a second look, but I had heard many good things about it before I bought it and I read the first chapter at the bookstore before I bought it (something I always try to do before I buy a book to make sure that I won’t lose interest right away).  Whether I go to Arcachon or stay here in Bordeaux, I will pay my novel a due visit.