St-Remy-de-Provence and Arles

On Wednesday we went to St-Remy-de-Provence. Luckily the markets were on that day. It was just Mum, Dad and I because Sean was on a handball tour with the school that day. We walked through the markets and admired all the things that were on sale. The markets here have a huge selection. There were so many cheeses, and so many tasting platters. I could have eaten all of it!

We started heading towards the centre of the town, still walking through the markets. As we walked I saw the biggest dog ever! It looked more like a horse than a dog! It was reaching lunch time and we bought some chunks of cheese, bread and freshly cut pineapple for dessert. We sat on some steps and watched all of the markets pack their stalls away.

We then walked through the town of St. Remy looking at the beautiful old buildings, homes and fountains. This is Mum and I sitting at the Fountain of Nostradamus. He lived in St Remy.We drove a few kilometres out of the town to an ancient roman site called Glanum. The first inhabitants settled here over 2800 years ago. The ruins are in amazingly good condition, and we could clearly see the way in which the families lived all those years ago. There was even a gymnasium and a pool that you could see.

Yesterday we went to Arles with Tahlia, an Australian friend and our family. They were having a special Easter festival called "Feria Toro", which celebrates the history of bull fighting in the city. The markets were going in Arles, too so we walked through the stalls and as you can imagine all the stalls were selling EVERYTHING to do with the bulls. We all bought a traditional scarf with a bull on it as a souvenir, because the traditional outfit to watch a bullfight is all white and a red scarf. We kept walking around the markets and I stopped at a news agency and bought some postcards with pictures of bulls in different poses. Here is a photo of them.

In the early evening we headed to Arles' Place du Forum which is an area in the old city with so many restaurants and cafes. All the restaurants were cooking Paella in the most giant bowls ever! A paella is a rice curry with lots of chicken, seafood and vegetables added. They also had tents put up in front of their restaurants and tables set up inside the tents. There were probably 20 stalls selling paellas! We walked along the street and enjoyed the smell of paellas wafting to our noses. We couldn't resist these smells and sat down to enjoy a large bowl of it.

We saw some ruins called the Theatre Antique. It was once a fortress, later its stones were used for other buildings. There are two remaining columns, they are called the "Two Widows". We gazed at the ruins through the fence. We kept walking to "Les Arenes". Les Arenes is a Colossium-like stadium and one of the best preserved Roman monuments in the town. We explored the stadium.

As we left Arles that evening, the party was on for 5 days, with street bands and performers entertaining the crowds. It was a great day!

Au Revoir!

Claire and Parties

On Saturday, I went to Claire's house. The girl that invited me to her birthday party. We are best friends now. She has a really cute cat that used to be homeless so they kept her. Her name is Scarlet but we call her Mimi. She's just had an operation. Apparently she had run away that morning so Claire and I went out to look for her. We looked in the woods and around their house but we couldn't find her. We went back to the house and her dad showed us some cardboard boxes and she was sitting in between all the boxes! Probably trying to get some peace and quiet. We cuddled her for ages because she deserved some cuddles and she purred and purred. We left Scarlet to purr and count sheep while we went upstairs and played on the computer. We exchanged emails and played girl games. After we trampled down stairs to have afternoon tea. I couldn't believe it when she showed me what I could have, she had packeted bread! Who would want to eat packaged bread when you can eat freshly baked bread and run down to the store and see all the goodies the Boulangerie is selling?! I ate Nutella on bread. They do have Nutella here but they don't have Milo. We went upstairs to play again. Time flew and before I knew it I was in the car travelling home.

I got changed into my 'cinderella gown' and grabbed my sparkly shoes and I was off to the ball. We arrived at our friends house Serge, Isabelle, Elisa and Raphael. Pascal, Kristine, Constance, Raphaelle and Charlotte were also there.We sat and talked, played on Elisa's laptop. Just hung out. We had chips and sausages and chicken for dinner. We had ice-creams and cake and for dessert. We stayed up till 12:30, but some children had already fallen asleep on the beds!

Ooops, time for dinner. Iv'e been so lost in our story I forgot about it.

Au Revoir

Carnival and Australian People!

Last weekend, Mormoiron had the village Carnival celebrations. All the children join in with dress-ups and we get to sit on tractors and ride around the village. I sat on the truck with my friends Tiffany and Malorie. All the small children dress up as fairies and princesses. The Mums and Dads follow the wagons through the village. When we had done the whole loop, we all stopped and went into the town hall for 'le goute'. This is afternoon tea for children. We ate waffels and sugar pastries.

Yesterday my school had their own little carnival! I went as a 'cool person'. I had a little bit of makeup and wore my glittery Converse trainers. One of my my friends went as a baby, she had pyjamas on and wore (ha ha) a nappy over the top and had bunny ears and a dummy hanging around her neck! Mettre (that's what you call teachers here Mettre for a man and Maitresse for a lady) used to be a fireman so he was dressed up in his big neon coat and the 'fireman' boots. Another friend, Claire, came dressed as Mario, the DS character. She wore a red sweater and had stuffed a pillow underneath it. She wore overalls over the top and had put red silk over the top of a cap and drawn a little Mario sign and stuck it on top. Marion, one of my closest friends, went as a hippy and wore pink pants that were drawn all over. A flower dress and a headband around her head. Plus giant glasses!

Yesterday we took Tristan, the big dog down the road for a walk through the mountain ridge near our village. Mum came too, and so did Catherine, the owner of Tristan. We also had Tahlia with us for the day. She is an Australian exchange student who lives nearby,this year. We picked almonds from last autumn and some thyme. When we arrived back to Catherine's house, we had cups of fresh thyme tea. I really liked it.

Today we went to Pernes les Fontaines, an old town with 40 fountains. We walked all around the town and found all the fountains. The first fountain we saw was dou Caire de Roubino. We walked past a big church. Since it is Sunday, there was a service going so we couldn't go inside. On the church wall there were these sun dials that the Romans used to tell the time with. We read a French plaque telling us how to read the clocks, so we read them and they were correct! We walked around all the squares and saw the beautiful old homes and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I had prawns and curry and ice-cream for dessert. YUM. It was a great day!

Now I've got to do my homework for school tomorrow.
Au Revoir!

Snow

We went to Vaison-la-Romaine with our friends Serge and Isobel and their children Elisa and Raphael. We got up to the Roman town and walked to lunch at a pirate restaurant! There were pirate statues everywhere in this restaurant and pirate menus and even pirate toilets!

We had meat and pasta and a Nutella crepe for desert. We went outside wanting to walk up to the town centre to look at the pretty houses and shops built from stone but it had started to snow! We thought this was awsome!

We kept walking but the snow was getting so heavy and it was so cold that we decided to go home and to come to this town again another time. We headed back down the mountain in the car. The snow was getting very heavy and I was surprised to see that it was even snowing in Carpentras and Mazan! We kept heading towards our village, Mormoiron and there was still more snow! When we arrived in Mormoiron, it was beautiful.

We went to school the next morning and by the time I got there the snow was mushy in the courtyard! Our courtyard is like in those fairytale books when the courtyards are made of concrete and you just play on the concrete and eat standing up. It's very casual.

Au revoir!

Home

We were all glad to be back home in Mormoiron on Saturday. That morning we were up at 5 in the morning to prepare for our journey from Paris! We went to the metro station and hopped on a metro then to the train station. We boarded the TGV high speed train for a great ride ahead. I chewed on Carambars (a chewy lollie) and Maltesers during the trip. When we got to Avignon, our friend Pascal drove us to his house for a long lunch with his whole family. We had meat and pasta. For dessert we had this really yummy thing. It was like Rocky Road but the chocolate bit was caramel!! After we went for a long walk together and I slipped in mud with my jeans and boots...

Our lunches at school are very funny! One time (well loads of times really) we have this REALLY gross food - hot milk with spaghetti floating in it! But loads of my friends love it. They're always saying "beaucoup s'il-vous-plait" (Lots Please) and they even go back for seconds! I can barely eat mine and try to not eat all my plate. But the clever trick that the cooks have up their sleeve is that if you don't eat all of your meal, the next course will land in yourmilky spaghetti! Eeeewww. We had this vinegary salad and fish nuggets. I don't want that in milk! For dessert we had an apple sauce yogurt. It is really good!

Today I went to play with my friends Malorie, Teo and Tifanny. It was fun. Now that we're in a really small village, we're allowed to walk around town by ourselves. That's really fun. So we went in to Malorie's house and talked and li

stened to music and played with their new baby. He is very cute! After, we grabbed Teo's bike from his house. We went up a street and a giant dog named Tristan leapt out from his yard and gave us a giant cuddle!

Malorie needed to go home so we took her home and then we saw some stairs and kept going down them, with our bikes! It was really fun. (We didn't stack once)!

See You Next Time

Au Revoir

Fun

We all enjoyed looking through Pompidou. Pompidou is a Paris Museum of Modern Art. We walked to the Museum while looking through lots of little souvenir shops. I bought a cap with Paris written all over it!! Then we got to the Museum and took one million photos of the Museum. We went inside, put our coats in the cloak room and bought our tickets.

Inside a building everyone always tries to cover the pipes so that they don't show, well not here, you can see everything! All green pipes are for plumbing, blue pipes are for climate control, electrical wires are in yellow, and devices for safety are red.

We went onto to the balcony and you know how in some very fancy shopping centers they have an escalator with a clear arch around it. They have them the whole way up the outside of the building, so we travelled to the fourth floor. We looked at the art. I loved the paintings by Picasso! Especially the ones that are 2 people but look like one person. And there was one artwork where you went into a room and it was rooms made out of carpets rolled up, stacked on one another!! That is very crazy!

Yesterday we went to the Palace of Science Discovery. It was one of the highlights of the trip in Paris! First we went to the mechanical section and pulled pulleys and pressed buttons (it is a hands on museum). In the animal section there was a BIG octopus in an aquarium! I had never really seen one before. We also looked at the frogs and the snails.

We went to a show in the mechanical section and Sean and I were volunteers. We went on to this big circle couch thing together with about 10 other people and the man started spinning it. He talked about something (this was all in French) and then he told us to stand up while he spun it round. When you fell down you fell on each other!! It was very fun, but when we got off I had a headache! :<( We went upstairs to the (best bit), the activities section! There was all sorts of things to do there. I loved the game where you had to trace the line and not touch the silver.

Sunday we went to visit the Eiffel Tower!! It was Valentine's Day. It was sooo BEAUTIFUL! Especially when the lights were on by night - and better again when the lights were flashing. Ten minutes of every hour, the sparkling lights come on. We climbed all 700 steps to the second level. The view was breathtaking. We caught the elevator up to the final tiny tip and gazed over the whole of Paris. I felt like I was flying (soaring, gazing, floating). Here are some pictures of the Eiffel Tower.

I'll be home again in Mormoiron ready to start school on Monday.

Au Revoir :-)

Friends

Hi
Right now I am at my friends house. I am writing this blog on there new DSI!!!! It is very fun and they even have internet.
Au Revoir