St. John's!!!

Ok, so I'm out of St. Pierre and in St. John's waiting until tomorrow morning to come home! Can't wait! It's so great to be able to walk through the malls and understand what people are saying! You really take for granted what you have until you no longer have it. I spent all my Euros before I left, which was good because I don't need to try and change them. I got 3 of my final marks back today. I got an A in all three of them. Got a 75% on my lit final, which isn't bad. I have no idea what I got in my culture course, and to be honest, I really don't want that mark back because I know I done bad, that exam was brutal! Anyway, enough of my ranting! Only 1 more day!

J'ai hate de retourner chez moi! (I'm excited to go home!)

Amanda

One week...

WOOHOO!!!!!!

*Lamest post ever

2 weeks!

Only 2 weeks left! I'm so excited! Only problem is we have 3 tests + a presentation next week, then the last week we have 3 exams and a play. It's gonna be a busy 2 weeks, but that will make the time go faster I hope. I'm going shopping tomorrow (kinda). I hope I can finally find some souvenirs. We had a wine tasting today. It would have been ok if I liked wine to begin with, but since I don't like wine, it wasn't all that great for me. It is raining like crazy here. No snow yet. Mme. Luberry told us that it doesn't usually snow here until January, so I guess that is kinda good. I wouldn't wanna get stuck here due to snow. I really can't believe how quick the time passed. There were times where it seemed like we were never gonna get out of here. I'm glad that the program is almost over, but I will miss it here.

Amanda

Good times...

...fever, flu, headache, bad back = good times! Ya right! So I was at Bertrand's Saturday night and I fell down the last 10 stairs at his house. As if my back wasn't bad enough. It doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would though. Friday night we went to the Joinville bar to listen to Albin's group Blague et Hale (Albin is one of our professors here). It wasn't bad, but I didn't really stay long enough to hear a whole lot because the smoke there was unbearable! Veronique came out with us for the first time. Saturday night, we went to the Maringoun'fe to eat...it was good, but me and Heather didn't the desserts that we ordered, I told the waitress and we still didn't get them. Oh well. No biggie! Anyway, that was a short but sweet post.

Missin' everyone so much

Just over 3 weeks left!

Moins qu'un mois qui reste! (Less than a month left!)

So I just remembered that I haven't updated this thing in a while. Only 29 days left! A nice bit has happened, but I can't remember all of it. We have a new girl staying with us now. Her name is Veronique. She moved in last week and is here until December 21. She is from Moncton and is here on a bursary program to observe how to become a teacher. She is Francophone so she really helps us with our french. She is really nice too. Tonight we went to the Joinville bar (not the dancing part) to hear one of our professors play. It was pretty good, but the smoke was starting to irritate me, so me and Veronique left. I just decided to update my blog since I haven't done that in a while. I am very excited to go home. It is FREEZING here! I brought warm clothes, but it's not warm enough! Anyway, that's it for now. I will update again soon (if I remember!)

Gros Bisous de St. Pierre (Lots of love from St. Pierre)

Amanda

P.S. Photo count has gone up, but I lost track!

Tired...

It's 2:30am here. I have no idea why I'm not at the bar, or asleep. Just decided to post a quick update. My throat is better now. I went out tonight and was drinking, but I still don't want to go to the bars. I got a 90 on my last phonetics test and an 81 overall in one of my grammar courses. I was very excited to here that. I was talking with Ambre again tonight. I wanna take her back to Newfoundland with me! She's so adorable. There's not a whole lot of new news, so I'm gonna leave it at that for now. I'll post again as soon as I can. Miss everyone

Amanda

P.S. I'm too tired to try and find a quote to put here!

Sick, and in St. Pierre...lovely!

So as my title says, I'm sick. I have a sore throat. It hurts so much. I think it is because of the smoke from the bars to be honest. But despite the fact that I have a sore throat, today was an awesome day! I spent the afternoon talking to Mme. Luberry (the woman that I am staying with) and Ambre (her great-grand-daughter). It was good because I was speaking all french. I didn't understand everything that they said (obviously), but I understood it for the most part. Ambre (that's how they spell Amber in french, yeah I know, they're backwards), was talking about swimming, and I understood everything she said. She was almost as excited as I was when I told her that I understood her.

The house that we are staying in has an upper level. We have been here 6 weeks and haven't been upstairs. Today Mme. Luberry showed me the upstairs. I'm so jealous because the rooms upstairs are a lot nicer than our rooms. I didn't want to stay in my room after that, but I like my room anyway (did I mention that I have a sink in my room?)

I went to Bertrand's tonight for a little bit....bad idea. My throat is killing me right now. It has gotten worse! If only I knew how to stop talking...hmm, not possible. :P I hope I feel a little bit better tomorrow because I need to go to a souvenir shop. I haven't even been to one yet. Actually, I went to one, but it wasn't specifically for souvenirs.

Anyway, that's it for me for tonight! I am so glad to see a couple new posts on my bulletin board! G'night everyone (It's 2:30am here)

Bon soir! (Had to throw some French in there somewhere!)

Amanda

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
- Kurt Vonnegut

Presque vendredi! (Almost Friday!)

So I found out on Tuesday that I can't come home on December 7th anymore. I have to wait and come home on the 8th instead. Apparently the flight leaving here doesn't get in St. John's until 5 and my flight from St. John's to Deer Lake was at 5:30. I would have never been able to make the connection. So I have my flight changed to 10AM Saturday morning....I'm getting excited for it already!

I got a package from mom today with all kinds of goodies in it. It was so nice to get it! It was like Christmas had come early. We have been watching One Tree Hill while we are here. We have the 4th season watched, and we are now watching the first season. We are a little backwards, but Erin already had season 4 on the laptop. We watched the first season online. Erin called her mom and is getting her to send us the second season. I think Stacey is getting the third season sent.

We had juggling on Tuesday afternoon. It was really fun. I can't exactly juggle, but I can do better than I thought I'd be able to. I'm gonna keep practicing and who knows. I might be able to by the time I get home. Anyway, that's all for me for now.

Amanda

La morale de cette histoire, c'est qu'il faut boire avant d'mourir!
(The morale of this story is that you must drink before you die!)

P.S. Photo count has gone up, I just can't remember it! Lol....close to 500 I think! The little quote about drinking is song lyrics from one of the songs that we sing in class. Most of them are kiddie songs, but they are kinda fun to sing!

Almost done the fourth week...

It's me again! Just wanted to make another post to keep everyone up to date. Erin and Stacey are gone out to belly-dancing. Just got online to do some chatting and updating. Hope everything is well with everyone. Miss you all like crazy! Nothing overly interesting has happened since I last updated. I SUCK at pelote basque! And I mean I SUCK! I think I only hit the ball 10 times in the hour and a half that we played. I didn't take any pictures, but I'm sure someone will have some on Facebook. My arm is still really sore from it. This Friday we have "initiation au hand-ball" which is basically soccer with your hands (I think?). I'll let you know after Friday. Anyway, another (kinda) short post. Loves y'all!

Amanda
Love all. Trust few. Do harm to no one - Shakespeare

P.S. Photo count hasn't changed.

12:30 on a Saturday night (or Sunday morning)

As the title of this post says, it's 12:30 on a Saturday night. Everyone else is gone out to the club and I am lying in bed updating my blog. I'm such a loser! HA HA! Like I really care. I have another 10 weekends left to go out. Man that makes it sound like such a long time! We went out last night though, and I wasn't really in the mood to go out tonight. We went out for a little bit to a friend's house, but it was only for an hour and a half. Erin and Stacey are gone out to the club too, but I decided to come back home.

Making these posts is hard cause I don't remember what I have already written. So, this is the start of week 4. That makes me excited! One week closer to coming home! This week was crazy for homework too. We have at least 3 tests a week. It's absolutely crazy! It's a lot more work than if I was home going to school. I'm still managing to have fun though. Erin and Stacey usually take a nap everyday and I go crazy just sitting here in my room. I start thinking about home and it makes me so homesick, but not to the point of crying. I haven't cried since the first Sunday that I've been here, so it's been 2 weeks! Go me!

Tomorrow (which is Monday now,) we are playing pelote basque which is another popular game here in St. Pierre. I think it's similiar to squash, but I'm not really sure. I will take some pictures of that too. Speaking of pictures, my count is now 440...didn't go up a whole lot, but like I said earlier, we were basically doing homework all week so nothing to really take pictures of.

Ok, so you can tell how bored I am by how long this post is getting. If you're wondering how come I haven't really posted any pictures on here it's because it takes such a long time. It'll probably have to wait until I come home (they will be put on my google page then).

Anyway, this post is long enough. It is now 1:00am. Miss everyone. Keep posting on the corkboard!

Amanda
Love all. Trust Few. Do Wrong To No One - Dr. Seuss

Troisème Semaine est commencée (Third week is started)

Ok, so this is the beginning of the third week. Only 10 weeks left! Oh my god, that sounds like such a long time! Our trip to Langlade and Miquelon on Saturday was fun. You wouldn't believe the hills that we walked up. Yes hills as in more than one. It was retarded! I have pictures to show when I get back. I'm gonna cut this post off now. Short and sweet.

BTW, photo count as of now is 438

End of Week Two

So, today is the end of week two (well, school wise). Things are going good so far. Still missing home like crazy, but that's normal. Last week we went to Le Rustique Wednesday thru Saturday and on Friday and Saturday night after Le Rustique we went to Le Joinville (another club here in St. Pierre). Le Joinville is more of a disco type bar, and you can dance there. Unfortunately, it's still legal to smoke in bars here, so I had a sore throat all last week. We didn't go to Le Rustique this week because we've had so much homework to do. We can't go tonight because we have to get up at 6 tomorrow morning to go to Langlade et Miquelon, the other two islands. The boat leaves at 8 tomorrow morning and we are gonna be gone for 11 hours! It's a Saturday...can't they give us a break? Oh well, I will be able to take lots of photos! Speaking of photos, I've taken 233 already and it's only the second week. I can only image how many I will have by the time I get ready to come home.

So far, we've toured an island called Isle aux Marins, visited a Museum, toured St. Pierre on foot and in bus, went shopping, went to the patisseries (bakeries) and went to the bars. I'm gonna bring back a few sweets for you guys to try. Me, my roommates and some of the other people from the program usually go to Bertrand's house in the evenings (he's the bus driver at my school "a.k.a the Francoforum"). Today, we played pétanque. It's like land bowling. It was fun but kinda boring. I have pictures of it to show when I get back.

One thing that I forgot to mention the last time I posted was that I have a sink in my room! I thought it was so weird at first, but it's actually quite good to have it there.

Wow, this is a long post. Anyway, I'm done for now. Thought I would get the post in while I can. Hope you guys are having fun (but not too much without me). I miss everything loads and see you in 2 1/2 months!

Vous me manquez! (I miss you!)
A plus tard! (Later!)

P.S. The picture is of me and my two roommates. Stacey, Erin, and me. I think that was before we were going to Le Rustique one night.

First post in St. Pierre

Hey guys. Hope all is well. This is my first post since actually being in St. Pierre. I'm doing good and having fun. Hope you guys are fine too. I miss everyone and can't wait to come home. We went out to "La Rustique" the past 2 nights and we are going out again tonight. I can't wait. "La Rustique" is a bar here in St. Pierre. I like my roommates. They aren't as bad as I thought they were. We are getting along well. I didn't even start talking to them until we were in the airport. Now we know so much about each other, it's crazy. Anyway, I have to go now because we only have a limited amount of time on the computer. Love you guys and miss you so much!

Au Revoir!

And I'm off!

I'm off to St. Pierre in about half an hour or so, so I decided to update the blog once more before I go. Besides, I wanted to try and put a picture on here so that once I take some good ones in St. Pierre I can put some on here for you guys to see. Maintenant, c'est tout le français, tout le temps! (Now it's all french all the time!)

September 8th

Ok, so I'm still not in St. Pierre yet and I've updated twice. I dunno how often I will be able to get on a computer down there so I'm gonna try to update as much as possible. Wonder if anyone has actually started reading this yet? Hmm....

Other than spending $50 on books at Chapters today, nothing eventful has really happened yet. Oh...they misplaced my placement test in the lab and thought that I didn't show up to write the test. I got an e-mail asking me why I didn't write the test, then another e-mailing me back shortly after saying that they found the test. Thank God they did cause I didn't wanna pay $2000 for nothing. Anyway, I'm leaving for St. Pierre tomorrow and apparently as soon as we get on the plane it's all French all the time. Yipee!

That's all the news for now. Remember, don't have too much fun without me!

Vie, Rie, Ama!
(Live, Laugh, Love)

My first REAL update (off the west coast)

Alright, so I'm finally out of Corner Brook. In St. John's right now. Just got here. Still really nervous and I'm missing home already, but I'll be fine. Can't wait to get out there and start speaking some French. Miss all you guys already. For those of you that I didn't get to see before I left, sorry. I know I shouldn't make excuses, but I was really sick this weekend and super busy Monday and Tuesday. Anyway, I'm out. Don't have too much fun without me.

Miss you all!

Footnote

What do you guys think of my quote at the bottom of my posts? Just in case you dunno which one I'm talking about, here it is again....

Souririez! C'est la deuxième meilleure chose que tu peux faire avec tes lèvres. (Smile! It's the second best thing you can do with your lips.)

My first REAL update

Ok guys, here's my first update! Woot! I'm excited. Anyway, I met the requirement to get into the program, so now I am going for sure! I am going to Deer Lake tomorrow to get my tickets to and from St. John's. Can't wait! I've started getting stuff ready already....is that weird? Anyway, just wanted to post a little update (not that anyone is reading it since I'm not gone yet :P, this has been in draft for a while, so I decided to finally post it :P)

Point?

I basically just set up this blog to let my friends and family know what's going on during my trip to St. Pierre. This is a lot quicker than trying to e-mail everyone with an update. Keep checking because I will post whenever I get the time (or have something interesting to tell). I might just send you a quick e-mail to let you know that I have posted an update.

Keep reading!

Souririez! C'est la deuxième meilleure chose que tu peux faire avec tes lèvres. (Smile! It's the second best thing you can do with your lips.)