Our last day

Today, Friday April 23, is the day that we are to leave Rouen, and go to the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris for our departure to Boston. While most of the students spent the last night in France at their host's homes, Tom Coltman and I spent the night at the Institution Jean-Paul II in Rouen. Both our hosts lived in Vernon France, which is one hour away from Rouen. To avoid a very early morning, Tom, myself, and our French correspondents stayed in the dorms at JP II. We woke up at 7:00 AM, and within half an hour we were at the parking lot, ready for our departure to Paris. We exchanged our goodbyes with the French students, and continued on the two hour bus ride through the French countryside to Paris. When we arrived at the airport we checked our luggage, and proceeded to go through security. Many students had issues with the new liquid restrictions, but I got by without issues. We then waited in the terminal for our plane to board. Many of us spent our last Euros on the overpriced food that was sold in the airport, but I did not. Once we boarded the plane, we realized that we were not all seated together, like we had been on the flight from Boston to Paris. I was seated next to college student who spent much of the trip sleeping, and an elderly man who spent much of the trip drinking. On the flight I filled out my customs slip, watched bits and pieces of a few movies, and slept. After somewhere between six and eight hours we arrived at Logan airport in Boston. We then spent a great deal of time in various lines, until we were finally able to go to our families, and back to Reading.
- Farid

Versailles

Photos of Paris

The tour of Paris in bus

From Trocadero

In the Louvre, while waiting for other students who went to the bathroom

Le Sacré Coeur

View of Paris from Montmartre

Le musée d'Orsay with our guide (who evidently came directly from Hogwarts)

In front of Notre Dame de Paris

photos of Rouen

photos of Caen

At the memorial



The American cemetary
A German cannon from WWII

photos of Honfleur and Etretat

Honfleur, a cute fishing harbor on the ocean


The cliffs of Etretat

Photos of Giverny (Claude Monet's house)

Paris, je t'aime!

Yesterday was our first of three days in Paris. It was quite an adventure! Everyone met at the train station in Rouen and sleepily got their tickets from our teachers before saying bye to our amis francais (who were going to school for the first day after vacation) and then went on the train. After about an hour we arrived in the city and met with our guide for our bus tour of Paris. When the tour began, many were relieved to hear that our guide was speaking English. We learned a lot about the different buildings in Paris as we drove by them, and many frantically attempted to take pictures from the windows. Some were more successful than others, and the chaos that took place inside the bus when we passed by le Tour Eiffel for the first time was enough for the bus to stop for a five minute break. Everyone piled out of the bus, with cameras in hand, and stood on the platform with a picture perfect view of Paris' main attraction. It's hard to think of another time we ever looked more like tourists. It was in front of le Tour Eiffel that we also had our first encounters with the men selling Eiffel Tower paraphenilia...everywhere. We were able to ignore the heckling in order to take pictures, for the most part. Once the bus tour was over and we had all seen the city, and the Seine, we entered the Musée du Louvre. The first task: our group all went to see La Joconde, otherwise known as the Mona Lisa. We had to push through the crowd surrounding the painting to get a decent look or picture. The size of the masterpiece was slightly suprising, and the large empty wall it was on only helped make the painting look smaller. After seeing that, we were allowed free time in which some looked at French paintings, while others went to the Egyptian and Mesopotamian exhibits. Everyone was able to see a lot of art and many sculptures. The visit was well worth the wait, although it was short lived. I'm sure we'd all love to have an extra week to go through all of the art in that museum. We ended the day with returning to l'Arc de Triomphe and walking up and down les Champs-Elysées. There was plenty of time to shop before returning to the train by the Metro. The Metro is a lot cleaner than the subways in Boston! Most of us slept on the train ride home, exhausted and already trying to ready ourselves for day 2 in Paris.

some more photos

It seems like most of us ended up at Deauville - there was plenty of French food on display; including chocolate frogs

And at the open air market all sorts of jams and honey.

And the famous people here before us - couldn't find anyone to tell me what it cost to have one's name added!

First glimpse of the Eiffel Tower

First attempts at negotiation - those guys were very persistent!

And the Mona Lisa is back there somewhere!

Altogether a wonderful day - the weather was perfect.

de l'appareil de photo de Mme White

Sunday, the 18th of April

Today was the second day of the weekend spent with our families. The Pluchets took me on a nice trip to Deauville, a coastal town a little to the west of where the Seine meets the Channel. I compare it to the Hamptons: it's a place for the 'haut société' of Paris to go on the weekends. We walked around looking at the shops, then settled down near the beach for a picnic lunch. Delicious. Then Paul and I walked along the beach; there was a great view. We also saw the names of well-known actors, like Harrison Ford and Sean Connery, on the small fences along the boardwalk. They are there because Deauville is the host of a film festival.

From Deauville, we went to Honfleur, right on the estuary of the Seine. It wasn't an upper-class resort like Deauville, but there were still lots of people, including Margaret and Cinzia with their hosts Valentine and Charlotte. Honfleur also had some nice coastal scenery as it is a port. We toured the many small shops, and the Pluchets treated me to a 'perle noire', a small pastry made of meringue with chocolate frosting.

Le Pont de Normandie

Le Pont sur le Canal du Havre

Le Pont de Tancarville

Le Pont de Brotonne

Le Pont Flaubert

From Honfleur, we took the scenic route along Seine back home to Le Thuit. On the way, we crossed at every opportunity, a total of four bridges: Le Pont de Normandie, le Pont sur le Canal du Havre (Le Havre is the bigger port across the Seine from Honfleur), le Pont de Tancarville, et le Pont de Brotonne. I, a bridge enthusiast, was in seventh heaven. We also passed by le Pont Flaubert, finished in September, 2008, a bridge in Rouen whose entire main span can be raised and lowered to allow ships to pass.

A little bit downriver from le Pont de Brotonne was Villequier. This was the town where Victor Hugo's daughter drowned in the Seine during a tidal bore (when the tide goes back up a river). This incident inspired the writing of Hugo's poem: 'Demain, dès l'Aube'. Also in Villequier was le Château Villequier, now a hotel and a place for wedding receptions.

A bientot, Dennis

About the Icelandic dust cloud

We are aware of the problem and so are all the French families. We have not contacted Air France yet because nobody really knows what is happening. We will do so as soon as the airports re-open or when it gets much closer to our departure time.

The French families have assured us that no-one will be on the street and Air France will get organized as soon as they can.

We will keep you all posted and informed as soon as we can.

Everyone is having a great time and we are off to Paris tomorrow for a tour of the city and a visit to the Louvre.

Mrs Hennessy, Mrs White, Mrs Festa

Friday, the 16th day of April

You know what? I'm not even going to apologize for my lateness because everyone else seems to be equally late. So yeah, Givernie. Has anyone mentioned that the busses we've been riding in seem to have some freaky alien technology that just saps your energy the minute you sit down? Because after 1.25 hours I was mad beat (albeit only temporarily). That changed once I saw Monet's garden becuase I was too busy being amazed at the sheer volume of flowers. There was just row upon row upon row of flowers as far as the eye could see. I mean, we're talking mad flowers. In any case, the actual house was a bit of an enigma, because aside from one room with a bunch of Monet reproductions, it was filled with hundreds of Japanese paintings. I don't know if Monet just really liked Japanese art or if there was some business agreement or what. After that, we paid a visit the famous pond which was really cool. It's the kind of place where you can just sit for a long time and think deep, metaphorical thoughts and have deep, metaphorical conversations with people. After being late getting back to the group and missing our opportunity to get ice cream, we walked over to the impressionist art museum where our guide, thankfully, spoke English. Not a whole lot to say about that because it was pretty much exactly what you would expect, but parts of it were honestly very interesting.

Some random photos of the students taken by Mme White

Everybody listening carefully.

Eventually you will see plenty of photos of the cathedral

And everything is totally educational, of course.

Here we are outside the church dedicated to Sainte Jeanne d'Arc (aka Joan of Arc)

Saturday the 17th of April

As Julia and Caroline said before, this was our first day with just the families. I took a lot of pictures, but unfortunately I forgot my connector at home. Anyway, so today my family took me to a beach in Northern France. (I forget the name of it, but it started with a M.)

It was really pretty. The water was surprisingly really blue and instead of sand, there were rocks! For lunch, we had a picnic along the shore near the boats. Afterwards, we had climbed up a big rock at the beach which had a very beauitful view. (Hopefully, i can find my connector and put up some pictures later!) After we finished eating, we went down to this place where you sit down on this cart type thing and two people pedal (like a bike) on each side and you pedal your way down the train tracks. It is kind of hard to explain (again, i wish i could put up pictures!), but it was really fun!

After that, we went downtown and got some crepes (which were very good) and headed back up to the trail to catch the train back home. It was a very fun experience. After that, we went down to a place called Bonfleur (or Honfleur?) where we walked around and had dinner. It was very fun and there were many things to do! Then, around 22:00 (10:00pm) we headed home.

I apologize for posting so late but as you can see, ive been very busy! Also, has anyone noticed how different the keyboards are in France? It is very tedious to type! Anyway, today was a great experience and so has the trip overall.


(Hopefully posting pictures soon!)
Erin Zager

Thursday the 15th

Sorry this is so late! I've been very very busy and don't have much time to blog.

So on Thursday, our third day, we took a bus to the town of Caen. There, we visited a World War II museum that was very interesting, but very sad at the same time to see how many people died in the war.

After that, we took a short bus ride with a tour guide accompanying us to see the Amercian cemetery for those who feel at the D Day beaches. It was very inspiring to see how many people had died for the freedom of so many people they had never met. It was staggering to see the white crosses (and Stars of David) stretching out in every direction into the foggy day. Did you know there are only four woman in the entire cemetery?

After that, we drove to the Juno beaches to see where the tanks were on D Day. They were pretty far away from the actual beach, but they were pretty effective, even from that distance.

After the group came back and had dinner, most of us went bowling in one large group. This type of bowling was different than the bowling we were used to becaue they were the large balls! It was an upbeat ending to what had been a mostly somber day.

Nous passons un bon séjour en Rouen!

-Cinzia et Elysa

Saturday April 17th 2010

Hello Everyone in Reading!

Well today was our first free day in Rouen and the families could talk us anywhere they wanted to. My family took me to Deauville, a city famous for its shop and beaches.

In Deauville we shopped for a while and then walked to the boardwalk, where they have all kinds of hurdle-shaped wood planks with actors names written on them. I recognized Tobey MacGuire, Steve Martin, Farrah Fawcett, and Morgan Free
man.

On the beach I saw typical American things like stores selling beach toys and stuff but I also saw a French custom very particular to Deauville. Here, you can rent these tens and umbrellas that are vibrant reds and blues for like 20 euros to have for the day, and they have been come to be known as Deauvilles signature.

After leaving the beach, we had lunch at a restaurant and walked around some more. I saw a French library, la bibliothèque!

That was it for me, but Caroline ONeil went to a mall and saw a fashion show on the escalator! It was awesome! She also wants to give a shout-out to Mrs. Mahoneys Block F Geometry Class!

I know we all miss Reading, but I hope this gives everyone an idea of whats going on over here, en France! Au Revoir!

-Julia Paradis, Caroline ONeil, (Erin Zager will post later)