Indian Forest and St. Romain de Lerps

I must say I was pretty nervous to meet my second host family this Thursday. My first host family has been absolutely wonderful up to this point, so I guess I had pretty high expectations going to visit my second. Fortunately, they were all very nice and welcoming, and I think everything will be just peachy keen when I finally move in. When I arrived, Mathilde, my future host sister, gave me a tour of the house, and we played some ping-pong with my other future host siblings, Lena and Simone. Not long into the visit, we all sat down for lunch: octopus and fish. It was definitely a change from the usual bread, cheese, and crème, and I admit, I'm not a fan of eating anything that has tentacles, fins, etc... I managed to find an octopus that had its tentacles cut off, because, lets face it, who actually enjoys eating long, stringy tentacles?

After lunch, Charlotte came over, and Mathilde, Charlotte, and I all went to Indian Forest, a ropes course in the woods right outside of Privas. I had a great time, but I would not recommend it to anyone scared of heights. There was this one course where you had to swing on a rope and catch hold of a vertical net maybe 30, 40 ft. away. If you failed to catch the net, a lady would and bring this big ladder to where you were hanging on to the rope, and you would have to come down that way. I really wasn't in the mood to embarrass myself, so I got all nervous when I had to go. Surprisingly, it all turned out good and well because my foot managed to get caught in the net, but it wasn't exactly what you'd call graceful. I was kind of hanging there for a minute upside-down while my foot was stuck, but I managed to wiggle myself out of it. However, the zip-line at the end of the day made up for all these stressful parts: it went between two mountains and we went on it when there was no else near, so it completely silent. The zip-line was almost as cool as the cheese pastry Anne had made a fews days before. Not quite.


Yesterday, we took a drive that went past Valence to pick up Anne's sister and nephew. We had a nice picnic in a park, and afterwards, we continued on to a small little town nestled in the hills where Anne's parents live.  Now I understand why Anne is so nice: her parents are the sweetest couple in the world, and they were just as welcoming as Anne. Together, we drove to St. Romain de Lerps, an old chapel on top of a hill. It was a beautiful view from the top, and it's too bad the weather wasn't better, because one can see Mt. Blanc in the distance on a clear day. Anne's dad took me on a walk where he taught me all about the history of Ardeche and the Drome, and although it was hazy, St. Romain was most definitely a worthwhile excursion.


 When we returned that evening, Charlotte and I went to a friend's house for a party. For those of you who know me well, you know that I'm not a big partier, but I managed to have a reasonably good time. On a slightly different note, to be completely honest, today was not my best day. It wasn't terrible by any means, but I was exhausted after the party, where we ended up spending the night. One can only imagine how difficult it is to sleep with twenty other people going absolutely crazy. When we returned, there were guests at Anne's, and by this point, I had had enough of being social. And, just saying, it's really hard to be social when your brain is trying to frantically understand everything that's going on around and it just can't. I'm definitely not as engaged as I normally am, and am in the mood to spend hours in my room alone reading a good book, watching shows on hulu, and eating chocolate. After I take a shower. Now that I mentioned it, those are sounding really good to me right now, so I think I might just sign off for now. See you soon!