“Travelling and wanderlust is second nature to us, it’s in our blood.”

Mont St. Michel

Sofie and I in Bruges

It’s been a long time since I wrote last and I have done a lot in the last few weeks. I have finally adapted to the French lifestyle, not fully but I feel like I am fitting in more which is good. I surprise myself daily by saying words in French in which I didn’t even know I knew. My French is really improving and I am proud of myself. I know I have a long way to go but I am able to have short conversations now, which is much better than when I first arrived and my only response was, “Oui!” 

My adventures continue from the last blog and I am always busy. A few weeks I was invited to go horseback riding with some friends from school. It was going well until we got to a field and my friends explained that they normally race here but they wouldn’t race today as I was not a superb horseback rider. My horse thought it was race day and took off into a full, Black Beauty, gallop. When we finally stopped, the other girls were laughing and said, “I guess he thought we were racing today.” Ha ha. It was not funny at all. I almost died but other than that, it was wonderful to see the country side that I drive past often. 

We had another Rotary weekend, which, of course was fantastic. We went to Mont Saint Michel which is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometer off the country's north-western coast. Since the 8th century it has been the Saint-Michel monastery with a beautiful church at the top of the castle. There were six districts and over two hundred Rotary Youth Exchange students. We saw the beaches of Normandy which was very neat to experience after learning about it in school. Each country sang their national anthem, there was a dance, we went on a 10 kilometer walk and got to know people from many different countries. On the Saturday night I only got twenty minutes of sleep; I went to bed at 6:40a.m. and got up at 7:00a.m. I was extremely tired but slept on the bus and slept in class the next day… haha. The trip was very informational and I had a fantastic time! 

A few weeks ago my friend, Sofie, who is from Norway, invited me to go to Bruges, Belgium for the day with her and her host family. The town looked like one you would see in a fairy-tale. There were waterways winding through the city, between buildings and sidewalks. The old bridges and canals give Bruges the nickname, “The Venice of the North.”  Even with the rain pouring down onto our umbrella tops, our spirits and lust to see the city were not dampened. We climbed the bell tower which was 366 steps, had lunch at a cute, little restaurant and went on a boat tour through the canals. The whole day was really enjoyable and I hope I’ll be able to return to Bruges again. 

I have also been to a few markets, had sleepovers with friends, continued rock climbing Tuesdays after school, been to Lille a lot and spent quality time with my host family. The other day we had my three other host families over  in order for me to meet them and it went really well. They all seem really lovely and I think I will be happy in their homes. 

          It has been two months now and it is so crazy to think so much time has passed. I am leaving for Paris this afternoon for three days, then to Bretagne and back to Paris with my host parents, Miso (Taiwanese) and Daniela (Bolivian). I am looking forward to the 12 day vacation! 

               I will leave you with something a friend of mine wrote who is from Canada, in France:

“I kind of had an epiphany tonight...everyone always tells me how brave I am and stuff for doing the exchange and I really don’t think I’m brave at all…But I realized like, if you really, really, really think about it...what we’re doing is so crazy. Completely giving up our lives in the places we know and love, and leaving behind the people we love for a place we don’t even know nothing about. We don’t know what it’s like, if we'll make friends, if it’ll be the most horrendous year or if it’ll be the best year. It’s probably one of the biggest risks we'll ever take. But whenever people spoke about exchange before I actually became an inbound I never thought of it like that. It was just second nature, like…why not go? It would be so cool, why not? Well today i realized there’s a ton of reasons I could have said, “why not” but it takes a special/different type of person to ignore the “why not’s” and just do it. Traveling and wanderlust is second nature to us, it’s in our blood. You guys are among the strongest and bravest people I know.”              –Victoria Cipryk