Jesse is mastering French on his GapBreak in France

Here is the next installment of Jesse’s blog about his GapBreak adventure in France .....

About a week ago my host parents took me to the nearby city of Cavaillon to eat dinner with the godparents of my host brother and sister. They were an elderly couple of upwards of seventy-years, and one with true French class. Their living room was filled with expensive looking oil paintings, and they owned a well groomed Shitsu named Etoile. Later that evening, as we ate dinner, I found myself joking and entertaining the couple with stories of Australia and France and the vast differences therein in complete French. I remembered how, little more than two months ago, I was so unfamiliar with the language that I was almost too nervous to speak. And I thought to myself, I have really accomplished something here.

But enough about me. Summer has fully descended on France over the past two weeks, with many gapers taking day trips to nearby beaches on the Southern and Western French coast with their families, as well as spending hours at a time beneath the sun, and celebrating this beautiful time of year in French style. Ellen has moved to her second placement in the beautiful coastal village of Marignane, a short twenty minute drive from the booming metropolis of Marseille, and but a ten minute drive from the white sands and crystal clear waters of the Southern Coast. Likewise, Will has changed to a second placement in the Northern French city of Nantes where, although far from the other Australian gappers, he is having a great time with his new family.

Furthermore, school is out for the next eight sunny weeks, and this has freed the schedules of our normally studious host brother and sisters immensely, and, likewise, has allowed them the time to show us some of the treasures of France. Sarah Smith made the two hundred odd kilometre journey to Spain with her host family, and spent a week their enjoying the Spanish culture, before later spending a night in the sovereign city of Monaco on the magnificent Cote d’Azur. Sarah Wray enjoyed a weekend in the suburbs of Marseille when her host family drove their combi van there, whilst Maddie enjoyed a weekend spent with her real family in London.

Whilst Henry made a day trip to Lyon, the second most populous city of France, my host parents took me on an overnight trip through Provence (where fields of vibrantly coloured lavender bloomed on either side of the rode) and to their holiday home in Grenoble, a village in the Alps but twenty kilometres from the Italian border. As we entered the mountain range, I saw that the seemingly ephemeral snow that peaked each mountain had melted away since my last visit, though the recent change of seasons had made the beautiful mountain ranges all the more verdant, and teeming with life. A somewhat exhausting hike into the surrounding mountains the next morning exposed more of this luscious scenery, and I saw the liquid remains of the melted snow trickling down the mountains to join the immense freshwater river that ran between them.

On a more superficial note, the Soldes (sales) that officially started at the change of seasons has seen many of us travelling to the commercial havens of such cities as Aix-en-Provence, Marseille and Montpellier to capitalise on the clothes, music, books and souvenirs offered at bargain prices therein.

Last Thursday also marked the official launch of the Festival d’Avignon, which saw the Provencal city filled with tourists of all lands and languages. A group of three of us met up at the pub which has become our hangout and enjoyed some sunny French drinking before heading to the main street to enjoy the lively, colourful spectacle of parade floats that followed.

That’s all from me for now. The next two weeks are set to be two of the busiest, most fun-packed weeks of my life, with a group camping trip and music festival at the coastal city of Argelès-Sur-Mer, the five-day fete of the village which has become my home, and an ending trip to Paris all in the works. They will, however, mark the end of our stays with our families in France, a date which is approaching quickly and with dread.

Until then,
Jesse