Fall Break at Gerti's

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Hi everyone!

Mom and I have been here for four days now and I thought I should post our adventures thus far. We picked her up from the airport on Sunday, and even though her flight arrived an hour early she didn't come out of the terminal for another hour! There was a problem with the number of suitcases on her plane not matching the number of passengers so it was a security risk... apparently a lot of other planes had the same problem. It was just a mess. She ended up sitting on the runway for an hour while they sorted it all out!

But now she's finally here and we've been having a blast. Sunday afternoon we went for a walk to a nearby playground with the girls (and also to walk off the delicious lunch Gerti served- she's SUCH a good cook!) Monday we played again pretty hard. It's great to practice my French with Anika. She's very patient, speaks very slowly for me and likes to correct my pronounciation. She says "No, pas comme sa!"" when I get a word wrong and says it correctly and has me repeat it. When I finally get it right, she says "Tres bien!" It's really very funny!

That day we also went grocery shopping with the girls which is always interesting because of the different things they have there. Like, for instance, there's a whole wall dedicated to cheese, and another to yogurt. There's also a wall full of milk that sits unrefrigerated and never expires, it's called "long duration milk". I took a picture!

The next day we went and visited Versailles which is very close to where Gerti lives. We had lunch at a little restaurant we later found out was built in the 17th century! In Versailles they are exhibiting works by the American contemporary artist, Jeff Koons. The funny pictures of unusual things in the rooms of Versaille are his artworks, which we were not very impressed with.

After seeing the Hall of Mirrors (I took a picture of our reflection in the mirror, can you tell it's us?) We went out to the garden. It had rained pretty hard, and even hailed a little on our walk to the palace, but when we got out of it the sunset was beautiful and there was even a rainbow!

Then yesterday we went with Anika to a museum in the town Gerti lives, Joey en Josas, where they showed fabric that's unique to the area. After that Mom and I hopped on a train to make it to dinner at a restaurant with my host family- there's a picture of them at the end of the pictures. It was a lot of fun, and also pretty funny to be translating the whole time and talking in both French and English! Tomorrow we have dinner at their house. It's been pretty busy over here but we're having a great time. I hope everything's going well over there! I miss you all!

Leigh

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