FRANCIA!

      This past Thursday through Sunday I was in France. I went to France! For the first time in my life. I have now been to Spain (duhh), Portugal, Belgium, and France. I like traveling. It's my hobby. So. France. I went with my second host family and another family. The other family has a daughter (17) and two younger sons. On the way to France we stopped at the milk factory that the dad of the other family works at. The parents all marveled and I couldn't help but think, "it's just milk..." But it was fun anyways! I just thought it was funny at how amused they were by the production and packaging of milk. After the factory tour we headed to Lourdes. There were appearances of Our Lady of Lourdes in the mid 1800s so it's very famous and very beautiful. After our quick visit of the small city we headed to our destination: Cauterets. A small skiing town nestled in the Pyrenees Mountains. The town itself was so cute and beautiful.
     We went skiing on Friday and Sunday. The conditions were not very good since it was so warm. Frankly, I was afraid of falling off the mountain and plummeting to my death on more than one occasion, and I'm a good skier...I promise. I did have fun though. It felt great to feel so free. And the views were absolutely breath taking. We were literally on the top of a mountain in the South of France in the end of April.
     On Saturday we couldn't ski because it was raining, so we went to a spa instead. What a relief because my entire body was sore from the day before...plus the bed was hard as a rock and I didn't get much sleep. At the spa we got to go in the two heated pools. The pools had jets everywhere and they were like luke warm hot tubs. One was outside and one was inside. It was amazing. There would be chairs in the pools with jets everywhere. It was so relaxing! And then we went to the saunas. It was a really perfect day.

     While in France I also went ice skating and watched a lot of movies with Julia and Nora on my computer. That was fun. I had to translate some things and it made me feel happier about my Spanish abilities :) I had a good time in France, but was homesick for Pamplona, my exchangers, and my family back home. I was happy to come home again.