Wow! 2 months into my exchange already! Time fly’s by so fast. It’s Sunday and unfortunately the holidays are coming to a close. My week in the Pyrenees was incredible and I doubt this blog post will do it justice but I’ll try my best.

We started the 4 hour drive to the Pyrenees Mountains first thing Wednesday morning. Louise’s friend Sarah who stayed with us all holidays joined us and we instantly clicked – it may have helped that she had chocolate… The drive there was really quiet, everyone was sleeping but for once I couldn’t, I was so excited! We stopped for a picnic half way through the drive at a cute little lake and I felt truly french nibbling the cheese and baguette bread. Of course we had to take all 8 different types of cheese for the journey – imagine a week without it *the horror!

The first night was very interesting indeed. Louise, Lina, Sarah and I all bunked in one room of a little house which was connected to another. We had settled in and started playing card games when we heard the people staying in the connected house arrive, 2 adults came over and said a group of boys our age were staying there, apparently they were very tricky teens and we were warned to locked the doors. Sure enough, later that night they climbed over the roof and tried to open the windows to our bunker room, it got the point we had to duct-tape the keyholes!

Fortunately the next day the guys left (or unfortunately… kidding dad!), so life was duct-tape free again. Thursday was our first day of cross country skiing, the field was located about an hours drive from where we were staying, but the drive there didn’t get boring at all – the views were absolutely incredible!! I got pretty hyped up when I saw the snow, it’s been ages since I last skied or played in the snow, so my inner 5 year old was celebrating hard core. We quickly paid for skis and snow boots then headed onto the field. Until this point I sort of imagined that I would just magically be a pro skier and naturally be a boss, but my dreams were crushed very quickly when I couldn’t even put on the skis themselves! For the next half hour I was flopping and falling on my bum like a fish out of water, but eventually I got the hang of it. I don’t really remember skiing in NZ but I do know it was a hell of a lot easier than cross country skiing which was more uphill than down. We skied for about 10km on the first day before the others got sick of it, so we decided to spend the rest of the day tobogganing and mucking around in the snow.

The next day we were joined by a nice family of 3 ( I may or may not have forgotten their names) and they stayed with us for the following 3 days. They had a young boy – about 10 I think – and we had a blast in the snow making a huge snowman. I honestly reckon rolling giant snowballs should be a sport because holy cow were my flabdominals working 😉 We basically followed the same routine as the first day for the next few days (ski 3km, eat lunch, ski another 7km then play in the snow), and yet it never got boring – how could it, it’s snow!

Unfortunately on Monday it was time to leave and separate from the nameless nice family. We packed up again and spent the day driving to the small town of  Prudhomat where we would be staying with some of my host family’s friends who lived on a goat farm. Turns out we arrived at the perfect time of the year, because there were heaps of baby goats!! Words cannot describe how cute they were, they also can’t describe how much they stunk! The goats were farmed for their milk which they made cheese from to sell in their cheesery. Goats cheese is probably my favourite I have tried so far, just because it wasn’t as strong. I also had my first sip of Bordeaux wine and BLAH I’m sorry but it’s wasted on me, my taste buds haven’t developed enough for that strong taste! While on the goat farm I went to the evening milking and decided it’s really no different from cows except they are actually well behaved and don’t poo as much.

Wednesday was one of the most challenging days I’ve had yet while in France, but just because it’s challenging, it don’t mean it was bad. It started amazingly, Elizabeth took me to see the castle .(name and date of  building). which was stunning! Afterwards we went to visit some more of their friends for lunch, after that we visited some more friends and then you guessed it – some more friends! By the time we arrived at the last family’s house for dinner it was 8 o’clock and I was totally wrecked. We hadn’t done much physical stuff but after being questioned a million times in french I felt brain dead from trying to understand everything – the concentration was real! It wasn’t until dinner when I started to really feel the effects of fatigue, every thing seemed to get to me, I’d look around and see everyone laughing and happy and think of my family doing that in NZ. This was probably the most homesick I felt since arriving, it wasn’t much but just because I was so tired my feelings were amplified a little and my eyes randomly started leaking (luckily no one noticed), it was all good after that though because the family had little kids who came to see us and they perked me up immediately, I love kids! As well as that I had to battle my through a seafood dish full of mussels, shrimp and octopus – something I would never ever touch normally – but it was worth it when we had creme caramel for desert!

Despite the little homesickness, the holidays were above and beyond any expectations I had of the exchange as a whole. I honestly don’t know how it could get any better than this!