I left my host families house for the last time to go to my new host families for the remaining part of my exchange. But before I moved houses we were going to spend the weekend at the beach and after go to Normandy for a bit.

We picked up two of Louise’s friends (Mathilde and Justine) who joined us for the weekend and drove to Claouey, a small town situated beside a harbour. It was really pretty there and La Dune De Pyla was just across the harbour at Arcachon so we had a pretty nice view. We arrived quite late at night so we only had time to check out the harbour, unpack and have dinner. There was an amazing plum tree with thousands of little orange plums growing from it, they were so sweet and over the course of the weekend I reckon I ate about 100 in total – it was true love!

The next day the people we were staying with took us out on the harbour on their boat, we zoomed around the bay and stopped for a swim by a little beach. I enjoyed it so much, especially because it was a pretty rough day and whenever we went over a huge wave you could feel the G-Force! We spent the afternoon biking around Claouey and swimming because of the sweltering weather. It was about 34 degrees and despite sun-blocking, up every hour I had a bright red back at the end of the day. Typical.

The next day we went on the boat again and visited Les Tchanques – 2 houses built on stilts in the middle of the basin. We were allowed to go on the decks of the houses and look around, it was pretty cool! That afternoon I swam for several hours before retreating under an umbrella to read a book as I was getting sunburnt too easily in the blazing sun.

On Monday we spent the morning swimming and the afternoon packing up and cleaning the house. Denis, Louise, and her two friends would be returning home, while Elisabeth and I were going to Normandy for her conference and so I could see the places where my ancestors lived (Read more about my ancestory on my post “the Le Lievre’s family history” if you are interested). I said goodbye to Louise and her friends ( I will be seeing Denis again when we go to Paris in 2 weeks time) and we started the long drive. We stayed the night at a friend of Elisabeth’s and then continued the next day. Let me tell you, that drive felt like the longest of my life. It was 1000 times worse than the plane ride coming over. It was 38 degrees and the car had no air conditioning, havining the window down did zilch because the air that came in was hot. I felt so sick and broke into weird hives that ended up staying on my for a week. It. Was. Harrable. On the bright side, we did stop on the way to a town called La Rochelle, where Francois Le Lievre left France on the Comte de Paris.

When we FINALLY arrived after 7 hours, I was drained of all energy and suddenly not so excited to see Normandy. We stopped at a tiny town called Villedieu-les-Poêles, which was known for it’s copper. It was the centre of all the towns we wanted to visite as each was merly 20km apart in total. The first thing I noticed about Normandy were the cows! I didn’t realise it but I hadn’t seen any cows in france up untill this point and it reminded me of home quite a lot. The first town we visited was Beslon, the birth place of Francois Le Lievre, it was teeny tiny and very cute. I spent a good 3/4 hour at the cemetary trying to search for the name of one of our relations but had no luck. The other towns that followed were also very small and nothing really stood out about them – but the scenary was very nice. We visited Montbrey, Sainte-Cécile, Saultchevreuil, and La Lande-d’Airou. I think (if I remember correctly), it was at Sainte-Cécile that I found a grave with Le Lievre on it. By that point I had really got into searching the cementaries, it was sort of fun ;D

After our cemetary antics we went out to dinner and I had the best bacon salad ever (only thing I could eat on the menu) and ice cream. We spent the night in a youth hostel with an awesome view of Le Mont-Saint-Michel – a magnificent castle built on an island. I couldn’t get any good photos of it because it was a hazy day, unfortunately. I called dad quickly to tell him about every thing (and the weird heat reaction) and then hit the sack – I was out like a light!

The following day we drove back to my new host family (they live in St Symphorian) and stopped on the way for Elisabeth’s conference. I didn’t go to the conference because there was a swimming pool where it was held (hallaluia!) but I saw heaps of men walking out afterwards with sweat drowned t shirts and literally dripping like a melting icecream! It was pretty funny.

When we arrived at my new host families house: The Charriers, it wasn’t very hard to say goodbye to my old host family. We’d made plans to go to Paris for a weekend in 2 weeks so I knew I’d see them soon. I still got a bit teared up when they left – just because it all happened so quickly and it was strange moving again after 6 months. My new host family were so kind and I immediatly slotted right in like a jigsaw piece. The transition was a lot easier than I expected and I am so relieved for that.

I’ll write more about my first week with the Charrier’s in the