French Diary – the week-end with families

Letošní anglicko-francouzská studentská výměna proběhla v termínu od 26. března do 4. dubna. Studenti spolupracovali se svými francouzskými protějšky na anglických projektech Parodyland. O tom jak studenti strávili týden jste si již přečetli. Seznamte se nyní i s tím, jak trávili víkend v rodinách.

On Saturday morning we got up very late so we skipped breakfast and went to a restaurant straight away. We ordered our dishes and talked about various topics such as religion, presidential election in France or Communist Regime in Czechoslovakia. (Our penfriends’ parents are very talkative and curious.) Afterwards, we set off to a beach situated in a small town of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie nearby, where we had booked a group surfing lesson with some other friends. In spare time before the lesson, we were wandering along the coast, collecting shells. At half past four we headed to the changing rooms to put on the wetsuits, which transpired to be a rather demanding process. Our instructor briefly explained to us what to do and then, excitedly, we ran into the waves, which were very strong that day. After an hour, though very reluctantly, we left for the changing rooms. Even though almost nobody had managed to stand onto the board and was simply lying on it throughout whole lesson (here, we have to appreciate our instructor’s patience), we’d really enjoyed it. In the evening we went to a basketball match in Challans that we unfortunately lost. In spite of that we really liked it. Each of us ended their day with a dinner at our penfriends‘.

Aneta Roubová, Lucie Odstrčilová, Eliška Hlavatá

2^nd April, Sunday

I had to wake up at 7 o’clock, because we had a special plan for today. For breakfat I took typical french breakfast, La brioche avec de la confiture. After we went by car  in Grand Parc PUY DU FOU, that’s a big center, where are a lot of theatres.

When we got out of car I met one boy of my Exchange group. During a day I met maybe five other students. We saw seven performances. All of them were in french but it didn’t matter I understood. That was awesome, amazing, arresting, exciting… I’ve never seen anything like this!! Two performances were in big treatres, whose stages were as large as small hockey hall in Pardubice. Other performances were outside sometimes I didn’t enjoying so much bacause it was cold and windy. Performance Mousquertaire de Richelieu was the best.

In the evening we were on the beach Plage de La Braire. We were looking for shells and watching sunset that was glamorous.

Zuzana Riegerová

In Sunday I was with my family on the Carnaval de Cholet, which was 100^th anniversary of this carnival. The family told me that there was around 85 000 of people. There was a 17 cars with moving statues in different themes (magic, race car, Alice and the Wonderland, etc.), a 17 group of dancers, instrumentalist or singers, a 11 cars with music and lots of people with little pieces of paper and confetti and they were throwing it everywhere. When we leaved, we had this stuff all over us. The parade of cars was long almost 2km and in the end of track was amusement park for children and also for teenagers. You could buy food, drink and a big bags filled by confetti. It was a big event, but on 8^th April the same cars and people will ride the same track but in the night. The cars will be covered by little colourful lights and there will be a lot of people in funny costumes and it will be probably bigger, louder and more amazing. It’s a pity that I can’t see it. It would be so strong and wonderful experience and memory.

Renáta Nováková