My presentation at the French school in Chelabre

A while ago my mom came up with the great idea to make me attend a day at the school in Chelabre. So we had gone to that school to have a meeting with the principal. She said that I wasn’t allowed to sit in with a class, but I was allowed to be a guest. So today I had to go in front of a French class and do a presentation to them. We arrived at the school in the morning and got the projector set up for my slide show. My presentation was going to be about what it was like back home in Canada. So I had a whole slideshow of pictures of Canada. When everything was set up the teacher of the class, my parents, and I waited for the bell to ring and the students to arrive.

The bell rang and all the students lined outside of the class waiting to be let in. When they came in I started my presentation. I started it in English at first, but I was speaking too fast so I switched into French. When I finished I answered questions.

I was kind of nervous at first and wondering what my parents had got me into, but I relaxed after a while and kind of enjoyed it. That when the bell rang and they asked me if a wanted to join break with them so I went out with them. When I got out all of their friends were asking me about Canada. It was quite interesting. After the break I did another presentation to the second class. That was the longest presentation I have ever done. It was two hours long among the two different classes.  I ended up speaking to about 30 kids between the two classes. Now the teacher wants to start up a pen pal thing between me and my class back home in Chilliwack. Kind of cool. A lot of the kids in the class are now friends with me on Facebook too. After I was done we went home and did a hike with our friends Shelley and Eric who were here visiting with us at the time.

Montsegur

Today we wanted to go to the chestnut festival near where we live. When we arrived there we realized that it looked like one of the worst kind of fun we have ever seen. So we made a few rearrangements on our day’s plans and went to the famous castle of Montsegur. The castle of Montsegur was the last holdout of the Cathars while they were being killed. It was a really cold day and the castle of Montsegur was at the top of a mountain.

By the time we got up to the castle we were freezing. We couldn’t see anything besides the castle because it was so foggy.

You could only imagine how miserable it must have been for the Cathars who were held up on that mountain top for over a year. Apparently it was a very cold winter that year they spent there before the French troops came up and slaughtered most of the 800 people. Some were freed but many chose to be burnt at the stake for their religious beliefs. Warm at last but not in a good way. We looked around the castle for a while and then went back to the car. When we got in the car we were so thankful for the warmth. We then went to museum of the castle of Montsegur and then went home.

Our visit with grandma and grandpa

Our visit with grandma and grandpa was definitely a highlight of the trip. They arrived by train in Toulouse. We kept very busy going to the coast, thermal baths, churches, and castles. Grandpa, with his love of swimming suggested that we go swimming in Lac Montbell near our house. The lake looked beautiful from the shore; however it was quite mucky and cold. Yet we all jumped into the frigid water and grandpa was very proud

After Lac Montbell we went home to have some snacks on the terrace back home.

The next day was also a search for water. So we decided that we would go to one of the many thermal baths that were near our house. Today we were going to try out the thermal baths called Rennes des Bains. Before we went there we stopped at the morning market in Lavelanet; this market was supposed to be very French and cultural, but from my opinion and everybody else’s it wasn’t the best. We all won some Arabian sweet because my grandpa starting dancing around the market to the loud music that was playing, (that’s just my grandpa)! After the market experience we headed to the pools. They were nice pools, and warm.

We swam there for a while, but then went back home. On the way home my parents and grandparents stopped at a winery for some wine tasting. They also bought a 5 litre bottle of wine for 5 euros.

            The next day we wanted to show them the city of Carcasonne. They were very excited to see it. Before we went to the ancient city we again stopped at the market. At the market we picked up supplies for our thanksgiving that we were going to have the next night. After that we made our way to the old city. My grandparents loved it. We sat down in a nice square and ate lunch. After lunch we went on a walking tour around the old and beautiful city. It had a lot of history. We also toured the castle in Carcassonne.

It was a very long and interesting tour all in English. We learned so much in such a short time. Grandpa also learned that the castle tour included over 500 steps and he counted every last one!

            Thanksgiving Day was a really fun day. We decided that we would yet again go to another thermal spa. This thermal spa was called Ax Les Thermes. This pool was fantastic. It had so many different sections of soothing pools. After the pool we headed home to start preparing the Thanksgiving dinner. The dinner was amazing! Today we headed down to the Mirepoix morning market. After the market we went to the castle called Renne de Chateau.

Unfortunately it was closed. This castle has a lot of history; apparently this castle was Dan Brown’s inspiration to write his famous book The DaVinci Code. There are lots of stories here about murder and hidden treasures and the bloodline of Christ and Mary Magdelene carrying on in this valley. Makes for some great stories and movies! After the castle we made an attempt to go to another thermal spa but, we soon found out that it had been closed for three years.

            Over the next four days we went to Foix where we ate steak and fries, and drove through a cave, we went to the coast again and ate ice-cream again, we went on more bike rides and had a tour of the abbey in Rivel, and we swam again in Rennes des Bains after we had visited Chateau d’Arque.

Finally came the sad day where grandma and grandpa had to go back to Paris where they were to catch their airplane back home. We all went to the train station in Toulouse. Only to find out that their train was cancelled from the billions of strikes that were going on. We found another train though and they got on, and made their way to Paris to catch their airplane. On our way home we stopped at the apple festival in Mirepoix.

The coast

When we woke up today it was a beautiful day. We all wanted to go check out the Mediterranean coast near our place so we all got our bathing suits and got in the car. Before we arrived at the coast we decided that we would find out which beach was the best at an information tourist place in Perpignan. After we found out which beach to go to we ate at a really fancy pizzeria. Fiona and I both ate good pizzas.

Apparently in this restaurant there we glass sinks in the washrooms, and the washrooms were really fancy. This was true, the washrooms were really cool. Awhile later we got to the beach and it was still sunny and nice out. We all got our bathing suits on and ran to the beach. When we got there we saw the water and all jumped in.

The waves were huge and if you got caught in one you were immediately crashed around into the bottom. It was really fun even though every time that happened your faced was shoved into the sand.

Each time you got a big mouthful of it. We all had a lot of fun. We swam there for at least a good hour or more. After that we all went to the next town over on the coast to look at the other beach. The town was called Collioure. It was a really pretty town with a beautiful little protected harbour. It had a really pretty clock right by the beach.

We all wandered around the nice city and ate really good ice-cream. There were commandos rowing around in boats for practice, it was cool. After all that we drove home and went to bed.