Wow! It’s been an amazing adventure since we left Indianapolis on Wednesday. It feels as if it has been a month.

We had a layover of about three hours in Detroit. During this time, the kids started to get to know one another and bond. First getting Chik-Fil-A, then cards, then comparing stuffed animals – it all brought them closer.

Seems Corentin is geting schooled.

Some of us do not have
animals
Lots of us seem to have animals.


The flight over was uneventful, except for those of us who discovered that our “Eggplant parmesan was actually mostly tofu – Yuk!

We got through the border passport check in record time (20 minutes), and one of the border guards was actually from Brest!

We found Jane, who was already in France, and Patrick, our driver. Patrick lead us through Charles de Gaulle airport to the bus parking garage, managing to lose half of us at one point. We all got together. (A group of three intelligently went back to the main level and waited to be found.)

The tired boys

Believe it or not, Lucy is anticipating her lunch.

Sleep, who needs it?

I'm with you, really I am.

As it happened, there was a demonstration and an airport worker strike at the same time. (Welcome to France!) So, our driver had to go around the east side of Paris, rather than being able to head immediately northwest. Unfortunately, this added over two hours to our already six-hour coach ride.

En route, we think we heard Lucy say, “This is just like Indiana except the houses are different and old and stuff.”

We finally arrived in Brest at the Moulin Blanc parking area along a beach where we were to meet the host families at 8:35 PM local time. The wind was blowing, it was cold and spitting rain (after an apparently beautiful day). As nearly as I can figure, we had been traveling non-stop for about 28 hours on very little sleep. I was going to do my usual group picture, but I thought better of it.

The families quickly gathered up their students (henceforth referred to as stagiaires) and took them home to a warm meal and a warm bed.

Our stagiaires didn’t have to meet us teachers until 2PM Friday, so they had a chance to settle in and to sleep in. I think Maggie had the record of 14 hours of sleep.

Corentin likes to quiz them. What were they most surprised about so far? Cows, cars, toilets, how green it is, and graffiti around Paris. What did you have for breakfast? Spaghetti Carbonaro (wasn’t really breakfast since the stagiaire didn’t awaken until 11:30), hard boiled eggs, granola-like cereal (Muesli), fruit.

On Friday, they took the placement exam. We allotted two and a half hours for it, and it only took them an hour and a half, with only a little stress. They will take this same exam at the end so they can see their growth.

We gave them their bus/tram passes and we were off on a walking tour of Brest. Since this is my fifth time in Brest, I lead the tour. We stopped periodically for me to explain what they were seeing and a bit of history, and to take a group picture.

In front of the Pont de Recouvrance,
an amazing lifting bridge.

In a slight misting rain, quite normal for Brest,
in front of one of the war memorials.

I tried to keep my French slow and simple, but it is hard not to just slip into normal people French – which is quite a bit faster than high school French. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that I really didn’t lose very many of them. At least they all appeared interested.

It was funny to see that many of them had figured out how to do selfies with their digital cameras – just like it was a cell phone, just one with more adjustments and no filters. And of course, they photographed one another.

At the American Monument overlooking 
the port of Brest.

We ended the tour at a store called “Histoire du Chocolat.” They normally have an open window selling ice cream, but it was closed up. We all walked in, and they saw 21 young people looking at their chocolate. Then I asked about ice cream. There was some non-verbal communication among the three women working there. Then the obvious manager gave a classic Gallic shrug and pointed at the ice cream.

They literally re-opened their ice cream stand for us. And they were rewarded with 21 very polite young people trying very hard to speak correct French spending between $3 and $4 on ice cream. In the end, everyone was delighted.

We finished the day with a meeting with the students and host families. It was mostly for the host families. The kids had kind of checked out until we gave them their program cell phones. These phones are older than most of the stagiaires. They are flip phones which cannot access the internet, nor call the US. But they have five Euros of minutes on them that they can use to contact their host families or their friends.

Today, Saturday, they were with their host families. I only received on call from a host family because of a lost bank card. A call about an hour later told me that they card had been found.

Tomorrow is a new adventure – the strawberry festival at Plougastel.

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