Harry Potter, Thanksgiving, and Snow!

First of all, sorry. I didn't update my blog last week because I am a terrible person. The weekend was busy and then the week was busy and then it was Thursday and I thought I might as well just wait for the next Sunday. But I hope that means that this post will be more interesting because it covers two weeks instead of one.

So I did see Harry Potter, and it was dubbed in French. Some of the voices were fitting but some, like Hermione's, were just weird. I'm sad to have missed seeing the premier at midnight with the right voices and everyone dressed up and crazy but I suppose I'll just have to be satisfied with Part 2. It was fun though, and I did like the movie. I thought it was true to the book. And they didn't leave that much out. I thought the acting was fantastic; it looked like people really put their hearts into it. The group of people I went with took up about two rows which was fun as well. I think we might have been annoying at times for other people but that's okay. I did not see it in 3D but the only thing I saw that was definitely meant for 3D was the snake, and that was scary enough as it is. When the snake jumped out at Godric's Hollow I practically jumped out of my seat. What did you all think of the movie? Over all I think they are getting better and better at representing the books.

The day after Harry Potter was thursday and therefore Thanksgiving, but every thursday I have school from 8:30 until 6PM so that doesn't leave much time to cook a huge feast. I pushed my Thanksgiving to saturday. I was incredibly daunted to try and cook a whole Thanksgiving dinner on my own, but I didn't feel rushed or worried at all. It was fun to cook all day. My host mother helped a lot with the meat (we didn't find a whole turkey but we had a few large turkey legs in addition to a whole chicken) and the stuffing which was great but otherwise I did everything, starting at about 9AM with the pumpkin and apple pies. There were times where I had to get creative, like soaking dried cranberries in water for a few hours to get them to inflate because fresh cranberries don't exist in France, but things mostly went as planned. My only moment of panic was came when I saw the inside of the sweet potatoes I had bought were not orange and freaked out thinking they were just regular potatoes, but that was solved by a simple taste test that affirmed their sweetness. The full menu was turkey/chicken, cooked mixed vegetables, hot spiced cider, a really good beat dish that I'd made once before, stuffing, sweet potato biscuits, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie, and apple pie. I invited a few of my closest friends over for dinner. We all got dressed up and it was really nice. Then after the meal, Alice and I invited a bunch more people over for a party, which was fun too. I ended up having a great Thanksgiving.

Not too long ago I talked about meeting my first real Autumn with all the changing leaves and such. Well, Autumn is gone and Winter has come storming in. That means....Snow Days!! At this rate, with strikes and blocking the school and now snow, no one will learn anything and we will all fail our tests and have to repeat the year. But that's okay because I got to go sledding instead of sitting through economics and history. Okay, yes, I have seen snow before, and I've gone sledding before, and I have had snowball fights and hot chocolate and all that. But it's different. It's different when you see the snow falling from your classroom window. It's different when you go to sleep to fields of green and wake up with everything blanketed in white. It's magic. And also cold. Thursday was our first snow day and I didn't take advantage of it because I was exhausted but I luckily got another shot Friday. We actually went to the school Friday but didn't go to any classes because there were no students in class and some teachers were missing too (schools don't close hear because of snow, it's just that the buses stop working and no one shows up). It was nice, we just got to see our friends and walk around the town looking for a place that sells sleds. Then around 4:00 ish we walked over to a huge hill by one girls house and took turns sledding and taking pictures. I was kind of looking at this winter as a test to see if I could really handle going to college in a place where it snows, and the answer is definitely yes. Snow is amazing. You just can't forget the long underwear.

Things have been going well the last few weeks. I feel like I'm connecting with people more and I'm starting to understand my classes (which my teachers make sure everyone else knows, which is embarrassing). I'm still too quiet and shy with many people, especially the attractive boy-type people, but I think I'm making progress. Gonna keep trying to make some more.

Love you and miss you all!