It's been a month since I've returned from my life changing travel. Unlike most other AFS programs in which students travel around the world and stay with a host family, 25 representing AFS USA traveled to a beautiful southern eastern most coast of France called Cap d'Ail, in an international language school named Centre Méditerranéen d'Etudes Françaises, or CMEF. I am forever grateful having Chess-In-The-Schools bring me to this opportunity and stay in France, meeting and making new friends from not only other American states, but from France, England, Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, Ghana, Ireland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Mexico, Belgium, Serbia, Georgia, Turkey, Finland, Serbia, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and well so on, some whom I still keep in contact with.
Daily life will be something of shouting in the mornings of “Animateurs” to wake us up a little before 8 for breakfast. Afterward, we'll separate to our different level class of either French or English, depending on what you need to learn, on a difficulty from 1 through 12 for French learners. I of course went straight to level one due to the fact that I was never taught French before. After a few hours of learning and/or practicing a song for a presentation every Friday, most race and mob outside the cafeteria in an unorthodox and chaotic way, suffocating and squeezing, pushing and pulling, throwing and punching, for what is usually bread, pasta, various types of salads, and water... Well it wasn’t that exaggerated but it was amusing to think of it in that matter LOL. Some of us however chose to either order or wait until 1:30 to leave campus for pizza. American? Nah, we weren’t the only ones. It’s at this hour we’re allowed to leave campus, and travel wherever our time limit allowed us to, which was 7:00 pm. We’d travel from shopping in either Nice or Monaco, swimming and tanning in either Plague Mala or Marquet, staying indoors either lazy or active, doing one of the various activities CMEF has to offer, or simply just going around the village buying goods and stuff. And so dinner was ready by 7, and of coarse you would find a mob around the entrance, and during the rest of the evening, we would have various activities too many and different too list or group to do. During Saturdays, we would have a mandatory excursion of going to a far away market, city, and/or beach, which would change every Saturday. Sundays were Sundays LOL.
Daily life will be something of shouting in the mornings of “Animateurs” to wake us up a little before 8 for breakfast. Afterward, we'll separate to our different level class of either French or English, depending on what you need to learn, on a difficulty from 1 through 12 for French learners. I of course went straight to level one due to the fact that I was never taught French before. After a few hours of learning and/or practicing a song for a presentation every Friday, most race and mob outside the cafeteria in an unorthodox and chaotic way, suffocating and squeezing, pushing and pulling, throwing and punching, for what is usually bread, pasta, various types of salads, and water... Well it wasn’t that exaggerated but it was amusing to think of it in that matter LOL. Some of us however chose to either order or wait until 1:30 to leave campus for pizza. American? Nah, we weren’t the only ones. It’s at this hour we’re allowed to leave campus, and travel wherever our time limit allowed us to, which was 7:00 pm. We’d travel from shopping in either Nice or Monaco, swimming and tanning in either Plague Mala or Marquet, staying indoors either lazy or active, doing one of the various activities CMEF has to offer, or simply just going around the village buying goods and stuff. And so dinner was ready by 7, and of coarse you would find a mob around the entrance, and during the rest of the evening, we would have various activities too many and different too list or group to do. During Saturdays, we would have a mandatory excursion of going to a far away market, city, and/or beach, which would change every Saturday. Sundays were Sundays LOL.
Other highlights:
The excursion trip to San Remo, Italy. Along with its delicious plates, and pie.
The middle of the night fire drill. It was cold and most were sleeping!
The foosball we’ve found and kept. It is now owned by CMEF.
Those lazy days of just staying indoors and blasting music. Wave Your Flag.
Our first few nights of playing only Egyptian Rat Slap and ignoring the American Independence Day.
That night watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by an old castle in Monaco that use to be a prison. That snake in the sky!
An issue with one person. -__-
That last night at CMEF without sleep. AFS left at 4 in the morning.
And the overall friendships we’ve made.
