~Sunday with the La Fleche Rotarians~

 on sunday the rotarians, Nicole (the american exchange student) and i pilled in a bus on a day trip to Saumur. it took about an hour to get there from a Fleche on the bus.

First stop was

~Domaine des Matines. Grands vins de saumur~

 it is a Vineyard. we walked through the making and storage of the wine and did a little wine testing......

for lunch we went to a mid evil restaurant and had about a 6 course lunch.... finishing with Creme brulet..... my favorite

second stop was.....

~Chateau de Montreuil-Bellay~

 the chateau was a very pretty small chateau with lots of historie and beautiful painting and one of a kind furniture.......The chateau is situated in the Loir Valley. It has a chapel joined to it but is actually used as the community church. The family still lives in a a separate part of the chateau.

this is me trying to be artistic with my camera... :)

This is a photo with Annick and Michel. They are my counselors while i am here, In other words the people who are basically my guardians.. they are totally and utterly obsessed with me and were so excited when i asked to get a photo with them.

this photo is of me being Juliet.  the tower in the garden was so pretty. i just loved it

by the end of the day the rotarians had had 9 glasses of wine.... they are such alcys!! but i guess that is France for you. the weather was pretty cold i think it was about 13 degrees so i am now officially in winter mode. i always used to say i liked winter better then Summer but now i think i have changed my mind...

in this post i would like to do a special shot out to my big brother, Tom Libby who has just graduated from police College in Wellington a few days ago. I am very proud of you and you have done an amazing job and i wish i was there to see you graduate.I would also like to do a shot out to my wonderful Parents Ruthy and Kimmy,Thanks for everything you have given me and provided me with,  At times its hard but the good out weighs the bad by mile,without you i wouldn't have been able to do any of this. So thank you so much.

i can't believe this but i will now officially be home in 88 days, that's less then 3 months. i can't believe how fast my exchange year has gone by. and in the next 2 months i have so much happening so it's just going to fly by and i am going to be home before i know it.

i am really looking forward to Euro tour which is in just 13 days and my sissy and parents coming in 38 days.

see you all soon. Love ya - Es xx

Adventures on the farm!

The Mont Saint Michel Gang

~Mt st Michel~

- A Little BIt Of Paradise

On Saturday we all (the exchange students) met in angers and pilled into a bus to drive to the beautiful Mt St Micheal for the weekend. we had to get up bright and early for the 1 hour car ride and 4 hour bus ride that it took to get there . Mt St Michael is situated off the coast of Bretagne. The island is a hill  and is not far from the mainland, now they have built a road the connects the two together. The old modestry at the top used to be a prison years and years before. Mt St Michael realy is one of a kind.

~my rotary district~

At The Mt St Michael weekend there was 6 different rotary districts that added up to around 200 exchange students. It was realy nice to be with all the other exchange students. On the Saturday after we arrived at our camping ground in which we were staying the night we had a picnic lunch and then visited the grand Mt St Michael. While we were there we just walked from from Mt St Michael to another little island (at high tide of course) it was a 10km walk, theres quicksand there and i got a little stuck... was fun though! haha. Afterwards we got back to the camping ground we chilled out for a while, watched some traditional dancing, a bag pipe player and had dinner. After dinner every country had to sing there national anthem. There are only 3 of us from NZ and the other girl (Emilee) isn't even from NZ  so she doesn't know our anthem. She is from Norfolk island  but just came with our NZ  district and Ben had a little trouble singing..... so... it fell on me and i had to sing  the maori version of the national anthem for around 300 people into the microphone... scary stuff. afterward rotary organised this lame dance for us. we ended up getting to sleep around 3am, we never really get much sleep at rotary weekends when we are all together.

~me with my new Aussie Friends~

 '~The walk to the other island. Life is pretty beautiful, right? ~

~the Southern Hemisphere kids and the awesome quicksand/mud goop~

~Southern Hemisphere girls and me with my Lovely Rotarian's ~

On Sunday we woke up at about 7am and had breakfast then we all walked along the road to Mt St Michael again. While we were there we got to chose what we did with our friends. My Friends and i decided to climb to the top and do some souvenir shopping.  We visited the modestry that still had many aspects of the prison it was before such things as a pit to through the dead bodies and a huge wheel like one you might find in a mouse cage for the prisoners to run on the pull things up from the bottom of the hill.... not very nice. Other then that the Building was amazing and very beautiful. The view from the top was extraordinary and it was totally worth walking up the hundreds of stairs. Mt St Michael is a very beautiful place. 

~view from the top of the Modestry~

~My friends Martina and Mt St Michael Marley at the top with me~

 ~the Modestry~

~the Modestry~

~The creepy prison wheel~

It was a good weekend, An indian also gave me a henna tattoo on my wrist. It was a very multi cultural weekend. I think it's amazing being in a room with people from all around the world, From New Zealand to Ecuador to USA to Asia to Europeens and so many more.

euros tour is in  19 days and i just can't wait for that. My family arrive in just 46 and i am home in 96 days... time is going fast.

Miss you all. Lots of Love, 

Esther

xxx