June 3

Wednesday morning Cassandre woke me up, I showered, and then I ate a breakfast of brioches and Chocapics. Then we went to school!

First hour was math class with premier L (so our 17 partners). They did crossed tables (I'd never seen some of this done in the U.S., so crossed tables is just a direct translation) and percentages. Very easy, and I did math and spoke French.
Second hour, Jeanne and I stayed with the same teacher in the same room and did more math -- this was the class with terminale ES. The class was essentially business calculus, and I had a lot of fun. It was very interesting to see the slightly different methods and to hear the familiar terms in French. The class was doing maximums and minimums.
Third hour was biology, but we didn't do anything in that class. It was the same teacher that I had gone bowling with, and the whole class was talking and looking at some pictures of the past few days, of the French with the Americans.
Fourth hour, Cassandre went to the bakery to buy sandwiches, and I went to Spanish class with Jeanne, Melissa, Alison, Cate, Stephanie, Charlotte, and Noemie. The level seemed about the same as the Pre-AP Spanish class I just finished, and they were also studying the same subjects. Corridos, romances, the Mexican Revolution...I understood everything the teacher said -- both in French and in Spanish. When she changed languages, though, it took me a few seconds to realize and that always threw me off.
The class wasn't really responding to the teacher's questions, which aggravated the teacher. The only people responding were Alison, Noemie, Charline, Stephanie, and me. I think that most of the class hadn't read the poem or the article...

We ate lunch outside the school. I ate a sandwich, chips, small cakes, and cookies.
Then we -- the Americans, the French history teacher, Madame, our five host siblings, and Elodie, and the French French/Latin teacher -- went to the Somme Archives in Amiens. An archivist talked to us about the archives and then we split ourselves up into groups. I worked with Jeanne, Alison, and Cassandre. Our group was "researching" destruction caused by the war. We looked at photos of destruction and temporary housing, and we compared census documents from 1911 and 1921. One of the things we noted was the more prominent place of females in society after the war (which isn't surprising...). The two other groups studied the world of a French soldier during WWI and the necessity of remembering the war. Most of us said later that we had learned very little...

After finishing at the archives, we all walked to a cafe. I drank hot chocolate, and Jeanne (who sat beside me) had strawberry juice. Madame said on her blog that sitting at the cafe and having something to drink made us feel French, but I must say that I didn't feel French at all...

Then we went back home. For supper that night, we had rice, ratatouille nicoise, very good strawberries, and what was left of the quiche. Cassandre was tired (and also a bit frustrated with her parents), so she ate a few strawberries and then went upstairs and fell asleep. I got on the internet, talked to my mother, sent emails...and then I watched television with Cassandre's parents while eating Haribo candy.

Later I wrote in my journal and went to bed.