The French Countryside

    This weekend my host brother, Jean-Lucien, invited me to spend the weekend with his family at his house in the countryside (he is a high-school student that goes to school in Bordeaux but goes home on the weekends).  I had an incredible time and it was exactly what I needed. This past week I had been feeling a little antsy and stressed because of school and getting over the halfway mark ( ya, can you believe it! I am halfway done with my program!! It’s so sad!) but this weekend I didn’t really have anything to do so I was able to use this as a mini-vacation.  Firstly, Jean-Lucien’s family is amazing.  He has two younger brothers, jean-Romain who is 10 and jumps horses (he had a competition on Sunday that we went to) and Jean-Lun who is 5 (and with whom I had a Daft Punk dance party during breakfast Saturday morning).  Hanging out with a real family again was so nice.  The thing that really made my weekend though was going on a bike ride through the countryside with Jean-Lucien.  We didn’t have anything to do so we just grabbed bikes and went on a little adventure where we found a hiking trail that he had never been on before.  We took it and ended up stumbling across a deer farm and we found a phesant.  We ended up crossing a couple of vineyards and going through some woods and a meadow.  We did get lost a little, but it was well worth it.  It was sunny and a bit cold, and the sun was setting over the vineyards which made the countryside glow.  It was absolutely a fantastic experience.  

Jean-Lun took me on his own tour of the countryside so he took me to an abandoned cabin.

Not to self: if you are going to let a five year-old take you on a tour, don't wear toms and be prepared to get dirty