I just got back from a trip to France and Spain last Friday. We met in Paris (there were 34 exchange students all together, the first part of 'Eurotrip,' here in France, because it's divided into 2 different trips) on Friday morning, toured around for a little while, and then got on the road!

We travelled to Poitiers in the middle of France, and stayed there for two nights. Saturday we visited Futurscope park, which was interesting, but bad bad weather and having to wait in very long lines made it not so enjoyable! We left Sunday morning and drove to Carcassonne, a beautiful town in Southern France. We stayed in a youth hostel in a castle, it was absolutely beautiful! Monday morning came all too quickly and we left to drive to Spain!

We stopped in a little town called Girona for the afternoon which was very nice! The weather was about +21 and sunny, it was gorgeous. We arrived that night in Lloret de Mer, where we stayed for 3 nights. The hotel was really cool. Tuesday and Wednesday we went into Barcelona - we toured La Familia Sagrada, the area where the Olympics took place in 1992, a Picasso museum, and lots of other things and even had some time to shop! It was so amazing, Barcelona is absolutely beautiful!

Thursday we left Lloret de Mer, and continued into a small town close to the France/Spain border where we stopped to go to another museum.. then Thursday night we drove back to Paris, and arrived bright and early - around 7am! It was a very good trip! I made some really good friends also! That's one thing I love about exchange and spending time with other exchange students, it's so easy to make friends because I think generally, a lot of us have the same mind set!

Other than that, everything is going very well! Christmas was really nice - a lot of members of my host family came to stay with us so it was great to meet all of them. On January 2nd, I changed host families, and I really like this family. They have 14 year old daughters, and a young cat and dog, so there's always a lot going on! My family is coming to visit on March 21st, and then I'm changing to my last host family the first weekend in April.

I can't believe how fast time is flying, I'll be back in less than 17 weeks! School is going really well, and a lot of people have commented on my improved French skills which is great!

Hope everything is going well with you and the club!

Take care,
Emily