It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christm...wait what?!

Il neige!: It's snowing!

So I realize that I haven't had a post in over a month but I haven't had much happen except for school, and that makes for a really boring topic to read about. However, I have learned a lot of really interesting things this semester and one that I thought everyone else would be interested to know about..

The history of Orleans is a really long one, but I'll promise to keep it short! Basically the city has been around even much longer before Roman Empire. The simple reason being that it's along one of the biggest rivers in France and so, of course, where there is water - there are people. The city started as a city of the Gauls (Genabum)But eventually when the Romans conquered, they of course made their changes and eventually over time..the cities all over France kept developing and developing. The Romans implemented what was known as the Cardo Maximus and Decumanus plans which is simply North-South and East-West streets; like we have the US. I was really interested to know that the street that I walk down every day is at least 2000 years old and was one of the main East-West streets. After the 4th century until the 8th century, the city undergoes lots of changes. During these 4 centuries, it was a very unsafe period so fortifications were necessary around cities. Only one section of the first fortification built exists today and it's right next to the Cathedral in the town. During this time, Bourg (pronounced: Borge) and Faubourg (Foe-Borge) were created. Basically, a Bourg is where the wealthy lived and these quarters where always within the walls surrounding the city. Faubourg, which means "false bourg", where the quarters that lied on the outside of the walls and during an attack the people would have to run and hide within the walls. There was usually a church in the Faubourgs. Saint-Aignan, the church I live next to, was a faubourg (Bourg Saint-Aignan).

l'Eglise Saint-Aignon

Then to jump ahead in time a bit. During the 19th Century, the fortifications were demolished and they installed the first train station in 1843. The train station was a "Gare en cul-de-sac" obviously meaning there is only one way in and out for the trains and is still currently like this. Another jump ahead: a bit of the city was destroyed during WWII by the Germans, Americans, and English. And then eventually here we are in this day in age..!
So enough with the history lessons..! In other news, we finished our basketball season so there's no more games. The school put on a big basketball for all the students, and anyone else that wanted to, to play in last Thursday and that was tons of fun. I was lucky enough to get picked up on my friend Kevin's team.We won our first five games which put us in the Quarter Finals but then we had to go up against a few guys that had played on one of France's youth national teams, so we got knocked out. But it was absolutely a fun night to watch the finals game.. have Kevin and his brother do commentary work for one match..

Watch a slam dunk contest..

and then get home at 2am!!

The next coolest thing that's happened is a cold wave. That might sound somewhat crazy but if anyone knows me, they know that I love winter time and I prefer the cold/rain/snow more than I do the heat/sun. But the frustrating part is that it was supposed to start snowing two months ago and nothing happened. I figured I was the problem since I wanted it to snow so bad and it just wasn't happening. Until...! I was in class and I look out the window and see that it's snowing!! I'm pretty sure I let out a little scream I was so excited. I was so glad too because I was in my last class and that meant I got to go out in it while it was still snowing. So walking home on that day was great! When I woke up the next morning I was happy to see that some of it stuck, but not a whole lot. Nonetheless, I got what I asked for and I was extremely happy to at least be able to say I've lived in a city where it snowed.

But what I didn't know was what was about to come.. It had snowed little bits of tiny pieces one night during this week but nothing big and that got me hoping for more snow but nothing happened. I looked at the weather forecast and there was snow predicted for Sunday but I just was having a hard time believing it. The conditions wear perfect for it. It had been super cold all week (No higher than 32 degrees and as low as 10-15 degrees in the mornings) and so all we needed was some rain. So when I woke up this morning and saw that my phone said it was snowing I figured it was just going off of what it predicted and wasn't updated to the current conditions, but I decided I needed to get out of bed anyways and while I was up it wouldn't hurt to look out my window. But then all of the sudden!!

We got blanketed by snow! It was really great. I think I found any and every possible way to walk in the snow. After I finished lunch, I went over to Manon's house so we could have a glass of hot chocolate and do a bit of "luge"!

To end this post on an even better note..Kylie and Kat come in 20 days! I can't wait..!