My Life in France * PART 6 | wedding

Hello everybody,
for the longest time i wasn't even sure if I want to make an individual article about the wedding that I've attended while i was in France but It was such an amazing, well planned event that I just have to share my excitement with you.

2nd October

First of all I should tell you who's wedding it even was, it was a wedding of my host mum's niece. I was quite surprised that i was even invited considering I was a complete stranger to the family at that time. But as it turned out this is one of the most inviting generous family I could've imagined !! But let's return to the whole wedding. 

The wedding happened in Brest, one of the biggest if not the biggest cities of the Brittany region, it's about 4 hours of driving from where I lived so we took the car and the adventure was able to start. This was my first time visiting Brittany, in the past I have visited Dunkerque which is also situated in the north but it is not in the same region. Our first stop was Brest where my host family showed me the city a little bit because we still had plenty of time. Brest itself isn't especially charming or special but that has a lot to do with the fact that during WWII it was almost completely destroyed. The city had a modern feel to it which was nice but I prefer cities that have that historic background that we can see everywhere :) 

After our little walk it was time to go to the hotel and get prepared I only had about an hour so it was a very quick simple make up look. I think I'm going to post a short article about what i was wearing as my outfit and as my makeup look also ! The wedding was supposed to start at 4pm on Friday which is a very weird day for a wedding at least from what i know, for example in my country or even in France the tradition is for weddings to take place on Saturdays but the reason given for this unusual change was that the mayor wasn't working on Saturdays so i guess there was nothing that they could do about it. 

The whole wedding started with a classic civil ceremony the nice thing about it was that their son was a part of the ceremony ! How sweet :) It wasn't particularly long so about an hour later we went for the wedding reception that started with the cocktail hour. The food was AMAZING there were crepes, salty(typical of Brittany) and sweet also !! Then there were a lot of different kinds of small bite food and a lot of smoked meat, as I said it was amazing and so delicious.

After the cocktail hour we headed to the ball room where the main part of the reception was taking place. The way the room was decorated was amazing, theme of the wedding was social media so every table was some type of social site like Facebook or Twitter. I was sitting at the Twitter table. Another great idea was that we were given some M&M with the faces of the groom and the bride on them ! I want this for my wedding too :) Then we had the wedding dinner with so many courses that were all delicious ! We finished at about 1am and we headed back to our hotel completely tired.

3rd October

The next day we woke up pretty late at about 11am and we headed to another city about an hour away from Brest. The city is called Quimper and it is the city that my host family comes from so they know everything in this city. This city was completely different from Brest more historic and with a lot of character I really loved it especially the architecture of some of the houses. I'm just going to show you some picture to give you an idea of what we've seen.

The last thing that I was shown during our trip was Bénodet, a little shore town with some beautiful beaches !

Overall I really loved Brittany as a whole I'm so glad that my family shared this part of their lives with me and that they showed me all these amazing places that they love :)

So this was the wedding and our little brittany trip it was amazing and I wish that my wedding will be at least as awesome and full of original ideas as this one :) 

That's it for today, until next time, bye :)

My Life in France * PART 5 | first exams

Hello everybody,
yes it's true even in France you have to go through exams :D Because I was considered as a normal student i didn't have any special "treatment" in terms of tests and exams. Today I'm going to talk you through my first experience with exams in France.

9th September

I'm sure that nobody likes exams but it's a part of our lives that we have to go through my first ever written test well I wouldn't call it a test it was just a quick 5 minute thing but it was still my first experience with french system. It was a surprise test we didn't know in advance that something like this was planned, it happens sometimes in my home country also but it's on special occasions like when we really upset our teacher or something similar. Luckily the day before I was studying a little bit because in the back of my mind I had a feeling that this teacher is going to give us something i guess she has nothing better to do than to go through our exams. Even though I said that i was studying i totally forgot some important stuff which of course appeared in the test. I was so sad because I knew that I've prepared for it, but at the end it all worked out pretty well I've got 8/10 which is pretty good but still I was being tough on myself :D typical of me.

16th September

But this was nothing, my history exam that came next, that was one of the biggest challenges I have faced during my stay in France. First of all I don't like history at all I'm more interested in my present and my future than what happened expect for WWII which I'm really interested in ! But this time the subject was industrial revolution and Wall Street Crash. I'm not saying that this was a completely boring topic to talk about but I just hate memorizing and learning stuff like a poem. And I couldn't imagine how am I going to learn this in a foreign language but thankfully I had help. My host family was so helpful they've helped me and explained to me everything. I was so lucky to get a family with a teacher and even luckier because my host mum was a history teacher ! So we've sat down one afternoon and she helped me to understand what the whole topic is about after this it was so much easier to prepare. At the end I didn't have the best note in the class but i was certainly one of the better ones so I'm very satisfied.

During my stay in France I have done several types of exams first of all there were these quick 5 minute exams just from what we've done the day before, than there were some that needed a lot of writing something like essays, then a traditional multiple choices test and the last thing which really surprised me and it was my first time doing something like this was our practical activity which consisted of recognizing different types of rocks. And not just that, their composition and other details about them. It was super hard, especially in the beginning, I should also point out that this is something that's done during your college degree in my country !, but after a lot of practicing I've managed to successfully pass this exam also just to give you an idea what was it like I'm going to include some pictures that you can come across while working with a microscope.

So that's it everything that i can think of about french exams, one thing that I'm probably going to talk about in a different article is going to be a special type of exam called BAC !

Thanks for reading till the end, Katie :)

My Life in France * PART 4 | field trip

Hello everybody,
so in my third part of my adventures in France I'm going to share with you one of my favorite days in France, our field trip to Puy du Fou

17th September

Everyone was looking forward to this day we didn't know what to expect because from what we've read on the internet about Puy du Fou which at first we didn't even know how it's written it looked pretty boring. For those of you that don't know it, Puy du Fou is an amusement parc full of attractions that are inspired by history like first world war, three musketeers etc. Doesn't seem like Disneyland huh ? but i think that everyone who attended this trip was more than pleasantly surprised. It wasn't Disneyland or Legoland but it wasn't pretending to be neither one of these. It was something completely different, amazing in it's own way.
Our first mission was to get a map because as we've been told most of the shows that you can visit have specific play times and sometimes you can see them just once in a day.

After getting the map we've decided to watch one of the biggest show in the parc Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes. This was phenomenal, I've never seen anything more beautiful than this. This show told a story about 2 sisters that were trying to find each other at least that was what i understood but really the story wasn't important it was the birds. This show is basically a bird show, there are all kinds of birds that are flying right above your head so close that you can touch them it's amazing.



Second show I'm going to mention is Le Signe du Triomphe, this is one of the shows that you can see just one time per day. It's definitely worth seeing, if you like Asterix at the Olympic Games you're gonna love this one. This parc has decided to build a full size arena where Romans and Gauls. It's a very interactive show because depending of the side of the arena that you choose that's the team you're going to be rooting for.



And the last show that I'm going to mention here is called Les Vikings so as you can tell by the name it's a show about Vikings. What impressed me the most about this show was that it was full of action there were animals, fire, dance, colors, fights it was really amazing and full of unexpected actions.



So this is the best of the best, if you ever find yourself in France Puy du Fou is a place worth checking out. Great family fun at a very affordable prize, one ticket for an adult is just 23 € which compared to Disneyland for example is nothing !

So that's it for today, I wanted to make this more like a picture gallery than an article because this trip was hard to capture with camera not with words, it's something you really have to see for yourself.
Until next time, bye Katie :)

My Life in France * PART 3 | Vineyards

Hello everybody,
today i would like to present you that part of french culture that most people are familiar with the famous vineyards that you can find all over France ! My host family asked me if i want to go take a walk in the vineyards that are really close to Saumur in a city called Champigny and obviously I said yes.

5th September

So our trip was planned for 3 pm so i had plenty of time to just relax and do whatever i want. At this point i was still very tired from thinking, listening and speaking french all the time, you wouldn't believe how energy consuming speaking in a foreign language can be :D But i was slowly getting used to my new life, i knew where to find something for breakfast or where to turn the lights on so that i don't wake up the whole house, as i was describing in my previous posts my first days were full of new discoveries literally. But back to the subject as time of our trip was approaching i prepared my camera packed my bag and i was ready to go and discover another part of french culture. As I said before it was pretty close so it took us only 10 minutes to get to the vineyards. It was actually something like and organized visit of the vineyards, the cool part of it was that for kids under 18 admission was free so YAY ! And not just that each of us got a little bag full of goodies like juice, apple, pencil and some information about vine and vineyards in the region, pretty cool right ? of course there were vine glasses for adults that were about to taste some of the vines.

The whole course took about 3 hours, luckily the weather was still very nice, not too hot not too cold. It was like a long walk with the exception that every couple miles there was a vine tasting and also a little snack like raspberries or cheese or prosciutto really yummy.

Throughout the whole course our guide was telling us about the region, the process of making vine and sharing some of his personal stories. He was pretty interesting, the only problem I had was to understand him sometimes but i think I did pretty well for the fact that this was my first week.

Overall this is definitely something that i wanted to see before i came to France so i couldn't be more thankful that my host family took me with them, it was a bonding experience and i really got to know my "sisters" a little better and my host family in general.

I hope i gave you at least a taste of French culture today ! Until next time :) Katie

RECIPE * Gluten free pancakes | Banana Coconut

Hello everybody,
for a long time i was wanting to try these 2 ingredient pancakes that just involved eggs and banana but something was missing there for me so I've decided to experiment a little bit and try to customize this recipe to my liking and this is what i came up with.

Ingredients:
1 large banana
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
2 tablespoons of shredded coconut (unsweetened)
1-2 tablespoons of coconut oil

Servings: 4 small pancakes       Calories: 374

You can adjust the ingredients to your liking, maybe adding almond meal instead of coconut or trying to put some coco powder in it could be a great idea to make some fluffy chocolate pancakes.

So first of all I started of by mashing up my banana really well so i couldn't see any big lumps of banana then I cracked my egg and mixed it in with the banana. Now i was left with kind of a watery consistency that just didn't seem right so I've decided to use some shredded coconut to thicken it up. And it worked perfectly, I think that you can use even more coconut if you'd like but i was quite content with the consistency so I left it as it was.

Second step is to heat up your pan i would suggest medium heat because these can get burnt really easily. Then I used some coconut oil, make sure that the whole surface of the pan is covered so they don't stick to your pan. To make 1 pancake I used about two tablespoons of batter this will make you up to 4 small pancakes so if you'd like to make bigger pancakes use more batter but I can assure you that for this recipe smaller pancakes are the way to go cause with this kind of batter it's going to be a little bit harder to flip them.

So now you're going to fry them on one side until golden even brown and then try to flip them over. It takes a little bit of practice to master the flipping part but when i was at my 4th pancake i really got the hang of it. After flipping your pancake just leave it there until the other side is golden too and your pancakes are ready to be served.

For serving you can add some banana or chocolate or maple syrup whatever you like, I personally like them plane for myself but that's me.

There you have it these delicious banana coconut pancakes that are very tasty and healthy at the same time, and the best part of it is that they are gluten free !

That's all for today, until next time ! :) Katie

RECIPE * Quick tuna salad |

Hello Everybody,
So today i just thought that i would post a quick dinner idea/recipe that i do quite often. It's the simplest recipe to prepare and it's super tasty for what it is and did I mention that it's healthy at the same time ?!

Ingredients:
1 can of canned tuna in olive oil (you can use natural tuna if you'd like but I'd suggest adding some olive oil to the salad in that case)
2-3 tablespoons of corn
2 handfuls of some greens (I used some baby spinach and watercress)
4 cherry tomatoes

All of the measurements are approximative and you can definitely change them to your liking, if you like a different kind of vegetable add it to the mixture. This is why i like to do this salad, it's quick, easy and you can use ingredients that you can find in your fridge almost every time so no additional grocery shopping.

Preparation is very simple and will require about 5 minutes. First i started off by washing my greens and drying the leaves a little bit so that the salad isn't too watery.

Then i cut my tomatoes in to 4 pieces and added them to the mixture as well as some corn.

Lastly I've added the tuna and mixed it all up. If you'd like to change it up a little bit you can add some kind of dressing or cheese on top of it or an egg to add a little bit of protein. Be creative !

And that's it a quick yummy dinner can be served Bon Appetite ! :)

That's all for today until next time Katie :)

My Life in France * PART 2 | first days

Hello everybody,
today I'm here with a follow up to my last article of my life in France, so let's get right into it !

29th August

I arrived at 3:00 pm in a beautiful city called Saumur, with it's population of over 22 thousands inhabitants it's surely not New York but from the first moment I fell in love with this city.

As we were getting closer to my house i was getting more and more nervous but suddenly when i saw the family every doubt that i had before have disappeared. My host dad was already waiting for us, we started talking like we've known each other for years. I was surprised i thought i would be sitting there quietly but fortunately it was the opposite. They showed me my room which was just amazing i loved it, like if it was made for me i even had a little sink in my room how convenient ! :) The same day they took me to the town to show me my new home for next four months, they even showed me the castle I was speechless when i saw the view it's amazing.

1st September

First day of school, what can i say, this is a moment that's stressful for most people in their own country not in a foreign one. I was scared that i wouldn't understand or that the kids would be just mean and unfriendly but thankfully i was wrong. Right at the beginning, what struck me the most was the school, it's like a castle (it's the closest i'm getting to Hogwarts i guess :D) totally different from my school at home. It was a catholic school so of course there was a church that was are first stop we've been greeted by the director in all languages that you can imagine it was so funny listening to someone trying to pronounce words in your language but he tried that's what counts, right ? then as you can imagine we've been told some general informations, rules etc. but then the big moment came they just said "Now you're going to join your new classmates" That was so frightening but exciting at the same time. In my class there were 23 people from which only 6 were girls ! I've never been in a class were girls were a minority but i was curious what it's like being in a class like this. At first i was very shy but almost all of the girls in my class were super nice and they showed me everything so i don't get lost. After this introduction it was time to eat oh boy how i was looking forward to school cantines in France, the choices are endless first you get to pick up your appetizer usually you can choose from 3 then your cheese, there are more then 5 options, then of course your main meal which you can't choose :/ and to finish it off you get to choose your dessert and fruit. I just love this system ! Here is an example of what you can get.

First week

Overall my first week was full of new discoveries and culture shocks, first of all i was getting used to french lifestyle. Just to give you an example most of French people eat something sweet for breakfast which i like occasionally but not everyday but i got used to it overtime :D then another food oriented change was dinner time I'm used to eating at 5:00 pm but here you're not even home at 5:00 pm, in France expected dinner time is at 7:00 or even 8:00 pm but that's something you can get used to also. The worst change for me was the time I've spent in school, as i mentioned above in France many people finish school at 6:00 pm which is super late for me i was used to getting home before 4:00 pm everyday :D (Here's my timetable, just to give you an idea)

Besides all of these shocks at the end of my first week i finally stopped getting lost in the school, Mission accomplished ! and i started to understand what people want for me a little better.

So that's all for today, until next time, Katie :)

RECIPE * Double layer green smoothie | BANANA KIWI BABY SPINACH

Hello everybody,
Happy new year ! as always when new year comes a lot of new year's resolutions start to pop up. Living a healthier lifestyle is usually one of them, but really how many of us succeed with this one ? :D So today I'm bringing you one of my green smoothies. It's a double layer banana, kiwi smoothie with a little bit of baby spinach. I promise you, you won't even notice the baby spinach in it.

For this recipe you will need:

1 frozen banana
2 frozen kiwi
a handful of baby spinach
150 ml of 0% greek yogurt (you can use a normal one also)
60 ml of milk
honey, agave or other sweetener to taste (optional)

As you may guessed there's a little preparation to do in advance with this recipe, first of all peel all of your fruits and cut them in to small pieces and put them in the freezer.(believe me it's easier to cut it now then when it's frozen) :D leave it in the freezer for couple hours depending on your freezer's temperature.

Now let's get to the fun part. First we're going to make the banana layer. Combine 1 frozen banana, 125 ml of your greek yogurt and 30 ml of milk in your blender. Mix until smooth, it may take couple minutes to get to the desired consistency but eventually you'll get to it.

For the kiwi layer, you're going to mix your frozen kiwi fruit, a handful of baby spinach or another vegetable that you have at hand. Add the rest of your greek yogurt and 30 ml of milk. Because this layer will be a little sour and not as sweet as the banana layer you can mix in a little bit of honey or stevia or agave syrup, this step really depends on your personal taste. Mix until smooth.

Now you're ready to assemble your drink poor your banana smoothie in to a big cup (you can use mason jar for that Instagram picture :D) and then top it of with a layer of your kiwi smoothie.

This is just half of the mixture so you're definitely going to want to have a very big cup for the whole mixture.

Your thick creamy smoothie is now ready to drink maybe even to eat, you will notice that the consistency is like a yogurt or even an icecream, how delicious. So enjoy your 320 calories rich smoothie for a breakfast or an afternoon snack.

So this is it I hope you like this one, I love it, if you try my recipe feel free to share your pictures or suggestions how to make it even tastier :)

That's all for today, until next time Katie :)