OUR HOST FAMILY 

The first evening when we arrived at Colwyn Bay, we met our family. We went out the coach, and Carolyne welcomed us with a big smile on her face. Then, we presented ourselves, we went in her car and we put our suitcases in the van of her husband, David. She drove us at her home, a beautiful little house. Inside, there were a kitchen, a little dining room, and upstairs, there were a big bathroom, 3 bedrooms, and also a lot of photos of their family and their marriage : it was very welcoming and nice.

The first day, we were all a little bit shy, because we didn't know what to say, but Carolyne asked us if we had already eaten frog's legs or snails. When we answered "Yes !", she said that she found it disgusting and very strange ! Almost all the evenings, we ate spicy food, like chili or red onions. It was delicious, but Lucile said that it was a little bit spicy !
The mornings and the evenings, we watched T.V. and we discovered that in Wales, there is a lot of similar T.V. shows than in France, like "Qui veut gagner des millions ?" or "Des chiffres et des lettres". It was very funny to watched those T.V. shows because we tried to answer the questions, but we always had the bad answers !

The next day, during the meal, Carolyne wanted to know if we had already gone to Paris. She told us that she went to Paris, during one week, with friends. They were walking into the capital city, and a men on a scooter tried to stole her friend's bag, but she defended herself. We also asked to Carolyne and David to help us to fill the questions of the files, about the families. They knew all the answers, except the last (about the Welsh dragon), because David told us that he was English, from the countryside, and his wife too. 

The day when Johanna twisted her ankle, Carolyne was very nice and she took care of her, brought her ice cubes to relieve her ankle. She was lovely and very kind with us, and tried to do everything to made Johanna good.

At the end of the day, when Carolyne came fetch us, she used to ask us if we had a lovely day, and if we liked what we saw during the visits. She was very polite and liked when we spoke together (like us) !

But the last morning, when Carolyne took us to the C.L.T, she said that it was a lovely week with us, and told us "Thank you". Then, she hugged us, one by one, and left us in front of the building. She was really sad, and us too, because we spent a very awesome and unforgettable week with she and David. And later, we saw him in his little van and he said goodbye through the window.

1st Day :

When we went out of the coach, we will welcoming by Christine Bartlett a funny woman who drived us to her little house. She presented us her dog : Daisy, which was a cute English Cocker Spaniel. Then, she showed us our cozy room. The beds were very comfortable ! She asked us if we would some drinks and that we did not have to ask her if we wanted something. So we installed us. Several time after, she called us for the dinner time : she had cocked pasta bolognaise and it was delicious ! We talked a lot about Daisy, and how crazy she was and compared to our dogs.

2nd Day :

We woke up too early because we forgot to change the hours and we were very stressed because Christine wasn't out of bed ! But, she knocked to our room and asked us why we were already up, so we realised that it was only 6h15 a.m. But, we were so tired that we went back to bed up to 7 a.m.

Afterwards, Christine made us toasts and hots chocolates. She asked us what we were going to do in Liverpool. We told her our program and she gave us pieces of advices conserning Liverpool. Next we walked to the meeting point.

Then, Christine had prepared us sausages with beans. She related us a story about a horrible yellow bridesmaid dress that she has to wear and that she looked like a banana.

3rd Day :

The morning was very calm, we woke up at 7 a.m. Chistine made the breakfast and we went to the CVL.

The evening, Christine had to keep her nephew : Ben. Ben studied french in school so he asked us questions about it. We did not speak a lot during this dinner because Ben was very talkative with his aunt.

4th Day :

We slept so well that, Christine had not heard her alarm clock so she waked up us at 7.30 a.m so we were very late. But she told us that it was not very important because she had called a taxi. Finally we were just in time for the beginning of class. But we have not got enough time to say goodbye to Christine properly.

 Amélie and Romane

Céline HENRY
Blandine ROYET
Juliette DIJOUX

Our experience in the Shaw family

After a 17 hour-trip by bus and boat and the visit of Chester, we met “our” family. First, we met the oldest daughter, Danielle and the man we supposed that it was the father brought us silently to their house. There we met all the numerous family. The mother, Katy, told her sons to bring our suitcases in our bedroom (the poor!). One of them answered that they were not slaves.

Then, she showed us the house and the shower’s working: we had to switch on/off the water outside of the bathroom. There were no locks so she explained us that when the button was in such a way, nobody could come because they were accustomed.

After that, she asked us to go down within 5 minutes to take the evening meal and we had our first meal. While we were eating, one son and one girl were on their computers. Each one was doing something different, individually, so we couldn’t talk with them. Later, we said that we were tired so that we were going to sleep. She thanked us a lot for the presents that we gave to her and she asked us how long the ride was. She was really surprised when we answered 17 hours. Just before sleeping she asked us if we wanted her to switch off the light because few days ago her daughter, Sarah, fell in the stairs and because of this she missed her driving license.

The next day, after the meal, we asked her if she could help us to answer the questionnaire that we had to fill in for the school and she accepted. This has allowed us to finally be able to really discuss with our host! Through this, she explained that she had 5 children from 11 to 23 years old: Christina, Stephen, Sarah, Alex and Danielle, all living in the house. Dave, Steven’s friend also lived there because his parent’s didn’t want him anymore at home. Then, she said that she spent all her life in Colwyn Bay except 2 years in the Yorkshire. Katy also told us that just across their street, few years earlier, the police had discovered a “drug center”. She was very shocked when she heard about that and it was even when she told us this story.

After this, we asked her if she had already seen the proposal for a common flag for English and welsh people. She was surprised and she answered us that nowhere she had seen this strange flag. After studyingmore closelythe flag, she said that she found it strange, ugly and not representative at all of their culture.

Afterwards, Céline asked her if she knew where she could find some typical English products for her sister because it was her mission. She responded that she could buy it for her. Celine gave her a list of products and among them, the Reeses (chocolate cookies with peanut butter). The mother had never seen this product before it! Celinehasthanked herin advance!

Before going to bed, Katy asked her son Steven to show us his videos in which he practices some acrobatic courses. It was amazing!

Last evening, after our dayin Snowdonia, we had very spicy chips for dinner. It was really too spicy, our mouths were on fire. When she came back, she saw that we didn’t eat a lot, and we explained to her the problem. She tasted them and she said that she didn’t know it and that it was the son who had bought the wrong package. So she proposed us a hot chocolate and cooked us other chips that she carried in our bedroom after our shower. She gaveus many apologies. We then explained her that was nothing and we thanked her for these efforts. We were tired so we told her that we were going to sleep and as every night she told us that she would wake up the next day.

The last morning, we didn’t see all the family but we said goodbye to Katy and Christina, the youngest child, just before taking the taxi that brought us back to the bus.

Hechmi Imael/ César Bernard/ Louis Pierre-Grolier/ Gabriel Lafarge

Our Host Family

Tuesday evening, we were anxious about what will be our host family, but we realised very quickly that this family was good. In fact when we arrived, we discussed for maybe one and an half houre, and we saw how kindly they are. There names are Cath and James, they are old people, Cath has a son but James does not. Of course the first thing that James told was the rules of the house, for example don’t open a window’s room, and after leave this room, because there is a lot of wind in Colwin Bay. He gives to us the pass world to surf on the internet with our computer or phone; surprisingly, we didn’t use it during our travel, because when we were at the host family we spent our « free time » with talking with James in front of the TV. We noted that Cath was maybe shy because she didn’t talk to much, unlike James who likes to talk. He was interested by the fact that Hechmi doesn’t eat pork, Hechmi explained that he was for religious reason, James was interested by that, in fact he likes to know how the differents cultures work, he travels a lot, but he has never been to France. And he rapidly explained his work. The discussion was the most shorter of this three days, it was a sorte of summary of what we will talked about the next 2 days, in fact the other days he explained more precisly his work and his travel. Then we ate panini with potatoes, that Cath prepared, we watched Stargate Atlantis TV with them, James is a fan of this series, but didn’t wait a long time to go to bed, we were so tired by the travel.

It was on Wednesday, at the end of the day, that James and Cath brought us at home for the seconde time. When we arrived at home, we sat on the couch in the sitting room, and explained our day to James. We told him that we were in Liverpool, that we say the Beatles Museum, and an other Museum about the slavery. Then he explained his day, and talked about his work. He had ever told us that he was a designer of products he makes, but this evening he told us precisely what he did, and in what conditions he worked. It is a really hard job, beacause it is his own little business, so the competition is very hard. He explained us that the best way to succeed in his situation was to make products of good quality, and to customize the products like the clients desire it. James shew us also two or three videos, to see how we can customize a product. You have to soak an object in a colored liquid, with a special technic, and the to take it back. There is also a drawing or a color on the object. This technic is very used, by the motorcars firms for example. James uses it for his products, vases for example. Then we ate chips and hamburgers, prepared by Cath while James was talking. Then we took a shower, watched for a short time TV, and went to bed because we were tired.

When we arrived in Colwin Bay after a very long travel with the coach , at 6.30 p.m, we have met Susane Marqua our host, for the first time. At the descent of the bus, Susane looked very friendly and happy to see us, We knew just whith the first look that she was a good personn. We went up in her car and we went to her house in the town center of Colwin Bay. Each in turn, we introduced ourself and she did the same. She told us she's a melting pot of a German, Italian, French and English women. We entered in her house, took possesion of our bedroom and installed our stuff on our bunk bed. She made us visit her small house and did recomandations. We ate at 7.30 p.m a plate of bolognese pasta, it was very lovely because she love cooking italians plates. This first dinner was really interesting because we spoke about a lot of things like the british's opinion of the french system, our family, her origins and hobbies. She learned to us English tipicals expresions (the expresions that we don't use in the euro class). She prepared us a hot chocolate for the dessert and we laught about the height of the welsh people. In fact, we were really tired of our long travel in the coach and in the ship so we decided to go sleeping at 10 p.m.

The next day morning, she woke up at 7 a.m with a terrified gadget music hung on the door “BE AWARE!” it was a horrible wake up because we were still tired! We ate a french breakfast with cereales and orange juice, and susane sped up to go to the meeting point at 8 a.m. When we went back to Colwyn Bay, after the Liverpool's visit, susane checked our hands it was really funny and suprising! In the car she proposed us to do a bowling this night, we accepted immediately, we were really excited ! Before the bowling party we ate pizzas prepared by “Susi”(We gave to Susanne this nickname just for fun). During the dinner she explained us his jobs and her lifestyle ; she work as a nurse, a “help person” for disabled person, and also a cooker of the restaurant of her only son.

At the evening, we went to bowling and Maxime won the match easely! That was quite funny because when we went back to home “Susi” decided to get one's own back on Maxime with the bowling game on the Wii! After that we went to sleep because we were so tired, but unfortunetly we were obliged to prepares our suitcases, we did that with many difficulties ;)...But just before to sleep we wrote a few words on a book to thanks Susi!

The next morning when we woke up, Susanne prepared us a typical english breakfast with bacon, cheese, ham...It was lovely! Just after that we finished to prepared our suitcases and we were ready to go in the english class in Colwyn Bay for the last day!

When we arrived to the school we sayed good bye to Susi, we were so happy to have spend those days with her but so sad too to say goodbye... We did a big hug to Susi before to leave her!!

We sincerely thanks Susanne a lot for all what she did for us during this fabulous week and we hope that it was a great moment for her!