So today was my 16th birthday. Not only did I turn 16 but I turned 16 in France! It is a day that I will always remember. The day started with a typical French breakfast. Baguette, Brioche and a hot chocolate in a bowl. This beautiful french breakfast was then follow by a FaceTime with my amazing family in Darwin. Because of the time difference it was 6pm in Darwin and 10:30am here in France. My Family had made me cupcakes for my birthday which they lit, sung me happy birthday and helped me blow out. It was absolutely lovely to see and talk to them again. I have missed them immensely over the last few days so seeing them again helped to take a bit of weight of my shoulders. It made me feel so happy and special that they made me a cake to celebrate my birthday even though I was halfway across the world. Not long after I finished talking to my family a girl around my age called Estelle came around to show me where my bus stop is for school. She also goes to the same school as me so we will be catching the bus together. When I got home I Skyped Helen, Rhett, Vero and Imogen briefly. It was great to see and talk to them again. Vero also sent me a photo of them with the cakes my family made which I have put bellow. For an appetiser before lunch we ate tiny mini radishes which were surprisingly nice and tasted like carrots. After the main meal of beef, mashed potato and salad I ate once again the nutty cheese on a baguette. It was extremely delicious! Cheese was followed by freshly cooked Chestnuts, which I must say I'm not that much of a fan of. I was a fan however of the amazingly delicious and decorative birthday cakes that followed! There were raspberry, caramel and apple. I loved all of them! The cakes were an incredibly fluffy mousse on a biscuit base. Once I had finished savouring my amazing birthday cakes I opened some presents form my host family and played with Lisa and Chloé. Céline et Sébastien gave me a cookbook, caramels from Brittany and 2 french CDs. Chloé gave me 2 little purse things, one of which was made out of a sock which I thought was pretty cool and Lisa made my a very cute keyring flower which I still need to find a home. In the afternoon we went bowling in Rennes followed by a browse in the nearby shopping centre. I was an extremely good girl and didn't buy anything. The best parts about the shopping centre besides all the beautiful winter clothes were all the small chocolate and pastry boutiques and a casual water fountain which changed colour and spurted water at different times. All in all I had an absolutely amazing birthday! I would like to thank everybody for all their birthday wishes, every single one made me smile. On another note I start school tomorrow so I am getting pretty nervous about that. I will let you know how my first day of French school goes. P.S. I have also added some other photos of my bike ride yesterday which I forgot about down bellow.
So glad you had a great day Ginny. The photos are great and that sock purse is hilarious!! Good luck at school, I'll look forward to reading all about it!