Today was my fourth Tuesday in Nantes, France. In other words, I have been attending a local lycée, living with a host family, and speaking a lot of, you guessed it, French. I’m finally settling into a bit of a routine here. Every day I realize more and more differences between France and America. I become more aware of how my worldview is being altered and widened by attending French school. Today, in my Communications class, a class which can be described as a current events and media class, I glanced at tons of articles dealing with the ever-present debate on whether to make Marriage pour tous (AKA marriage for everybody) legal. France is a Catholic country, and I attend a Catholic high school, so it was very interesting to hear, as well as try to understand the different stances people took on the issue. Even though it’s only been 3 and a half weeks here, I’ve learned many things about myself. I learned that if you want something done, nobody is going to do it for you. Here, I have become very independent, what with being in a different country away from my family and all that. Even today I learned that if I want something done, it’s no one’s responsibility but my own to do it. Sometimes, when it gets hard and I miss friends and family at home, I ask myself why I went through all the trouble to get Riverdale to allow me to do this exchange program. I realize that I’ve gone through all this trouble because I am devoted to learning a new language.

Olivia loves exploring different cultures, traveling, and meeting new people.

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