New York

By Nathalie Vasseur and Hélène Mariel (1°3)

Our first impression : for the first few minutes, it was very strange and impressive! But after some time we got used to looking at the skyscrapers! We saw the rich side of the town: Times Square, Soho, Broadway (where we saw Miss Saïgon; a tragic musical about the Vietnam War). We visited the Empire State building, the World Trade Center, Ellis Island (where all the immigrants used to be processed); we saw the Statue of Liberty, Planet Hollywood, the Rockefeller Center, the most expensive jewelry shop, the largest toy shop, the Bronx zoo…

We didn’t live in New York City, but 30 miles North of NY. We attended a private school in Tarrytown, called Hackley. It is very different from the "lycée Fabert". In this school you had a lot of meals and different food! We speak about that because in Fabert it isn’t the same! Food in Fabert, unfortunately, isn’t very … good. When we saw Hackley food with diet coke, peanut butter, salads, French fries, pasta, Chinese food, sausages, hamburgers, rice… And we could have breakfast till 11:00 am! would you believe it? So if you had free time, you could have breakfast at school: toast, cereals, donuts, cookies, pancakes, brownies, milk, muffin, bacon and eggs, and cake with fluorescent colors! They also have a huge library with lots of books and tables, and beautiful stained glass windows, like a chapel.

The students were often lying down in the corridors and on a couch. The maximum number per class was ten but they had to work a lot at home and they finished their lessons at 3:00 pm. One week per year they have a "mad week" with different themes every day. We were lucky to be in Hackley during that week. For example, one day all the students had to wear hats, another day pajamas. One day was called "twin day" or "skirt day" etc … It was very funny!

They weren’t allowed to wear blue jeans! Even if you hadn’t met the pupils they would come to you and talk with you. They are very open-minded. Our host families were both very rich but the most important was that they were very friendly.

Our trip was very interesting. We met a lot of people and "built bridges" between French and American students and also between us. We met a lot of different nationalities who live in NY and it is very funny to see Chinese, Mexican, Italian, black people… There are a lot of different areas in NYC: Chinatown, the Bronx, Queens, Harlem. All these areas are very different. And in NYC it’s very easy to find one’s way because there are horizontal streets which are numbered: 50^th street, 49^th st., 18^th st. and vertical avenues like Fifth avenue, Madison avenue. So in New York City all is bigger than in France; you can buy 10 steaks but not 4 steaks. It’s right away the "extreme". There is not any happy medium.