21st Birthday Celebrations!

So somehow I managed to revert this post to an earlier draft and unpublish it, I can't be bothered to add the pictures etc again but at least the post is back now!

 

 

So here is the promised blog about my birthday celebrations and yes it's late but you should've guessed that by now!
My birthday celebrations began the weekend before my birthday with the arrival of Rhian and Harriet in La Rochelle! We started the weekend as we meant to go on with food, wine, cocktails, gossip and our usual banter!

The next day we headed into town and did a bit of shopping and went to the new Zara which had only opened the day before so it was absolutely packed! We had lunch in a nice little creperie where we had the menu of the day which included both a sweet and a savoury crepe, and me and Rhian indulged in a bowl of cider too!

We left with little pancake babies and headed to the piercing studio to get my ear pierced. I'm a bit of a coward so I was petrified about getting it done and Rhian and Harriet weren't allowed to come in with me which made matters even worse but it turned out that I was being a coward for nothing because I hardly felt it!

After that we headed to the supermarket to buy supplies for a Chinese feast because we were missing Chinese food! We headed back to mine and chilled for a bit before preparing our feast and cracking open the wine!

After dinner we headed into town and firstly we went to a bar where the speciality is white wine with syrup in and there are 45 different flavours to choose from, it was absolutely packed but we decided to stay because the wine is good and they were playing good music! We met one of my other friends there before heading into an Irish bar were we stayed for a while drinking shots and dancing before we moved onto another bar where me and Rhian had our jackets stolen :( We started queuing to get into a club but the queue was massive and not moving and we were quickly turning into ice blocks without our jackets so we decided to just head home.

The next day we had a lazy morning and then we took Harriet to the train station and sadly waved her off. Then me and Rhian headed to the cinema to see the new twilight film (okay it's not that new anymore, I'm a bit slow!) It was weird seeing it in French because all the characters had different voices but it was still good and afterwards we had McDonald's for dinner! The next morning I took Rhian to the train station and then went straight back to work!
Wednesday is my day off so I had planned to have a really productive day but it didn't really happen (as always!) I did however manage to do a bit of packing and planning for the weekend and I had a good long Skype chat with my best friend which was lovely :)
Thursday was my actual birthday and unfortunately for me there was no such thing as a birthday lie in as I got up even earlier than normal so I could Skype my mum and dad before I went to school! My day at school was long but actually quite good, they'd had a new interactive whiteboard installed so most of the day was spent playing around with that! I made rocky road for the children in my class and all the other teachers, they all loved it and demanded that I translate the recipe for them! I also took some Percy and Penny pigs that my mum had sent me!

After school I went for dinner with some of the other language assistants, we went to a nice French restaurant and the food was so good!

After that some of us hit the bars but I didn't stay out too late since I had to get up to go to Paris, and more importantly to pack for Paris! I went first class on the train as it was only a couple more euros so that was a nice treat, it wasn't anything that special though as there were no free drinks like in first class on English trains but I did get a very comfy seat and managed to snooze a bit on the way. I met my family at the station amid lots of hugs! My dad did his usual trick of saying 'oh the hotels not far, let's walk there'. We finally arrived at the hotel after a 20 minute trek with our suitcases, navigated by myself may I add! Then I opened all my cards and presents from friends and family that my mum had filled her entire suitcase with! I'd also given her a list of English things and things I'd forgotten to bring to France to bring me!

After that we finally headed out for a late dinner just down the road from the hotel, it was a nice meal apart from the fact that they clearly forgot about my meal and finally brought it out as the rest of my family were finishing their meals along with the excuse that they had dropped the first one on the floor in the kitchen!!

The next day after a very French breakfast in a bakery across from the hotel we headed to the grand boulevard where Galeries Lafayette is found (like the French equivalent of Harrods!). We spent a good quarter of an hour marveling at the bizarre Luis Vuitton window displays which included a breakdancing panda and penguins with handbags before finally going inside, we went to see the rather tacky (but still impressive) Christmas tree from the ground floor before heading up a few floors to see it from the top, then we had a bit of a wander and I was in my element when we found a Paperchase inside!

We didn't stay too long however as it was very busy! After that we went in H&M which is just next door and I did some shopping (as usual!) Then after traipsing around for a good half hour looking for a restaurant that everyone was happy with we ended up in a nice Italian restaurant but I was a little disappointed that the rest of my family didn't want to eat French food while they were here! The foods was really good though, especially the puddings which were huge and overloaded with chocolate, just how I like it!

Next we headed over to the Île de la Cité, we went to see the Sainte-Chapelle but after going through security we saw that there was a ridiculous queue out in the cold so we took some photos from outside and left again to head to the Notre Dame de Paris.

When we got there we found that there was also a pretty big queue to get in or to go up the towers but we decided to wait it out to go up the towers and we finally made it up just before sunset which made for some very pretty views across Paris.

After stopping to refuel my brother at subway (he needs feeding every hour :P) we headed to the theatre where we were going to see a comedy show. We were a bit early so we stopped for a break in a little bar just next to the theatre. Then it was time for the show, it had been my idea to go and none of the rest of my family seemed that enthusiastic about it despite the fact that it was all in English! But it turned out to be hilarious and they all really enjoyed it. It was called 'How to become Parisian in one hour' and I highly recommend it, he's doing a tour in London in March too!

After the show we navigated our way to the famed Champs-Élysées where we made an obligatory stop at Marks and Spencers for sandwiches for dinner (which we proceeded to eat in the street, can you get any more English?!) as well as an array of other English goodies including Percy pigs and mince pies of course!

Me and my dad then had a very quick wander through the Christmas market while the rest of my wimpy family sheltered inside from the rain which annoyingly arrived just as we wanted to spend some time outdoors!

Then we headed back to the hotel exhausted and a little soggy from the rain and headed to bed ready for another busy day on Sunday.
The next day we headed out fairly early and after a quick stop at the bakery for breakfast we arrived at the Eiffel tower only for my brother to exclaim 'its pretty ugly really isn't it?' Haha!
After a relatively short queue to get tickets we ascended in the lift to the second level, we were lucky that the sun was shining but it was still very cold and windy. Now I have a little story to admit, when I was much younger we visited Paris before as a family and we went up the Eiffel tower, we were only going to go up to the second level but I was a bit of a madam and had a paddy and eventually my parents gave up and bought us tickets to go all the way to the top but I've never been the biggest fan of heights and when we got to the second level I cried my eyes out and refused to go any higher! Luckily I'm not as bad as I used to be and I'm slowly overcoming my fear of heights but even so I think the second level would've been enough for me this time too, although I must admit the views were much more impressive from the top level but we didn't spend long up there add it was too cold and windy so after making my way slowly all the way around clinging onto the wall or a member of my family we headed back down.

We stopped on the way to the metro to get crepes and hot chocolates to warm us up a bit then we made or way to Montmartre were we found a nice quiet restaurant to have lunch in. After that we took the funicular up to the top of the hill (which made me feel somewhat like I was back in Bridgnorth!) To marvel at the Sacré Coeur, by that time the sun was beginning to set so once again we had a lovely view over Paris.

Sadly that concluded our adventures in Paris as we headed back to the hotel to collect our bags then my family came with me to Montparnasse station before heading onto the airport.
Before starting my year abroad I was a bit disappointed about having my 21 st birthday abroad without all my friends and family but it turned out to be a great, it'll certainly be a birthday that I won't forget!

Has it really been over 5 weeks since my last post?! Oops!

So once again I’ve been slacking at the blog posting and I've done so much I think I'm going to have to summarise it a lot or this post is going to be more like a dissertation! (Okay so I tried to summarise but it's still pretty long so I hope you don't get too bored reading it!)

After my last post my sister came to stay for the weekend which was lovely but unfortunately it rained alll weekend and the sun came out as soon as she left, how typical! We went to the aquarium in La Rochelle which is supposedly one of the biggest in Europe, it didn’t seem that big though, but it was really good and I took a lot of photos of the fishies!

 At the aquarium

We also did what we do best- shopping! We are such bad influences on each other, on her first afternoon here we both returned home with armfuls of bags and she had managed to spend half of the money she had brought with her for 3 days! 

 Lots of shopping!

I also braved going back up the Lantern Tower, last time I went up with my mum, dad and brother, just after I arrived in La Rochelle, my brother spent the whole time laughing at me because I was going at a snails pace up and down the stairs and refused to walk around the tower at the top because it was so windy that I thought I was going to blow off! But luckily this time there was hardly even a breeze and somehow the narrow, slippy, spiral stairs didn’t seem quite as bad! 

 

Me up the tower!

 

We then also went up the Chaîne Tower which has a little museum in and you can also see out from the top but it’s not nearly as high as the other two towers. We also went to the Museum of the New World to get the cultural side of things in! I also took her to the park where there is a small animal park with goats, ducks, turkeys, peacocks and deer, which was a bad idea because she now wants a pet goat (for those of you that don’t know, she’s 22.)

 With the goats!

 

We also went out Friday and Saturday night and for dinner one night at a restaurant where they did amazing cocktails!

 

Me with my cocktail! 

A couple of days after my sister left I headed off to Paris to be paid 200 euros to go to a Comenius meeting which only set me back 75 euros in train tickets and 25 euros for a hostel room so effectively they paid me 100 euros to go to Paris- can’t complain! However, the meeting was incredibly boring and mostly the same as the meeting I’d been to in England but it was probably worth it for the numerous tea breaks and free 3-course lunch with bread, wine and coffee! And it was also a good opportunity to meet other assistants and catch up with people from Sheffield (there are a lot of us doing Comenius!). At the meeting they gave us a list of all the assistants in France and where they are and it turns out that I’m the only one in the whole of my region! After narrowly missing one of the renowned SNCF strikes by a day I arrived back in La Rochelle and went back to school for 2 days before the Toussaint holidays.

Me and Emily with our impressive lunches! 

The first weekend of the holidays, Jen (another Comenius assistant that I know from Sheffield) came to stay in La Rochelle for the weekend with some other assistants from where she is so I showed them around a bit, we went for a guided tour of the Town Hall which started out interesting and fairly easy to follow (it was in French) but by the end we were all a little bored and had given up trying to understand the guide's babbled attempt to finish the tour on time! We also went for a night out and for dinner which was nice!

 Night out with the Cholet assistants in La Rochelle

 Meal with the Cholet assistants in La Rochelle 

Then the real adventures began, I set off to Bordeaux with a massive suitcase in tow, since I had the choice of a tiiiny one or one I could probably fit in myself and knowing that I am incapable of packing light, I went for the big one. Although I later went on to regret this decision after a week of lugging it around with me on trains, to and from stations and up steps etc! In Bordeaux I met Rhian and Harriet, two of my friends from uni, as well as some other assistants from Poitiers (where Harriet is). On the first day we did a massive circle of the town in search of the Tourist Information Office and we later found out that there is also a Tourist Information Office at the railway station we had arrived at! But nevermind, we got to see quite a few of the sights that way and we also went on the little tourist train to get an overview of the city and get our bearings a bit!

 Harriet and Rhian on the tourist train

 The next day we went on a wine tasting tour as we thought it would be rude not to when in Bordeaux! We were taken by coach to two different chateaux and vineyards and given a tour before tasting some of the wines. In my opinion there was far too much talking and not enough wine and it would've been much more fun if they'd given us the wine before the tour! Hehe. But I did actually learn a bit about how wine is made and I also discovered that I actually quite like some red wines (previously couldn't stand it!) but that worries me a little as I think it must mean I'm getting old (or turning french!)

Rhian, Harriet and me on the winetasting tour  

On the last day we split into two groups- one to do cultural things like museums and the other to go shopping! Now anyone who knows me would have been able to guess that I went with the latter, especially since Bordeaux claims to have the longest shopping street in Europe and the shops were fairly inexpensive unlike in La Rochelle, so I seized the oppurtunity! In the end I didn't actually end up buying that much but I did manage to find a Halloween costume in Claire's Accessories. Halloween isn't really celebrated that much here so that was about the only place we found that sold Halloween things and I decided to go as a cat. Later that evening I got the train back to Poitiers with Harriet and the other assistants where we went for a night out for Halloween (hence the costume!), I was surprised to see that there were actually a lot of other people dressed up in the bars! It seems to be a lot more popular in bars and clubs than among children here!

 Our Halloween costumes! 

The next day we went to the same Creperie that we went to last time I was in Poitiers- so good! Then in the evening we went to one of the other assistant's appartments where we made chocolate chip scones and chatted which was lovely as I have really been missing baking since I don't have an oven, and it was nice to make something typically english too!

 Yummy scones! 

The next morning me and Harriet got the train down to Perpignan which took about 8 hours but it went fairly quickly as we spent it napping, chatting, and reading, and we also had to change twice so that broke up the journey a bit. When we arrived in Perpignan we went for tapas which was soo good and we even had a crazy man serenade us with his guitar before demanding money!

Rhian being serenaded! 

The next day we met some of the others from Sheffield that are studying in Perpignan too and we set off early on a coach up into the mountains, we got off the coach in a little village and trekked about an hour to reach St.Thomas les bains- outdoor hot springs that you can swim in! The outside temperature was about 12°C but the water temperature was about 35°C so once you'd done the frantic run from the changing rooms to the baths, it was bliss!

 The outdoor baths 

We also paid to use the indoor facilites which included a steam room, jacuzzi and complimentary tea room although I was highly disappointed to find they had no english breakfast tea and no milk, so no tea for me :( We trekked back and got the coach just as the sun was going down which made for very pretty views across the valley.

 View across the valley

After accidentally getting off the coach then immediately back on part way back, we finally arrived back in Perpignan quite late. We had a quick dinner then went for a night out which included predrinks at Cameron's house and teaching a group of baffled french people a drinking game called 'Zimmy' (which by the way I was awful at, which consequently meant I ended up drinking quite a bit!). On the way into town we stopped at a bar to use the toilets and me and Harriet accidentally used the mens because often in French bars there's only one cubicle for everyone, but apparently not at this one! We didn't realise why we'd been getting funny looks until we got back to the others and Rhian asked us why we had gone in the mens!! After that we headed onto the club where me and Harriet subsequently lost everyone and so resorted to dancing on a table, as you do! But we soon found them again and danced the night away!

 Rhian, me and Harriet at predrinks

The next day we were planning on making a big roast dinner for everyone but because France is rubbish on a Sunday, all the shops were shut by the time we got there so we spent the whole day waiting for the kebab shop around the corner to open!

Me and Harriet left the next morning and headed back to La Rochelle and Poitiers respectively. It's safe to say the idea I had before coming to France that french trains are always on time is definitely not true, our train stopped at Agen station for around 2 hours because of an accident or something like that on the track. It was lunch time so we went out of the station in search of a sandwich shop. Evidently everyone had had the same idea as us as the little sandwich shop we found across the road from the station had a queue out the door! We made it back to the train just in time to receive a free lunchbox from SNCF because of the delay! In it we got a letter of apology, a bottle of water, a tuna salad, some biscottes, duck pâté, pretzels, apple compôte and haribo sweets! Not bad for a free lunch, if only we had known we were going to get that before we went and bought our baguettes!

  SNCF lunchbox

I finally made it back to La Rochelle station at about 5.10pm after leaving Perpignan station at 8.18am! After a quick stop at the bank and the post office I finally made it back home and was very relieved not to have to be dragging my suitcase around anymore! Alas, less than 24 hours later I was off again, this time to Toulouse with Heather- one of the English Language Assistants from near here. Although this time I opted for the small suitcase and although that limited my packing options I couldn't face dragging the big one around any longer! Unfortunately the train to Toulouse was also delayed (beginning to hate SNCF, although this time because it was their fault we get our tickets refunded!) so we didn't arrive until about 10.30pm and we hadn't had any dinner as they didn't sell food on the train!! So we hurriedly checked into our hotel and dumped our bags and then went to a nearby bakery to get paninis.
 

Our hotel room

 

The next day we did lots of sightseeing, shopping and eating! We went on the little tourist train (becoming a habit for me :P) and looked around some churches, did a bit of shopping in the main shopping street and in the market and found an amazing tea room with the best homemade cakes!

 Om nom nom!

That evening we went to see Bloc Party play live, which was the main reason for our trip to Toulouse but we decided to go for a few extra days to explore a bit. The Bloc Party gig turned out to be an adventure and a half! The concert hall was a lot further away from the city centre than we first thought and not very easy to get to! We had to get the metro to the end of the line then it was still a fair way from there, we foolishly assumed there would be a lot of people around to follow, it would be well signposted, there would be a bus or if all else failed we could get a taxi. But this is France, so of course there was no-one to follow, no signs, the buses had already finished and there were no taxis to be seen at the metro station and we even tried ringing 3 different companies only to be told that there were none available! Finally after lingering around the metro station for about half an hour annoying the metro guard who didn't seem too bothered about trying to help us, we found another girl who was also going to the gig and as luck would have it she knew where she was going! But... the adventure didn't stop there, we then had to walk for about 45 minutes along a dual carriageway and then along a canal towpath in complete darkness before finally arriving! We'd managed to completely miss the support band, but that didn't bother me too much as I hadn't even heard of them before and we only had to wait about 15 minutes before Bloc Party came on. They played for about an hour and were really good. The crowd were rubbish though, hardly anyone was dancing or even moving and even fewer were singing (which I suppose is understandable seeing as they don't sing in French!). I don't know if it was just this gig or if that's how they generally are in France but it seemed a bit boring to me!

 Me and Heather at the gig

  Bloc Party

The next day we did some more sightseeing, shopping and eating! We went on a boat tour along the river and the canal which was good to start with but it got a bit boring as it came back the same way as it had come so there was nothing new to see!

 

Me and Heather on the boat trip

 

In the evening we went for dinner at an Italian restaurant which was really nice and fairly cheap, the only thing that let it down was our super grumpy waitress! After dinner we went to a bar but the power kept going on and off so we went in search of the student area to find another bar. We happened across an Australian themed bar, it was quite possibly the smallest bar in Toulouse with a ridiculous amount of people in it but it just so happened that as we got there, they were playing Bloc Party, so we went in! They continued to play good music so we stayed drinking demi-pêches until the small hours despite feeling like sardines and having to get up at 7am to catch the train home!

The journey home was fairly uneventful although slightly delayed, again! Heather stayed in La Rochelle that night and we went out in the evening which was fun! I wasn't planning on going out the next night but it didn't take much to persuade me and I went out with some French guys that I met when my sister came to visit and some of their friends, it was a very international evening- 7 French, 1 Turkish, 1 Korean, 2 Brazilian and me!

 International night out! 

I spent Sunday catching up on sleep and other things I'd neglected to do over the holidays, like my journal, and I prepared myself for going back to school the next day after what seemed like forever!

I've now been back at school nearly two weeks and it's flown by! I can't say anything particularly significant has happened at school, although one child told me he played cheese (it turns out he meant chess, but I was a little confused at first!) I'm enjoying helping the children make découpage boxes for Mothers' Day (yes I know it's a long way away but I leave in January so the teacher's trying to make the most of having extra help to do crafts before I leave!)

 Découpage boxes

I also ordered some cracker making kits from England to make with the children before Christmas because they don't have crackers here and they seem to find them fascinating!

 Christmas cracker making kits

I've never been one to kiss and tell so all I'm saying is I went on a date and it was nice, but I think he was allergic to me! Okay, so maybe it wasn't me, but something was making his allergies play up and he spent the whole time coughing and sniffling with his eyes watering!

It's my 21^st birthday next week so Harriet and Rhian are coming to stay this weekend to help me celebrate, which I'm very excited for! And if all goes to plan they'll be returning home with tattoos and I'll have a new piercing! My birthday celebrations are continuing the weekend after too-I'm going to Paris for the weekend and my family are flying over to meet me there, I really can't wait because I haven't seen my mum, dad and brother for 3 months and my sister for 5 weeks (oops just realised it's been longer than that since my last blog post!)

I'll try and post again after all my celebrations to let you know how they went! (I'm not promising it'll be that soon after though :P) 
Well done if you managed to read all that! I'll try not to leave it quite so long until my next post and maybe that way it'll be shorter!

 

 

 

My weekend in Poitiers (plus a few other things)

I’m really spoiling you all this week with two posts in 6 days! Thought I’d do a post about my weekend in Poitiers and a bit about what I’ve been up to this week before my sister gets here for the weekend and I won’t have time to blog!

So Saturday morning my alarm went off at 6.15am and it was very rainy and still very dark, normally it would have been very difficult to drag myself out of bed but I was excited for my weekend in Poitiers with Harriet so I got up and made my way to the bus station, albeit half-asleep! I arrived at the train station about half an hour before my train and I was surprised to see how busy it was at that time in the morning!

 

La Rochelle train station

 

In France you have to ‘composte’ your ticket before you get on the train, that means you have to put your ticket in one of the various yellow machines which are dotted around the station and it date stamps your ticket, you then have to use your ticket within 24 hours of the date stamped on your ticket. Having done that I still had quite a bit of time left until my train and the platform hadn’t been put up on the board yet so I went to the shop to get the French version of ‘Closer’ magazine to read on the train and a little box of Salted Butter Caramels as a present for Harriet (although I ended up eating half of them with her later that day! They’re sooo good!) After that, the platform was finally up on the board so I made my way there and the train was already there waiting so I got on and found a seat- because it was an off-peak train I hadn’t had to reserve a seat so I didn’t have to worry about walking the length of the (very long) train to find my seat! I was surprised how nice French trains are, at first I thought I might’ve been sat in first class by accident as it was so nice, but a small sign saying 2ème confirmed that I was in fact in second class which left me wondering what first class is like! The journey was about an hour and a half but it went pretty quickly, unfortunately when I got to Poitiers it was still raining and it pretty much rained the whole weekend which was a shame because we were going to go on a walking tour of the town on Saturday but it was just too miserable! So instead we spent a lot of the afternoon sheltering in a Crêperie where I had my first crêpe since I’ve been here- don’t know how I’ve managed to go that long without having one!

 

Me looking pleased with my crêpe!

 

Harriet is also a teaching assistant and we met some of the other assistants that are in Poitiers at the Crêperie and after that we still managed to do a bit of a tour of the town after the rain had died down a bit. They took me to see the Saint-Pierre Cathedral which was very impressive then we went to the Saint-Croix museum and after that we went into the Saint-Jean Baptistère.

 

 Cathédral Saint-Pierre

 

Baptistère Saint-Jean

 

On the way back to Harriet’s we went to Monoprix (swear I spend half my life in that shop!) to get some supplies for dinner and we also bought a kit to make macaroons. Harriet also took me to the 2€ shop which was great! After dinner we watched 101 Dalmatians in French!

The next morning we attempted to make the macaroons, we were in a bit of a rush as we were going out that afternoon, we finished making them and had just enough time to cook them and get them out of the oven before we had to leave. But only when I got them out of the oven a couple of minutes before we had to leave did we realise that we hadn’t turned the oven on properly so instead of them cooking, the neat little circles had slowly spread out in the tray and made a big splodge of chocolatey mixture! Major fail! But we weren’t too disappointed as that afternoon we went to a Chocolate festival in Chatelleraut where there were a lot of macaroons and I imagine they were a lot better than ours would have been!

 

Our failed attempt to make macaroons!

 

Chatelleraut is about 40 minutes from Poitiers so we got a lift there with one of the other language assistants who has a car and we followed another girl who was also driving there, however we weren’t entirely sure that we were following the right car so just before we arrived we were relieved when we got closer to the car and saw that we were in fact following the right people! It was 2,50€ for students to get into the chocolate festival and there were soo many free tasters that it was definitely worth it! It was basically just a big hall full of stalls selling chocolate, macaroons, meringues, nougat, jam, and a variety of other yummy things like that, so we were in heaven! There was also a stand that was making chocolate sculptures which were amazing! Me and Harriet both bought chocolate covered marshmallows which were very yummy, if a bit sickly!

 

 Me and Harriet with a lot of macaroons!

Harriet enjoying her chocolate covered marshmallow!

Chocolate sculptures!

 

I also bought a few things for Christmas presents and a couple of other treats, including a little tub of salted butter caramel sauce (my new favourite!) On the way back we got dropped at the train station and waited for my train, it ended up being about 15 minutes late which marred my previously very positive view of French trains! Because this train was in peak time I had a reserved seat and after almost kicking someone out of a seat that wasn’t actually mine, I managed to find my seat! On the way back a suitcase fell off the luggage rack and hit the woman sitting next to me on the head! I panicked a bit and didn’t know what to do as she started crying and no-one else seemed very bothered about helping! Luckily she was okay and stopped crying soon after, I think it was just a bit of a shock! When I got back to La Rochelle I had just got off the bus and was on the way back to my house when a cyclist who was looking rather lost stopped and asked me ‘parlez-vous anglais?’ (Do you speak English?) so I replied yes I am english! To which he replied (in a Scottish accent) ‘Oh! Alright mate! I’m looking for McDonalds!’ Haha, it turned out he was actually looking for a hotel which was near McDonalds, it was quite far away and I wasn’t sure exactly where, so I gave him some vague instructions and had a bit of chat before finally making my way home after a tiring but lovely weekend.

On Monday afternoon my mentor gave the children some time to finish the umbrellas and flowers that I had done with them in art, they (nearly) all turned out really well and I stuck some of them up on the display board outside the classroom. On Tuesday my mentor went to Poland for a meeting and she’s there until tomorrow so I turned up at school on Tuesday morning and the cover teacher was not expecting me, or, in his words ‘I didn’t know you existed!’ and my mentor hadn’t left me anything to do! But she had written on the planning sheet that I was doing an English lesson that afternoon which she hadn’t told me about so I didn’t have anything prepared so I spent the morning planning the lesson. It was the first English lesson I planned and taught all by myself because normally my mentor plans most of the lesson and just tells me what she wants me to do and she leads most of the lessons, but it went quite well! We revised the weather and then I taught them the colours.

 

Worskeet on the colours that I did with the class

 

Yesterday I met up with some of the other teaching assistants for lunch, we went to a Crêperie and the food was so good!

My scrambled egg, asparagus and tomato crepe and 'bowl' of cider

My mum told me that she had sent me a parcel last week and I finally got it today! I love getting post! In the parcel was a bag of percy pigs (yaaay!) and lots of stickers to take to school because I brought a few with me to France and the children love them so they'll be so excited to know I've got more! There was also a card, a little cookbook and a pen :)

 

The contents of my parcel! :)

 

My sister gets here tomorrow so I’ll try and blog about our weekend sometime next week. Although I'm not sure when I'll have time since I think I’m going to Paris on Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday evening for a meeting, but I still don’t know if I sent my reply off in time to say that I was going and I don’t have anywhere to stay yet so we’ll see what happens!

Massive post to make up for the lack of new posts recently!

Firstly I apologise for majorly neglecting my blog for the past couple of weeks, but once again the time seems to have flown by and I haven’t had a chance to write a new post until now! Now to try and remember what I’ve actually been doing…

Maybe first I’ll give you a quick update on a few things I talked about in my last blog, I (eventually) managed to fill in all those horrendous CAF forms and hand them in so my application is complete and hopefully I’ll be seeing some extra money in my bank account, but I’ve heard it can take a pretty long time so I’m not expecting anything soon!

Unfortunately the horrible rainy weather that I mentioned before hung around for about 5 days but then it cleared and made way for lovely blue skies and sunshine again but over the last couple of weeks it seems to have gone in a bit of a cycle like that. It’s funny because when there’s the slightest sign of a cloud in the sky all the locals go around in massive raincoats and some of the children at school turn up in wellies while I’m still wandering around in a cardigan as it’s still about 18ºC here even when it’s cloudy and rainy.

Since the last time I blogged I received my first parcel from home, which is always exciting! But annoyingly I didn’t hear the postman knock so once again I had to venture to the post office to pick up my parcel, it was definitely worth it though because besides all my post from home and some ink cartridges for my printer (which were the main reasons for the parcel) my mum had also put in some Cadburys chocolate fingers, a bar of Cadbury dairy milk bubbly, a bag of Percy Pigs and a bag of Percy Piglets! Safe to say they did not last long!

 

Contents of the parcel from my mum!

My teaching assistantship is still going well and I feel like I’m all settled in now and everyone at school seems to know my name. For the first couple of lessons with each class I gave a Powerpoint presentation all about me, my family and where I live etc which they all seemed fascinated by (?!) and asked lots of (often funny) questions! Last Thursday I gave my first art lesson that I had planned and prepared myself; it was based on the colour wheel, and primary and secondary colours. I was working with half of the class that day and got them to paint the colour wheel in the form of an umbrella then this Thursday I did basically the same lesson with the other half of the class but we did the colour wheel in the form of a flower. The flower was supposed to be easier as that was for younger half of the class but it obviously wasn’t as none of them even came close to finishing! But hopefully they’ll get time to finish them next week. Some of them clearly didn’t understand the colour wheel either and my knowledge of French art/painting vocabulary wasn’t good enough to make it clearer. But they seemed quite content to mix random colours and paint them in whatever order they liked so I left them to it! (Don’t think that’s quite the point of teaching but there we go…)

Colour wheel umbrellas!

Last Wednesday I finally made it back to the swimming pool and this time it was actually open! I was pleasantly surprised to find that wearing a swimming cap was not obligatory at this pool, the water was a bit cold but not unbearable and although there were communal changing rooms there were also individual ones.

However, I did find it a bit strange that you had to take your shoes off as soon as you got inside and also the usual French rule of no swimming trunks applied, meaning that men have to wear speedo-type swim shorts, since trunks etc. are deemed to be unhygienic (?!) I was aware of this rule before from previous holidays to France but really nothing quite prepares you for the sight of old men in Speedos :| I  made a bit of a faux-pas because I didn’t realise that you were supposed to take your towel into the pool area and leave it on the side ready for when you get out but by the time I’d realised that, my towel was already securely locked in my locker so I jumped in the pool quick and hoped no-one noticed! But overall it wasn’t too much of an ordeal and I’ve even been again since then and this time made a mental note to ensure I took my towel in with me. I’m thinking of making it a regular thing as I definitely need something to offset the amount of food I’m eating here!
I had a school dinner again the other day, which is always a very typically French, three-course meal and the other teachers still can’t get over the fact that I normally only eat sandwiches for lunch. As well as the massive lunches whenever it’s one of the children’s birthdays they bring in cake, sweets and juice for all the other children in their class and all the teachers in the school so it seems like every other day I get brought a slice of cake! The other day one of the children brought mini éclairs from the local bakery for everyone which must have cost a fortune but they were yummy and I even got second helpings because there were some left over at the end of the day.

 Birthday treats from the children!

A couple of weeks ago some other language assistants arrived in La Rochelle and I met up with some of them and we went for dinner at a lovely restaurant and had a very yummy meal and then we went for a night out, it was really good to meet them all and be able to have decent conversations in English for the first time in faaar too long! I’ve also been on a couple more nights out with some of them since then which were fun too.

 

 Lovely meal at La Boussole

 More nights out

This week has also been the first time I’ve done anything vaguely resembling uni work since about mid-June, for the assessed part of our Year Abroad we have to write posts (in French) every couple of weeks to describe how our language learning is going, some kind of news/event/current affairs topic and a key moment for us in the last couple of weeks and the deadline for the first post to be done is this Sunday. So naturally I left it to the last minute and then proceeded to procrastinate as if my life depended on it but I’m pleased to say I have now finished it and posted it before the deadline- proud moment right there! I’m not convinced it was very good though because I’ve definitely forgotten how to do work since June. But I was determined to get it done before the deadline because I’m off to Poitiers this weekend to stay with my friend who is a teaching assistant there, which I’m really looking forward to.

And I’m also really excited for the weekend after as my sister is coming to visit me so I’m looking forward to showing her around my lovely town and doing some of the touristy things that I haven’t got around to doing yet. And then pretty soon after that I have two weeks off for Toussaint so I’m busy making plans for trips and visits which is exciting too!

As for speaking French and trying to blend in here I can’t say I’m doing too great as everyone I speak to can instantly tell I’m English and consequently tries to practice their English on me. But on the other hand when I went to the market last week one of the traders told me my French was good, but I think he was either just being polite or he was just used to English tourists speaking slowly and loudly in English to him because all I said was four bananas please! But I do think that my French is getting slowly but surely better and I’m learning a lot of new vocabulary including my two new favourite words ‘dacodac’ which is basically ‘okey dokey’ and ‘riquiqui’ which means ridiculously small or poky. Although unfortunately I’m yet to get the latter into a conversation!

However I reckon I must be blending in okay-ish as on Thursday not one, but two people asked me for directions, I took this to mean that they assumed I was a local and knew my way around but I think it was probably rather the fact that in both cases I was the only person near so they thought they might as well try asking me in the vague hope I could tell them where to go.
However one big thing preventing me from blending in better seems to be my hair colour as it seems to be pretty rare to see other ginger people here, and the other day while I was waiting for my bus a random woman came up to me and told me she thought my hair was beautiful, I wasn’t sure whether to be a bit creeped out or flattered, but a compliment is a compliment right? Another thing which is preventing me from appearing like a local is the fact that I still haven’t got used to using Euros because I swear all the coins look the same so whenever I pay for something I have to fumble around in my purse for a good 5 minutes before I find the right change. As a result I resorted to paying for everything in notes for a while but then ironically I ended up with even more change to try and spend, didn’t think that one through!

Anyway I’d better wrap up there as I think I’ve probably rambled on quite enough already! I’ll try not leave it as long as last time to post a new blog, hopefully I’ll have time after the weekend to write a quick post about my trip to Poitiers (but don’t hold your breath!)