Wine festivals, Thanksgiving and Barcelona

Hello from a much colder and wetter Sète! In fact over the last week or so we have had huge thunderstorms echoing those rain storms we had when I first arrived in Montpellier. People still keep telling me that this is really quite rare, but I have to say I am now starting to doubt them! Fortunately Sète is built on a hill, so we are fine in our apartment, although the canals do look dangerously close to overflowing! 

Since I last wrote a blog post I have somehow managed to find myself at two wine festivals, the first being a planned trip to a big exhibition centre in Montpellier with some of the other primary English language assistants, and the second being when we stumbled across one in the centre of Montpellier when celebrating my flatmate Amy's birthday with another American assistant and assistants from El Salvador, Spain and Italy. 

Both were lots of fun and I even got my two tasting glasses as free souvenirs!  I think I have now mastered the act of pretending to know what I'm doing when tasting wine - swirling the glass and smelling it a few times before you take a sip.

I also managed to end up going from having never celebrated the American tradition of Thanksgiving to celebrating it twice in one week! Obviously being American, Amy wanted to celebrate it, so she cooked us a lovely thanksgiving meal - trying to keep with tradition as much as French supermarkets would allow! We had a roast chicken instead of turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, apple cider and a delicious Apple Crisp. It was so yummy, and we even topped it all off by watching the thanksgiving episode of Friends! 

Then, on the Saturday night that we went to pick up Amy's roommate from college, Gina, from the airport in Montpellier, we were given a lift by our landlady Maryline who lives in Montpellier. She invited us to her house afterwards to join in a thanksgiving party she was having with an American student who is currently living with her, and her American friends, and their French host families. There was lots more traditional food there, and they even had a turkey and pumpkin pie! There was a funny moment when the Americans and French who were doing the cooking were baffled by the Bisto gravy they had bought and I had to explain to them how to use it!

As I said we celebrated Amy's birthday by going into Montpellier on the weekend before (sadly she had to work on the actual day) and watching the new Hunger Games film in the fancy cinema on the Place de la Comédie. It was after that when we found the wine festival, which we then followed nicely with a meal in the famous l'Entrecote restaurant which serves only one dish - Steak Frites - but it is the nicest Steak Frites you will ever have! They have a well-guarded secret recipe for the sauce they use on the meat, and people queue up outside every night before it opens at 19:15. Once the doors open they sit you down as fast as possible and you order how you would like your meat to be cooked and then they bring it out to you, and then refill your plate when you want.

The next day, one of Amy's teachers offered her a ticket to the opera in the posh theatre in Sète, so I bought the last available ticket online and joined her - I have to say, being English and watching a Spanish opera with French subtitles was an interesting experience!

I also finally managed to go the a French church in Montpellier with one of the other primary English assistants, Matt, last week. It was actually really fun, and the people we met were really welcoming. A lot of the worship songs were ones that I know from English churches but translated into French which was funny! The first song we sang was Bénit soit ton nom which is the French translation of the song Blessed be your name!

But by far the most spontaneous thing I have done on this year abroad yet, is to plan a trip to Barcelona two days before going! Amy and her friend Gina decided it would be fun for Gina to be able to go to two countries whilst she was staying in Europe, so we decided to book a trip to Barcelona which is only three hours away from Sète by train. We got up really early on Wednesday morning and took the train from Sète, changing at Perpignan to get to Barcelona by midday. We managed to book a really cheap hotel right in the centre which was great, and straight away plunged into our first taste of Spanish food - a Spanish omelette! Then we headed over to the tourist information and book tickets for a flamenco show that night which we went to after visiting the Picasso museum which turned out to be free for students which was a nice surprise! Then we did as the Spanish apparently do, and ate dinner at 10pm - I had a yummy chicken paella accompanied with sparkling wine which I was reliably informed was the drink I should have.

The next day we basically spent the day admiring the architect Gaudí's work - we had a tour of a house that he built/decorated/designed called Casa Batlló which was really cool and colourful. We then went to the Sagrada Familia church that he decorated, and the the Parc Gueïl which had beautiful patterns everywhere you looked. 

Then in the evening we tried out some more local delicacies - tapas and churros and hot chocolate which were all delicious!

On our final day we walked around the gothic centre and did some shopping in the many shops and in the Christmas market, before catching our train back to Sète. For such a short amount of time we maganed to fit in quite a lot, and had a great time experiencing such a different culture to the one in France, despite it only being three hours away!

On the last day of Gina's stay we went into Montpellier for the Christmas market. The whole of the centre is currently completely covered with pretty Christmas lights and there is even a giant lit up globe in the middle of the Place de la Comédie.

We also went on the reindeer ride with all the children and their parents and drank vin chaud which reminded me of Christmas at home!

On the reindeer ride

 Le Marché de Noel

Meanwhile, before you all start telling me that I'm basically on big holiday (although it is almost kind of true!), I have actually been doing my work, and have been doing the English words for different jobs with some of my older classes, who have been very much enjoying the actions game I have invented for them! It is funny to see what they think of when they think of different jobs though, as when I asked them to come up with an action for a policeman, they all started to have pretend guns, which surprised  me. It seems the police are a lot more hardline in France and are seen as a lot more violent than in England.

This time next week I will be getting ready to celebrate my 21st birthday in style with a weekend trip to Paris with Amy, Emily and Hollie who is coming over from England to visit - I'm so excited! Amy and I have got a very busy month planned what with Gina having just visited, and Hollie coming to stay until we all go to London for a few days, before Amy and I go down to Plymouth for Christmas and New Year! So the next time I blog will probably be quite a while, but I'm sure with plenty of things to write about!

'Ce toit tranquille, où marchent des colombes, Entre les pins palpite, entre les tombes...'

Those of the first two lines of the famous French poet, Paul Valéry's poem 'Le cimetière marin', which is about the cemetery in Sète, which is just down the road from my apartment. Paul Valéry was born in, and lived a lot of his life in Sète, and so is much celebrated here, with many roads, a square, and even the local lycée (school) named after him.

 So being the 'nouveau Sètois' that we are, we decided it was time we did the obligatory Sète visit to the Musée Paul Valéry, which has an exhibition dedicated to him and his life's work. The museum/gallery also had lots of artwork, mainly of Sète which was interesting to see, especially as we now know the area, and so could recognise the paintings. Sète is a very picturesque place, so the paintings were beautiful. 

There was also a exhibition of paintings by Miró, a famous Spanish artist whose works have excited the locals here in Sète and Frontignan immensely - I have been asked by several people if I have been to see it. Personally, I found his artwork to be too abstract for my liking, and as much as I hate it when people devalue paintings by saying, yeah well I could have done that, I did find myself saying that when looking at an image of what was supposedly a woman in the street, but all I could see was a round blob with lines sticking out of it! Despite that, it was a good experience, and it was great to learn more about the famous Paul Valéry.

This is the cemetery with the gorgeous view that Valéry writes about in his poetry.

Amy and I have also made several trips into Montpellier over the last two weeks, visiting the big shopping area just outside of town called the Odysseum, which has so many nice shops - I can't wait for my Erasmus grant to finally come through! We have also been to the cinema on La Place de la Comédie to see the new Woody Allen film, Magic in the Moonlight, with Colin Firth and Emma Stone, which was quite an odd plot, but was good to see, even with the French subtitles! We also made a trip to 'The Shakespeare', an English pub in Montpellier, which was fun to take Amy to, although I will still have to take her to one in England to get the full experience!

My teaching has been going well so far, and I have been having fun teaching the children the words for family members and body parts. The royal family facemasks were popular, although I was surprised that they didn't really recognise them - not even Kate Middleton, who seems to be on the front page of most French magazines! I also did the English alphabet with my youngest classes, and they were completely adorable in their attempts to spell out their names in English to me!

I also met another English lady who helps to teach in one of my schools who is married to a french man and has 4 older children. Her second eldest, her son, is at Warwick Uni doing engineering, so she was very excited to meet me! They live in Frontignan, so she invited me over after school for a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge made by her which was very nice, as although the French make amazing pastries, they don't quite make the same quality of cake! So I went over and met her husband and her youngest daughter who is completely bilingual, which was nice, and spent about an hour and a half talking about home, uni, and how my life in France is going so far.

They also told me that on one weekend in December, a temporary ski slope is built on one of the roads in Sète out of real snow, so I will be looking out for that in a couple of weeks time!

In the meantime, au revoir!

Les Vacances

It would seem that the French really don't like to work much, what with their two hour lunch breaks, and now a two week holiday simply for 'Toussaints' which is All Saints' Day, the day after Halloween. As much as I really didn't need a holiday yet after only actually working for two days in my schools, it has been nice to use the opportunity do some exploring and have some visitors too.

In the first week of the holidays, my friend Emily from uni, who is in Angoulême for her year abroad, came to stay and so I took her around the many sights of Sète and Montpellier which was good fun, particularly with the beautiful weather that we have been having!

Obviously having lived here for a month now, I had already seen a lot of what we went to see, but we did go up to the top of the famous Mont St. Clair that Sète is built on, which is somewhere that I hadn't had the chance to go to yet, despite many people recommending it to me! Those people were definitely right to recommend it though, as there were beautiful views of the whole of Sète, the Étang de Thau, and even Frontignan. La Croix de Saint Clair which is found at this viewpoint was also very striking, and was next to a pretty Medieval Catholic Church which people apparently still go to, despite it being right at the top of this very high hill! 

We found the most beautiful houses on the Mont St. Clair, which were fully equipped with huge swimming pools and gardens to accompany the amazing views that they were fortunate to have - it is clear to see that there are some pretty wealthy people living in this part of Sète!

On one of the evenings we went to the local cinema in Sète to see a new French film called 'Samba' which was about a Senegalese immigrant called Samba, and his fight to gain citizenship and the right to work and earn money in France. I know it sounds very serious, but it was actually very funny (in the way that only a French film can be!) as well as providing and interesting insight into French immigration policy, which combined with a cute love story and some Senegalese culture made me very happy!

We also toured the historic parts of Montpellier, which of course also included a tour of a few different eateries around town! It is safe to say that if you ever want a great crêpe of frozen yoghurt in Montpellier, I know exactly where to take you!

In the second week of our holidays, Amy and I took a trip to Bordeaux with two other American girls called Olivia and Rachel, who are also English language assistants in secondary schools around Montpellier. The others were staying for the whole week, but as my parents were coming to visit, I could only stay for a couple of days, and we all stayed in a youth hostel near to the centre of town which was great -after having tried and tested several different youth hostels across Europe in the summer, this one rated pretty highly on the scale (and not just because of its free petit déjeuner!). As Angoulême isn't far from Bordeaux, Emily met up with us for the day, and we had a lovely day of Bordelaise food and a bus tour of all the sights of Bordeaux. It really is a very beautiful city, with its Eighteenth century buildings and the Garonne river; I would definitely recommend it as a great city break! 

Next up was a mammoth train/tram/bus journey straight from Bordeaux to meet my parents at Montpellier airport. We did all the usual touristy things in Montpellier and Sète, and even went on 'Le Petit Train' of Montpellier which was great to see all the main attractions of the city, going into parts of it that I had never been to. I also took them to our local hypermarché 'Auchan' which was a fun experience! On their last morning we drove to Cap d'Agde which is near Sète, end of the sort of island that we are on - I'd never been before, so it was good to go somewhere different, although Amy and I decided that we still preferred Sète (but then we are biased!!).

Now we have finally finished our two week holiday, and are looking ahead to starting the next term of actual, proper teaching, so I have been preparing some fun lesson plans for the children, including one with royal family face masks that I am particularly looking forward to!

I am sure that will make for an interesting blog post for next time...

Mes premiers jours dans mes écoles

Alors, I have now finished my first term of teaching! Yep, that's right, my term consisted of only two days of actual teaching!!

After a lovely weekend of shopping, preparation for my lessons, and meeting up with some other assistants in Montpellier, I had my first day of official teaching in my first two schools on Monday, and then my first day in my third school on Tuesday, which was quite daunting as I didn't know which classes I was meant to be in and when, but I somehow managed to navigate the days successfully thanks to the help of a few very helpful and kind French teachers!

On Monday I taught 4 one hour lessons to mainly year 6 equivalent age classes, and some year 5s, so their English was not too bad! I did the basic 'my name is...' at first, and managed to get every child to tell me their name in English, and then I showed them photos of my family, and we went through 'brother', 'sister' etc. They were particularly excited by the photo of our cat, Archie, although none of them could pronounce his name! Then I had some pictures of things in Plymouth and they learnt the words in English for a lighthouse, a swimming pool (Tinside Lido!), boat, countryside (Dartmoor), shopping centre (Drake Circus), and fireworks (I had a picture from the national firework competition!). Overall, they were pretty good at learning this vocab, and I got them to draw pictures in their books and label them in English, which they loved doing. Their French accents made words like lighthouse and countryside quite difficult to say, but we managed it in the end!! The schools on Monday not only had their two hour lunch break, but also had two half hour break times, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon, which I couldn't believe! So that meant that although I was there for seven hours, I was only teaching for four of them!

The school I went to on Tuesday only had two 15 minute break times in addition to the usual two hour lunch break, so that was much better! I taught seven classes in this school of about 45 minutes, although a couple of my lessons were only half an hour with some of the youngest children in the school, who were 6-7 years old, and very cute! Obviously their English was practically zilch, so I had to simplify my lesson a lot for them! We had some great games of guess the missing picture though, and some of them were actually quite good at remembering the English words so I was very impressed! The school was having their school photos done that day, so there was some interruption to the day with various classes having to go and have their photos done - it's obviously a big thing in France, because they were all taking it very seriously! 

Anyway after these two days, I was very happy to come home to my bed, as it was pretty stressful and tiring! But now I know what I am doing and where I am supposed to be, so that will make things a lot easier when I go back after the holidays.

So now I'm officially on holiday!! Woop! I have some visitors coming - Emily, and then my mum and dad, so that will be fun, and nice to see them, and apart from that I am basically planning on being a tourist in my own town and exploring everything that the local area has to offer! Can't wait!

From Whitefields to Terres Blanches

After two weeks of being here in France, I have finally been into my schools and met the teachers that I will be working with, as well as some of the children!

As English language primary school assistants, we had our final training day on Tuesday which involved a parachute, some strange storybooks, nursery rhymes and some very competitive English assistants! It was a long day, although it was good to get some ideas to help us with our teaching.

On Thursday I had a very early start to meet my 'reférent' Vincent at the train station in Sète so he could drive me to my schools in Frontignan. Fortunately my earlier French lessons of years 7 and 8 came handy during this car journey, as I was able to tell Vincent all about where I live and about my family! He was excited that I was studying at the University of Warwick because he knew where Coventry was!

When we got to Frontignan, he showed me where the train station was, and how to get to my schools from there - they are so close to the train station that it's much easier for me to get the train from Sète to Frontignan on the days that I am teaching rather than the bus, which is great news for me because the bus takes about half an hour whereas the train only takes 5 minutes!

Then he took me into my first two schools to meet the head teachers and some of the staff. Bizarrely, these two schools are basically on opposite sides of the same building with a nursery in the middle, but they are still seen as two separate schools! The headteacher in the first school was particularly friendly and I could even understand almost everything she was saying so I think I'm going to like my Monday afternoons in that school!

After meeting the teachers in my first two schools, Vincent took me to my third school (which funnily enough is called Terres Blanches - which translates as White Fields in English, the same name as my first year accommodation!). This school is right next to his office, which is handy for me, as if I have any problems I can pop over next door! I met all the teachers in this school too, and as by this time they were teaching, I met some of classes too, and the children were very cute and shouted 'goodbye' in heavy french accents as I left the room! In this school one of the teachers ran me through the book that she wants me to do with some of the older classes which is a children's book based on Gulliver's Travels. It looks quite complicated, but she seemed to think that they would love it, so we'll see!

Afterwards, Vincent took me back to my first school and I sat in on a maths lesson, after first introducing myself in English. The teacher asked me to help some of the children who were struggling with their maths questions, which was a test of my language skills - especially when I couldn't think of the word for subtraction/minus in French!

Then, in keeping with French tradition, the class broke up for their two hour lunch break (yes, two whole hours!!) and I found myself sat in the middle of a group of very loud, fast talking French primary school teachers, eating my lunch. Needless to say keeping up with them was a challenge, but fortunately they didn't ask me too many questions, so I was able to just listen and try and understand what they were talking about - which was very varied! The conversation went from discussing the type of anti-mosquito product they used, to young people's smoking habits, to the forecasted storms this weekend! They were very nice to me though and made me a coffee (the French usually have it without milk, which is something I'm having to get used to!) and gave me chocolate and a local delicacy that I don't know the name of, but is basically a sweet ball of croissant with sugar on it - it was very yummy!

After lunch I was told to wait in the staff room, and then the teacher would send one of his students to come and get me as a surprise for the class. They had been told to prepare some questions in English for a visitor, and then they had to ask me them in as good English as possible. I had all the obvious questions, such as what is your name? And how old are you? But I also had some more unusual ones including what is your favourite day? And do you like hamsters?! The children were all very sweet and very excited to meet an English person, so that was good for me!

After that busy day of meeting lots of new people, Amy and I also attempted to visit the local hypermarché, which meant we had to get the bus and then walk a fair way with all our heavy shopping! It was worth it though, because now we have lots of lovely food stored in our kitchen, rather than the depressingly empty state it was in before! 

We also bought a map of France which we've put up in our apartment, and we're going to pin on places we're going to visit in the next seven months.

I also finally manage to work out the French post system, and collected my parcel from my mum with a phone in it for me to use - so I can finally use my French number which is great!

I was also very excited because I was able to watch the Great British Bakeoff Final which was a nice taste of home (sorry about the pun!). Amy watched it with me, and it was very funny to see the show through the eyes of an American, as it really is so British, and it felt odd saying that it really was one of the biggest shows in the UK right now!

We were hoping to go on a day trip to Avignon with some other language assistants tomorrow, but Hérault (our region) has been put under orange storm warnings again(!!) so we couldn't really risk it, as nobody wants to be stranded in Avignon! So it looks like we'll have to stick to Sète so that we can definitely get home!

My first 'official' days of teaching are on Monday and Tuesday, and then the two week holiday is upon us, so I'll have to do some more exploring of the area then! Emily (my friend from university who also does French, and is currently living in Angoulême) is going to come down and stay with us in the first week of the holidays, so that should be fun.

Anyway, I will write again soon!

A bientôt!

Allons à la plage!

In true British fashion I had to make the most of the hot sunny weather here in Montpellier, so I pretty much spent my whole weekend at the beach! On Saturday I went to the beach by the Etang de Pérols with a group of English language assistants which was fun, and nice to be able to speak English for a bit! 

On Sunday I went to the beach in Sète with my flatmate/roommate (apparently it depends if you're English or American how you say this!), Amy, and two Spanish language assistants and an Italian language assistant from Amy's secondary school that she is teaching in. It was slightly tricky trying to have conversations in French when none of us spoke it as our first language, but we managed to get by and had some funny experiences including a French man talking to us about selfies. Yep, apparently the selfie craze has hit France too. We later went back into the centre of Sète and shared some tapas, although it wasn't quite up to the Spanish assistants' standards!

Today Amy and I finally made our trip to IKEA which we were very excited about - Amy had never been to an IKEA before, so I had to try and explain how it works, which is more difficult than it should be! 

It was in a very smart shopping complex which had loads of shops, including many that we would find at home, so I reckon we'll be back there soon!! We both managed to get everything we needed for our apartment, and Amy had some complicated construction to do when she got home!

We also had another heavy rain shower as we were coming back home from IKEA and got completely soaked - it seems that the weather only goes to extreme opposites in Montpellier! Fortunately we managed to share a taxi ride home with a very cute 4 year old French girl and her mum, who was very excited that we were English!

Tomorrow I have my final teacher training day in Montpellier and I think Amy and I are going to try and find the nearest big supermarché, which is apparently half an hour on the bus, so we've got to work that all out!

Au revoir!

Beaucoup beaucoup de pluie et un appartement!

The last few days have been so hectic, I hardly know where to start! I don't know if anything was shown on international news, but France's headline news story on Monday and Tuesday were 'les inondations' (floods) of Montpellier. After two days of glorious sunshine, I woke up to pouring rain, which being from south-west England didn't faze me, so I carried on out and caught the train to Sète to meet Amy (my now roommate) to look at some apartments together. We saw two apartments which were perfect for what we wanted, and so eventually made the choice of one which is right next to a beautiful church building, and is very French!

Here it is:

Anyway, during the day we got pretty soaked and had to shelter from the massive outpours of rain like this: 

Apparently 252ml of rain fell in just 3 hours, and the river Lez in Montpellier burst its banks, completely flooding huge parts of the city, so much so that people were canoeing down the streets and people were stranded, having to sleep in their offices and in schools because they couldn't even leave their buildings to get home!

Unfortunately that meant I was also stranded as I couldn't get back to my hotel because all the trains, trams and roads were shut! Fortunately Amy's contact teacher who she was staying with invited me back to her flat and gave me dinner and rang up loads of people to see if there was any way of getting home. I ended up staying overnight and sleeping on her sofa, and the next morning the teacher took me back to the train station in Sète to wait for the first train back to Montpellier so I could collect my suitcases and come back ready to move into our apartment that evening. After waiting for about 4 hours a train finally came that took me to Montpellier and I was able to get back to my hotel.

However, it seemed that the day was just not going to be a good one for me, as when I got back to the hotel, my code to get back into my room wouldn't work, and as it was before 5pm there was no one on reception so I had about 45 minutes of desperately trying to get into my room and running around the hotel to see if there was anyone who could help me! Eventually I found a man who told me that the hotel changed the room codes every Monday even if you were staying there before that, and kindly found me my new code so I could get back into my room!

By the I was in a massive rush to get back to Sète on time with my stuff to move into the apartment and sign the contract, not helped by the fact that the trains still hadn't been completely sorted and so my train was running almost an hour late! In the end I had to take an expensive taxi journey to Sète, which got me to the apartment just in time!

The next day, Wednesday, I had my first training day back in Montpellier, which was basically a day of paperwork and meeting my 'reférent', Vincent, who is the teacher in charge of the area where my schools are: Frontignan. He was very nice and gave me my timetable which says I'm only going to be working on Mondays and Tuesdays!! He is going to take me to visit my schools and meet the teachers I will be working with next Thursday, after I have two more training days tomorrow (Friday) and next Tuesday.

So, my next main things to do are to open a French bank account and sort out all the various bits of paperwork that I need for various different things (the French like to make their administration as complicated as possible it seems!).

I think Amy and I are going to go to IKEA this weekend (yes, Montpellier has an IKEA!!) to get some bits for our apartment, which should be fun. We have been having fun living together so far, and have come across many different phrases that we use - it's like I'm learning to speak French and American!!

Anyway I should probably go and try and work out my paperwork, so I'll write again soon!

Au revoir!

P.S if you want my new address, feel free to email me and I'll send it to you!

Le premier weekend

So, my first weekend in Montpellier is drawing to a close, and this is where I have been staying: 

It's a F1 hotel in Lattes which is on the edge of Montpellier, although it is basically next to the motorway, in the middle of nowhere, with about 30 minutes walk to the nearest shops and 20 minutes to the closest tram stop! This aside, it's been comfortable and has free wifi so I'm not complaining! 

The great search for accommodation has begun, hugely helped by an American language assistant who I may be sharing an apartment with, and who has been looking for accommodation for us for the past week with the help of her contact teacher who she is staying with at the moment.

On Saturday I thought I'd better get on and help with the searching, as well as have a look round the place that I am hoping to be living in, so I managed to get the tram into Montpellier centre and then the train to Sete itself.
Sete is a very pretty coastal town, with canals running through the town, so looks like it will be a nice place to live!

I went on the 'petit train' on a tour of Sete, which was basically one of those road trains, so I got to see the famous sights of the town and learn a little about it's history.
After that I also saw what looks like boat jousting, which is a tradition in Sete, where two teams on boats joust each other and try and get the other person to fall in the water!

Will definitely be coming back to these eateries!

On my way home there was some problem with my train so I had to change trains which was all a bit confusing and I had take educated guesses about what was happening, using the little I could understand from the announcements and what my fellow passengers were doing!

The next day, Sunday, I attempted to find a bilingual church to the North of Montpellier, but after successfully navigating the tram route, I couldn't find the church anywhere!! When I finally found it, I would have been 30 minutes late, so I decided not to go in and headed back to the beautiful Place de la Comédie to have an explore of Montpellier itself. 

However, it seemed that today was the day for getting lost, as when trying to find the famous 'Arc de Triomphe' (yes there is one in Montpellier too!!), I managed to walk under the bridge it was on, thus getting completely lost again and walking in the wrong direction for almost 40 minutes! Eventually I managed to retrace my steps and found it amongst the historic centre of Montpellier which was beautiful and felt like being in 18th century France!

So my weekend has pretty much been spent as a tourist in the area that I am to be living in for the next 7 months, which has been fun, although I clearly look like a local or something as I been asked for directions by about 5 different people!

Tomorrow I am back off to Sete to meet my potential American roommate, and look at two potential apartments, which should be exciting! Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to say that I have somewhere permanent to live for the rest if my time here!

Je suis arrivée

I've finally arrived in my hotel just outside the centre of Montpellier which has free wifi so I'm happy! 

Mum and I stayed over in a Travelodge in Gatwick last night before meeting Hollie for breakfast this morning to say goodbye. Then I checked in and went to catch my flight - which turned out to be running nearly an hour late causing some minor panic amongst my fellow passengers! Unfortunately the departures board was faulty so it incorrectly showed my flight as being gate closed which meant I had to run manically to the gate - it turns out that gate 27 is pretty much the furthest gate away!

I made some friends in the queue to get on the plane, including a lady who lives in Montpellier and ended up giving me her number and introduced me to her French husband when we landed, which was very nice and could prove to be very helpful!

After landing in the airport (which is right on the coast so there was a scary moment where you thought you were going to land in the sea!), I got a taxi to some offices for young people in Montpellier to pay for my 'logement d'urgence', and also managed to persuade my taxi driver to wait for me and then drive me to my hotel - win-win! He obviously realised that I might need his business again so gave me his card, so now I can take my Montpellian (if that's even a word?!! friend count to at least 2!!

I'm currently sat in my hotel room, which think I may end up having to share, although it wasn't quite clear so we'll see! The good news is that I've actually got it booked for a maximum of 7 nights, which gives me slightly longer to look for more permanent accommodation. The not so good news is that the hotel seems to be on the side of a major road in an industrial looking area so I'm not sure if there's much going on here which could be difficult for finding some sort of food for dinner tonight! 

Anyway, I am about to go out for a wonder to see what I can find, so that's the update for my first (sort of) day in Montpellier done, I will keep this blog updated over the next week. 

A bientôt!

Only a few days to go...

So, I've said goodbye to almost everyone and have got just three days left to finish packing (which, if you know me, is almost an impossible task!) and complete all the many bits of paperwork etc. that I have been given to do but which make no sense!

So far, everything is a bit unknown which is quite scary, so when I fly out on Friday I will have 5 nights booked into a budget hotel by my 'responsable' (the person in charge of all the language assistants in the area), which means I basically have 5 days to find more permanent accommodation! Combined with attempting to set up a French bank account and two training days, next week could turn out to be very interesting...

Anyway, so far there isn't really much to say, but please do follow this blog if you want to keep up to date with how my year abroad is going as I'm intending to post as much as I can on here, as it might be easier than telling the same stories over and over again! 

I will write again when I'm on the other side!