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!