Once again, my sincerest apologies for my blogging negligence. In fact, I wrote about half of 'take one' of this update last Tuesday and then I deleted it accidentally like the spoon-face that I am (hence "take two").
It has taken me almost a week to summon up the courage to start again.
So here goes.
Maybe get yourselves some provisions before you start, there's over a month to catch up on!
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...
Thurs 8th Oct
As I sat, innocently blogging in my room, a storm raged outside. You will realise if you observe my blog entry for 8th Oct I was clearly not intelligent enough to disconnect my computer from the mains and ethernet during the storm. As a result my poor wee new macbook (Pierre-Louis) spent a couple of weeks in intensive care, and I spent a few weeks without internet.
Weekend 10/11th Oct
-My first official couchsurfing meet at a brilliant wee bar in town called Kaboum, I met a girl who is studying wine-making (!!!) and had ginger beer (beer+ginger syrup) yum!!
Week beginning 12th Oct
-Medical check. It seems that we aren't considered safe to live with other people until we have been medically scrutinised. On Mon 12th I had my medical check: clothes off, star-jumps, the works. Luckily I didn't seem to be too hazardous to the population of Montpellier, I'm also permitted to participate in competition sports :)
-First assessment. Tue 13th I had my first assessment, an oral presentation for my Francophone Lit class, needless to say I was terrified. It was on 'the representation of traditional education in L'Enfant Noir by Camera Laye', a nice wee book, incidentally. We prepared well but our presentation was pretty dire, I think we still passed though.
14th - 17th Oct: Circus tour to Edinburgh
-Aller. So on the 14th I woke up at the crack of dawn, dashed down to uni where I tried to print my boarding card, skipped back to my room for my passport (yeah, apparently you need you passport for online check-in too), I finally succeeded to check in and print my boarding passes (it was complex but I'll spare you the rest of details), then I emailed my tutors to let them know I would be skiving, skipped a queue to register for my exams, dashed back to my room, packed my bags, did my washing up and jumped on a tram and then a train to Nîmes (on the way we passed a little town where all the shutters were painted blue and there were cacti growing along next to the rail track) from where I got a shuttle to the airport and flew (in a plane) to London Luton. Whew. Ironically in Luton I had a leisurely 4 hour wait for my flight to Edinburgh.
-Contenu. I spent 2.5 action-packed days in Edinburgh. Highlights included: Dad fetching me from the airport, being home, breakfast with the family, inviting myself to Cat's, shouting across the road in english and not feeling like a ejit, autumn leaves on middle meadow-walk, bumping into confused people on the street (Monty and Becka on Marchmont Road, and Rosie on her way home from KB), drinking wine with Mum and Dad, a cuppa and a catch up on the meadows with Richard, autumn, the 4:48 psychosis fundraiser at the wee red bar, biblios lunch with Nicola and Helen, cycling the genesis, visiting Granny and Grandpa, Gina-g came for tea, eating apples and pears from the trees in the garden, seeing the St Tams gang and dancing the night away at Luisa's 21st Birthday Ceilidh (the purpose of my visit), seeing Luisa and Yazz, autumn, a chippy and irn bru in Glasgow on the way to the airport.
-Retour. the return journey was even more adventurous than the way there. I pushed aside the cosy prospect of a night in Stansted airport and took a wee trip into the big city to visit Laura Howells. I was quite chuffed with myself, navigating London at night. Laura, despite feeling poorly, was kind enough to welcome me in between the hours of 11pm and 3am and we had a good blether before I ran off again into the dark to catch 3 night buses and the airport shuttle back to Stansted for my 6am flight to Marseille. [I think I should also mention the whisky tasting which took place at 0530 in Stansted duty free, and the mainlining of sugar at the McCafe in Marseille Gare St Charles].
I even went to church on Sunday evening. Yeah, I was impressed too!
...feel free to take a break by the way... I know I need one!
Sorry for waffling, it all seemed interesting at the time...
Week beggining 19th Oct
-Rain rain rain rain rain. I walked back from uni KNEE DEEP in water, I kid you not! The city isn't really built for rain so when it rains it floods everywhere (and when it rains, it pours!). There was a car rather unfortunately parked on one of the streets which was worst flooded, it had water up to the level of its windows. I had to change 4 times in one day, after a while I ran out of dry socks so I just started walking everywhere in flip-flops beacuse it was easier.
-Basketball. I decided to put my medical certificate to use and went on an explore to find the uni basketball team. I found the coach mopping up flooding in the opposite corner of the sports hall, he said I could try out that training session, (although he looked sceptical when he saw that I only had my converse to play in) and pointed me in the direction of the changing rooms. The other girls were really friendly,I didn't feel like I was any worse than the other girls, we trained together with the boys, but the coach didn't give me any indication of whether I could come back or not. The next day I went to the sports office to register anyway and, as it happens, he was there when I went in, turns out I am on the team after all :)
[NB// never, never play basketball in converses if you can avoid it, many days of pain and blistered feet are sure to follow]
-Dancing dancing dancing! I went to a contemporary dance workshop with Sabina, the teacher is totally eccentric, but really cool. It's all about the centrifugal and centripetal apparently. On the way home we heard music coming from outside the lecture theatres and, apon investigation we found a whole bunch of people outside, playing music and dancing. It was one of the most lovely things I've seen. Sabina was cold so she continued but I stood there open mouthed for long enough to be swept off into the next dance. I'm still trying to figure out if it was quite real.
-No more money. On the Thursday I ran out of money, well, not exactly, there was money in the bank, about £9 in the british one and €6 in the french one so I just couldn't withdraw any, and I had a €10 and and empty fridge. I wasn't sure when my erasmus grant would arrive so as far as I knew I had to go until the end of the month on my last €10 note. I went to LIDL and bought as much as those €10 would buy. It felt like real student living. Sadly for my idealism (and happily for real life) my grant arrived on the Monday.
-Bowling with CFU. With €4 from my french account I went bowling with a group of the other students from church. Banter was had :)
Weekend 24/25th Oct
-Joan Baez visited Montpellier on the 24th for a public concert to finish the 14th international festival of guitars. Hippies, former hippies, future hippies, Woodstock hark-backs, wine and cheer abounded. I was there with Sabina and Isabell and afterwards we joined some other friends and the couchsurfing contingent at Kaboum for some cinnamon beer (and chocolate beer, and coconut beer). I also made the acquaintance of some lovely Islanders.
Week beginning 26th Oct
-Friends? this was the point where I realised that maybe I have some after all.
-Latin Exam. What it says on the tin. I passed. Got the next one tomorrow, hence the procrastination! Lupus domini a cane superatur.
-Cake Club. On the Tuesday night it was the goodbye party for one of the couchsurfing guys, Erbin, as he was moving to Belgium :(
Everybody had to bring cake and he let me use his oven to bake a plum tart which (you can imagine) made me very happy indeed :)
-Surprise unbirthday. On wednesday morning Sabina, Emma, Julia and Georgina invited me for breakfast and had a surprise "unbirthday" for me, because they had missed my real birthday. They had gone to the AMAZING boulangerie next to Georgina's and bought all sorts of treats, and invited a whole gaggle of friends and we wore paper hats and drank coffee and didn't stop eating until 1 o'clock in the afternoon, it was so lovely.
-I splurged some of my newly acquired erasmus grant and bought some much needed basketball trainers,
-I helped Erbin moving out of his flat, in exchange he gave me a lovely set of prints which make up a panorama of St Petersburg which now proudly adorns my wall.
-Basketball training no.2, much better with proper shoes, followed by a friendly drink with some the team.
-More dancing, the magic people were back! They meet each Thursday to play folk music and dance, a bit like a french ceilidh.
Weekend 30/31st Oct 1st Nov
-Camping larks and hippy loveliness
-Of Rochefort and wild-boar paté
Week beginning 2nd Oct
-Still no computer, still no computer, still no computer, COMPUTER!
-Les Jeudis en Musique with David Linx and Diederik Wissels
-Truffles -I am eating one just now, soooo yummy, but got chocolate all over my computer :/
-Isa's 18th
-The day of blurr (and peanut butter)
-Potluck and almost assassins
7th - 12th Nov: Venice
Sat
-Ticket stress
-Montpellier-Milan
Sun
-See "In which Elsbeth Helfer is entirely surrounded by water"
-The local (+MONSTER mosquitos)
-PIZZA
Mon
-The bridge of tourists, Jimmy Bond in Venice and St Mark's in the rain
-Traviso and magic sunshine
-The book-binder's shop
-Chocolate and hot chocolate
Tue
-Gondola
-Market
-Spice shop
-Singapore
-Strolling
-The gutting of the fish and the curry fest
Wed
-Lithuania
-Mexico
-The basilica
-Coffee solo
-Venice-Milan-Lyon
Thurs
-Lyon-Montpellier-shower-Sociolinguistics-basketball match
Weekend CFU 13/14/15th Nov
-church weekend away
Last Week
-Another Victory for UPV1 (we won our basketball match)
-Marrons
-'The shakespeare'
-The Pirate bar
-Andrei and Pauline's flatwarming
to be completed. over.
