Sledging, stookies, single-handed life and Boulevard Rabelais

So gentle readers, an overdue update from the new year until now:

Most of you will know that I broke my wrist just after the new year in a spectacular sledge jumping accident on Blackford hill.

After some colourful drugs and rather a lot of pain I returned to France on the 15th of January.

On the 22nd January (one week later) I moved out of my little room in Boutonnet student residence and stayed in transit with my friend Tiana until I moved into a lovely little flat with my friend Triin on the 26th.

During the 4 days at Tiana's I had a flying visit from Yasmeen Chaudhry :) It was lovely to show her the town, we also ate some amazing food, danced in the Antigone, and Yazz made some amazing fudge which very much impressed the company. It was also nice to have another Scots lassie around on Burn's night!

Now I'm safely settled in Boulevard Rabelais with a magic kitchen and just enough space on the roof for 3 or four friends and a dram or two. We had a bit of a flat-warming bash two sundays ago and crammed far too many of our friends into our tiny little flat, I counted 17 nationalities present. Sadly the flat hasn't stayed very warm, in fact it is decidedly freezing, which i'm sure we'll appreciate to its full advantage in the summer *er-hem* and anyways, at least we have plenty of excuses to drink lots of tea and eat lots of soup! :) both Triin and I are very fond of cooking and we've been eating about 5 times better than last semester for around half the cost, a combination of making shared meals, living 5 mins from Aldi and discovering the Figuerolles market which is all that a fruit and veg market should be and more.

Its been so lovely to have a friendly flatmate again and to have a home where other people like to come and hang out :)

In other news I've also started classes (3 weeks ago now), most of which are seem much more motivating than last semester which is good news. Another lovely bonus is that, although I am taking more credits then last semester, I still seem to have managed to keep my Fridays free :) this gives me more time for market shopping, clothes washing and assorted activities of a more adventurous nature.

Last weekend I joined a trip to Pont du Gard and Avignon with Emma, Sabine, Georgina, Lara, Tina and Suzanne. Much dancing on the bridge took place. There should be some photos on the snap-shot post that I made this afternoon.

Sadly Lara and Sabine were only here for one-semester and both headed back to Germany this week. Saying goodbyes was really sad, but it also has made me appreciate the friendships I've made and be grateful that I get to be here for another while yet.

well, that's all for now folks x

PS/ for your delectation and delight, and with the view that I should be getting my wrist freed from plaster cast on Tue morning, I present you with my soon-to-be best-seller:

Elsbeth Helfer's Guide to single-handed living

with the "how to survive single-handed" on subjects as diverse as:

1- Kitchen chaos: washing up, chopping veg, cake-making, cracking eggs (with tribute to Yasmeen Chaudhry and Audrey Hepburn), and a rough guide to tin openers and corkscrews.

2- Tying laces (needs a chapter all to itself), with special thanks to Becky Symes for her inspiration.

3- Moving out and moving in.

4- Adventure sports: midnight salsa with drunken icelanders, rooftop stargazing, silent-disco and city cycling.

5- Hints and tips for daily living: the low-down on the know-how for showers, bra clips, curby-grips, trams, groceries and the laundrette.

over.

NEW ADDRESS

hey gang

as a number of people have asked about this:

i'm no longer at Cité Universitaire Boutonnet.

my new address is:

1008, 43 Boulevard Rabelais

Montpellier 34 000

FRANCE

oh yeah, i do live on a boulevard! :)

over.

some catch-up snap-shots

From Dec

Christmas raclette and mulled wine chez Hrönn.

Triin, (me,) Hrönn, Frosti, Alice, Kristina and Viola

A gathering of northerners, its not often you have a Icelandic and Estonian majority!

Yazz's visit at the end of January :)

Pont de Gare with Asso Erasmus at the beginning of Feb

Pont de Gare with the girlies

(Sabine, Emma, Georgina and Lara)

Bridge of Avignon (only 1/4 of a bridge really)

See them dancing...

(Sabine and Georgina)

... see them dancing

The magic kitchen of wonders (it cooks all by itself)

My lovely estonian coloc Triin (with the post, and the junk mail!)

Fête de la Crémaillère (flat-warming party)

- over 40 guests of 17 nationalities!

A dram (Glen Garioch)on the roof

-with Alice, Frosti and Hrönn

At Babarousse, the pirate barrr

-with Georgina, Lara and Sabine

christmas '09. new year '10

snow

(snow snow snow SNOW snow snow)

food

sledging

hair

sleeping

food

snow

sledging (ouch)

A&E

over.

a few things worth mentioning

hello

of late there hasn't been very much to say, studying and revising have actually taken up a fair amount of my waking hours. there have been a few of those days where i go crazy from being in my room for hours upon end, other days where i reach 4pm and realise that i haven't used my voice yet, some days i revise with Emma or Sabine and we keep each other from going insane, those are good days.

but nevertheless there are one or to other things maybe worth telling from the last couple of weeks:

• i spent a lovely evening at the home of some Romanian friends from church, their mum made all this traditional romanian food for us to taste. yum :)
• took part in Vélorution Montpellier. like critical-mass, a hilariously irritating environmental protest by cyclists which happens in many cities. the best part was when everyone stopped in the middle of one of the busiest roads to dance and clap along to a band that were playing outside a cafe. oh, did the car drivers get upset!
• last weekend we had a mini-christmas at Hrönn's place with raclette and glüwein (with raisins and spices and blackcurrent liqueur) and tangerines which still had their leaves on.
• we've been singing carols at church, we're going friendly-neighbourhood-carol-singing on wednesday :)
• i got an lovely letter from Jo with a dvd FULL of music, WOOP! YEY! thanks Jo!
• i finally joined the bike-workshop and mended my bike, yipee! (then i had a nasty collision with the back of a van the following day, i hurt my shoulder and my knee and disgruntled my handlebars but thankfully there was not too much damage done, i was wearing my helmet and not going to fast. sadly i don't have any bruises to show how much it HURTS!)
• i made no-need-to-bake oaty chocolate peanut-butter cookies and chocolate truffles, if you don't have an oven you just have to make do.
• i was sucked into a very heated game of couchsurfing assassins, it was boys vs girls so it got pretty heated. flat keys were stolen, bikes were sabotaged, hostages were taken, workplaces were besieged. it was dramatic stuff. i had declined to play this round but my friend Triin, who lives in the building opposite me, was often in need of a bodyguard (you're protected if there is another couchsurfing witness present), which made for some funny emergency messages along the lines of, "come quickly, the boys are after me again!"...
• yesterday i got a lift to the foothills of the provincial alps, because clearly the most clever thing to do the week before all my exams is escapade across the country to the goodbye party of someone i'd only met once! It was fun. highlights include, banter in the orange van with Luic (FR, who lives in the van) and Alice and Jesus (UK/SP, two fellow couchsurfers), singing along to 'the no smoking orchestra', having fun with toilet roll confetti in the high winds at the motorway toilets, stopping for a very wet snowball fight, teaching french people to ceilidh at the party (with a very merry Luic playing the fiddle), playing clapping games so enthusiastically that we all ended up with blood blisters on our thighs. We hitch-hiked home again today in the cold, people are very lovely to hitchhikers here, or maybe they just love my bright orange jacket, who knows.
• here olives come on trees as well as in jars :)
• sometimes there are oranges on trees too!

some vocab to keep you on your toes (it's keeping me on mine!):

stitch (knitting) - maille

wool - laine

to score (a point/a basket) - marquer

guidons - handlebars

prise (de courant) - electric socket

fog - brouillard

demeurer - to stay/to remain/to live

that's all for now folks.

lots of love.

over.

an ode to couscous

dear gentle readers,

ok, so I hate to be a one to be forever sprouting excuses but what a week it's been!

4 days sans electricity and (just when the electricity came back) 4 days sans internet, now the fuse in the cuisine has blown, again.

^%&*@^*!!!!

huff.

rant over.

I'm off to borrow someone's kitchen.

more soon.

ps/ couscous is AWESOME. over.

This week

for those of you who are concerned for my academic welfare rest assured, this week has been essay based, with a lovely interlude of Latin exam happiness.

today was the first of those days, you know? where you sit and drink perpetual cups of tea. it must be getting towards winter.

this evening I spent a pleasant time watching a film ('black cat,white cat', its bulgarian i think, watch it if you haven't, it's wonderful) with Triin and Kristina (both from Estonia) and Hrönn and Frosti (both from Iceland) all of whom found it rather a novelty not to be in the ethnic minority. don't they all have lovely names?

over.