Home tomorrow ...

Sooo ... I'm going home tomorrow! I'm so excited, but it's really weird to think I've lived in France for going on 4 months already. A lot of this term felt like it was going insanely slowly at the time, but when I look back on it it's gone really really quickly.

I know I'm going to get so many questions when I get back, everyone asking how it's been, and I'm not sure I know how to answer!! So much has gone on that it's so difficult to put it into a few sentences! It's defo been really difficult. This is by far the most difficult thing I've ever done and is almost certainly going to be the hardest year of my university life.

There's no real point doing a recap because if you're that interested, you can just read my previous blogs. We've had an absolute nightmare with accommodation, a fire in our building and lots of wine at 5 euros for 5 litres. Loads of it has been really really good and some of it's been not so good, much like in Nottingham I suppose, though it is made more difficult by the language barrier and the fact that I'm in a different country from most of the people closest to me. The work has been ridiculously hard, though in the last couple of weeks something's clicked and it's become slightly easier. I've only had two pieces of work marked properly, one of them being my mock exam, and I got 8/20 in both of them, which is 2 marks off passing. And to be honest, considering most of the French people get between 6 and 8, I'm not too upset with that. It's annoying that I work so hard and I'm still failing, but hopefully with 4 weeks of revision time I can pull it up two marks. And there's only one exam that's going to be really hard, which is the module we have tutorials in. Everything else is literally just factual questions so it's just a case of learning everything and regurgitating it, which should be ok. I know that I'll be so glad at the end of the year that I've done it (provided I pass everything), I've just got to work through all the really hard stuff and try and still enjoy it at the same time, which I think I have managed to do mostly this term!

Today's been really really nice! I met up with three other girls from Nottingham who are doing Management and French and are studying at the business school - Nicola, Laura and Anna. Coincidentally, Laura lived with two of my really good friends last year (Alex and Lish), and they're all really lovely. We went for lunch - absolute mission to find a jacket potato but we found a pub and had lunch there then went for a bit of a wander. They said they'd found an Irish shop where you could buy mince pies which got me well excited but sadly we got there and they'd run out of mince pies!! Very sad times. Then I went to the Eglise de Notre Dame, which Helen and I came across by accident the other day and which is BEAUTIFUL, to try and talk to someone about organising a St Mary's tour. Unfortunately though, there were absolutely no "staff" there, but I had a look round the noticeboards and found an email address so I'm going to send an email that way to see if someone can help. Then I went to the Cathedral for the same thing, had a very lovely conversation with le Pere, who was very interested and said I have to email him with all the details and he'll post me the forms I need, so hopefully there'll be a little tour in the making there. After that I came back here, finished off my packing and then Sam came over so we could do Secret Santa and have dinner - him and Pat made us some LOVELY fajitas and then we did presents. Everyone was pretty happy, Helen had me and got me an egg that hatches into a dinosaur when you put it in water, a cow mug (yay!) and a PAINT YOUR OWN FISH!! It's amazing, you get two little clay fish and some paint so you can decorate them, I am VERY excited about doing that when I get back to Bdx. Helen, Mel and Pat are going out tonight but I'm going to stay in - I don't want to have to get any more money out and I don't want to be knackered tomorrow when I get back, especially as I have to get up at 7 on Monday morning for a hospital appointment!!

So yeah, it has been a good term in hindsight. I already feel like I can do anything after negotiating the French administration system etc for 4 months and managing to survive! I'm now just really really looking forward to coming home. My first couple of days are going to be incredible, I'm spending the whole day in Leicester on Monday, meeting a load of people for lunch and hopefully a few other people for coffee and stuff, then getting a haircut (finally - first one since the 2nd September!) and going out for dinner with Dad and Katie. Then Tuesday I'm off to Notts for the whole day, looking round a few houses if I can, meeting some more people and then SINGING in the Lord Mayor's carol service with St M's. I've missed singing SO much, and St Mary's even more. It's still so weird not having that kind of routine anymore, and the people at St M's are some of the people I've missed most, I can't wait to see everyone again. And then I've got so much more to look forward to, though I do have to do a lot of revision. But hopefully the fact that I'm having lots of fun will motivate me to work when I've not got stuff on, and then I can come back and hopefully pass all my exams ... and by the time I've finished my January exams, I'll be over halfway through my year abroad, which is a CRAZY thought.

So yeah, there's my first semester summed up as much as possible, and my last blog of 2009. Unless any of you want to find out what I'm up to in Leicester, but it probably won't be half as exciting as Bdx so I'm guessing not :P

Joyeux Noel :D

And one more thing

Something else now ticked off the list of "Things to do whilst in France":

I ate frogs' legs last night.
I am now coming to terms with the French mantra, "If in doubt, cover it in garlic."
They were very nice though. Like chewier, deep-fried chicken. Covered in garlic.

C'est tout.

Only in France

Today, I had my last lecture for one of my modules - international public law. About an hour and a half in, the lecturer was chatting away about international treaties, when suddenly we all heard a man's voice shouting from the back of the lecture theatre. I thought at first it was one of the students like, contesting what she was saying or something like that, but then this man who I'm not sure was homeless OR drunk, but definitely looked both, comes waltzing down the steps holding a guitar and a box. He went up to the big table behind which the lecturer sits and put his stuff down on it, took his coat off etc and then went and spoke to her and shook her hand. She was looking slightly confused at this point but let him carry on with what he wanted to do. And as it turned out, what he wanted to do was to serenade the lecture theatre. He sat down in the lecturer's chair, adjusted the microphone and then started playing his guitar and singing! I have no idea what he was singing but all the French people seemed to like it! Then when he finished, everyone applauded and he took his box, left his guitar on the table and walked all round the lecture theatre asking people for money! A French girl my friend Sophie was talking to said that he does that quite a lot - he'll just wander into lectures and the lecturers don't really know what to do so they just let him get on with it. He took bloody ages to leave as well, once he'd got his money he went back down to the lecturer and started talking to her again and was talking to students on his way back up the stairs - he must have been hanging around at the back because the lecturer suddenly went "Vous sortez, s'il vous plait!" ... and then he was gone.

Just thought I'd share that little snippet. Can't imagine that one ever happening in B62.

Your sex is on fire. Oh no, wait ... that's your flat.

So, if any of you have been stalking me on Facebook in the last couple of days you'll know that something quite scary happened yesterday - definitely blog-worthy!

There we all were, me, Mel and Helen in our room and Pat in his, dutifully doing our TD work. Patrick heard fire engines outside and looked out of the window (his room looks out onto the quays). A woman on the other side of the room started waving at him and shouting "Descendez! Descendez!" (for non-Frenchies, the literal translation of that is get the fuck out). Then he looked down and there were two fire engines outside our house and quite a lot of smoke! The three of us obvs had no idea by this point, until Patrick shouted "Girls, there's a fire in our building, get out!" I'll be honest, for a second I thought he was joking but from the tone of his voice it was pretty obvious he wasn't. So we all grabbed bags, put shoes on etc - I even thought to save my TD work on my laptop! Sadly, Helen struggled to put her shoes on whilst simultaneously performing the all-important task of checking her text messages in the face of death ........... and that was the last we saw of her :(

JOKES! She did however take a VERY long time faffing with her shoes and locking the door despite me shouting "Helen, don't lock the door just get the fuck out!" Anyway, we obviously had to evacuate so we ran downstairs, knocking on doors on the way and stuff. Then followed a VERY LONG TIME waiting outside in the cold behind red and white tape cordoning off the area, watching firemen put the fire out, with no one telling us what was going on. It became clear though that there had been an electrical fire in the basement of the building, underneath the shop that the proprietor owns on the first floor of the building.

Eventually we got fed up of waiting and not knowing anything and went to get some food. When we came back there were still firemen there - in fact, three fire engines, two police vans and two ERDF energy vans! The proprietor was there as well - that was the first time we'd actually met her and she was really lovely, even gave us an English handshake rather than the typical French cheek kisses. She basically told us what had gone on and said we couldn't sleep there tonight. Obviously though we didn't have anything with us so we asked a fireman if we could go up to the flat quickly to get more things for the night. He took us up with him - obviously there was no electricity so it was pitch black but it was SO smokey and the smell was disgusting - that really acrid burning plastic smell but worse! So we ran around grabbing overnight stuff and once we were out we phoned the Sheffield girls and asked if we could go round there.

Patrick went back to his room in halls for the night, and the three of us stayed with the Sheffield girls - it's actually really lovely to know that in case of emergency we have got friends who will always let us stay with them! So yeah ... and now, we're not really sure what's going on. We're waiting to hear from the proprietor about when we can go back properly but not sure if we'll be able to stay there tonight, and even if we can, when we'll have electricity, gas and hot water back.

So yeah! There you go. I thought it was definitely something worth blogging about! In other news ... there isn't really any other news. Less than two weeks till I'm back home now and I really can't wait. It's our last week of lectures, then we have one week pretty much free to go to the Christmas market (which is beautiful), shop, ice skate, admire the Christmas lights... and start some revision!

By the way

New address.

Emma Fox
2eme etage
19 Quai des Salinieres
33000 BORDEAUX
France
The world
The universe
Etc.

Send me things <3

So, I haven't updated for over a month now ... but this time there is a valid excuse! It's been a pretty stressful month ... just after my last post my dad came to visit which was really lovely. Then it was our half term and only a few other Erasmus people were still around so it was a bit lonely. And then we had the biggest nightmare ever with accommodation!

So when I left you last, we had a beautiful, cheap apartment on the quays. Well, when the others went home for half term Mel left me with a list of things to do to sort out the apartment, including going to an agency that the proprietor had told us to go to for the internet. So I went to this agency, but it was an estate agent, and the woman there was really confused as to why I was there asking about internet and was asking me all about the apartment and then asked me if I had come there to pay my rent. So I sat down with her and she couldn't find the name of the proprietor on her database which really confused me. I was already a bit confused about the names because the name on the contract was different from the name we were told to write on the cheques. AND the contract had a heading which said it was a contract for three or six years, and Mel had already signed it. I basically convinced myself (and Mel in England) that these people were fraudsters. They were on holiday in Costa Rica at the time and Mel and I bombarded them with calls and emails and everything, completely ruining their holiday. We went back to the estate agent the day Mel came back and spoke to someone far more helpful who explained to us that the proprietors were an unmarried couple which explained the two different names, and the contract wouldn't bind us for three years, it's just the normal form contract for renting an apartment here and we can terminate it with 3 months notice anytime we want!

So once we had that sorted we posted the cheques and a letter apologising for disturbing them on their holiday, then we got a call from them when they came back arranging to meet them to get our keys and stuff. So we went to the apartment and they were there, they're both really really lovely. However ... when we walked into the apartment, there was a TV on the floor, two mattresses, two laptops and two suitcases from Montreal. It was quite creepy really, at first I thought there were squatters, then it occurred to me that squatters wouldn't have laptops ... either way, long story short, it turned out that one of the agents who the couple worked through had signed a contract to rent the apartment to these two Canadian guys while the couple were on holiday, but hadn't told them, and they hadn't told him they'd found us. So then the couple took us for a drink while they were frantically calling this agent guy and getting really cross with him. They basically told him he had to find us somewhere to live and not charge us agency fees, so we ended up arranging to go and see an apartment the following morning. It did end up being the apartment we are now living in, mainly because we had no other choice. It's not ideal - there are only two main rooms so the three girls are sharing a bedroom. The proprietor also wouldn't take 4 English students, so Patrick has had to get a room in university halls but he's bought a sofa bed and stays here lots anyway. Luckily, the bedroom we're sharing is massive, the building is gorgeous (Victorian, and on some kind of protected list) and it looks over the river still. The rent's not bad, defo much better than what we were paying at Teneo anyway. It took us over two weeks to get the internet so we kept having to go to McDonald's to use the wifi and now we've got it it's not great but at least we have somewhere to live!

So yeah, that's my accommodation story. In other news, Geo came to visit for a week which was amazing. We did three of the museums (cos we're all cultured, like) - Musee d'Aquitaine which basically shows the history of Aquitaine, the Musee des Beaux-Arts which is OK but quite small, it did have a really good exhibition by a modern artist called Francois Dilasser though, and then the Centre Jean-Moulin which is a war museum and was really good. And it was just really nice to see George again after over two months. It's only three weeks until I'm home now too so not too long!

I've had my first ever exam here today as well. It was 4 hours long which is insane - they're 3 hours but we get an extra third of the time because we're erasmus. I think it went OK but I don't really want to say that because it's so hard to know how you've done and it was definitely nothing more than "OK". Unfortunately now we've got TD work to do for Wednesday so we can't properly relax.

I'm starting to really miss England as well now. It's not so much missing the people anymore, though I do miss everyone, but missing the country! That sounds stupid but I miss everything being in English and being easy! I can't wait to come home over xmas, it's a shame I've got so much work to do but it'll be so nice to see everyone. And to sing! One of the things I miss most is definitely St Mary's and I can't wait to get back. I'm also in discussion with John (for anyone from St M's reading this) about organising a tour over here so watch this space ...

I can't really think of much else to say! You'd think more would have happened in a month but it literally has been mostly taken up with stressing about accommodation and revising. I've sent off three training contract applications now - for Burges Salmon, Pannone and Forsters, and I've got 8 to go!! I'm quite enjoying the application process though and I'm starting to feel like I've got the hang of the application forms now. Apart from that, really nothing else has happened. We're nicely settled into the apartment with everything sorted and now I'm just waiting on my erasmus grant, which I could do with pretty soon please Nottingham!!

A bientot mes amis
xx

Update update update! We've got an apartment! We're having to share rooms between two as it's only a two bedroom apartment, but the rent is 940 euros a month altogether, which works out as 235 each - and with CAF taken off that means we'll be paying 150 euros a month each, which includes bills :) and it's right on the river, with a big living room and a fully equipped kitchen. I haven't actually seen it yet cos the others went to see it while I was with Mum and Pete, but I trust their opinions (I think... :P) So yeah, we're going to move out on the 31st October and give this place a go. If it does end up being too cramped or whatever then it'll be really easy for one or two of us to move out or whatever, there are no agency fees or anything so we wouldn't have to pay anything to move out like we're having to do to leave this place. In some ways I'm quite looking forward to sharing a room ... it'll be like being back at school in a dorm :P I'll probably be sharing with Demelza, and Helen and Patrick will share. The only time when there might be a problem is when Geo comes to stay, but he's coming for a week in November and that's probably it for the year, so it's not worth basing our decision around that, we can work around it and it'll be fine.

Mum and Pete have just gone back to the airport - I had a lovely few days with them living the high life (!). I took them round various bits of Bordeaux, and we went to the beach yesterday (despite the cold) and had moules frites and muscadet on the seafront!! How very French. So now I've also got Dad's visit on Thursday till Sunday to look forward to as well :D And George has finally booked flights to come and see me from the 11th-18th November so I'm really excited about that - it's only three weeks tomorrow! It'll have been over two months without seeing him by then, the last time I saw him was the 5th September. So that'll be really lovely :)

That's all I wanted to say really ... until next time!

Wow ... so I haven't updated in a while ... how very remiss of me! Thing is, nothing much exciting has really happened! The biggest update is probably on the accommodation front - having decided that the residence we're living in now (that's me, Helen, Patrick and Demelza) is too far away from the centre, far too expensive and not very sociable, we gave in our month's notice to leave this morning. This means we have a month in which to find separate apartments in "colocations" - basically what the French call students/young people living together. There are numerous sites with announcements where you can try and find people to live with, and places in town you can go as well. Most people found their apartments within two weeks of being here, so hopefully a month should be enough. I'm really looking forward to living with some French people ... one of the problems with living in the same building as the other 3 is that we're not speaking as much French as we should be. It's definitely the easy way to do things, but won't do much for our French at all.

Lectures are still a nightmare!! In a lot of my lectures this week, I actually understood LESS than I did in the first week ... not quite sure how that one works! Luckily, French students are really helpful and nice and will always help you out if you need it.

Ooo also, we had an event on Weds where all the erasmus students got paired with a French partner - a "parrain" or a "marraine" if it was a girl! We all had to go to this room and we got a sticker with a number on it in red, and the person with the same number in blue was our partner. My marraine is a girl called Audrey who is doing her masters in law, she's really lovely. I met her for lunch a couple of days ago with some of her friends ... unfortunately I was really tired so my brain wasn't working and my French was awful! She even asked me at one point if I was bored and I had to explain that I wasn't, it was just hard to understand what they were all saying among themselves when I was so tired! I felt a bit bad, but I spoke loads of French to her when we first met, so I think I'm ok :P

I think that's mostly it for now. I wish I could be doing lots of exciting things every weekend to tell you about, but thanks to the bloody Student Loans Company I haven't got my loan, and won't for about another three weeks, so I have barely enough money to live, let alone do exciting things! It's Pat's birthday next weekend though, and we're all going surfing at Arcachon!! That's costing quite a bit, but it's what he wants to do for his 21st and I don't want to be left out! We're only getting him a small present so we can justify going surfing ... I won't tell you what it is just in case he reads it ;)

Anyhoo, that'll do for now ... I'm going to have a cup of tea and a biscuit and watch America's Next Top Model... how very cultured of me!

FINALLY have internet in my room ...

... no thanks to French administration! But the technician finally did make it here today and I have a brand new socket and the right cable and everything is fine!

I only updated a couple of days ago, but one of the funniest things I have ever seen happened in my lecture this morning. Some guy's mobile went off, and the lecturer stopped and said "Ah, j'entends un portable!" and then she said that whoever it was had to own up. So the guy put his hand up, he was right at the front ... he's also an Erasmus student, I don't know where he's from but he speaks English mostly. THEN the lecturer said "the rule is: if your phone goes off, you have to sing." Everyone started clapping and cheering and everything, and I don't think the guy understood at first what she was saying, but eventually he did and he got up, put his baseball cap on ... and sang possibly the best song he ever could have sung in those circumstances ...






I don't know what you heard about me
But a bitch can't get a dollar out of me
No Cadillac, no perms, you can't see
That I'm a motherfucking P-I-M-P!


ACTUALLY hilarious. We went over to congratulate him at the end, it made my day.

My timetable's changed as well - I was meant to have a horribly long day yesterday, but I decided to change one of my modules. I was going to do "Histoire du droit familial," but it's a masters module. We're allowed to do modules from any year apart from first year, but even the third year ones are difficult, so I've decided not to make life any harder for myself by attempting to do a masters one! If I'm going to do that, I'll do it in the second semester when my French is better. So instead I'm doing "Histoire des institutions juridiques" which is a second year module. The others have already been to one lecture (I have to copy up the notes at some point) and said it was OK. So the modules I'm doing are:
Droit civil (civil law)
Droit pénal (criminal law)
Droit constitutionnel européen (European constitutional law ... basically EU law)
Droit international public (international public law)
Histoire des institutions juridiques (history of legal institutions)
Libertés fondamentales (fundamental rights)

I've had lectures for all so far except international public and institutions juridiques, and so far none of them have been a complete disaster! *Touch wood*.

Anyway, this was just a short post, mainly to share my joy at the 50 Cent guy, I'm now going to go and play on my brand new room internet!! :D

First French law lecture ...

It's been a while since I've updated, just over a week I think ... but not much has happened! I had my first experience of the west coast last Sunday when a massive group of us (pretty much all the Erasmus people) went to the beach at Arcachon, it's beautiful! I had a lovely day playing crap volleyball, and guess what ... I actually tanned a teeny weeny bit! This never happens to me and is therefore quite exciting. The rest of the week was pretty much just carrying on with French lessons and doing not much else. I got my French bank account sorted, but sadly I have no money to put into it because the student loan company is rubbish. Still have no internet in my room, and the woman who works here just keeps telling us that the technician's coming to fix all our internet sockets in our rooms but he hasn't yet made an appearance, we're all getting pretty angry with her now .... supposedly he's meant to have done it by Wednesday, but I'll believe that when I see it.

I started my lectures today! I've only had one so far, which was droit civil (civil law). Luckily most of what we did today was about contract law, and we did a bit of that in our French law module at Notts last semester so I have a bit of basic knowledge. I understood more than I thought, but the lecturer was talking quite slowly and I felt like I could understand all the words and sentences, but the difficult bit is actually putting them together to form some kind of French legal knowledge! And if you lose concentration for a second you're basically screwed for the next however long. But, I did still manage to make notes and I think I got the general idea, which will have to do for now.

My timetable's pretty heavy. I have 18 hours of lectures a week, and in a couple of weeks we start tutorials (luckily we only have to do tutorials for one module - they call it "travaux diriges" (with an accent on the e of diriges), or TD), and I think that adds another two hours a week. I have four 8:30 starts a week, and on Tuesdays I'm pretty much on campus from 8:30am till 7:30pm. All the lectures are 2 hours long which obviously I'm not used to even in English. 4th year is going to seem like a proper doss after this year!

I discovered the uni swimming pool as well today. From the outside it looks crap - all the uni buildings do to be honest, university is free in France so in terms of the facilities you get what you don't pay for. The swimming pool inside is amazing though! It's olympic size and also free. You have to wear a swimming cap which I haven't done since I was about 10, but you can buy them there for 1 euro. Despite feeling like a twat in a cap, and not realising how low-cut my swimming costume is till I stood up and nearly flashed the whole swimming pool, it was a really good swim and good to get back into the pool and actually do some proper exercise for the first time in a while. I'm now sitting on the stairs eating chocolate and probably undoing all the good work ... oh well.

I'm going to go and have a nap now I think. Some of the Belgian people on Erasmus are apparently having a party tonight but I'm not sure any of us can be arsed to go ... we've got another 8:30 start tomorrow morning so it's probably not a good idea! Early night, film and chocolate sounds like a plan.

Finally settling in!

So, this is (finally!) my first blog from Bordeaux. I've been here a week now, and until now Helen, Demelza, Patrick and I have been staying in a kind of apartment place that's basically like a cheap hotel, with its own kitchen and two double beds. Finding accommodation was an absolute nightmare, and it's become so clear in this week how much we weren't told at Nottingham, and how much we were told wrong. We tried everything we could think of but loads of places were really unhelpful and all the adverts we saw for apartments were taken, but then I found a place on the internet which is kind of like uni halls but it's nothing to do with the uni, it's privately owned and run etc, and is basically a huge building with lots of studios, each with a bed, desk, table, kitchenette and en suite. It's all furnished and stuff which is good because another problem with finding an apartment was that most of them weren't furnished. Anyway, my address from now on, if anyone wants to write to me (letters would be very much appreciated!!) is:
Emma Fox
Apt 89, Teneo Medoquine
16 Avenue de la Vieille Tour
33400 Talence
Bordeaux
France

Bordeaux itself is such a lovely city. I haven't been inside the cathedral yet but it's pretty impressive from the outside. The quays all along the river are gorgeous, and it seems to be the done thing in Bordeaux for all the young people to get a bottle of wine and go and drink it by the river, opposite Place de la Bourse. We did that last night and had a pretty good night.

I haven't started uni properly yet, but on our first day we had a French test - we had to write about "les questions qui ont traverse votre esprit dans les quinze jours avant votre arrivee a Bordeaux." Excuse the lack of accents, I can't be arsed to work out how to do them on here! Anyway, this French test was to put us into groups according to level of French for 4 weeks of intensive French lessons. I'm in one of the intermediary groups (the middle ones) with Demelza ... we've had to be in uni by 8:30 since Wednesday, which meant leaving at 7:30 to get the tram ... nightmare. The times rotate each week though, so ours are at 10:30 next week, and Helen and Patrick have got 8:30. We haven't really done much in the lessons so far, apart from learning the difference between LA poignee (door handle) and LE poignet (wrist). Lectures etc start properly on the 21st.

That's pretty much it for now I think, I've got to go to the supermarket and then to Ikea later (yay!). Also, the weather is amazing, it's been 30 degrees most of the time. We're going to the beach tomorrow with the five girls who are here from Sheffield, who we all get on really well with. I'll update again soon, once I've worked out how to get internet in my actual room so I don't have to sit in the communal area bit to get on the internet!

Here safe ...

Hi all, I'm here safe if anyone's wondering but that's pretty ,uch all I've got time to write now, I'm in an internet cafe and I have lots of house-hunting to do. As soon as I can (and when I have an English keyboard to write on) I'll update properly :) x

Dates!

Ooo and I almost forgot, I promised some people I'd let them know my dates of my holidays and stuff, in case some people want to come and visit me! So, my holidays are ...

Sat 24th Oct - Mon 2nd Nov
Sat 19th Dec - Mon 4th Jan (I'll be back in England for these two weeks)
Sat 20th Feb - Mon 1st Mar
Sat 24th Apr - Mon 3rd May
Weds 12th May - Mon 17th May (though I may have exams then, it's down as a holiday for Ascension but it's during exam period)

So there you go. I'm not sure if I have lectures on Saturdays or not, if I don't it would obvs make it much easier if people want to visit me at weekends. I'm extending an invitation to everyone to come and see me if they want to and can find time and money, it'd be awesome to have people over. You might have to sleep on the floor but I'm sure you'd survive, so come see me :D

I'm now going to bed, leaving for the airport in 7 hours and I want to get a proper nights sleep (last night in England!)

Bonne nuit!

One more post before I leave ...

Wow, I'm actually leaving tomorrow! I can't believe it's come around so soon, and it really doesn't feel real yet - I can't imagine that this time tomorrow I'll be in Bordeaux in a hostel with Helen. Scary stuff!
Packing's a nightmare, trying to fit your life into 23kg is very difficult!!! I've had to cut down massively on shoes :( and will probs have to do so with clothes too ... cauchemard!

I had an amazing leaving party on Wednesday, French themed, photos are on Facebook for anyone interested! George made a little speech and gave me a present, which was a beautiful Parker fountain pen engraved with "Love you x" ... soppy I know, but I love it :P and Roz got me wine and chocolates when I saw the Oakham crew on Tuesday, and all the Leicester lot got a white teeshirt and all signed it for me - I feel well special!!

Anyway, I need to finish packing before I go out for dinner with my mum, stepdad, George, Katie and Theo (my dad took me for a lovely dinner last night too, lucky me!) - I'm not sure when I'll be able to get onto the internet, I think the hostel I'm staying in has wifi but it might not be free. I'll try and get on as soon as I can to let everyone know I'm safe etc.

For now, though, packing calls .... au revoir!

So ... first post!

So, this is my first post on my nice new blog (that I've set up now only because I'm bored and can't sleep).

I've decided to set up a proper blog to document my year abroad studying Law in Bordeaux, France ... mainly because after the novelty's worn off I'm sure I'll get fed up of having to give a run-down of events to EVERYONE who asks, so this makes it easier for anyone who's interested to keep up with what I'm doing. And my mum might not worry quite so much if she's getting regular updates on here (wishful thinking?!).

The other reason for keeping a blog is because when I come back for my 4th year at Nottingham to complete my Law with French degree, a large proportion of our French credits comes from a "year abroad project." I don't quite know yet what this entails, but it's been recommended to us that we all keep a diary while we're away to help us with that project. Now, I am going to TRY and keep a written diary as well, but past experience has proven that I'm actually pretty useless at keeping diaries, so if that fails I'm much more likely to keep this updated.

France might not be the most exciting or exotic of countries, not like people I know going to Australia, America, Singapore and other places that might seem a bit more blog-worthy, but I'm determined to make it a really exciting year, it's still an amazing opportunity and I'm not going to waste a second, so hopefully this blog will be worth reading.

I'm not actually going to France until September so creating this blog is probably quite premature, but like I said, I'm bored and I thought I'd kill some time setting it up. Plus, all the serious preparations are starting now, like trying to find somewhere to live, sorting out insurance, bank accounts, phone contracts, etc etc. So, until I've got something more interesting to write about, I can bore you all with things like that!

Anyway, here ends the first of my France-orientated posts, as I have to go and help my boyfriend move house all day tomorrow so I could really do with some sleep! So, thanks for reading, please KEEP reading my posts, I promise they'll get interesting eventually ;) x