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!