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!