I'm back! Miss me?

Ok, I'm starting off with an apology. I am literally the worst blogger in the world! The last time I posted I was in Germany. That feels like a lifetime ago. So anyway, a very quick update on my life since then...how on earth am I going to do this concisely?
- In March 2011, there was a fire in my house! One of the motion sensing security lights on the outside of our house shorted out, and the spark caused the entire garage and our extension to set on fire. I was in Germany at the time, but I was properly freaked out! I had to go home for a weekend so I could sort through my stuff - loads of things got smoke damaged so we had to send it away to be cleaned, but there's not much point in having stuff cleaned if you don't want it in the first place! So that happened, and my family had to move into a rented house while our house was being rebuilt; my mum had been wanting a new kitchen for ages, so this seemed like the perfect time to do it. When we finally moved back in, we were living in half a house for quite a while. Literally the only liveable room downstairs was the living room (ironic) and there were no carpets in most of the rest of the house. But it eventually got sorted and we now have a lovely new kitchen and TV room.

- I graduated from university! Final year was both the most stressful and the most fun year ever, I had a ton of work and lived in a slum of a house, but I also had lots of good times with my friends. Here is a picture of me in my graduation robes.      

- I must be mad, but after all that final year malarkey, I decided I would go back to the same university and do a Masters degree! So I'm back in Birmingham now, studying for a Masters in Translation. I miss all my undergrad friends, but I have made lots of new ones and my house is a lot nicer, bar a few issues, but even with these issues, this house is a palace compared to where I lived last year. Everyone on the MA course is really friendly, apart from one person, who I think deserves his own paragraph, but there's no easy way to rant about him without getting in trouble for slanderous comments or something, so I'll just say that he's annoying and leave it at that. People who know me will know who I'm talking about.


- Essays. As expected, life as a Masters student is so much more intense than life as a lowly undergraduate. However, the essays weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be. I was genuinely expecting ten THOUSAND word essays every couple of months, but actually Masters essays are no longer than anything I did during the undergrad, with the exception of the dissertation. However, this does not mean they are any easier. At the end of last term I was set a 3000 word essay, and I stupidly left the whole thing to the last two weeks of term. Normally, I struggle to even reach a word limit, but this time I had so much to say that I went over by a thousand words! I was so panicked trying to finish it in the last week of term that I didn't even get to celebrate my birthday at uni! :( The essay was meant to be submitted by 12 noon on the 6th of December, and I submitted it at 9am on the 7th. NEVER AGAIN. I got the mark back recently, and I got a 58. In undergrad terms, that's 2 marks off a 2:1. Considering the fact that I only managed to cut it down to 3600 words and it was late, that's not as spectacularly bad as I thought. I'm determined to do better for this term's essays, of which I have three, but I also have the D-word to think about. I have to submit my proposal by March, which is terrifying because I have no idea what I want to write about!

- Birthday! Like I said, I didn't get to celebrate my birthday at uni, but I did have an awesome celebration with my family. I went to see The War of the Worlds at the O2 Arena in London! For those of you who don't know, The War of the Worlds is a novel by HG Wells about Earth being invaded by Martians. In the 70s, a man called Jeff Wayne turned this novel into a musical story, which he recorded onto an album. Then a stage show was made of the album, and recently a new stage show has been made to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Jeff Wayne album. The show toured the UK in December, and by sheer chance, the only date when it was showing at the O2 was on my birthday! So my dad booked the tickets, and it was the most epic thing I have ever seen in my life! I first discovered WOTW when one of the songs/pieces/chapters (?) came up on my dad's iPod in the car, and I asked him what on earth it was. He explained it, and gave me the money to download the album from iTunes. I listened to it about a week before I saw the show, and I was totally hooked. The stage show was so clever!  There was action going on on the stage, and at the same time there were animations on a screen behind the stage, like a film, except the sound was provided by a string orchestra and a band. At one point a massive alien machine appeared on the stage, and I must have been distracted because I didn't even notice it coming down from the rafters, so when I saw it I jumped out of my skin! They also had a holographic projection of Liam Neeson as the narrator. It was so futuristic! The Martians were horrific, I'm surprised I didn't have nightmares about them! I also got lots of lovely presents - clothes, DVDs, jewellery, the usual kind of thing.

- Christmas! The Christmas holidays were a bit of a mishmash if I'm honest, as most of it was spent slaving over essays. I didn't get to see any friends while I was at home, but I did spend lots of time with my family. On Christmas Day my granny and my auntie came to our house for Christmas dinner. It was all a very civilised affair, we had roast turkey and pulled crackers and drank champagne, and my brother and I got lots of awesome presents. Among my favourites were the Strictly Come Dancing 2013 annual, a very cosy silvery grey jumper from my brother, and a remote control gyro helicopter thing. After the relatively chilled Christmas Day, Boxing Day was a whole other kettle of fish. We went to see my other auntie (on my mum's side) and my cousins. The difference between them and my granny and auntie on my dad's side is that they never fail to make me laugh. That doesn't mean I love my granny and auntie on my dad's side any less, just that the time I spend with them is different. At my auntie's house, we had a yummy dinner/late lunch of roast pork, then we played board games and my uncle teased me with his deliberate bad French, saying things like "enchanté" (enchanted/pleased to meet you) "tous les arbres" (all the trees) and "dans ma bouche" (in my mouth). All nonsense really! One of my favourite moments was when we were playing a game called Who's in the Bag, where we had to play in teams, and take it in turns to pick cards out of a bag and describe a person on the card to our team. At one point my auntie picked "Long John Silver", did a very convincing impression of a pirate saying "Arrrr Jim lad!" and my cousin guessed "Captain Birdseye"! I collapsed into giggles!    

- My auntie's 50th. Two days after Boxing Day, we went to Raymond Blanc's restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons. I still don't know how we managed to keep this quiet from my auntie when we were at her house two days previously! Both our families were there, as well as several close friends of my auntie and uncle. Now I'm not particularly adventurous when it comes to food, so I was pretty apprehensive about this uber posh restaurant with its uber posh food. To my pleasant surprise, I actually really liked most of the food! I'm not going to brag too much about it, because that will make me sound like a spoilt little Daddy's girl, which I most certainly am not. I'll just say that we had a 5 course meal and it was all delicious.

- I think we're just about up to date, so now I will finally tell you what's been happening over the last month. I'll start with what I like to call a "Megan fail story" - this is something that is so much of an epic fail that it could only really happen to me. On Thursday after my 2 hour lecture, I went to Tesco and foolishly dropped my debit card when I took it out of the paying machine, so both the shop assistant and the security guard had to help me find it. As embarrassing as that was, it wasn't the "Megan fail" that this story is actually about. I got back to my house and discovered that I had lost my keys! I had to bang on the door and get my housemate to let me in! Once I got in, I frantically searched the kitchen for my keys, and I was panicking because my room was also locked, so I thought I would have to sleep on the sofa in my clothes! About 10 minutes later, I decided to walk back to Tesco to see if I had dropped my keys in the kerfuffle with the card. Oooh, lots of alliteration there :D Unfortunately Tesco didn't have them, so then I stupidly decided to trek all the way back to uni (at this point it was about 7pm and it was dark and snowy and cold), but all the buildings were locked. So I walked all the way back to my house, stopping at Tesco on the way for one last tentative check, got let in by another housemate, then I did what anyone would do in a panic situation; phoned my mum. She told me to ring the letting agency, which I did, but they didn't pick up. I looked them up on the internet and found an emergency number, rang it only to be told to ring the local office again. Catch-22 much! Not helpful. This time they did pick up, I told them about the keys and that I had medication in my room that I absolutely had to take (I have epilepsy). They asked me my name and as soon as I told them, they said that someone had found a set of keys with Megan on them! I never thought my love of personalised things would come in handy! It's also a good thing that this agency gives all its tenants a keyring with their logo on, for such situations as this. The man on the phone said that someone near the Edgbaston Cricket Ground had found my keys, so the very nice man drove out to get them and dropped them off at my house! I have never been more grateful to anyone. Not much else of note has happened, apart from crazy amounts of snow and boring lectures, although I did meet a guy who looks exactly like Neville Longbottom aka Matthew Lewis, circa Deathly Hallows as opposed to cute pudgy Neville from the earlier films. I'm not gonna lie, I fangirled. I guess I'll leave it there for now, more news on my oh so exciting life soon!

Megan xxx                                                                                              

I suck at blogging....

Was it really April since I last posted? Guess I must have been having so much fun in Germany that I forgot to blog! Either that or I'm just a lazy so and so. I'm now back in Birmingham, and I can't possibly write everything that happened in Germany since April in one post, so I'll just give a short summary. In April about 15 of the Erasmus students went to Austria. The days leading up to this trip left me in a bit of a quandary (quandary? quandry? I never know how to spell that word.) because we would be spending 6 hours on trains and everyone else would be drinking copious amounts. As I knew that I would be driven completely insane very quickly if I stayed sober while everyone else was getting extremely besoffen (drunk in German), I thought I would at least need some alcohol for the journey so that I could be tipsy enough to not be driven mad, but sober enough so that I don't get completely ruined myself. Unfortunately I only really like alcopops i.e. WKD and VK, and I don't like beer. Pretty tragic that, since I was in Germany! So a couple of days before the trip I went to the local Kaufland (basically German equivalent of Carrefour - sells just about anything) which has a basement full of booze, to try and find some kind of drink that I would like. I ended up buying a bottle of Sex on the Beach and a weird grapefruit flavoured alcopop. As Balazs would say, "Das ist ein grosser Fortschritt!" - meaning that's a big step forward. Anyway, the next day we headed for Austria. 6 hours, 3 trains, a random Bavarian woman who couldn't understand a word we were saying, and vise versa, an amazing afternoon in Salzburg and a village in the middle of nowhere. As my mum sometimes reads this blog, I won't mention the name of the village here. The Erlangeners will know what I'm talking about though!

On to the lectures. Term started in May, and I chose to study two linguistics modules, a top level oral class (what was I thinking??) a module on 19th century American literature, and something called Interkulturelle Kommunikation. All very interesting. Actually that's a big fat lie, I found the linguistics stuff very boring, even though I'm usually very interested in linguistics. Meh, you can't have everything.

The next few months were peppered with another outing - this time a cheeky weekend in Munich - various nights out in bars and pizza places, and of course the ultimate event of the summer - the Bergkirchweih, or just the Berg as everyone calls it. This is a MASSIVE beer festival that runs for two weeks every year in May or June, up in the higher part of the city, hence the name Berg (German for mountain). This year it was in June. I was quite apprehensive about going to this, because as I said, I don't like beer. I thought I would be surrounded by drunkards and feel rather awkward. As it happened, I absolutely loved it! The first day of it was completely insane: Kim's boyfriend Ben was visiting, as was my friend Jenny's boyfriend Tom, so the two couples plus me and Becca went to the Berg. It was so busy! It wasn't all about the beer though, there were all sorts of fairground type games and rides, and loads of food stands selling everything from decorated gingerbread, candyfloss, pretzels, French crepes and a weird Hungarian bread thing called Langos, which Becca and Kim got totally hooked on! I still don't really understand what it is. Ben got ridiculously drunk, but Tom left early, having drunk too much. Ben was weirdly proud that he had out-drunk an American! I went to the Berg about 4 times and loved it every time.

After the Berg, things went by pretty slowly; I didn't do much of consequence apart from going to the Schlossgarten occasionally, but then the dreaded R word came around. Yes that's right: revision. Oh my DAYS. I had 4 exams and I was continually lamenting having to revise in July and August - the exams in Erlangen took place in the last week of July and the first week of August. Revising in May and June is bad enough, yeesh! I was determined not to fail or miss any exams after the debacle of the exams in Lyon. I ended up passing 3 out of 4, but I still don't know my mark for the 4th one because the stupid uni didn't release the Schein (results certificate) until the 16th of September, and me being my usual scatterbrained self, I forgot to ask for it after I left.

There was one thing which alleviated the stress of exams: at the end of July my family came to visit me. I had a lovely time with them; they stayed in a hotel round the corner from my flat and I showed them around Erlangen on the Sunday. Dad said it wasn't what he was expecting. I'm not quite sure what he was expecting, but my mum and brother seemed to like it. On the Monday we went to Bamberg. It's a gorgeous old town about an hour from Erlangen. As I had already been there twice before, I was able to tell my family about the things I had seen, although rather embarrassingly I couldn't remember much of the historical stuff that I'd been told when I went there with the orientation course. Mum and Dad really enjoyed the day in Bamberg, but my brother seemed to be bored by it. I should have seen that coming: he hates history and walking around old towns, whereas Mum, Dad and I love it. Because my brother didn't seem to like Bamberg, I felt a bit stupid for having suggested going there. I still had a great day though, and I finally managed to buy a Dirndl!!! You have no idea how exciting this is! A Dirndl is a traditional German dress, often in two colours, which is worn with a blouse and an apron. I'd been wanting one for ages, in fact I had wanted to buy one for the Berg, but they were so expensive in Erlangen that I couldn't get one. When I found one in Bamberg for €60, I could have squealed with joy! So now I have a gorgeous blue and black Dirndl. Unfortunately it's a bit tight so I want to lose weight so I can wear it! No idea when I'll actually wear it, but still. On the Tuesday I had lectures so Mum, Dad and Michael went to Nuremberg for the day. Funnily enough I met up with them in Starbucks between my two lectures because Michael had left something in the hotel, so they had to come back to Erlangen. Bonus!

This is turning into a very long post, so I'll just say that Mum came back to Erlangen in August to help me move out, and then the madness at home started. That's definitely for another post. Bis bald/au revoir!

Two months in Erlangen already - OMG.

Wow, I really need to be better at this blogging business. Once again it is ages since I last posted. I have now been in Erlangen for 2 months. I can barely believe it! A week after I arrived, my orientation course began and I met some of the most awesome people ever, including a Hungarian guy called Balazs, who claims to be here to party and studying is just a thing on the side. His catchphrase in German is "Ich bin hier zu Party, studieren ist eine Nebenwirkung!" He also loves to use the word awesome. I say this word a lot but he says it in almost every sentence! Balazs created our Erasmus Erlangen group on Facebook - this earned him the nickname of "Capitano." Best nickname ever!

The orientation course was very helpful; the people who organised it helped us to set up bank accounts, register with the local authorities and organise health insurance. I can't believe how much more helpful the Germans are than the French! I had to do all of this sort of stuff myself in Lyon, it was not fun at all. Other things included in the orientation course were a tour of the university library and a session of "intercultural training." The latter was interesting, albeit a little strange. We did a quiz about Germany, and we were taught about various social norms such as how far away to stand from someone. Apparently the acceptable distance to stand from a German is 1.2 to 3.6 metres. At the intercultural training I met the second group of exchange students, who made our already awesome Erasmus group even more awesome!

The orientation course wasn't all bureaucracy and boring stuff, we also had 3 day trips. I will write about those in another post because otherwise this post will be insanely long and you will all get bored or else strain your eyes. So I will move on and talk about my intensive language course. I took a placement test which would determine the class I would go into. I found the test to be alright, it was a simple fill in the gaps type thing. The next day we were given our results and told some more about the course. When I found out that I had been placed at level C1, my heart sank because I thought this meant I was going to be in the bottom class. However I then realised that according to the European testing standards, A is the lowest level and C is the highest. You can see why I got confused! Once I realised I was in the top class, I was relieved but I also began to panic, because I was expecting to be in one of the middle classes. I was worried that I would end up feeling way out of my depth. When the course started the following day, I actually felt comfortable at the level I was at. After all I wasn't expecting this course to be child's play; I wanted a challenge. As a warm up exercise the teacher asked us to get into small groups and discuss how we felt about the course. I was in a group with Anna, a Polish girl I knew from the orientation, Balazs and two other people. Balazs instantly started complaining that there was too much homework. This frustrated me because he seemed to think that this course was going to be like primary school i.e. lots of talking and hardly any written work. He had said that he didn't care whether he made grammar mistakes or not. I wanted to scream at him! If you don't care about mistakes, then why on earth are you doing this language course?! Anyway, I digress. The language course lasted 4 weeks and it was seriously intense, but I got a lot out of it. I definitely think my German improved. Some of my friends in the lower classes didn't get nearly as much out of the course as I did. Even in the B2 class (the level right below mine) the exercises were incredibly basic; the sort of German one would have learned in second year. I felt sorry for the people in these classes, since they couldn't move to a higher class, so the course was pretty much a waste of time for them.

After the language course ended, there was an international evening - a party where everyone brought food from their own country. I made little triangular jam sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Very English picnic! I don't quite know why, but they were really popular! The variety of foods was really interesting: the Japanese people brought sushi, the Americans brought mac & cheese, one of the other Brits made bangers and mash - yummy! My friends Becca and Kim made pancakes. I had a great time, there was good music, good food and cool people. One of the funniest moments was when Balazs made an announcement over the microphone, saying "why is there no beer?" I laughed so much! Later on, the Japanese students did a traditional dance for us. It was fab! Unfortunately I had to leave this amazing party early because I was going home the next day and I still had to pack. Details about my time at home in another post. I promise I'll post sooner this time!

Escapades in Erlangen

I have returned! It has been way too long since I posted. Things have been so crazy that I just haven't had the time. I had a lovely Christmas although it was too short, damn French and their weird holidays! When I went back to Lyon everything just exploded. I had 2 exams - Ancient History and German History. The former was 3 hours of pure torture; I had no idea what I was supposed to do and I ended up writing one pathetically vague paragraph. German History wasn't quite as bad but it was still a nightmare. When I got my results I found myself in the s*** like I have never been before - I had missed some exams and failed some others. I wanted to cry! In fact I did, while having a long and scary Skype call with my parents. I was convinced that I had blown my entire degree and I wouldn't be able to go to Germany. However I eventually discovered that the exams in France don't count towards my degree, so I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. After all that faff, Mum came to Lyon to help me move out. I thought I had managed to get my flat into a decent condition before she arrived, but when she did come to my flat, she went absolutely mental! So we embarked on an epic cleaning mission. Mum spent most of the day cleaning the hob, which was encrusted with black muck and goodness only knows what else. At the end of the day we were both shattered! Long story short, we flew home the next day and I had 3 weeks at home to look forward to. Nothing of great interest happened during those 3 weeks, except for when I went up to Birmingham to visit Sophie, Kiddy, Beth and James. I had a cuppa in their house and then went to the Soak for lunch with Beth and Kiddy. After that I met up with someone who had been begging for me to come back to England ever since I left for France: Rucksana. We met up in Joe's and chatted for ages :) Rucksana I love you so much!

While I was at home I realised that three weeks is an incredibly short amount of time when one has so much to do, and before I knew it, Mum and I were beginning the journey to Germany. We flew to Frankfurt and then the real adventure began. We had to find the train station, and Frankfurt airport is huge. While we were wandering around following signs for what seemed like forever, a faint memory surfaced of Robert Evans mentioning in one of his many off-at-a-tangent random stories that Frankfurt airport is a nightmare. Oh how I hate those crippling moments of deja vu! Eventually we found the station and waited for the train to Nuremberg. Once on it we had a comfortable 3 hour journey and then the nightmares started again. Oh F***, I thought to myself as I saw no sign of an escalator at Nuremberg station. We had to drag the luggage up and down several staircases, which was no mean feat especially with Mum's bandaged finger - she had cut it on the cheese grater during my 3 weeks at home. The train to Erlangen was somewhat grotty, but that was the least of our problems. Having looked at a list of the stops, I was convinced that we needed to get off at the second stop from Nuremberg. However, when we got off, I silently cursed myself again - I had got us off at the wrong stop. Instead of being in Erlangen, we were in some middle of nowhere place called Unterfarrnbach. I was mentally kicking myself while Mum managed to find a timetable, but she couldn't make any sense of it. Thankfully I thought to look up a timetable on my Deutsche Bahn phone app. We waited about half an hour and eventually got on a train, and this time we got off at Erlangen, where my buddy, Tabea, was waiting for us. She walked us to the outside of the station and gave me some maps before leaving, and then we got in a taxi to the hotel. I was still feeling like an idiot over the train mishap, but I was also relieved that we had made it. On Tuesday we went to my new residence and met with the Hausmeister, or caretaker for those who don't speak German, to collect my keys. He showed us to my flat and explained how everything worked. I love my new flat, it's much nicer than the one in Lyon! I have a proper wardrobe instead of just a space with some hangers, and more shelves than anyone could ever want. Unfortunately, capacity for cooking here is even less than in Lyon as I only have a hob, not even a microwave. I'm doomed!I have a lovely view though; my room overlooks a church and there are lots of trees which are bare at the moment but I imagine the view would be even better in the spring when the trees have their leaves on. Living opposite a church means I get to hear the clock tower striking, just as I did living in Victoria Halls last year. Aaah the memories of Selly Oak :) Another bonus is that the weather in Erlangen has been great, clear and sunny all day, although it's still very cold. After we unpacked one of the cases, I met up with Tabea and she showed me around. We had a walk around the town centre and Tabea took me to a huge shop called Kaufland, which appears to be Germany's answer to Carrefour. It sells just about everything! We had a look around there and then we went to a cafe in the old town.  It's hard to believe I've already been here almost a week! Yesterday I went shopping with Tabea and we went to the Schlossgarten - that's the castle garden. It's a lovely place to sit and hang out, and I am told it's even nicer in the summer. I have discovered that Fasching, a German carnival that is known in other cities as Karneval, starts in Erlangen on Monday. The Kölner Karneval (Cologne Carnival) is undoubtedly Germany's most famous, but I am excited about Fasching. Tomorrow I'm going to a Fasching parade in Nuremberg with Tabea and her friends.

Well I think this post has gone on long enough, so I'll end it here.
Liebe Grüße aus Deutschland/Best wishes from Germany!

Christmas time, going home at last!

Wow, it has been forever since I posted! The only reason for that is simply that nothing interesting has happened to me that's worth blogging about! Yeah my life is THAT exciting, lol. So other than working my butt off, I have had a visit from my mum and my auntie. We went to the Christmas market in Lyon, which is absolutely amazing! I've been to German markets before but this is totally different. There are all sorts of unique things on sale! Funnily enough I didn't buy very much, rather my mum and my auntie bought various presents for me! Among which are a Lyonnaise silk scarf (Lyon is famous for silk) and a silver necklace. I can't wait to get them! I turned 21 yesterday, yay! On Friday I went out for a meal to celebrate, and the lovely Claire Wilson came from Grenoble to see me! After the meal we went to La Fête des Lumières, which is an annual light festival in Lyon. The lights were absolutely stunning! Forget Paris, Lyon is the true City of Lights! The pictures are just a snipped of the fabulous lights!

I can't believe I have already been in Lyon for 4 months. The time has vanished! I am going home on Sunday and I cannot WAIT!!! There are so many things from England that I miss: my mum's roasts, and just my mum's cooking in general (I have no oven here, just a hob and a microwave, so my cooking skills are incredibly limited), having a big house - I get cabin fever really easily in this one room studio! I just miss England! But there are some things about France that I won't miss, for example strikes and annoying receptionists! Being back home will be lovely even though I'll only be there for 2 weeks. I can't wait to spend Christmas with my family! It's gonna be so different this year because it's my first Christmas without my grandparents. We used to have a tradition where my mum and my auntie would alternate hosting Christmas and my grandparents would stay with whoever was hosting. It would be wrong to continue that tradition now that both my nanny and grandpa have passed away. RIP, I miss you every single day. So instead we are going to a restaurant for Christmas dinner with my granny and my other auntie. It will be nice to do something different.
So that's it from me for now!

Toussaint - Nice is nice!

It's amazing how quickly the time is going here, I have already had the Toussaint holiday! That's a week off at the end of October, leading up to All Saints' Day, for those not in the know. Most of my friends went home for this week, but I went to Nice! My dad's cousin Ann Marie arrived in Lyon on the evening of Saturday the 23rd, and I met her at the station. That was a nightmare in itself, because I had no idea which platform she would be coming in at, and Part-Dieu, Lyon's central train station, is busier than New Street! We eventually found each other though, and we went to a cafe by the station. The next morning, I met Ann Marie at her hotel. I foolishly decided to walk, which was a big mistake. I crossed the river and then got incredibly confused and lost! I couldn't phone her because I didn't have any credit on my phone! I eventually found a taxi though. Once we finally met up with each other we walked to the old town. We both loved wandering the cobbled streets and hopping around the cafés! We found the most amazing shop which sells all sorts of funky patterned things, from ashtrays to hairbrushes! We visited the Cathédrale St Jean, which is very impressive both inside and out! We each lit a candle for my granny. We also went up to the basilica at Fourvière, which is a gorgeous white building on a hill. It looks like a castle, and is even more beautiful on the inside! I'm not religious but I always feel moved when I go to pretty churches and cathedrals! That evening we had dinner at a pizza place at Place Bellecour, and for some reason launched into an academic snobfest, because of me being a student at a high ranking university, and her having a degree from one - she has an MA in History from Trinity College, Dublin. We met at Part-Dieu on Monday morning and got on the train to Nice. It took us 4 and a half hours, so I'm glad I decided to book us into first class! We arrived at 3:30 and after checking into our hotel, which Ann Marie had stayed in when she went to Nice 11 years ago, we went out and explored a bit. We found all sorts of restaurants, and a very convenient market store where we bought some white wine and crisps. I had a vocab embarrassment while in this shop: I asked the shopkeeper for a corkscrew, but said the wrong word! I asked for a "tournevis" - which is French for screwdriver! I should have asked for a "tire-bouchon." Curse those second year vocab tests! Thankfully we did manage to ask the man to open the wine for us. We found a lovely Italian restaurant near the hotel, which we went to that night. I had lasagne and Ann Marie had spaghetti bolognaise, which in her words was "bloody amazing!" The next day, we went to the old town. You may have noticed a pattern here: Ann Marie and I both love old towns with cobbled streets, quaint cafes and unique shops! So we did our usual thing of wandering around, looking at the shops and cafe hopping! We found a shop which sells chocolate covered olives! Strange or what? In the afternoon we had a picnic on the beach and watched the planes landing, while trying to guess where they were coming from! It was fun because every plane took a different flight path. Our restaurant of choice on Tuesday evening was a place near a church called L'Abbaye (The Abbey) where I had steak and AM had mussels. She loves them! It was so hot there because there were heat lamps. We were roasting! On Wednesday, we went to Monaco and Monte Carlo. It was the best day trip ever! We saw the famous casino although we didn't go in, and we had drinks in the Café de Paris! We paid €11 for a coffee and a lemonade! I took a coaster from there and it is now blu-tacked to my wall! We also walked on part of the Grand Prix circuit, and went on a boat across the harbour. Then we went on a tour bus and got to see loads more! We visited the Prince's palace, which is one of the most stunning buildings I have ever seen! I wish I could have taken photos in there, but we weren't allowed. After arriving back in Nice we went to yet another restaurant! Ann Marie and I had a very interesting conversation about what I want to do after uni, and when I said to her that one of my options was going into teaching, she pretty much begged me not to waste my skills on a class of 40 odd kids! She told me that she messed up by not making good use of her degree, so she wants me to take time after I graduate to really think about what I want to do. So I promised her there and then that I would live my dream because she didn't get to live hers. The next day, we had planned to go to Galeries Lafayette, but it was closed for stock taking. We both thought this was completely pointless, because stock taking can be done out of hours, there's no need to close the shop to do it! So instead we wandered around some more, and went on a tour bus. I really enjoyed that! We had a very surreal experience while on the bus - we got caught in the middle of a strike! We had heard that there would be a protest from 1:30 to 4:30, and because of this we were stationary for about half an hour! While the bus wasn't moving, a protest van passed us, with 3 people on it and a man speaking through a megaphone telling people to come to the protest. Yet another strange French experience to add to the ones I've already had! We got to see loads on the bus though, including a beautiful Russian church. That was the only church we didn't visit in Nice. We found one called La Chapelle de Sainte Rita, or Saint Rita's Chapel. I had to take a picture of a design in the window, because my granny's name is Rita! Ann Marie suggested that I use this picture to make a Christmas card for her. So that's what I'm going to do! For our last night in Nice we went to an American style steak house. We returned to Lyon on Friday morning, and arrived at 2:00. We had another look around the old town and then went up to see the Opéra and the Hotel de Ville. Ann Marie absolutely loved this - the Hotel de Ville is one of the most impressive buildings in Lyon! We sat in a café outside it and watched the people go by. It sounds weird but I love people watching! There's a fountain in the square which Ann Marie said was like Rome's Trevi Fountain. Amazing :) That night we went back to the pizza place at Bellecour. A perfect end to a perfect week! I always love holidaying with Ann Marie :) On Saturday morning we met at Part Dieu and went to the shopping centre there, which I like to think of as the French Bullring. We had drinks in the cafe at Galeries Lafayette, and then went to some homeware stores to look at the Christmas decorations and other things. After that we went to the cutest café ever, it had all sorts of novelty clocks on the wall, including a digital one which was showing the time in Sydney. Why that was, I have no idea! We got back to Part Dieu in plenty of time, but we were waiting for what seemed like forever for Ann Marie's platform to be shown! There were lots of delays, not only departures but arrivals too! Eventually the platform did show up, and I said goodbye to Ann Marie on the platform. I had the best week ever in Nice, and I would definitely go back!

Finns, fêtes and forgetfulness

It's been a while since I posted, so here's the latest update from Lyon. On Saturday I went to an Irish pub (they are everywhere here! English ones too!) with a bunch of my German friends, and some of my Aussie friends also turned up. The pub was quite good, although I didn't actually drink. It was quite strange hanging out with the Germans, because most of them speak English and French as well as German. One guy even said to me that he didn't know which language to speak to me in! But I did get to practice my German, which will be vital for when I go to Erlangen. On Sunday, I went to a restaurant in the old town called Les Pampres Rouges, to celebrate Miranda's birthday. As well as the girls from Birmingham, Alex's conversation buddy, a lovely girl from Grenoble called Pauline, and a Finnish girl called Hanna, went to the restaurant. I had a delicious salmon and pasta concoction, and then had an ile flottante (floating island) for dessert. Overall a very enjoyable meal. We then wandered up to the Hotel de Ville and got the metro to Croix-Rousse (Lyon's old silk weaving district, and the highest part of the city) and chilled out on a ledge looking at the view. As for the rest of the week, it's been pretty average. Getting better at understanding the lectures, although I haven't made any notes yet because I've been recording lectures. I really need to listen to those recordings! On Tuesday Helen, Alex, Charlotte and I went to Hanna's flat for wine and cheese on her birthday. She lives in the most amazing flat in a really nice student residence! It was actually one of the ones that I looked at when browsing adele.org to find a flat. She has the most amazing view, it's really pretty even though it's quite urban. But you can also see the Fourvière (a huge basilica on the top of a hill) and the mock Eiffel Tower next to it. The best part is that she has a balcony! So we sat outside drinking wine and eating cheese until about 9:00. Good times :)

That was all the positive stuff that has happened this week. Now onto something a bit more negative. This morning I had one of my scatterbrained moments: I completely forgot about my English/French translation class, and only realised when Charlotte texted me telling me not to worry if I'm late. I decided not to bother going, but later I was really scared that I wouldn't make it to my 12:00 class on time, because there had been an accident on the tramline, so the line terminated at a stop that was 3 or 4 stops away from uni. I then had to get a replacement bus. Grrrr. And now I will say something that I never thought I would say about Lyonnais public transport: BLOODY PUBLIC TRANSPORT!!!!! Other than that, the week's been good. I need to start researching for my essay for Birmingham, but it would help if I had the slightest clue what I want to write about! The word help springs to mind.....