Ah tishoo ah tishoo we all fall down...

Well, hello world! I am writing this blog after a whirlwind week of settling in to my new life in France, during which time my access to the internet has been rare and whenever I did get it I spent most of the time sending emails in French, which still does not come quickly for me! Lots has happened of course since I last blogged, including a lot of stress but overall a pretty good first week.

I got the plane from Marseille with my Mum and Dad (lucky me to have my parents for the first week to help me settle in, their help was invaluable!) and then we caught the train from Vitrolles to Avignon. During the train journey a couple of young girls asked us if we spoke English, and tried out a bit of it on us- when they asked if I spoke French, I just said ‘un peu’- I found it really difficult then to work up the confidence to speak at all in French, a situation which is only just starting to change. (Last time I was asked if I spoke French was at the bank, where the teller said “Vous parlez bien francais?” And I replied “Peut-etre pas bien, mais j’essaie!”). Once we were at the station, we had the first argument of what would be many- can’t even remember what it was about now though, think it was something to do with food. Then we were collected by the lovely Veronique, who was also a great help the first week. She is a primary school teacher in Avignon, and gave me lots of tips to find accommodation and even let me use her PC for the internet one night! The appartment we stayed in was lovely, and I got to meet Veronique’s two cats which managed to still my homesickness for my own two petit chatons for a bit- here’s some photos of them, I was told their names but can’t remember. In typical cat fashion, they always seemed to hide or look away when I brought the camera out!

So the first day was spent just doing a bit of shopping at Leclerc supermarché and then taking a walk into the centre ville, and really not taking it all in properly at all. So much of my first days here were spent feeling too stressed and overwhelmed to really look at anything. After having a drink in a café, I went to a phonebooth to phone a few numbers I had and arrange some viewings of flats, and ended up idiotically phoning one guy, getting all the details and setting up a meeting, then two minutes later phoning another guy who happened to be the friend of the first guy and who had already rented his place, but who gave me all his friend’s details- meaning that I arranged the same visit twice! It took me ages on the phone and my Mum got mad at me, so there was fight number two. I phoned Chris for 10 minutes, then we went back to the appartment to sleep. Things got better on the Sunday, when ma tante Donna arrived from Nice to sort us all out!! We picked her up at the station around 11am, took her back to drop off her bags, had some lunch, then it was all go again because we had a rendez-vous for a studio appartment. The studio was near the station and it was in a nice house but we weren't sure about it because the bedroom was quite small and dark and I would have no colocs. In the end a Senegalese student took it instead. After that we went to the tourist info and asked where were the best places to find out about appartments- because it was a Sunday, not a lot was open, but the tourist info guy said there were annonces up at a place called Cinema Utopia, so off we went to find it. I got some photos of the Palais des Papes on the way.

We got some numbers and had a drink at the cinema, and that was pretty much that day over, but we made plans to go to Cavaillon and Taillades the next day, Monday, to visit my school. I stopped at a café with internet access to email my directeur and let him know.

Monday was a really tough day. We left for Cavaillon quite early, and when we arrived it was market day so really busy. After having a look at the town we concluded that it might be better for me to live there, to be close to my schools. It seemed quite big, with some shops and bars, a train station, a bus station, two supermarkets and a cinema. We went to the tourist info to ask about Taillades and got excited when we were told there was a bus… only to feel dejected on discovering that it barely ran at all, with no buses at all that day. There was no other option. We had to walk.

By the time we stopped to drink a café and eat a croissant (at Loch Ness café no less) and then checked for location ads at Super-U, it was midday, and we had a long walk ahead of us. It was really hot, and we were all in pretty unsuitable shoes for the hour-long trek along the road side with about 10cm of pavement (where there was any at all) and cars rushing by. We finally arrived in Taillades and found the school like an hour and a half later, and met my headteacher and some of the pupils and found out that I will be driven to my schools from Cavaillon, so I decided to live in Avignon, I also discovered my other schools are in petit villages called Lagne and Gordes.

Anyway I know this is a totally lame way to end a blog post but I'm really tired and a bit ill :( and I have to get up early for the Stage d'Accueil tomorrow at Marseille, so I'm going to bed. I'll post again soon with more longwinded banter from France!!