Vacances et Voyages

It's been a pretty crazy three weeks, so this post may be a little longer than normal. I've tried to add plenty of photos, but there are loads more on my Facebook page if you're interested in seeing the rest.

My holiday began on the 27th February, thanks to my 3-day timetable, so that was the day I flew back to England. It was a long day of travelling, mostly due to the 9 hour coach journey from Gatwick all the way to Manchester! Thankfully I was greeted at the coach station by a happy family, a mug of tea and some jam sandwiches, and spent the next 10 days relaxing, catching up with friends and strolling around my beautiful city.

I also had the chance to drive over the hills with my dad to visit my sister in Sheffield, and meet her housemate's adorable bunny!

It felt amazing to be back with everyone, to see some people I haven't seen in a very long time and spend some quality time with the family. I really appreciated the R&R before the hectic two weeks that was travelling!

Just over a week after landing at Gatwick I was flying from Manchester airport and landing in Rome. I can't even begin to describe how incredible this city is, but it shot immediately to the top of my favourite places list (possibly on the same level as Barcelona, can't decide!). I met Helen at our hostel and we proceeded to spend the next 5 days walking for 12 hours a day in order to explore as much of the city as we possibly could! Notable locations include Trevi Fountain (by day and night), 

the Spanish steps, the large park in the north (the name of which I have completely forgotten), Piazza Navona (by day and night), 

 the Colosseum and Roman Forum,

 the Pantheon, 

and, of course, the Vatican! 

We went at the perfect time of year to avoid queuing for most places, and were lucky enough to be able to climb all 551 steps of the Vatican Dome in order to get an incredible view of the whole city.

Needless to say we managed to make time to try out the never ending supply of pizza, pasta and gelato, which was so tasty!! We were also fortunate enough to meet a lot of nice people along the way. All the Italians we met in the shops and on the streets were lovely, and very understanding of our total lack of language ability! We made an Australian friend called Olivia, had a lovely host at the hostel named Riccardo, and had dinner on the last night with our Albanian and Italian roommates, as well as Olivia. 

Then it was onwards to Pisa! We arrived at the hostel and were immediately told by the owner not to spend our time in Pisa! So we took his advice, and hopped on another train the next day over to Florence. 

The city is gorgeous, but felt tiny compared to Rome!! We spent a sunny day getting lost in its windy streets, before heading back to the hostel for an early night in preparation for our next day's adventure: Cinque Terre. This is basically a set of 5 very small towns all linked by rail, right by the sea. Helen and I were joined by our hostel roommate Brynn, who was from LA! It was an amazing day out for all of us, and was a gorgeous bit of peace and quiet after the hectic time we'd been having.

We did manage to make a day to explore Pisa, which is very small but very pretty. The Tower of course made for some very amusing people-watching, and we saw a huge variety of poses executed with various levels of commitment by the hundreds of flocking tourists. If you ever go to see the tower, I would definitely advise going at night as well, it's so peaceful!

After all that, we headed to our third airport of the trip, and flew over to Paris for a brief 24 hour tour. We managed to squeeze in a trip to the Moulin Rouge and the Sacré Coeur on our first night, which gave us a beautiful nighttime view over the city. The next day we climbed the Eiffel Tower, wandered along La Seine for a while and went for a quick walk around Notre Dame.
















Then it was back to the hostel, back on the metro, and finally on to our last train, back to Montpellier. We were very sad that adventure time was over, but it turns out to be for the best, as I have been ill in bed pretty much ever since we got back! Fingers crossed we'll both be able to make the adjustment back into uni life, as classes start back up tomorrow and exams are just around the corner. 

Retour au travail,
Sarah
xx

Vendredi Gras

It's been a really long time since I updated this! Mostly because I've been immensely busy, and the stuff I've been so busy with has boring stuff like work, which doesn't really make for a very interesting read. So I'll skip over all of that stuff, and on to pancake night!

I have booked a plane ticket home for the holidays, and realised that when pancake day rolls around, I'll be in England and won't be able to spend it with my friends here! It also worked out nicely that Alex had a friend visiting and Helen had her sister visiting as well, so we all got together to celebrate one of my favourite days.

After a large quantity of pancakes and Never Have I Ever later, we headed for Circus Bar and Rockstore, as per usual!

This weekend was another round of Adventure Time, as me and Alex drove to the nearby town of Arles. The weather here never ceases to amaze me, as we wandered around in 17 degrees and bright sunshine! 

I'm not sure if this country even knows the meaning of winter, but it definitely doesn't feel like it. 

After a picnic by the river, we spent some time wandering around the town. Arles is famed for being the city of photography, and I can see why! It's very tiny, but probably one of the most photogenic places I've ever been to!

The sunset was gorgeous and all the buildings went orange! Which was particularly nice when we found a wall overlooking the city and the mountains.

A few hours drive and a German lesson later, we discovered the delights of Lidl, the only reasonably priced supermarket I have yet found in France! 

Now it's back down to work for the next few days, before a quick hop across The Channel to visit some much missed faces. Excited doesn't even begin to describe it!

Dans une semaine, angleterre!

Sarah 

xx

Hola et à Bientôt

It's only been two weeks since I last updated this, and I can't believe how much has somehow happened in that time!

On an administrative note, I have now received all but one of my exam results back, and have passed everything! Which, as far as I'm concerned, is a total miracle considering how clueless I felt most of last semester. I have also now got my timetable sorted, and I only have to be in on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, i.e. I have a longer weekend than week. I'm hoping to make the most of this spare time by travelling, because as far as I'm concerned exploration is just as important as studying when you're on a year abroad. Thirdly, I like pretty much all of my modules this term, which is a huge step up from last term! I even get to study James Bond films, which I'm really looking forward to, even if it does mean finishing at 19h15 on a Monday.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff! The week before last (14th) I was lucky enough to take a trip back to my current favourite city: Barcelona! Two of the friends who were leaving France had booked their flights back from there, and suggested a road trip. Alex was happy to drive, and I was happy to hop in the spare passenger seat, so we took off for an amazing few days. It was Alex's first time in Barcelona, so we went into serious tourist mode, walked for longer than I could begin to measure, and saw so much. Highlights included watching a man blow giant bubbles in front of the Arc de Triomf,

a cablecar ride over the city up to Montjuic,  

a walk around the inside of the Sagrada Familia, 

a nighttime trip to the highest point of Parc Guell, 

and a meal at one of the best burger restaurants I have ever come across!

And, of course, ice creams on the beach in January. Because 19 degrees is a ridiculous temperature for January!

For those of you who are concerned I was slacking, rest assured that I caught up on all missed classes as soon as I got home :P

This weekend was also really fun, because I had visitors! Jess, Rachel and Megan all do French at Birmingham, and are currently studying in Bordeaux, which is a only a few hours away on the train.

It was so nice having some girls around the house, and I got to do the tourist route all over again, which was exhausting but gorgeous!

We crammed a lot into a couple of days, with the beach trip, whistlestop city tour, two bar nights and meal out, so I would definitely consider this a very productive 4 day weekend. Here's hoping I can continue to make the remaining ones as busy and enjoyable! But for now, with everyone back home, its time to finish off this glass of wine and actually attempt to do some work.

A la prochaine,

Sarah 

xx

Je reviens

It's now a week today since I landed back in Montpellier. I feel like I should be saying that I'm "back to reality", but with all the city shifting and confusion, I don't feel like I even know what that phrase means any more!

Being home for Christmas was amazing. England is FREEZING, as expected, and I suffered from this sooner than I would have liked, when our car broke down on the motorway on my second day back. Aside from that slight hiccup, I had a great holiday, and caught up with so many wonderful people who I've missed so much, including a lot of family members who I haven't seen in over a year. Christmas was a family affair, and new year was a very messy house party in which I managed to infect what seems like half of those present with the cold that I inevitably caught from having been stuck back in the wind and rain.

(All the family pictures were taken on other people's cameras, so sadly I don't have any of those.)

I loved being home, but strangely I missed living in France in a way that I wasn't anticipating. I suppose there's something exciting about getting on a tram and having all your background noise in another language, or walking through the city and hearing international students from all corners of the world who are just as confused as you are. Although it was incredibly hard standing in the baggage queue at Gatwick airport and watching my family walk away, I feel like I could now never imagine going back and living in England my whole life. I love living abroad!

When I landed in Montpellier, Alex picked me up from the airport and drove me straight to the beach, which was a welcome breath of fresh air after being cooped up in a crowded aeroplane. However, all my charming illusions about France were quickly shattered, as I returned to university and was instantly reminded of that familiar feeling of complete disorientation and cluelessness, although thankfully it was a lot less severe this time around! I managed to turn up to a class that exists online but not in real life, talk to plenty of people who aren't French, and sign up for one class while accidentally attending the lecture for another. Pretty standard first week by any consideration, and hopefully things can only get better from here. Exam results are coming in, and of the 5 I have received I have so far passed everything. Fingers continually crossed for those which have yet to appear. 

On Friday night we had a "Diner Au Revoir", to see off all those who have briefly returned to sit their exams before finally going back to their home countries. It was an amazing night, and a great chance to catch up with everyone after the Christmas break. The next day Helen and I finally got round to seeing La Reine Des Neiges (Frozen), and were incredibly proud of ourselves for understanding everything. We will soon graduate to understanding political thrillers (we hope!).

Bonne année à toutes et à tous!
Sarah 
xx

It's Party Party Party Time!

Exams are over, the semester is done! I'm FRRREEEEEEEEE!! 

In spite of the fact that I sat 12 exams in the space of 12 days, it actually wasn't nearly as bad as I had first anticipated. Especially because "exams" at Paul-Val are definitely not the same as the exams I'm used to. I had invigilators leaving the room multiple times to take phone calls, students hiding phones on their knees to use as a reference in the exam, unchecked notes permitted on the desk, people walking into exams half way though and, my personal favourite, being given two articles, no exam paper, and the instruction "I don't know... Just write a summary or something". So, all in all, it was definitely another learning curve, and further proof that nothing this university comes up with seems to be able to surprise me any more. On the plus side, where it took me two and a half weeks of running around and stress to sort myself a timetable for this semester, I managed to formulate my semester 2 timetable in less than a couple of hours. Clearly practice makes perfect.

Thankfully I was also able to fit some fun in between all the revision. Alex and I decided to profit from the warm weather (still in double figures most days) by taking a December jaunt to the beach to see the sunrise.

I also managed to do an extensive amount of Christmas shopping, and some back street exploration with Helen, which resulted in a few interesting discoveries!

Once exams were over, life just kept getting better! I went to visit Barbara on Wednesday, and during our stroll around the lake, we were lucky enough to come across a "ragondin" (that's a coypu to those of you in England) who was more than a little bold!

Yesterday was our house Christmas meal, and it was spectacular! I became Raphael's sous chef for the evening, and we ended up with a 5 course meal, nothing of which I had ever tried before. Homemade savoury biscuit things for apero, then fish, crab, veal (which is apparently reared kindly in France, for all you concerned animal activists out there) and some sort of ice creamy nut thing. 

And of course, a great deal of wine. A very unconventional Christmas meal for someone so used to the traditional roast, but it was a change that I definitely enjoyed! I even got to witness Raph flambe the meat in spectacular style, without setting anything else in the room on fire. Impressive!

And now just two days before I fly home!

Sarah

xx 

It's (not) beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's December!!! For those of you who aren't aware, I get incredibly excited about Christmas. The second the 1st December comes around I have my advent calendar at the ready and my Christmas Spotify playlist on loop for the duration of the month. If anything, this year I'm more excited than ever, because in 3 weeks I finally get to say goodbye to the stress of exams, get on a plane, and go home to the family and friends that I have missed so much. 

Life has been pretty quiet since Barcelona, with the exception of a couple of loud nights out. The block on campus has finally been lifted, which means that I'm back in lectures full time this week, and on a full timetable of "partiels" (that's a friendly word for "exams") next week. I go from a feeling of calm and controlled optimism to a feeling of panic and dread approximately 5 times a day, although the Christmas spirit is definitely making life much more bearable!

Last week we had snow!

For those of you who are as confused as I was as to why Hugo jumped off the sofa in excitement and Raphael came running into the living room, here is a zoomed version of the above image.

The temperature still has yet to remain below double figures for more than two days in a row, and apparently this sort of "snow" almost never happens. The cultural differences still never cease to amaze me!

But just because it doesn't look like Christmas, doesn't mean it can't feel like it! Because Montpellier has finally turned on its lights and opened "Les Hivernales".

Alex and I took a walk through the stalls, where he confidently informed me that he had tried every mulled wine available, and therefore knew where to buy from. I never try to argue with Germans about alcohol. In addition to all the pretty lights, sparkly stalls and tasty looking food, they've also opened an ice rink!

And I very patiently waited my turn to sit on Santa's knee.

Sadly I now have to stop procrastinating and start planning. There are presentations to be written and exams to be revising for. Hopefully I will emerge on the other side of these next two weeks in one piece, although I can't promise anything!

Joyeux décembre à tous!

Sarah 

xx