Il commence à sembler beaucoup comme Noël

It's home time for this wandering wastrel.  Great Britain had better be ready for the onslaught of returning year abroad students.  We're used to a certain level of European pretentiousness now and intend to inflict every ounce of it on our nearest and dearest.  I would apologise but all I can seem to say is "excusez-moi, où est le vin?"  I'm sure a couple of days back in Somerset will jolt me to my senses.  Or if that fails a pint of cider should wipe that smug smile off my face.  Having not drunk a drop for three months I have a feeling it's going to hit me a lot harder than usual - thanks in advance for picking me up off the floor.

In all seriousness I couldn't wait to go home.  This has nothing to do with France - I love it here in case you haven't noticed - but it is quite hard when little bro keeps sending me pictures of this cutie:

 
I'm so excited about little Baxter that I've turned into a bit of a puppy nazi.  There are a lot of puppies about in Aix at the moment (let's hope they know a dog isn't just for Christmas....I'd better translate that just in case) and every one I see just reminds me of how cute Baxter Baggins is.  So I judge.  Inevitably I can find something that the owner is doing horribly wrong  and therefore an excuse to puppy-nap it.  Definitely worth the potential prison sentence.

In an unexpected turn of events my one private pupil has multiplied into four which apparently means I have some vague teaching skills.  One is even an adult who doesn't seem too impressed with my childish enthusiasm and my poorly-concealed obsession with her cat.  At least one of my other clients realises that my favourite bit about teaching her daughter is playing with her various pets.  She has seriously suggested that I get a cat for my apartment which is horribly tempting - she clearly isn't aware of my puppy-napping desires.  To be honest it's only the thought of what I would be putting my poor flatmate through that is stopping me.

In an effort to avoid that dispute I went to an Albert Camus exhibition at the Cite des Livres.  Yeah, all cultural like.  What should have been a very enlightening visit turned out to be a crusher of dreams as I realised that any hint of intellectuality I once possessed has completely left me, probably driven out by vast quantities of wine.  No longer can I actually analyse literature.  This clearly does not bode well for my degree so one of my New Years Resolutions is to regain some literary ability, if I ever had any at all.  I decided to start simple and attempted to get to grips with this idea:

Sadly, the thought drove me to yet more wine.  Sigh.

A slightly less wine-fuelled event has been dominating Aix-en-Provence every Monday night.  One of the consequences of being friends with two Germans is that a bit of national rivalry occasionally springs up - in our case in the form of a bowling competition.  Every week the competition seems to get more and more heated so this week Sam was determined to defeat the "Brave Bavarians" once and for all.  After warming up with a bit of table football where I definitely got far too competitive we once again set about thrashing the Huns.  Or at least Sam did.  To say that I am rubbish at bowling would be a bit of an understatement.  I have about as much aim as a drunk man in a nightclub so I wasn't exactly helpful with the lederhosen-bashing.  However thanks to Sam's weird obsession with filming everyone's bums I even have evidence that just occasionally I can actually bowl:

Like a pro.  Or not - my complete lack of teckers still shines through.  Let's hope that 2014 sees a drastic improvement.

We've been getting rather excited about Christmas in Aix - those of you who saw my last post will have seen the pictures of the lights which are just stunning.  Along with all the panicked Christmas shopping we found time to have a Christmas dinner with turkey, brussel sprouts, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, Christmas pudding, the lot!  Just replace 'turkey' with 'roast chickens bought at the market' and 'Christmas pudding' with 'ridiculously good peanut butter fudge'.  It was very fun and very Christmassy, mostly helped along by my 105 song long Christmas playlist.  Actually I'm not sure it helped at all as apparently having a playlist that long is "a bit weird".  It seems I'm never going to escape this adjective.

On a final note you may have noticed my reference to Leigh Halfpenny's blazing hotness in my last post.  I decided that I should probably see his dazzling brilliance in person so this petite fille is going to see Toulon v Cardiff Blues in Nice in January.  Weekend away in Nice.  Casual.  I realised that I haven't done nearly as much travelling as I hoped while I'm here, mainly due to the fact that my apartment eats my money, and if I'm going to spend painful amounts of money then I should at least have Leigh Halfpenny in short shorts as my compensation.  And the whole blue sky, blue sea thing too.  Not forgetting Jonny Wilkinson either.  Bliss.  

Anyway, thank you for reading, and Merry Christmas to you all from Baxter and I.  Oh wait, make that Joyeaux Noël!

Le Chat Noir et Une Vieille Fille

Recently I spent the most exciting week of my year abroad yet.  I had been looking forward to it for some time as having sunk into a depression caused by Wales' crushing defeat by South Africa I had become slightly more introverted.  There are just so many what ifs.  What if we hadn't lost three players to injury in the first half hour?  What if the Welsh players hadn't been so dazzled by Leigh Halfpenny's blazing hotness that they forgot to actually score tries?  We will never know.  This despondency is not helped by the fact that it is now less than 20 degrees Celsius here.  It's actually quite cold.  They promised me heat.  Not impressed.

Anyway back to the fun week.  Super-godmother Jane has been on holiday with her mother so when husband Tim had to work in England for a week there was an issue: who was going to look after their cats?  My well-honed cat-sitting skills were required and I did not fail them.  Pallino and Mimi have probably never been so cuddled (unwillingly might I add) in their lives.

But seriously, how are you not supposed to cuddle those two gorgeous beings?  I think this photo conveys what Mimi thought of how excited I was:

Anyway I had a lovely time enjoying cat cuddles, a comfy bed, a warm apartment and a proper functioning kitchen.  And the odd glass of vino.  I mean it rarely gets better than a glass of wine with a cat on your lap.

As you can tell, I probably enjoyed my feline themed week slightly more than is socially acceptable, meaning that my friends have realised that I'm a crazy cat lady who probably needs an intervention.  I suppose it was only a matter of time before they found out - everyone at home has known this for a long time but I was hoping to keep it hidden out here for a while longer.  You know, new country new me kind of thing.  So to save myself from further becoming a massive granny I took to taking pictures of sunsets:

#nofilter
And taking day trips to picturesque Provençal villages such as Vauvenargues:

It seems there is no hope for me.  Faced with my increasingly inevitable spinsterhood I decided to take drastic action.  Or rather my mother took drastic action.  WE HAVE A PUPPY.  I have gone from not wanting to go home at all to wishing I was there.  Spinsterhood is confirmed and I don't even care because I'll have a little cocker spaniel to keep me company.  Along with my cats.  Fab.

Given our new arrival the traditional family arguments about what to call him have started in full swing.  To honour the fact that our beautiful English Setter is called Arwen, I want to call him something Lord of the Rings related, like Frodo, Sam or Bilbo Baggins.  These have all been rejected in favour of................Baxter.  Arwen and Baxter.  Interesting.  However, the potential for Anchorman related jokes is now unlimited and therefore I begrudgingly approve.  Take a look at this cutie:

  And I meant the dog, not little bro.  Jeez.

Back to French related things.  I had my first visitor!  Charlie decided he was crazy enough to try my wine-filled lifestyle and visited for a weekend.  Hopefully I didn't put him off the French forever.  I have also landed my first private tuition job which means that someone actually thinks I'm vaguely competent.  Shocking, I know.  However, spending a whole hour with one little girl uses up most of my teaching ideas within the first 15 minutes, so any ideas to keep her occupied would be much appreciated.  Also, several of my classes seem to actually like me.  When I went to collect my sixième from the playground this week they all started waving and screaming "Katie, Katie!"  Ego = boosted.  Now to convince my beautiful 21yr olds that I'm just as cool as them.  I think telling them about the cats should do it.

Today being the 1st December I have finally relented and let myself listen to Christmas music.  Heaven.  The lights in Aix went up a couple of weeks ago so it has been hard not to turn into a delirious child.  I mean come on, how gorgeous do these look?

   Michael Bublé eat your heart out.  Now all I need is to find some mince pies in this strange country...

La Vie en Rouge

No no, sadly the 'rouge' in my title does not refer to my massively exciting love-life involving hot French boyfriends but rather the colour of my recent bank statement.  I was just a tad broke.  And before you get too excited I don't have a hot French boyfriend.  Yet.  Despite working this summer and managing to save a fair bit (buying shoes definitely counts as saving), la vie provençal is proving to be rather expensive.  The main issue is the rent.  When you move into an apartment you have to pay a deposit, the first month's rent and the crippling agency fees which are another month's rent.  Triple rent is bad, bad, bad for a student' bank balance, particularly when I haven't received my Erasmus grant so thank god I got my first payslip last week.  Added to that there is the cost of insurance, electricity, phone bills - stuff that little old Oxford me doesn't usually have to directly deal with.  And yes, my massive alcohol consumption does not help.  One always turns into three always turns into five etc.  

"For God's Sake!" I can hear you saying, "Get a grip woman, students are always broke", which is true.  But when I'm broke in England I can eat beans on toast for a bit until the next payday.  Here we don't have a toaster and the French don't have baked beans.  Soup and plastic cheese it is until I pay off the English overdraft.  Also before my family start panicking, I will survive until payday, I have methods that totally don't involve prostitution.

Luckily for me, I'm currently not a student.  I have an actual job with actual responsibilities involving actual children.  My official title is "assistante de langue" so in theory I assist the English teachers and take small groups for conversation.  In reality I have to take entire classes of up to 30 students who may be 11 or 21, variety being the spice of life.  This is where I wish I had paid more attention in the 2 hours of teacher training.  Luckily my 11 year olds are adorable, if slightly hyperactive and the 21yr olds aren't nearly as scary as they first looked.  In fact some of them are even horribly good-looking and I have to spend far too much effort trying not to turn into a giggling schoolgirl.  According to my teacher this is slightly undesirable.  In her own words, my older students are violent and will steal my things.  Lush.

We paid another visit to Marseille last week and bravely ascended that massive hill with a church on top.  I know it looks all dramatic and lovely and the view is spectacular but seriously, who thought that building a church on top of a massive hill would attract decent congregations?  And they wonder why church attendance is falling.  Even an interior this beautiful would not drag me up that hill every single day.

  Anyway back to that view.

For a city with such a bad reputation it looks pretty damn cool.  Speaking of said reputation I feel that it should be noted that I haven't been shot or stabbed.  According to the incredible American lady who helped with our teacher training this is because "Marseille is only dangerous if you do drugs or join a gang.  So don't do drugs or join a gang."  Ok Miss!

Having survived Marseille my parents deemed the South of France safe enough to visit.  We spent a couple of days at the house near Nimes having a lovely relaxing time.  At least that's what should have happened.  Instead we spent the Friday doing garden chores.  Oh joy.  However I am now an expert Persimmon Picker so no one can tell me that year abroad students learn nothing!

In all seriousness we did have a great time, even when a misunderstanding with a neighbour led to the top of our tree being lopped off.  I also got to eat proper food that involved protein  - heaven when there is a distinct lack of meat in your life.

To add to my persimmon-picking skills I am now a conqueror of mountains.  I can scale any rock face, any crevasse, any glacier.  Everest is at my mercy.  As long as Everest is no higher than 1011m and closely resembles this:

It may be no Everest but I am still very proud of myself.  And just to prove I got to the top:

Who knows, maybe I will become a wild intrepid exporer?  Better start training now...

Having rambled on for far too long (see what I did there? eh?) I will leave you all with a picture of the gang from Halloween.  We showed the French what scary really means.

  

Bonjour, bonjour! Çava, çava?

Joy of joys, another "Year Abroad" blog for you all to read.  Just when you thought you'd escaped from the smug, pretentious ramblings of your other linguist friends you stumble upon mine.  I would promise not to be too smug but, to be honest, when you're living in Provence and spend most of your time drinking wine in cafés it's almost impossible not to be.  So don't say I didn't warn you.

So where to begin?  After a rather stressful flight over where I realised I had overpacked by about 5kg and hadn't bought enough money to buy duty-free gin I arrived at Marseille and successfully navigated my way to Aix-en-Provence.  Most linguists on their year out are normally condemned to staying in hostels while finding accomodation.  Not me.  As luck would have it my lovely godmother Jane Williams lives in Aix with her husband Tim and daughter Louisa so they put me up for a week while I found somewhere to live.  Most of this week was either spent trying not to yell at rude estate agents or cuddling Jane's gorgeous cats.

Somehow I managed to find an apartment with another English Assistant called Millie.

 Yep that's right, we live in a massively typical Provençal apartment with proper shutters.  Clichéd much?  To be even more annoying, we also already have a local bar where we go and drink rosé pretty much every day.  Which brings me onto an issue with the Provençal lifestyle: the drink.  Here, wine is horrendously cheap.  You can buy bottles for 2 euros, which I do, several times a week.  Luckily for my liver, gin is a little more expensive.

My main French issue however has been rather typical: their mind-boggling bureaucracy.  My personal favourite was when trying to open a bank account.  I couldn't because I don't have an energy bill proving that I live at 7 Rue Loubon, 13100 Aix-en-Provence.  When I pointed out that I can't get an energy bill without a bank account I was met with the usual French shrug and stream of non-committal mots.  This argument may have gone on for some time....step in super-godparents Jane and Tim!  So HSBC are under the impression that I live with them.  Now to find that elusive energy bill...

It hasn't all been wine and bureaucracy - Tim took Louisa and I to Monaco Yacht Show to give us a taste of how the 1% live.  They live well.  Very well.  Horribly well.  We spent the day hopping onto various multi-million pound yachts and even got the chance to fly the Eurocopter helicopter: 

Ok fine, I didn't actually fly it, I just awkwardly manoeuvred myself into the cockpit while trying not to flash the men watching.  Cockpits were definitely not designed for skirts.  As Tim said - there's a reason they're called cockpits.

Some of you may have realised that I celebrated my 21st birthday earlier this month.  Despite dear Mum's worries that I would spend my birthday on my own I had a fantastic time.  Jane and Tim had Millie and I over for drinks in the evening before we went off for a birthday fondue with my new friends.   (Yes, I've made friends, shocking I know.)  I think Millie may have got a bit excited....

The next day, as it was Friday, we had our first party in the apartment.  Which went really well.  Until 6 armed policemen showed up.  We may not have realised how much noise we were making, or how merry we were, and apparently 3 neighbours had complained.  Luckily the drunken "nous sommes très désolées" seemed to work and we were let off with a (metaphorical) slap on the wrist.  After the police showed up, we probably should have called it a night.  But come on, it was my 21st!  Off clubbing we went to an interesting place called IPN.  We successfully fended off French boys, less successfully fended off English girls, and generally had a good dance.  Again, after that we probably should have called it a night.  But come on, it was my 21st!  Determined to do something rather silly, I set off with a rather peculiar mission: to swim in a fountain.  At 5am.  I maintain that it had to be done.  Why it had to be done I really don't know.  But it did, I promise. And it was great fun, if rather ridiculous.  Pictures and videos available on request.  And no, I didn't catch pneumonia.

In a slightly less silly vein, Sam, Rhiannon and I went to Toulon last Sunday to watch a bit of rugby.  Actually make that watch Jonny Wilkinson run around in short shorts.  Showing a complete lack of loyalty to our Scottish neighbours (Toulon were playing Glasgow Warriors) we were definitely screaming Allez Toulon with all the rest of the fans.

And yes it was gloriously sunny in mid-October.  I hadn't mentioned that it's still in the twenties here had I?

Anyway that's probably enough for one post, hope I haven't bored/annoyed you to tears.  Next time I should probably write about what I'm actually doing out here in an effort to earn some money instead of rambling on about how lovely my new life is.  A bientôt!