A good start to the holidays

I've made it through my first half term. Had a few dramas but generally it's been pretty good overall and it can only get better, so what better way to celebrate than with a long weekend with the coloc in Sainté (shorthand for Saint Etienne).

I had friday off thanks to all of my students being occupied with various important education related talks so I found myself someone from the meditation group who was going back to Sainté that night - no time to waste!
I also finally managed to get myself a haircut on Thursday - long overdue and it wasn't even that traumatic, or too expensive and it only took half an hour. Definitely a satisfied customer.
Meditation was exceptionally good too - we did some standing up moving about meditation which I found more meditative than regular sitting meditation as there's more to concentrate on so you get less distracted! I was also asked to read out-loud some of the text which I was slightly apprehensive about at first and some of it was a bit of a challenge but I only tripped over a few words and it was good practice. They told me afterwards that they had no trouble understanding and that it was brave of me to accept so I was happy. I also had a good excuse to get to know so of the others who go a bit better thanks to my lift. :)

My Thursday ended watching Road Trip with some of the guys and not too late-a-night, which meant that getting up at the reasonable hour of 9.30 was no problem - we got up and did that great French thing of going to the bakery before breakfast and picked up so fruit and veg while there for lunch.

Helder and a blurry Fred

Friday was really chilled, Helder wasn't working and Fred was around too so we just sat around the house, having lunch all together when Pierre came back from work and once again eating too much dulce de leche (I brought 3 tins this time!) then in the afternoon we headed out in the snow to the design museum to see an expo about the history of Weiss chocolate (and generally just chocolatey facts) in Saint Etienne. After which we promptly headed to the Weiss shop where we stood around choosing what to but and warming up with a complimentary hot chocolate. Delish!
That night we played a great game which I can't remember the name of... It's like pictionary but instead of drawing you have rudimentary black sticks and a couple of beads and you play in teams. Oh and you aren't allowed to discuss the thing you're making, you just have to assume that you have the same mental picture of the word on the card. After that we watched Before Sunrise. One of my favourite films, and ending up chatting about it for quite a long time before eventually falling asleep.

The weekend was equally chilled and filled with great conversations and a guided visit to the bike section of the museum by Pierre who works there, hello free entry! Plus both Helder and Pierre are cycling fanatics so really enthusiastic about the visit. On saturday night I ended up at an ERASMUS party, a strange experience as I spoke more Spanish and English than I did French! But I did enjoy visibly shocking a French guy by being able to speak all three of them reasonably well. I also had a great moment when a group of French girls misheard "Anglaise" as "Lyonnaise" and found that perfectly believable. It seems that at parties with loud music, semi-drunk French people will take me for one of their own. It's a good start!

I ended up with a reasonable amount of red pen tattoos... But not as many as Laura...

A Scott, a Mexican, a Russian and Me. 

It was an interesting eye-opener, previously I hadn't quite grasped just how easy it is to get by without learning the language of the country you happen to be living in as an Erasmus student and it makes me even more glad to be working rather than just studying.

I slept late on Sunday after getting home with Laura after 5am (she's the newest member of the coloc, replacing Rosa who's space-themed leaving party I'd been to a few weeks earlier). Pierre was at work, Helder was packing for his week taking kids skiing, Laura was asleep and everyone else was either on holiday or out so after Helder left, I took some time to sort out some admin and attempt to get started on some work. Was sort of going ok until Pierre came home and suggested we go play in the snow....

Urban snowboarding. Epic win!! 

I'd never snowboarded before, but it didn't really matter.

Snow happy

I've ended up staying longer than planned again. But who would pass up urban snowboarding to take a bus back home to Monistrol? I feel bad that I'm not seeing Katy before she goes home, but by the time I'd get back tomorrow, she'll already have left. So there's a reasonable chance I've got a couple of nights to go yet....

Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to go to the shops... A lot of my clothes need replacing. Other than that, I brought all my work with me in the hope of being productive - At this rate I'll never go back to Monistrol!

TTFN. Love to all!