Jeudi

So today has been a bit different...for one thing, we've actually had some rain!! It hasn't made a massive difference but it's a little bit cooler and it made us all feel at home...! :P Also, I've not been feeling amazing and everyone else is really tired so we ended up coming back 'home' at about 5ish instead of the customary 730pm... I've had a little wander around this part of town but not massively - it's mostly just houses and roads and my sense of direction is horrible so I didn't want to run the risk of getting lost...!

I'm really having a lot of fun here - yesterday afternoon and the one before, we went to the beach. It was soooo good - firstly, it was a like having a bit of home because I'm so used to going to the beach whenever I fancy it and secondly, it was so good to have a swim! It's a shame really because I think there is so much to see and do in Montpellier, but it's so hot that it's very difficult to motivate ourselves to do anything because everyone feels so ill when we're out in the sun for too long...so the beach definitely seemed like the ideal solution! I think we will be going again on Sunday and I'm really looking forward to it already :)

Feeling as though my French is improving a little although not anywhere near as quickly as I was hoping...we are all trying to speak some French during the afternoons but it's just so difficult because obviously we only have certain vocabulary (all of which we've learnt together!) and also speaking with non-native speakers makes it so much easier to just drop back into English when we get stuck...I think it's so difficult to motivate yourself, especially when it doesn't feel natural to be using a different language with people.

I'm pleasantly surprised as well at how well we are all getting on...although there have been a few minor issues, overall things seem to be going fairly smoothly...it's a shame that our group is splitting a bit but to be honest, I think that it is the others who are less interested - they can be a little unfriendly at times (or maybe we are and it seems the other way around, who knows?) and also they seem to have different interests (ok, they want to do other stuff instead of going to the beach!). There are some people as well who just seem to complain about everything and I think that gets annoying after a while - especially as this trip has been funded for us all... :/ Ah well, c'est la vie!

Accent Français, la visite guidée complètement fous et l'anniversaire de Jenny!

So yet again I am super tired...might have to be another short one tonight and this time I'll endeavour to do it monolingually but we shall see where this takes us...!

We had our first classes today - our first teacher was lovely and very friendly :) I was very happy because they are planning to organise the lessons around the fact that we are all pre-PGCE and so we did a lot of things which could be used in the classroom once we start teaching. I thought this was really really helpful actually - I expected this to be the case throughout the SKE course but unfortunately it hasn't been so it is really nice to finally do something which I know will be revelant later on! Interestingly, a lot of my friends have had problems with their host families so I am feeling very lucky that mine are so lovely :) I think it really does make a big difference - as Thom said earlier, even if you have a rubbish day, if you can go home to somewhere nice it doesn't matter so much.

Our second teacher was absolutely hilarious - she was larger than life and used such exaggerated speech and movement. I think that a lot of people found her to be a bit intimidating but as the lesson went on, it was evident that she is actually very nice :)

After going for lunch to celebrate Jenny's birthday, we met up with some others for our organised guided tour. What can I say? An extra hour of standing in the boiling sunshine with no shade and no chance to sit and rest for three hours ended with a very stressed group of SKE students! Although I can't help but admit that our tour guide's range of languages and flute-playing were seriously impressive...I just wish we'd been in a position to understand a bit more of what he was saying.

Back on the tram for dinner with my host family, then managed to provoke yet another problem (I hope my being awkward isn't going to become a daily thing here) - yesterday it was my unexpected vegetarianism and today I sat on my bed and broke it...the required heaving to get the slats back into place was particularly mortifying as they wouldn't let me help, although being unable to explain exactly what I had done to my host mother definitely comes a close second...!

Anyway, enough for tonight! I'm boiling and exhausted, so I think it's time to get some sleep. Bon nuit :)

La première journée

Je suis très fatiguée, donc bien que je vais essayer d'écrire en français, peut-être cela va changer avant de terminer...!

Bon! Nous avons rencontré à la gare ce matin à 6h30 et même à ce moment nous avons été fatigues! Notre car a été en retard mais éventuellement il a arrivé et nous avons pu aller. On the journey, Thom a décidé que nous pouvions aller à soit Ibiza soit Disneyland, mais maintenant, je suis très heureuse que je suis à Montpellier!

The Eurostar wasn't too bad a journey - it only lasted about two hours to get from St Pancras to Lille and everyone was quite excited. The same in Lille - most of us sat outside and we had lunch in the shade which was really nice! The final train, however, was a bit tedious - we were on there for...wait for it...five hours! The same amount of time that we are at university each day normalement!

The last hour on that train was increasingly tense as everyone was getting very worried about their host families and having to speak French...as it turns out, I didn't need to worry, because mine seem lovely! 

Anyway, more tomorrow - it's definitely time for bed as I've been up more or less since 4:30am (UK time) and I've got a super early start tomorrow... A demain! :)

My new bedroom!