Wednesday 27 March 2013

Sneaky Post.

This is just a quick post before I leave for the land of Swiss tomorrow!
Nothing much exciting has been happening here. I've just been at uni all week, and we had extra make up classes. We had a translation exam today, it was alright. Much better than the geography exam, but still painful to sit through.

Out on a run - in order, there's an outdoor street hockey
rink, grassy area, playground, basketball court,
soccer field, beach volleyball courts and a squash court/general 
ball sports area!



Tomorrow morning I have my medical examination. It's part of my visa requirements from the french government. I'm not really sure what the point of it is, but everyone who has applied for a visa from the government has to have one. It's a FULL physical medical, I even get to have a mammogram! If there's anything wrong with you, they usually refer you to doctors to have things for free. Lucy had hers a few weeks back and was told she should have her immunisations updated, so she got them for free. I'm just going to pretend I have lots of things wrong with me (I can't see properly, my back is sore, etc) so they give me free glasses and a massage. Hopefully, it all works out.
Then I'm going straight from there to the airport, where I'll fly to Geneva. Once I'm there, I'll work my way through the trams, trains and buses of Swiss cheese to Geneva train station (there are many benefits of travelling to a french speaking country - it's very hard to get lost) where I'll meet Hannah whose doing her ICS year in Italy this year. We're spending one night in Geneva and then training to Vevey for two nights... I'm not sure if I've already written this all before, but it's the home of nestlé!
What a place to be for easter!!!



Saturday 23 March 2013

Starting to wind up.

Uni is just starting to wind up for the year. We had our final geography class before our 'exam' which is in three weeks. And most of our other classes only have tests left to do in the final weeks. We only have three weeks left before HOLIDAYS!
This past week has been relatively boring. I've had plenty to do, but two of our subjects tutors were absent, so I had a total of three hours of uni... One on tuesday and two on thursday, so the week went pretty slow. But I've had stuff to keep me busy, studying and finishing my UTS literature review.
On Thursday, after uni, I booked flights to Switzerland, to meet Hanna, a girl whose doing the same degree as me but living in Italy this year, for Easter. We'll be spending one night in Geneva and then two in Vevey which is on the other side of lake Geneva. I've never been to Swissland before, so it should be amazing! Especially at easter time! I'm flying home late Sunday night as I have an exam on Tuesday, so I'm leaving all day Monday to study for it. Thursday night, the group went out to Houses of Parliament for a few drinks.

Nat and I at Houses of Parliament


The weather has also been getting progressively better. It's now getting quite warm. Yesterday, I only wore a long sleeve shirt when doing my grocery shopping, and it was still hot! I only wore shorts and a long sleeve top when running! It was the first time I've worn shorts in Europe (apart from the time in 2008 when I was in Amsterdam for 2 days).
I really have nothing else exciting to report... haha.


Place de la Bourse

Some cool thing

Place de la Bourse

Setting up for lunch

Backstreets 


Sunday 17 March 2013

Bridge Opening.

The fireworks on Friday night were amazing. Not as good as Sydney or anything, but the atmosphere was really cool. The quays were packed, I didn't even know there were that many people in Bordeaux! Afterwards, we went back to the carnival for more fun times! Nat, Candice, Lucy and I paid to get into massive plastic bubbles and roll around on water while people stood around and watched/laughed! It was so much hard than it looked, I only managed to stand up once, and the guy/owner kept coming around and spinning the balls/pushing you over haha. The water was so cold, you could feel it through the plastic. But it was fun nonetheless!
I also had my first ever churro! With nutella!! Yum! So cheap too - 20 churros for 5 euros (I didn't eat them all, I promise)!

Fireworks! (this one was taken by a pro haha)



Carnival

Lucy and Candice prior to their near death experience




Nat and I

Nat, Lucy, Candice and I

Candice getting blown up

Lucy getting blown up

Me freaking out?

Haha


Lucy being push over



Me with everyone else's food! HAHA

Yesterday's (Saturday's) weather was very choppy. It was sunny in the morning when I woke, but towards 9am, I could see clouds starting to form. I wanted to go for a run, so decided to go then! As I was running along the keys, there were heaps of people everywhere! So I turned off them and went to Jardin Public. I later found out there were so many people there because the President and Prime Minister were here to officially open the bridge! It later rained in the afternoon, but Candice, Lucy and I still went out for dinner. We found a really lovely, cute restaurant in some back streets. They had two power cuts in the first 15 minutes of us being there, but then everything was fine. I had one of the best salads I've had since being here, as an entrée. It was pouring when I walked home, but that just made it even more fun! haha

Leah took this photo of the main bridge
in Bordeaux

Presidential day on the quays

A very old wood ship

Today, I'm hunkering down into some ICS work. Even more fun times!

Friday 15 March 2013

Carnivaling.

Hmm I'm beginning to see a bit of a trend here... the longer I leave between blog posts, the more stuff I forget that I did.
Monday was a waaarrrmm day! I don't really remember much other than going for a run and doing uni work (both UTS and Bx3).
Tuesday, it became cold again. I had class at 10:30 and I remember walking to the station and it was cold and windy and maybe raining a little? During our 2 and a half hour break, we smashed our way through a group geography assignment together and then headed for thème. On the way home, I stopped into the carrefour to buy some groceries. I feel like I'm always grocery shopping! And when I got home, I went running!!!
Wednesday, I went for a run in the morning. I thought it was just lightly raining, but when I started running it was actually snowing. It wasn't that cold though, so I kept going and warmed up pretty fast.

Homemade bike! haha

Thursday, the last day of the week, was somewhat. I went for a run in the morning and then just had uni in the arvo until 5:30pm.

Standard classroom at Bordeaux 3

But then it was carnivale time! There's always something on at Quinconces, when we arrived there was a circus, now there's a carnival, Easter show style (oh, I miss the easter show :( ). Andrew, Jason, Sarah, Nat, and their housemate Olivier, and I went for dinner first at a 'classy' restaurant. The food was so good, and cheap! I had an entrée of warm goats cheese and honey salad, a lemon chicken skewer for my main and crème brûlée for dessert - for 15 euros! WIN! The cold put a bit of a dampener on the carnival after. It was too cold to go on rides haha but we still ended up all going on a swinging chair ride that took us up high and gave a great view of Bordeaux.

Nat and I

Carnival!


Wooh

The group deciding what to do

One of the coolest games I've ever seen 

Nat almost selling her soul to this machine

Moi!


Today has just been grocery shopping and work. Tonight, we're going to the fireworks of a new bridge opening! Wooh

First time cooking roast potatoes, they tasted
much better than they look!

Only 222km to Saint-Sebastien. I think it's time to buy a bike!

Sunday 10 March 2013

Running.

Thursday was a boring day. Out geography lectures have now finished for the semester, so we don't start uni until 2pm that day. We got our geography marks back, I got 7.5 out of 20! Win! The class average was 6... Needless to say, she marked the international students very leniently.
Friday was a nice day, I can't really remember much about it, other than I went for a run... Oh! I went shopping at Auchan. Auchan is like a massive shopping market inside Meriadeck (Westfieldish). Auchan sells everything! I had sent some photos off to be enlarged and printed to stick on my wall. So I went off to pick them up. They turned out well and are now hanging next to my bed! On the way out, as it was international women's day, the cashier gave me a red rose! The second one I've ever been given haha

Auchan rose!

Finished the back of my jumper!

Saturday, I also went for a run, but just chilled at home more... Saturday night, I went to church with Léa. I usually go Monday nights, but she wanted me to go with her on Sat. She doesn't go regularly, just wanted to do something with me. We went and it was more of a traditional mass. Heaps of singing hymns in French, half of the time I had no idea what we were saying lol. I'll keep going on Monday nights though, it's the most convenient time for me, and I'm familiar with the people there now.
Today has been a nice day. I went out for a walk and only wore a 3/4 shirt! And it's still winter here (seasons don't change until the 21st of the month in France, not sure about other European countries). I can't wait for summer!!!

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Routine.

Well another 4 days has passed (I think, I don't remember when I last blogged...). Nope, just checked, 3 days!
Monday was, as usual, the tying up all loose ends from the week before. I woke up early because I had a lot to get through - washing, grocery shopping, a run, and some uni work, before cooking lunch and then afternoon relax in the sun and then church. It was incredibly warm - I just wore a long sleeve shirt in church. I'm getting used to the structure of the services now and what the prayers are/the things all said together. After church, I walked to the decathlon store and bought a yoga mat. Sadly I haven't taken up yoga, but I do like to stretch of a morning/afternoon and as I have floor boards, it's pretty uncomfortable.

Leaving church!

There were no tulips left at the store, so I had to settle
for yellow roses

Cooked my first lot of burrito's!

Tuesday was back at uni and nothing much exciting happened.
Today was also uneventful, but we have a new teacher for translation/version as our old one broke one of her bones and it out for the rest of the semester. She had only found out she was teaching us that morning, so the class was very impromptu and disorganised. It was scheduled for two hours on our virtual timetables to make up for no class last week, but she didn't know that, so we left early. Instead of the usual 1:30-2:30pm class time, today's class was from 12:30-1:30pm. Smack in the middle of french lunch time and did we know about it! Students were complaining everywhere. She wanted to permanently change the class time to 12:30, but the class was in uproar! So it's staying as it was. When I came home, I knew the electrician was coming, but he came really early! I was the only one home when he called to say he was here. I almost freaked out when the phone rung. It doesn't ring very often, but when it does, I've never answered it before (I've never had reason to answer it actually). But, being the only only one home, I did. He was really nice, he didn't speak any english, but could tell I wasn't a native speaker so slowed down when explaining electrical things to me lol. After he left, I went for the most amazing run, and set new records for myself. Came home, uni worked, and am about to start some knitting and vampire diaries!

Pretty much a salad on a burrito = yum! I had leftover
wraps from my burrito making a few days ago, so decided
to use them up before they went off!

I've also changed my eating times around a bit. I actually did about a week ago, and after trialling, it seems to be working well. I now eat my main meal of the day at lunch time. I'll have a mediocre sized breakfast (yoghurt, oats, fruit, sometimes toast, pretty much whatever), and then I'll cook a big lunch like a steak and salad, burritos, etc, whatever it is, I eat until I'm full. Then at dinner, I'm usually not hungry, so I'll have some fruit and hot chocolate, maybe a small dessert, and the day is done! It's been more convenient this way and more fruitful. It's easier cooking dinner in the sunlight at midday and sitting down to a good lunch, than cooking dinner when it's dark and you just want to sleep. I'm also usually more in a cooking mood at lunchtime (usually around 12:30pm). This isn't a very French way to eat though. They eat three meals only a day, always three courses and always cooked (maybe except breakfast). Cooking at lunchtime also means I can go out of an afternoon as well, like running or shopping or something, and not worry about being home at 5:30pm to start dinner (my housemates start cooking about 6:30pm, so if I start later, it kind of throws everyone out).

Saturday 2 March 2013

Arcachon.

We've been looking to do a local day trip for a while now. Today was the first of many! Nat, Candice, Lucy and I chose to go to Arcachon, it's on the coast and has Europe's largest sand dune! The weather was supposed to be sunny, unfortunately, it was quite the opposite.
We caught a 9:05am train there and it took about 40 mins. Once there, we just went to the tourist office with the hope of hiring bikes. We quickly realised it was probably too cold to ride around today, so we'll go back and do that in summer! The local markets were on, so we went and browsed those for a while, and then grabbed hot chocolate in a cafe to escape the cold (it was one of the coldest days we've had here so far, despite it gradually becoming warmer). After, we went back to catch the bus to the dune and found out we'd been looking at the wrong timetable and it actually left in an hour and a half haha. So we went back to another café/restaurant and grabbed lunch. I had my first croque monsieur - it was absolutely delish!

Luce and I on the train

At the markets

Lucy and Candice

Nat and I

Fire truck

So many olives

Fresh fruit and vege

More

Flowers!

Vacuum sealed snails

Spaghetti snails!

The pier - Arcachon

Me!

The beach

Nat, Lucy, Candice and I - with an intruder

The town building

Fountain

Hot chocolate and hand warming

The 25-30 minute bus ride out there was pretty cool, it looks like a pretty expensive area to live in. The houses were so nice!
When we reached the dune, it was absolutely massive!! Climbing it was so hard - the sand was like fresh snow. It was so soft and your foot literally sank straight into it, so making progress in actually getting up the hill took ages (such a good leg workout). It was completely worth it though. The top had such a good view! On one side was like dense forest and the other was blue ocean. It probably would have been bluer if there weren't clouds in the sky, but it was still pretty!

The Great Dune of Pyla shopping centre!

On out way

The descent - more on the other side

Me!

Starting our descent

Me, Lucy, Candice and Nat

Almost there

So close

YEAH! Made it!

The view

Luce, Candice and I

Jumping haha

Nat, I, Lucy and Candice

Going home

The climb back down was even funner! You could just bound down with your feet getting stuck in every step. Haha my shoes were full of sand at the bottom! I've never seen so much sand come out of shoes before.
We then took the bus back to the main town and caught the train home. Such a good day!