Week 12 - Feeling Festive

My final week of 2015 in Avignon!

Ryan, aka DJ Vessel, one of the other assistants, was playing in Avignon on Saturday night and our Avignon family were of course ready to go out en masse to support him! Kate and Chelsea generously hosted pre drinks (or pre-game as the Americans like to call it) and we had an eventful evening before we'd even left the apartment - their neighbours had heard the party from across the street and came over to join in! We finally made it to Pub Z to catch DJ Vessel's epic set before moving on to Red Zone, one of Avignon's finest evening establishments. Unsurprisingly, none of us made it to circuits the next morning.

Anushka hosted a pizza pyjama party on Sunday, exactly what we needed to nurse the hangovers and properly celebrate her birthday which was the day before. This week I also opened my first Christmas present at our Secret Santa evening - a gorgeous starlight that Chelsea had sneakily bought for me from the Christmas market.

Birthday girl

Secret Santa squad

After school on Tuesday I stuck around in Vaison for a catch up drink with Jeremy and we exchanged Christmas presents - I was spoiled with an amazing bottle of wine. It was the first time I'd seen Vaison in the dark since the Christmas lights have been up and the town is looking amazing! As it was so very late in the evening (7pm) there were no buses running, however fortunately my BlaBlaCar pal Gael was driving back to Avignon that night so we had a catch up on the ride home too.

Kate and I spent the day together on Wednesday exploring Avignon's nooks and crannies, topping up Christmas presents and hanging out with Father Christmas. That afternoon I went along to a tandem conversation session with Brian at a café/bookshop where there were loads of people from all over the world - France, America, Korea - looking to improve their French or English. It was a great opportunity to meet some people and practise my French conversation so I'll definitely be going along again in the New Year.

My last day at school before the holidays went really quickly and we played lots of end of term Christmas games and made Christmas cards (although getting a class of 24 French children to write the words Merry Christmas inside a card was actually a lot more complicated than it sounds). Children in France all learn to write in cursive so they are often confused by my handwriting! I also asked what they wanted for Christmas and can conclude that Lego, Fifa 16 and remote control helicopters should be top of every parent's Christmas shopping list this year. One girl also asked for masking tape which was a bit of a random one.

My two favourite Vaison buddies, Jeremy and Alex, treated me to lunch in the town square and we had a lovely catch up. I've barely seen them since moving to Avignon so we had lots to talk about. The evening was spent attempting to pack and having a farewell drink with the gang before we all head our separate ways for Christmas. On the walk home we saw a security guard relieving himself on a Christmas market stand. And that, my friends, sums up Avignon in a nutshell.

Super early start this morning despite not having a flight until midday - turns out the trains are on strike (classic France) so I had to take a much earlier one and just chilling in the airport until my FLIGHT HOME!!

That's it for 2015,

Joyeux fêtes et à l'année prochaine,

Katie x

P.s. Brian had a haircut this week, doesn't he look dashing? (Modelling alongside the gorgeous Amy).