Week 22 - Sunny February

Settling back to reality

This week's been quite a quiet one compared with everything that's gone on recently so this will be a shorter post than the usual! After a whirlwind half term city-break and ski trip, I returned to Avignon and had a quiet weekend chilling in Just Coffee Shop (where Pauline works) lesson planning in preparation for heading back to work.

Monday night I joined Pauline and the girls for drinks at Red Sky, the bar in Place Pie that has around 18 different beers on tap! Monday night's are karaoke nights, although not in the sense karaoke is at home - everyone was thankfully a decent singer and there was a live band as opposed to backing track so there was a great atmosphere. Marine was brave enough to get on stage with her rendition of La vie en rose.

Marine owning the room

Meanwhile, we've had some lovely sunny weather - 20 degrees in Feb - so Amy, Annie and I took the ferry across the Rhône to Ile de Barthelasse so soak up some rays and catch up on our respective holidays.

My favourite Leeds ladies

I had my school inspection this week but it all went fine and they seemed happy with me (phew). I'd decided to teach sports and we've been playing more charades which has been highly entertaining, as the students loved the opportunity to be allowed to run around the classroom for once! Loads of the kids had been off skiing over the break too and a couple of them showed me their badges they'd earned from ski school.

I'm having a chilled weekend in Avignon again this weekend hanging out with friends and getting ahead of my year abroad uni work so the deadline doesn't creep up too out of the blue - time is flying!

Ciao,

Katie x

Week 21 - Half Term Ski Trip

Being the novelty English girls in a French ski resort.

This week the school holidays continued (that's right, the French get two weeks off in February) and it was time for an eagerly anticipated trip to the mountains with Niamh. We'd booked to go to Orcières, a cute resort not too far from Avignon/Montpellier.

It didn't take us long to discover the resort was very French - we were pretty much the only English people in resort - a refreshing change for a ski trip. In fact, being English actually worked in our favour when hiring skis, as we charmed our way into a sweet deal with the super-friendly man at the ski hire shop.

Although we'd managed to book a cheap room in a chalet hotel, the fact that we wouldn't have a kitchen hadn't quite crossed our minds in the excitement of it all. However, being the thrifty, creative students that we are, we managed to get by self-catering in rather ingenious ways - toothbrushes doubled up as cereal spoons (just for the first morning at least) and the sloped roof from our skylight became a fridge/freezer (although coming back after skiing one day to find our ham and cheese had slid off wasn't the best discovery).

We really couldn't have asked for better skiing conditions - the best snow of the season apparently! We made the most of the bluebird days by shredding the pow until close every day, only stopping occasionally for a demi and some schoko bons, and finishing the day with a swim at the pool.

Day 1 of skiing and on one of the first chairlifts of the week Niamh and I ended up next to a group of French boys. Murray, who was sitting next to Niamh, explained they were there on a uni ski trip and had to complete the challenge of kissing a girl on a lift. Was there any way we'd be able to help them out? It was Valentine's Day after all. Such a charmer. We renamed this chair the Love Lift for the rest of the trip.

As the week went on we had another encounter with some French boys who we arranged to go for a ski/board with, followed by drinks over the Chelsea-Paris game. We met up with them a few times and enjoyed some good French bant #classiqueReblochon.

We also got up to date with gangster language such as wesh alors, which is a pretty popular expression right now thanks to hip-hop artist Jul's hit single:



Thursday night we went for a night out at Yeti, Orcière's finest discotheque, with Joan, Nico, Francois and the rest of the gang after apéro at their apartment. Despite the lack of sleep, Niamh and I were up and out to hit the slopes hard on our final day before reluctantly giving back our skis once the lifts had closed. As it was our last night, we treated ourselves to a meal out where we ate our bodyweight in raclette. On s'est fait péter le bide - literally ate until our stomachs burst! Goodbye drinks with the boys before packing our bags ready for our 5am BlaBlaCar back home the following morning.

Back to reality now as half term's slowly drawing to an end and I've got lessons to plan!

Bisous,

Katie x

Week 20 - Discovering Barcelona

Half term trip to Barcelona!

Avignon crew

The first half of term somehow managed to absolutely fly by and I'm already back on school holidays - 2 weeks off for half term! In order to make the most of the time off I booked two trips away: Barcelona this week and skiing the next (thank you Erasmus grant).

The weekend was a pretty chilled one, hanging out with friends in Avignon, watching the rugby and sorting out life admin/upcoming holidays.

On Monday morning I was off to Barcelona and went to the station to get a train to Nîmes where I'd booked a OuiBus from. Things didn't get off to the best start however, as I arrived at the station only to find that the train had been canceled and there wasn't another one coming in time for me to catch my bus. Oh the joys of French public transport. After a panicked discussion with the man at the ticket office who was actually very apologetic and refunded my train ticket I went down to the bus station to find there weren't any buses either. Fortunately, I had a look on good old Blablacar and found Michel travelling direct to Barcelona from Arles that afternoon so I jumped on a train to meet him there.

In the meantime, with a couple of extra hours to kill waiting for my ride I did what every normal person would do when they get a bit of free time and casually booked flights to Australia! That's right, I'm heading down under for just over a month in May at the end of my contract in France. #YOLO.

A quick explore of Arles then Michel picked me up and we headed for the Spanish border. On the bright side, the journey gave me another opportunity to speak some French and it turned out Michel was also a teacher, teaching PE at a collège in Arles. We picked up another passenger along the way, a lovely Czech woman who used to work in Camden and was heading to Barca to find work as a piercer (she had 16 piercings herself which wasn't very many apparently). We were dropped off together at a station just outside the city and I headed into the centre to meet up with my cousin's fiancé, Jon, who was having me to stay while I was there. Top marks for hosting, Jon - if it were an AirBnb I'd give you 5 stars!

Exploring Arles

On Tuesday I met up with fellow Avignon assistants Lily and Christine who had already been out there for a few days. We spent the morning at Parc Güell and as it was a lovely day we headed to the beach in the afternoon, stopping for churros on the way (when in Spain). Unfortunately the funiculars weren't running due to planned engineering works, but we took a replacement bus up to the Montjuïc Castle for amazing views of the city. We descended back via the Olympic park and the National Museum of Catalan's visual art, then walked all the way to Born where we visited the impressive basilica of Santa Maria del Mar before some well-earned sangria.

Wednesday I was on my own to explore the city, despite not speaking a word of Spanish, let alone Catalan. The whole new language thing threw me off a bit as I hated speaking English to everyone and kept wanting to reply in French! Visited the Sagrada Familia in the morning which was absolutely stunning, 100% worth a visit for anyone planning a trip to Barca. I spent the afternoon wandering around the city before going on a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter, where I picked up tips for the best places to go off the tourist trail. Had a walk around a pretty park my guide recommended then hit the shops, although had to be very disciplined about what I bought - I'm saving for Australia now, remember! Caught up with Jon in the evening and watched Inside Out for the first time. Think it might actually be one of my favourite Pixar films now!

Final day in Barca was spent hunting down more free views at the Caxia Forum art nouveau terrace and the top of the old bullfighting arena. Pinchos for lunch (small snack/canapé type sticks at only 1€ each) before a visit to another of Gaudí's architectural masterpieces, Casa Batlló.

Was up early Friday morning to take my bus to home. No cancelled trains this time! About 8 1/2 hours later, made it back to A-ville where I unpacked and packed for my ski trip. Currently en route to Orcières!

Could definitely get used to this back-to-back holiday thing.

A la semaine prochaine,

Katie x

Week 19 - Exploring the Region

Making the most of the Provence sunshine!

We've been hit by some b e a utiful sunny weather this week so I've been able to truly appreciate life in Provence. Ally came to Avignon on Saturday and we went for tartines at Ginette et Marcel, the cutest little French bistro just 2 mins from my apartment, and we made the most of the sunshine by eating al-fresco. We spent the afternoon walking over to l'Isle de la Barthelasse, which is just over the bridge from Avignon and has great views of the Pont d'Avignon. Later we stopped by my fave bakery on Rue de la Republique, Edgar's, for Speculoos and Double Choc cheesecakes. We realised pretty quickly that one slice between two would definitely have been sufficient and now I feel like I've eaten my share of cheesecake for the year!

Death by cheesecake

That evening Chelsea and Kate hosted a cocktail party, which was the perfect opportunity to dress up for once - the French like to keep things causal. Ally and I made a vodka jelly (not quite a real cocktail, I know, but still pretty cool) which we actually managed to set properly so was a success! We all then headed for a night out out on the town at our favourite Avignon haunt, Red Zone.

Ally headed back home to Nîmes on Sunday and I met up with Annie and Megan in the afternoon at the most adorable little tea room, La pendule parasseuse, where they make Angelina hot chocolates! Photos stolen from Anushka's Instagram, my Insta game is clearly not that strong.

Monday was another gorgeous sunny day so Kate, Annie and I met up to walk over to Villeneuve-les-Avignon, a really pretty town just across the bridge. We walked all the way up to the medieval fortress, Fort Saint-André (free entry for students, #winning), and enjoyed taking in the views and wandering round the fort. It was seriously windy at the top!

As it's been my last week of school before Feb half term - yes, we're already back on school holidays - I've mainly been doing revision sessions and games covering everything I've taught them so far. We've been playing Charades, or Le jeu de mime, which has been far too entertaining watching children crawling around the classroom pretending to be sheep/pigs/Father Christmas.

My evenings have been pretty busy too - tartines with the British gals on Tuesday and a soirée chez nous last night with the French girls which involved lots of crêpes and dancing to some absolute classics, as well as the odd French tune. Believe it or not there are actually some quite catchy tunes that aren't in the English language!




I've finally managed to get myself organised for half term - off to Barcelona on Monday then going skiing with Niamh the following week. Tough life.

Ciao,

Katie x