EUROBLOG (a gog's adventures)

I wrote this yesterday (Sunday) but wasn’t able to put it on here till now because the internet hasn’t been working in our halls all weekend

Anyway, on Friday we all caught the train to Arcachon and spent the day at the beach. It was hot enough to catch a tan but not too hot so that we couldn’t stand it. Almost all of us have tanned and burnt in equal amounts!!!! My arms, legs, chest, shoulders and face look quite tanned but the backs of my knees, bottom of my back and where the back strap of my bikini was, are all burnt Ryan, bless him, deserves an award- I don’t think I have ever seen anyone’s face go quite so red! Hopefully it’ll go brown for him and he’s learnt his lesson.

On Saturday, Grace and I went into town to look at some hotels that her mam and dad are thinking of staying in when they come to visit her. It was such a hot day- Bobby reckons it was at least 30º!!! Grace was feeling ill because of the heat and at one point I though she might actually faint, so we headed back to Victoire for a drink. We decided to try somewhere new, so we went to a bar/pub place and sat inside in the air-conditioned room and had a cool glass of coke- bliss! In the bar/pub that we went to the barmen wear kilts (I think it’s a Scottish type of place) and as always they were chatty and engaging in some banter. At one point one of them was chatting to a guy by the bar and I can only imagine what he asked because next thing I knew, the barman was lifting up his kilt to show us that he was a true Scotsman!! (or as true a Scotsman as a Frenchman can be!) and right in the middle of the bar lol.

Saturday night we all met up outside our buildings to chat and play cards. Originally we were sat on the grass but Emma and me didn’t like all the moths that were flying around us so we moved to a moth-free location (which I’m really glad we did because I didn’t want everyone to so me crying if a moth flew into me- ewwwwww!) We didn’t play cards that much and spent most of the night chatting. Some guys in one of the rooms overlooking us kept trying to get our attention. They asked if we were English but we all said no, and that we were Spanish! We might try that more often

Sunday was the last day of half term, and I did my best to sleep in. The people in the halls are very noisy and lie-ins are not a regular occurrence, I did manage to sleep in until 11am though- so not to bad.

Started my project yesterday, and it’s looking good even if I do say so myself!

A bientot x

almost the end of another week and things are looking up even more! enjoying france more each day and this week being half term has given us the time to do.....well, not much really lol.

went shopping with nicola on wednesday and found the shopping center and headed straight to H+M. there's a h+m in the town but it's not as good, so needless to say i bought a few things (of which i'll take pics when i wear them so u can see them!). today has been a beautiful day. to begin with all of us girls went into town to the shopping center again- grace is a H+M addict (lol)- and then we just chilled on the grass outside our halls, soaking up the sun and playing cards untill about 7.45. i'm really making progress with my tan now! can wait to be really brown

still cant wait to come home, but only because i want to tell evryone about how much fun it is here! mam and dad said they were coming out to see me at some point (and maybe kate too!) so hopfully they'll be able to, and maybe then i won't feel so homesick

we're planning on going to the beach tomorrow to soak up sum more sun, i'll abviously take su pics and let u all see what we get up to.

that's your lot for now, write again soon

a bientot xxx

Hi, my name's Elen and I'm a Sudoku addict. I have finally sucumbed (or however it's spelt) to the power of the sudoku. was feel a bit bored one night and decided to try my first one and now, well i've only gone and bought a book of them!!!!!!!

any way, yesterday (saturday) we went into town to do a bit a shopping. when we got the tram station an announcement said that it had been stopped due an 'incident' and we were told to get the bus, which we did. long story short- we got on the wrong bus and ended up being told to get off because we'd reached the end of the line! so we had to wait about half an hour in the middle of god knows where, with some strange bulgarian bloke speaking a strange mixture of french/spanish/english at us, to get the same bus back to where we's just come from to then get on the right bus! luckily by the time we'd got back to where we'd come from, the trams were working again! don't think we'll be gtting the bus again anytime soon!!!

in town, we went to Fnac and i bought 'Poupees Russes' the sequel to 'PotLuck'. Grace and me have been dying to watch it for months so last night we stayed in and did just that! FYI it was worth the wait

one more thing to mention about yesterday is the FANTASTIC spaghetti that we had! cheap sauce + even cheaper pasta = AMAZING FOOD! can't wait to have more of the same tonight yummy!

till next time, au revior xxx

link to more pics- www.myspace.com/elliematth, then click on 'pics' under my profile pic!

Friday 13 of April

Think I have my first Bordeaux hangover today! I don’t feel awful but my head hurts a bit. Last night was student night in the Cock and Bull so obviously we went for a few. There’s a competition on their face book page at the minute, for whose the best barman so they’re trying to bribe all the customers, and last night one of them bought all 4 of us girls a drink! He might have to get my vote.

Not much else to write really. It’s been a bit gloomy and grey these last couple of days but it’s still been warm, and hopefully next week I can get a better tan!

Oh and here's my myspace page address where you'll find more pictures: www.myspace.com/elliematth

Booked my flight home this week as well. June 13 at 10am- yey!!!!! I can’t wait. Don’t get me wrong, I am having a good time here but there are one or two things that are already getting on my nerves and I can only imagine it getting worse as the weeks go on. Grrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

Until next time, au revoir x

Grace and me are sitting outside the cafe and she has made a new friend! I made one last night, but now it's grace's turn! Lol she's sat next to me and she's making awkward conversation with her french admirer! Lol, you go girl!

Only 10 days in and food is beginning to become an issue. Monday to Friday things are fine, we buy a pack of croissants for brekkie for the week then have a meal in the canteen for tea and lunch, and that pretty much fills us up. But the weekends are a different story. The canteen is shut on a Saturday and Sunday and we’ve worked out that we can’t afford to eat out every weekend. So yesterday Grace and I bought a saucepan- just the 1- and decided that if we want to eat and save money we’re going to have to start cooking our own food. Thankfully the nearest supermarket, ‘Casino’ sells REALLY cheap food so we managed to buy a box of pasta for about 60p and a jar of sauce for about 30p that should last us about 2 weekends. So that’s what we’re going to buy every other weekend. A croissant in the morning and a bowl of pasta in the evening: not much for a weekend but it’ll have to do. We’ve also decided not to buy snacks as sometimes the nights are boring and we’ve nothing to do except eat! At least I’ll lose some weight!

Sunday and yesterday were spent mostly sunbathing on the field, the weather here is fantastic and looks set to just get better, it’s averaging at about 23/4ºc each day at the moment and it’s only April! My aim here if nothing else, is to get an amazing tan.

Sunday night we went to ‘The Houses of Parliament’ for a pub quiz (in French we think) but because it was Easter is wasn’t on, but we stayed for some drinks anyway. It was about 12.30 when we decided to go get the tram home; or at least we would have caught the tram had we not missed the last one! We should have checked but apparently on Sun, Mon, Tues, Weds, and Thurs the last tram home is at 12.25, so we had to walk home!

Thankfully everyone agreed that the best (and probably safest) way home was to walk the tramline. So that’s what we did, and it took 2 hours. For those that know, it was probably like walking from Chester to Rhos- I’m not kidding! Thankfully it was a warm and dry night, but that’s not to say I want to do it again!

Post again in a couple of days!

Au revoir x

Easter Sunday 8/4/07, Midday
Location: My cell no. C233

Not long woken up and am writing this now so I can post it later. Just had my last pain au chocolat and my 2nd to last croissant.

Yesterday grace, me, Nicola and Emma all went into town to go see a carousel that grace and I had seen the night before. We wanted to ride it but thought that we were just a wee bit too big lol. Then we took Emma and Nicola to the English pub that we found and continued to show them the sights that they hadn’t seen yet.

We decided to climb up a large tower beside the cathedral called ‘Pey Berland’ to see the whole of the city, and it was worth the treck up! The view was amazing and we could see a few places that we’d been to and some others that we wanted to go to. We could see the river, the big fountain at Quinconces, the cathedral from above, the bridge and loads more. I think I may have gone overboard on the picture taking but I’ll only climb the tower once!

Having bought some baguettes for lunch, we found a place to eat them in the sunshine. But sitting just across from us were 2 unsavoury looking French men drinking beer. One of them got his phone out and was taking pictures of us, but then when we got up to leave, we had to walk past them, and the one with the camera phone was filming Nicola as she walked away! And all because she’s got blonde hair!!!!! That’s something we’ve noticed about the men in France is that they don’t make any effort to hide the fact that they’re ogling someone. It’s ridiculous!

As I mentioned, we sat and had our lunch in the sun. Yesterday was a glorious day and all four of us were walking around in vests, although we did stick out like sore thumbs amongst the locals who were mostly in coats and some still wearing their scarves! Grace burnt her shoulders and top of her back, I burnt my shoulders and my nose is a bit pink, but Emma burnt her chest and she was wearing a necklace, so now she has a white ring around her neck! Bless her!

The canteen next to our building is closed on weekends so we have to find some other way of getting food. So last night we got off the tram at the ‘Forum’ stop and went to Edwood’s Café, and American style diner with a big pink cadillac outside. It was packed and we all ate really well because, for once, we knew what we were ordering! Grace and I had our pics taken with the life-size model of Elvis that was there aswell!

After eating we headed into town to try a bar/club thing that we saw on Friday night and seemed like a place we’d all enjoy. It’s called ‘Calle Ocho’, and it’s a Cuban bar so all of the music inside was Latin inspired. I think we all liked it there and next time we go I have promised myself that I will try the mojitos that everyone there drinks.

Went to bed last night feeling really homesick and have woken up not feeling much better. I’ve a homemade calendar on my wall and am crossing of the days as they go by. I can’t believe I’ve only been here for 1 week; it’s going so slow. However we do have only 6 weeks of classes left and 1 week of holiday in-between them, oh and about 4 bank holidays for various things (we’re not entirely sure what they are though)!

At the latest the course ends on the 1st of June, and Grace and I had planned on going to various places in our last month here, but we’ve worked out that if we want to eat and enjoy what Bordeaux has to offer then it’s almost a certainty that we’ll run out of money. In which case I hope I can go home a bit sooner than first thought.

Can’t think of anything else to write so as the French say ‘Bye-Bye’!

xxx

friday night 11:50.
Location: stairwell Bordeaux 3, Village 3, Floor 2/3.

tonight grace and me went for a tram ride after doin some shopping and rode all the way to end of the line.

we walked around a bit until we found the pub called 'The Houses of Parliament' which we trie to find a coupleof nights ago but got totally lost! anyway we found it and deceided to go for a drink there. it's really nice inside and it felt like a piece of home! we had 2 drinks and a game of pool- a game at which i SERIOUSLY suck!

next we went to get the tram back but got distracted by the beautiful fountain all lit-up in the square at Quinconces. it's amazing and we cant wait to go back there to take sum pictures.

tomorrow we're going to the square again for a better look around and to see the carousel that's there. we're also going out- all of us- to an American Diner called EDWOOD. we're getting to know eachother better everyday so hopefully we'll have a good night! i'll let u know how it goes

that's it for today but i'll write again soon!

day 5 (i think) and it feels like i've been here forever! we planned on goin to watch the united game last night in a pub that grace and i found called 'the houses of parliment' so we invited the other students on our course to come with us. we told a brazilian guy called jose to meet us there- we all love him bcoz he comes out with some really cute french things! BUT, we got lost. and it was raining. and we were cold. do we ended up in an irish pub called 'the blarney stone'. meanwhile jose- bless him!- was waiting for us in the other pub and now were not sure if he's actually talking to us!

the irish pub was v nice. full of french and spanish ppl! the irish i saw there worked behind the bar, and despite our best efforts at french accents he knew straight away that we were british! at least we tried.

one of the guys from chester is called martyn and when he told us that he was a lightweight, we didn't think anything of it. 2 and a half pints later he's almost trashed! and as such was subject to lots of ribbing from the rest of us lol.

for some reason one of our classes at the minute is a video workshop, where we randomly go and film nature and stuff (what it has to do with french is a mystery), but today we had our first lesson with a new teacher called M.Bouchard and he is hilarious! i dont think any of us have laughed so much in class in our lives. he is so funny and loves taking the mick out of our accents- dez ole! he is so nice and much easier to get along with than 'dante'!!!!!!!!

yesterday we all got our 'AQUI' passes which is like a student pass but means that we get cheap food on campus and in some places in the town so it's much needed since i seem to have spent a fortune in juat a few days!

grace and me also got our travel passes. 26euros for unlimited travel in 1 month on tram or bus! it's fantastic and means that we dont have to spent evenings sitting in our crappy rooms!

we're slowly working our way through our 'Bordeaux TO-DO list' but keep thinking of things to add. on our first day we thought this place was a dump but now we keep finding new places that we wanna go see!

that's it for now! a bientot xxx

finally i have wi-fi at uni! however, i do have to sit on the stairs to get it but as the french say, c'est pas grave! so i'm hopin to have more pics and posts on here from now on, so keep checkin!

a bientot x