Bonnes Fetes!

I've realised it's been almost a month since I wrote in here so time for an update.
Life is good! After living in our apartment a month now everything is FINALLY working; all the electricity, all the plumbing, and all the furniture has been moved in. I mean, we still have some great items like our coffee tables which consist of an amazon box and the box our wifi thingie came in. But that just adds to the glamour of the Year Abroad I think.
The weather in Rouen is absolutely FREEZING, there's no doubt about that. Luckily it hasn't actually snowed yet and I'm hoping it holds off until I'm at home as the last thing I want is to be stuck here alone over Christmas! That's my only worry at the moment. Please ferry company, just take me home next Friday!
Which brings me onto my next happiness, I'm going home next Friday! It will have been almost 2 months away which is the longest I've ever been away from home before. I can't wait to get home and see everyone again, even though I have no idea how I'm going to fit in seeing everyone I want to see in the meagre two weeks we have at home before we have to come back again for another 7 weeks!
So 8 days til home, and 2 days til...DISNEYLAND! Going this weekend with Louise and cannot freaking wait. Gonna be so much fun. Also definitely going to end up buying myself a cuddly toy. At 21 years old. That's okay, right?
As cold as it is, Rouen is still lovely in the winter. We have a Christmas market here which is really cute. Lots of mulled wine and also hot orange juice with spices in it which is so yummy. I also tried roasted chestnuts for the first time! They taste kind of weird. Like potatoes. Not sure really.
So the market is lovely, they also have an ice skating rink by the Hotel de Ville. Not that I would ever do anything more than watch others there. After the Roller Disco Disaster of last year I don't want to add blades and ice to that scenario.
Louise and I are also now members of the SPO Rouen basketball supporters club. Yep. Somehow that happened. All I know is I now have a card that says I'm officially a supporter and I have the scarf and shirt to prove it.
We had our final training day last Friday. I've complained about them a hell of a lot but actually the last two were really good. Especially compared to other departments in France which I've heard not only just gave assistants one but also it had nothing informative or helpful about teaching at all. I now have loads of advice on how to actually be a more than substandard teacher. After the training day we went to the best fast food place in France (in my opinion): Holy Cow. Simply amazing. I've probably talked about it on here before but I don't care. It deserves recognition.
Have I got any more news? Teaching in general is okay. I have my one favourite class that I actually genuinely look forward to teaching every week because the kids are so lovely and actually get into it and enjoy speaking English to me. The rest of my classes are alright, there are a few that I cannot stand. I have a couple of classes that are all girls, about 7 of them or something, and it's just impossible to get them to speak English. They just giggle and talk in French all the time and it's so hard to control them. Those are the classes I cannot stand because I just know we'd both rather be at home. And I wish it was in my power to just say "right, go home, you don't want to be here and neither do I", but unfortunately I'm not allowed to do that.
But apart from those few annoying teenage girls (I hate teenage girls) most of my students are okay. Even if there is far far FAR too much PDA going on in the school corridors for my liking. Also, something I find hilarious is that French boys are too manly to faire le bises (cheek kisses) so instead of just saying hi to each other they have to do some weird handshake. Very amusing to watch.
Also I HAVE A BANK CARD! Which was probably made obvious through the disneyland news.
Right, I'll leave this with a few pictures:

Rouen basketball.

The gals at Holy Cow.

Rouen Christmas Market

Rouen Christmas Market

Uphill battle

It's been a while since I wrote anything and seeing as my last post was thoroughly depressing it's probably worth updating this.
Things have got better since I last wrote, we have now finally moved into the apartment and even though it may be up 8 flights of stairs (I better be super skinny by the time I move out of here) it's really lovely. Somehow we managed to get furniture up all these stairs, we basically re enacted the pivot scene from friends with a couple of friends helping us out! It took quite a few days to get everything up here though. I feel like we achieved a lot because never before have I built a bed or dragged a sofa up 8 flights of stairs. This is true independence I suppose.
With regards to the bank, I still don't have a card, surprise surprise. I went into the branch where I opened the account and they said they would sort it out and then when I didn't hear anything I went into the one across the road from me and they said nothing had been done, so I sat down with them for about an hour until I saw they had properly changed my address and made them my primary branch and sent out for a new card. So now HOPEFULLY the card should come in the next week. If I have a bank card before going home for Christmas that would be fantastic.
Things with my prof ref have calmed down too, mainly I think because I now don't have to rely on her for anything now that we've moved the furniture into the apartment and I've changed my address for the bank.
It's nice to know that I don't have to text her all the time to say what's going on with the bank because having to do that alone was stressing me out.
As for the teaching, I think I've finally figured out some kind of system for each kind of class. For example, I have two Terminale classes today (equivalent of upper sixth) who are really good and really keen to talk, so today we did debates etc in class and it was a really good atmosphere in the lesson. But I have a Premiere class on Tuesdays (equivalent of lower sixth) and I find it really difficult to get any of them to participate, especially seeing as they are a massive class (I had seventeen of them yesterday). So what I did instead was print out a kind of English language question and answer bingo game and have them go and ask others in the class, and then reward them with a chocolate bar. Yes, bribery is the answer. So I feel like I'm getting into a slightly more steady rhythm.
There's currently a massive fair in Rouen on the left bank which I think may finish this weekend, so we've been a few times. Seeing as both Louise and I are still waiting for bank cards (hers got eaten by a machine last week) we haven't been able to book anything more extravagant yet but we're hoping to go to Disneyland Paris before the Xmas hols!
That's all for now. Very glad I only have two lessons tomorrow and then the weekend can begin.

Reality check

So this blog is meant to be honest and to highlight the bad as well as the good so that's what this entry is going to do.
Yesterday was the worst day I've had since I arrived in France. Louise and I spent the entire day working on our apartment, which had been left filthy by whoever last owned it, and were cleaning and doing chores around it for 6 hours. By the end of it, obviously neither of us were in the greatest of moods and were also aching all over and not feeling too great. I've also been worrying a lot about my bank recently, because even after six weeks from opening the account I STILL don't have a bank card, and because the branch I opened it in isn't local to me but to my prof ref it's very difficult for me to contact them and find out what's going on, especially seeing as I am not confident enough in my French to communicate with them over the phone. Because of this, I had asked my prof ref to call them for me to find out what was going on, and of course they didn't answer the phone and now won't be open again until Tuesday when I have a training day anyway so can't do anything about it then. After expressing my frustration with this particular bank to my prof ref, she suddenly got very angry with me and basically started calling me ungrateful and unappreciative of all the time she spends helping me, even though my frustration clearly had nothing to do with her but with the bank itself. Basically, a really crap day got turned into an even worse one because suddenly I was having an unintended argument with someone who is meant to look after me and help me settle into this country and was pretty much doing the opposite of that. I now feel like I can't ask her for any help at all anymore because every time I do she is just going to make me feel awkward or guilty and I don't want to be feeling that way. I also don't know if she's even going to come and help us move in today which she originally said she would due to this conversation we had last night. I am just incredibly frustrated with this entire situation at the moment, because all I want to do is be independent and not have to rely on people but because of how absolutely shit all the administrative processes are here I find myself having to rely on people anyway because of a lack of proper communication between myself and banks/estate agencies/electricity companies. At this point I don't even feel comfortable contacting her today asking her what time she is willing to come over and help because I feel like she might get angry with me again and call me ungrateful etc which is the last thing I need because I am NOT ungrateful, for all the help that I have been given in this country I have really expressed my thanks but the point is I shouldn't be made to feel guilty for asking someone who is meant to be helping me out anyway to make a phone call to a bank, which is actually incredibly important because without this bank card I am soon going to be out of money and unable to pay for anything, as I found out last night when my Travelex started to tell me I have reached my limits. So it's not like I'm just asking for a casual favour, this kind of determines whether I can continue to live in France or not.
I am just completely baffled by the inappropriateness of what happened last night. I don't know whether it's a culture thing, or just two clashing personalities, but to me I think it's utterly ridiculous.
HOPEFULLY today we are moving a sofa and Louise's bed and the final odds and ends of our possessions into the new apartment. I just want to start living there to be honest because I am sick and tired of not having my own place and having to just be what feels like a burden to everyone else when really if they got their bloody acts together we wouldn't have to ask them for any help ever again.
Last night was the first time I've had trouble sleeping since arriving in France. Even when I first got here and was all over the place I didn't feel as bad as I did last night. You shouldn't be put in a situation where you are literally having panic attacks in bed over having to contact the person who is meant to look after you and make you feel safe!
But anyway. On a more positive note, after the absolute shit of the day yesterday, in the evening I went to the massive funfair on the left bank with some friends and that cheered me up a bit.
I'm very much hoping that come tonight we will be able to sleep in our own apartment. I'm also hoping that by Wednesday I will either have a bank card or know what the hell is going on with mine. A couple of friends have told me that they will come with me to the bank branch in Darnetal to enquire with me as I don't feel comfortable asking my prof ref to enquire for me any more. This whole weekend has been a big downer because of everything that's happened and also because everyone else here seems to be completely settled, and some people I know have even used this long weekend to go travelling to other places in Europe and it really really gets me down that Louise and I STILL can't do anything like that, still can't completely relax here and go out and have a good time because still, six weeks after moving here nothing is truly settled! Her bank card got eaten by the machine the other day too so she's carrying round just as much bad luck as I am.
I'm really hoping with all my might that things are going to start to look up soon, and that we will be able to move into our new apartment today or tomorrow and that the bank will get sorted out and I can actually start living life properly here and enjoying myself, instead of just feeling like a homeless burden who has to rely on other people for everything. Here's to that dream coming true.

Return to Rouen

It's been quite a while since I wrote in here so thought I should update it just to prove I'm not dead, and of course inform you all of the wonders of year abroad life thus far.
So the two weeks Toussaint holidays were a nice break from the complex issues of living here and obviously nice to see family and friends again, but now I'm back here again it feels like I never went back really. Odd, that.
One thing I will never understand is WHY, for God's sake WHY do the Rouen rubbish collectors decide that 22:30/23:30 is an acceptable time to clear the rubbish for the whole street? Like seriously, what is up with that? And I swear they do this at least four times a week. How much rubbish does this street have? It baffles me.
Also, since I came to Rouen I have had way more friend requests from random people. And I don't mean students or anything, I mean random guys from Indonesia.
ANYWAY, to get back on track. Things are going pretty well here, however of course I am still having admin issues. My main problem at the moment is that I STILL don't have a bank card, I have a pin number but no actual card so I have a good lot of money waiting in that account that I cannot access and it's driving me crazy. I'm hopefully going to know by tomorrow what the hell is going on with that.
We are still in the process of moving things into our apartment. It's a struggle. We live on the fourth floor. There are eight flights of stairs. It ain't easy.
The teaching is certainly an...experience. I have a couple of classes who are really good and actually want to speak to me and then I get classes who just look at me like I need to get out and run away back home. Also the reliability of the actual teachers themselves isn't too great either.
But it's all getting better. Hopefully by this time next week I will actually be moved into my new apartment properly and be in a much more positive place!
Bisous xxx

Home for the holidays

Bonsoir!
It seems ridiculous to say this, but tomorrow afternoon I leave Rouen for two weeks for the holidays (Toussaint). These past two weeks have gone super fast, even though the first one endlessly dragged. I think it's because we've had so much to sort out these past two weeks that it's almost seemed like not enough time to get everything done. However, we have finally (seemingly) sorted everything out! We signed for our apartment yesterday (took about two hours, and our contract seemed to be about 100 pages long, ridiculous) and so Nathalie is collecting the keys for us and then my parents are gonna start moving stuff in with me on the first weekend in November. When we were at the agency I think the most hilarious example of the craziness of French bureaucracy was the fact that our two guarantors had to write out a whole thing they had to sign that was already typed, so they just had to hand write it for no reason other than French people love paperwork.
I feel pretty proud of myself at the moment because I seem to be able to sort important things out in French by myself such as banking, insurance, wifi. So maybe my French is actually getting better!
It feels very weird to be going home because I'm actually really enjoying living here at the moment. But I am very much looking forward to getting to see my friends from university. And to not have to cook for myself for a while. Lazy I know.
So my first three weeks are over! Now a little break in Angleterre before the next six weeks.

Good news, everyone!

I really hope that the title of this post was read with Professor Farnsworth's voice from Futurama. If not you need to watch more TV.
So it seems that the profs are actually coming through for us and are going to get all of the paperwork they need sorted over this weekend and then we will actually sign for the apartment on Monday! YAAAAAAAAAAAY! Things are finally happening and it all seems good so far. I've made some really good friends and we are finally all exploring a lot of Rouen. This isn't a very informative blog post but it's basically to say I am happy and that is good :)
Oh, and also today I followed around a 17 year old for the whole morning. 2 and a half hours of French philosophy is not fun.

One thing I have noticed since moving over here is that nothing, NOTHING that you want to sort out that would be simple in England is simple here. Wednesday morning Louise and I went to see a few apartments and found a pretty perfect one. It's on Rue Jeanne d'Arc which is a pretty central street (as central as you can really get seeing as from that street you can get to almost every other main street in Rouen. The only downside is it's on the fourth floor and there is no lift so it's quite a work out to actually get to the apartment itself. However, we're pretty cool with this as the amount of crap I'm eating I think I could use the work out. The apartment itself is absolutely beautiful, really spacious and nicely decorated, AND IT HAS A HOB which is a big thing in French unfurnished apartments as they don't usually include any kind of kitchen stuff. So we'll need to somehow obtain an oven. God knows how but somehow. So the fact that we have actually found an apartment we like and that we can afford is a good thing. However, there are of course a million other hoops to jump through. We need this documentation and that documentation and we need a French person to be our guarantor. Hopefully our mentor teachers will do this for us. If not we are screwed. Right now I am praying that the estate agency hold this apartment for us til Monday because at this rate there is no way we are going to get all the paperwork until then, especially as I don't even know if my prof will come through with it or not, I just really hope she will. Sigh.
On a lighter note, here are a few things I have learnt over the past week:
1. FRENCH PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF JELLY. I'm serious. You know how we have stereotypes that French people always eat snails, frogs legs etc? Their one for British people is jelly. They find it the strangest thing ever, they just cannot comprehend it. I thought it was just the students but then a teacher genuinely came up to me in the staff room and started telling me how all English people eat jelly with peas in it (what?) and refused to believe me when I told him that definitely wasn't a thing. If it is then it is probably eaten by like one 91 year old man in a village in Yorkshire.
2. There is a man in Rouen who drives the smallest car ever. It's pretty much half the size of a smart car and it blew my mind so much I almost stopped at a crossing just to take a picture of it. Bright orange too.
3. There is a specific chocolate bar in Rouen that does the best hot chocolates in the world and I will be taking everyone who visits me there. And the waiter is very cute and speaks English.
Right, I'm going to have to go to bed as I have to be at school for 8 tomorrow to shadow a pupil. Joy.

Life goes on!

So, time for another update.
I am no longer living in Karine's house in Franqueville-St-Pierre. Translation: I am no longer in the middle of nowhere. I am now living with my future flatmate Louise in her teacher Nathalie's house in the centre of Rouen. Words cannot even begin to describe how much of an upgrade this is. If I want to go out to get something to eat, I can. If I want to go shopping, I can. If I just want to leave the house and wander around anywhere, I can. I mean, I could do that in Franqueville-Saint Pierre but I would just see houses. And road. And more houses. And a bit more road.
So all in all, I am in a much better situation. BUT. We still have no apartment of our own. We had quite a depressing beginning to the day yesterday where we went round quite a few agencies with Nathalie who all said they don't rent apartments to two people due to students having bad reputations/annoying neighbours etc. THANKS FRENCH STUDENTS. THANKS SO MUCH. But, after what seemed like hours we finally found some agencies who said they did and who arranged some viewing for us. However, nowhere is furnished. So we are going to be those tramps that borrow furniture off people and buy 30 euro used sofas from the French equivalent of the Friday Ad. But I think it'll actually be quite fun to have a weird mismatch of furniture. We'll be original at least. We viewed an apartment yesterday that was just ridiculous, you had to walk up three flights of the most narrow winding stairs you had ever seen to get to a tiny apartment where you had to go upstairs AGAIN to get to the bedrooms. How the hell would we get two beds up there? We wouldn't is the answer. But we have three viewings tomorrow so things are looking up hopefully.
I had a really nice experience at school today where a teacher who I had never met just started talking to me in French and we chatted for a while about how I don't have an apartment yet and he said he would help me by lending furniture and that he would help me make a little poster, and then bless his heart when another teacher came in he asked him straight away if he had any spare furniture! It's so nice to know that the colleagues at my school are all so nice and friendly and willing to help. Oh, and he also came specifically into the staff computer room to play a French version of World of Warcraft. What a cool dude.
Tonight we went out to dinner and guess what? VEGGIE BURGERS EXIST IN FRANCE. There is a great restaurant in Rouen called Holy Cow that sells veggie burgers as well as normal burgers of course and it was SO good.
So all in all, things are going okay at the moment, and once we find our own apartment it will be even better.
Actually there is one more thing: SEAN PAUL IS NOW FOLLOWING ME ON TWITTER. THAT'S TRUE FACTS PEOPLE. THINGS ARE LOOKING UP.
Ciao for now x

Update for my life

Okay, so this is the first time I’ve had internet in God alone knows how many days. Here is possibly the longest blog post I’ll ever write seeing as I have to sum up everything that’s gone on since Sunday when I last entered the realms of the internet.

I am in an incredibly strange living situation at the moment. I’m still staying with my prof referent but I’m literally living in one corner of one room because she has just moved into this house so my ‘room’ is full of boxes. I can honestly say I don’t feel upset, I don’t feel ‘homesick’ per se I just feel a bit awkward living here because it’s not the best environment at the moment…there is a lot of stress due to her and her family still attempting to sort their new house out and also move everything out of the old one so I’ve spent quite a few evenings sitting in my room listening to screaming matches between them all. All in all I cannot wait to move out of this room and stop living out of a suitcase. And start cooking for myself and basically just stop feeling like such a flipping burden the entire time! So that’s my living situation at present, I am stuck in Franqueville-St-Pierre with no internet (until now) and no one nearby so I basically spend most evenings sitting in my bed (in, not on, because it is freaking FREEZING in this house and in this region of France in general I suppose) and watch the extensive DVD collection I brought with me and try to ration my Game of Thrones book as I only brought one other book with me and if I finish both before I get internet access then I really do think I will go mad.

Right, let’s move onto a more positive note!

Rouen is an absolutely beautiful city (even though I’ve only managed to go round it TWICE after being here for six freaking days, six days that feel like 20) and I can’t wait to live there. And not here. I’m currently searching for apartments with two other English assistants who I met at the training day who also don’t have apartments yet, one of whom is eerily in the exact same situation as me with her prof referent moving house currently! I went round her house to search for apartments with her as the other assistant lives quite far away, and it was such a different atmosphere! Even though she may be moving out it is so much calmer. I suppose it’s due to the fact she just lives with her 16 year old son whereas here there are three boys, 8, 10 and 12 as well as husband and wife so the stress is massively intensified. But anyway, the point is that the apartment search seems positive and hopefully I’ll find somewhere decent soon and get out of this mad house!

More positives, my school seems genuinely really good. The actual layout reminds me of one of my University buildings more than a school, but maybe lycées are different from regular sixth form colleges in the UK. There are 1400 pupils who ALL study English as a compulsory subject so how the hell I’m meant to see all of them in 12 hours a week I have no idea. I guarantee by the end of my seven months there will still be students I’ve never met. The colleagues I’ve met seem really lovely, all the English teachers are great, some are a really good laugh and also all the other French members of staff seem really welcoming. My French is bloody abysmal though, I don’t know what is wrong with me, I mean I’m meant to be doing a degree in this bloody language. I think it’s because some of the conversation French is different to how we’re taught it in school, so for example no one has ever asked me in French ‘where do you come from’ before because in school we were always taught simply ‘where do you live’. So yes, I am genuinely stumbling in my mind when French people ask me where I’m from. Eventually a lightbulb in my brain turns on and I tell them Brighton. They all love Brighton because it’s so close. One of my fellow English teachers (can I even say that? I mean am I really an English teacher?) kept making the same joke every time he introduced me to someone: ‘she comes from Brighton! The British Riviera!’ Bless. Here is my first observation of French people: if French people wear glasses, they only wear what is known among the Warwick French students as ‘Béatrice glasses’. These are the little round spectacles, kind of like the ones that elderly senile lawyer from the Aristocats wears, you know, the ‘TARARABOOMSEYAY’ guy. Anyone who gets that quote is my new hero.

I’m teaching kids aged from 15-18 and their levels are INCREDIBLY varied. You get one class of 15 year olds whose English is genuinely good and are eager to speak to you and then some who genuinely look at you like you’re an alien. Same with the 18 year olds. I'm meant to be following one of the 18 year olds around and seeing all her classes next Friday...might be a bit weird.

I finally have a bank account now, got it with the post office and EVERYTHING was free which was fantastic. Still don't have a French phone number though. Watch this space.

One of the strangest things about central Rouen is there is this man who walks around trying to get charity money from you with a trolley...of three cats and a rabbit. I just don't get it. I mean the cats themselves must have cost money as they're Burmese cats which cost like £200 odd in England...it's just the weirdest thing ever.

I'm still searching for a bookshop.

Tomorrow I have to go to Dieppe to get my birth certificate translation from this translator who has been dodgy as, she's messed me around LOADS so if she doesn't turn up tomorrow I will go mental seeing as I'm already paying 35 euros on top of 16 extra to get the train to Dieppe and back! Really not impressed. My advice to any students next year who have to get a certified translation of their birth certificate is email all the translators to find out how near they actually are to the town centre so you don't get messed around like I have! At least I'm going out for drinks with the other assistants after so that's something to look forward to.

Right, I'm going to go to bed now and leave this here.

Bisous!

Arrival!

I have arrived safe and sound in Rouen! Well, not technically Rouen...Franqueville-St-Pierre and then Belbeuf. I don't know when I will have internet again so am going to try and write everything down now.
After a surprisingly non-hectic ferry and train ride, Karine picked me up at the station and we went to her house. Her empty house which she was moving everything into...needless to say I felt like a bit of a spare part. She's lovely though. I haven't had much of a chance to practice my French yet as I've been spoken to in English and any French that has been going on has been very loud and fast 'moving things into a house' vocab, if you get my gist. But basically, the room in which I'm meant to be staying is full of stuff so I can't stay there yet. So I'm currently staying with Annick, one of the other English teachers at the lycée who is also lovely. I feel very strange at the moment as I'm not sad/unhappy I'm just in a very strange state where my emotions are running quite high! I'm holding it together for now though. I realise this is a very unsubstantial entry but this blog is just as much for me as for anyone else and I want to make sure I remember everything as it happens. After an hour and a half long Skype session I am more than ready for bed. Expect far more interesting entries when I have actually explored my surroundings!

Tomorrow

Of course, now that I have titled this blog post I have a medley from Annie running through my head. Typical.
So, here we go. I am packing up and trying to get everything ready and into one suitcase. This is pretty bizarre for me because for the past two years I have been used to not only packing two suitcases full of clothes but loads of bags and boxes full of toiletries, kitchenware, books, dvds, and just general stuff for moving into a house. And now I'm moving into someone's spare room and living out of a suitcase...well, it's all an experience I guess! Karine told me not to pack anything bulky like sheets, duvet's etc. because she will lend me anything I need, and seeing as it only takes me one four hour ferry ride to get home I'm assuming that by the time I do find my own place it will be very easy for me to go home and grab everything else I need and come back. Who knows, I may even be able to convince my parents to do it for me. Maybe.
It's got to that point now when I just want to go, because I've said about 1000 emotional goodbyes (barely even an exaggeration) and I just want to get out there and do what I have to do! It's quite funny really because a couple of months ago I was freaking out about how I wasn't going to be able to do this and was going to be miserable the whole time but now it's the day before and I actually just want to get going! Maybe I'll feel different on the ferry but I actually doubt it. It's time to move on!
The only issue I've really had today is that I've been trying very hard to quickly get a letter of referral from NatWest and it's proving very difficult. Hopefully I'll be able to find a French bank that won't need one, as we've been told we absolutely HAVE to get a bank account set up by the 10th October if we actually want to receive a salary/erasmus grant/securité social/any money ever in the universe. So here's a plea to any French bankers out there: please don't give me hassle and just let me open an account. Maybe that would have been a better plea if it was actually in french. S'il vous plait...blah blah blah. You get the jist right?
So one more night in Brighton, with family and my oldest friend, and then off to Rouen tomorrow for the adventure to begin! Who knows when I will next have internet to update this but hopefully Karine's house will be tech savvy and I'll be able to blog from there with first impressions of the beautiful city that is Rouen.

À bientôt!

4 days to go

So the time is fast approaching where I will have to step onto that ferry and say goodbye to Angleterre for a while and I still feel thoroughly unprepared. Today I have been trying to go through all my paperwork but I'm still not 100% sure of everything. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be that one idiot that leaves their passport at home. Luckily the ferry is only about half an hour away from where I live but even so, would be a bit of a nightmare.
My ferry arrives in France at 3pm but annoyingly I'm going to have to wait an hour and a bit to get a train to Rouen. However, on the bright side I've realised I can book my train ticket online here at www.raileurope.com which saves me the hassle of having to use my pathetic French on the people that work at the train station. "S'il vous plait, je veux un billet et mon francais n'est pas bien, aidez-moi!!!" I don't think that would go down well.
I'm really really hoping that Karine, my responsable/prof référent will definitely be there to pick me up at Rouen station. I'm sure she will, it's just the obvious paranoia at the back of my mind!
All of my closest friends from my course are in France by now. Izzy's in Toulouse, Harriet's in Nantes and Siobhan's in Nancy, while Gwen's rocking it over on the other side of the Atlantic in Quebec. I'm trying to use in the back of mind the motto 'if they can do it, I can do it'. Apart from Gwen of course as she has the obvious advantage of actually being fluent in French. But if the other girls can do it then surely I can too right? Unless Warwick gave me a place at University for a big fat joke.
Another thing that has been revealed to me is a channel for streaming live British TV whilst I'm over there: www.filmon.com . Thank goodness there is a way I can continue to follow the Great British Bake Off.
One thing I am thankful for is the British Council Language Assistants Facebook group because it means that I have already made friends with quite a few other assistants so I won't be completely and utterly alone when I get there. The few I've spoken to are completely lovely girls so that makes me feel a lot better and a little less lonely. One thing I'm a bit annoyed about is that there is no information about the assistant that used to be at my school last year, so either there wasn't one, or they were American so didn't go through the British Council, or whoever it was was too lazy to fill in the Assistantship form/survey thing so the British Council themselves don't know who was at my school. VERY annoying as by now I could know how efficient the school are/how intense or lax the timetable is etc etc.
I also need to look into railcards etc and see what else I need to get doing. But guess what I'm doing instead? Watching Jersey Shore. Come on Olivia, get it together.
The next blog post may be a very scared and nervous one on Friday evening along the lines of "HELP ME I'M MOVING COUNTRY TOMORROW"
Ciao for now x

11 days to go

So this is the inevitable Year Abroad blog that I imagine at least 70% of those travelling this year will also set up! But why not actually create a timeline of what goes on in this scary year? The days of me chronicling my life into various LiveJournal accounts are dead and gone (thank goodness. No one wants to read back those posts) but hopefully this will be a more interesting read.
At 10am on the 28th September I will be boarding a ferry in Newhaven that will take me to Dieppe, and from there it's a train to Rouen for me. From there my prof référent is meant to be picking me up at the station and taking me to her house to settle in, and I start work I assume on the 2nd October at Lycée Galilée in Franqueville-St-Pierre.
MY 5 MAIN CONCERNS 
1. My prof référent has told me recently on the phone that she is getting married this weekend coming and is actually moving into her new house with husband and three children on the 28th September. Yes, the day I move to France. So what if she doesn't turn up the midst of all the chaos of moving to a new house? What if I am stranded alone at Rouen train station? Hopefully I can find a nice French old lady to bake me bread and take me in.
2. What if I find nowhere decent to live and have to take advantage of my prof référent's hospitality for the whole seven months? At least I can give her free babysitting in return I guess. I don't even know how to say that in French. I know in Spanish it's 'hacer el canguro' but I have no idea what it is in French, which leads me on to my next point:
3. How on earth am I going to survive in a country known for hating the English language with what I swear is the most basic level of French anyone doing a degree in it has ever had? I mean honestly, I freeze up at the most basic conversational French. I know this year is obviously meant to change and improve all that, but surely I've got to be able to actually talk to people first? Can I do that?
4. I am a vegetarian and have been for the last 10 years this September. Apparently this does not compute in France. I don't really know how on earth I'm going to survive really...although I have found a good looking cookbook that might help: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-French-Market-Cookbook-Vegetarian/dp/0307984826/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=3G9MRFNKMADO0&coliid=I2JKALP4NX9643
Which leads me on to my next and final point:
5. How on earth am I going to live without all of my beautiful COOKBOOKS? And my NOVELS? This is a big deal for me. I am going to have a limited amount of space, especially for the first few weeks. How am I going to choose between all of my precious cookbooks and regular books and choose a special few to take with me in my limited suitcase space?

Yeah so that one sounds stupid but if you knew me you'd understand how much of a massive book geek I really am. So with eleven days to go, these are just a few of the things on my mind. I'm currently rewarding myself with watching one episode of Breaking Bad for every time I do something scary that needs to be done. I just booked my ferry so that definitely deserves another episode right?
I'm hoping to keep this blog as honest as possible to help out anyone else thinking of doing their year abroad in Rouen next year. That means being honest about any horrible issues as well as all the good parts I'm hoping will come from it! So let's just wait and see.