After Christmas update!

Hey everyone!
I'm sorry about the serious lack of posting but finding enough time to check my emails and send replies and then get on my blog and post has been absolutely inpossible this past few weeks! So, too bad about Paris, read Simone's blog if you want to hear about that, or ask my parents/sisters who have been enjoying my long if rushed updates. I know you're all jealous!
So, since then, life's been interesting...
On Wednesday we finished class at 12:15 so we went to Lissia's house for lunch. Lissia is one of Alix's friends and is Norweigan! Unfortunately for me we went via Alix's mums apartment in order to drop off my big bag with my pjs and stuff (for staying at Mireille's place) but Françoise (Alix's mum) wasn't home and Alix had forgotten her key so I had to lug the bag all the way to Lissia's house. After lunch we played some table tennis then we walked to the Casino complexy thing. I had to bring my bag but luckily for me Lissia bought a bike and hung the bag off it. We did a little bit of Christmas shopping before Lissia left and Alix and I went into the foyer in front of the hypermarché thing where we were going to do some 'papier-cadeau' or gift-wrapping for Scouts. We did that for about 4 hours. After that we actually went into the supermarket and did the supermarket shopping. Alix's dad Michel joined us there and we went home once we finished that.
On Thursday afternoon all the Australians visited the IBM plant/offices of Montpellier with Isabelle's host dad, who works there. That was ok...it was interesting to see how such a big business works. First there was a powerpoint presentation then we were taken on a tour of all the different buildings where they build massive computers and test them for faults.
On Thursday night Lauren arrived in Montpellier for three days, so we spent all of Friday with her. Haha, we got out of sport! Not that sport is very bad, in fact it's pretty fun because we were doing ping-pong, but it was really good to spend the day with all the Australians and Lauren.
In the morning we showed Lauren around and took her to some of our favourite shops, eg. the postcard shop. We had lunch at Sucré Sale, a little place next to the churros place where you can get a 'sandwhich' (baguette or panini) and a drink and chips or salad for a good price.
After lunch we headed down to the Polygone for a bit more shopping. The guy at the photo shop also managed to save Lauren's photos of her last 3 weeks or so, which was good!
We were going to go and see a movie then but that plan failed after one cinema wasn't showing James Bond that day and we'd missed the start of it at another cinema. So instead we decided to go back to Mia's apartment and bake Cynthia's choc chip cookies. We bought some ingredients and headed there. The cookies were incredible but it took us ages to make them because the oven was being difficult! We managed the first batch of white-choc-chip ones (for Mia) but the next batch burnt after we got the oven working again! They still tasted really good though! In the meantime we watched When Harry Met Sally. It's such a cute, feel-good movie!
Saturday 16th:
Alix had two hours of maths in the morning so I went to school and met some of the others and Lauren. We sat in the cafeteria for an hour waiting for some of the other aussies to arrive then we went down to the Polygone for some morning tea and shopping. I had one scoop of Haagen Dazs raspberry sorbet...it is absolute heaven! We spent the rest of the time in Habitat, a very cool homewares shop, before some of us said bye to Lauren and went back to school to meet our correspondents.
Alix and I were going to do more gift-wrapping but stopped on the way at Françoise's flat. We were going to ride our bikes to the Casino place but lucky we decided not to because it rained all afternoon! Instead we took a tram then two buses, which turned out to be a bit of a disaster. We ended up waiting 10 minutes for the first bus and about 20 for the second, sharing one umbrella and listening to Alix's music!
Finally we got there and did gift-wrapping for about 2 or 3 hours before we had to leave. We had lunch there and then a hot chocolate (in a bowl) when we got home for afternoon tea. Then Alix had a two-hour maths tute (her professor comes to her house i think).
After that we had to get ready and go to Léa's place (another friend of Alix) where we were sleeping over. I'd thought it was a big sleepover with lots of Alix's classmates but it turned out to be just Alix and I there. Léa had cooked a rice dish for dinner, which was really yummy! We watched Melinda and Melinda, a Woody Allen film. It was very interesting. We played some darts after that, which had an electronic scorer. That was funny because sometimes you'd have to throw over and over before the scorer registered the hit! I think I won that but I have no idea how. Then we played a random dice game where you had to roll 6 die and try to get certain combinations and amounts. I certainly didn't win that one!
Sunday 17th:
We got up around 10 and Alix and I left Léa's to catch the new Ligne 2 tram. This should have been very exciting because it had been inaugurated on Saturday and was all new and everything, and we got free tickets and chocolates from the official guy hanging around at the station. Unfortunately after 10 minutes waiting the tram came and was too packed to even get on so we had to wait some more. After seeing that we'd be waiting another 10 minutes for a tram that would probably be too packed as well, Alix decided we'd walk instead...I was dead at the start and I have no idea how my legs survived all the way. It was only a 20 or 30 minute walk but still...We caught a Ligne 1 tram then to Gare St Roch where we jumped on a train to Nimes where we would spend the afternoon.

Thats all for now I'm afraid, I've got dinner waiting for me and I'm starving (it's 8:40 pm)!!!
à bientot,
emma.