Last two weeks, finally!

So i'm home now and happily settled in to life in my house. In fact it's been something like 4 months since I should have made this post, so excuse my bad memory!

Since the last entry finished around the 1st of January I thought i'd better do a quick (yes, very quick this time...i can hear those sighs of relief!) catch-up of my last few weeks in France, so here goes...

Tuesday 2nd January:
Unfortunately I have very little memory of this day at all...i'm guessing we slept in really late, had lunch, and then just relaxed all afternoon, but I seriously don't remember, sorry.

Wednesday 3rd January:
Because our students had to start working on their holiday homework (which is nothing compared to our holiday homework I can assure you!), Simone, Monique, Issy, Mia and I (I think that was it) met at 10 to spend the day in Montpellier, shopping, eating and, for Mia and Issy, taking photos. All morning we walked around, visiting various shops and just wandering a lot. Generally I think we just spent the afternoon walking around, doing some shopping, not much really.

Friday 5th January:
Alix and I went out on Friday night with some of her class, who we met in Montpellier. Mia and Issy were there as well, with their correspondents and some others. We wandered around Montpellier and failed to get into anywhere we wanted to go. We spent some time in a games room and then we split up, some of us going back to one of the French peoples houses, some of the others going to a bar I think. I slept over at Mia's correspondents place.

Saturday 6th January:
In the afternoon I met Enzo and we walked around and did some shopping. We visited his flat briefly and I met his mum, who was quite nice. We had a coffee or hot chocolate or something at a cute cafe that was, incidently, just around the corner from Simone's home.

Sunday 7th January:
All I remember about this day is that Isabelle and Cynthia were leaving for Rome. I might have gone somewhere with Alix and he mum, i'm not sure!

Monday 8th Jan:
Back to school for our very last week! It was scary and sad to think we only had one week left before we were on our way home! The last week wasn't our most enjoyable as we were all running out of money and desperately rushing around trying to buy presents and do last minute things. We didn't attend that many classes either.

Tuesday 9th Jan:
I'm not sure if it was this day or tuesday last week but Alix and I went to see Hollywoodland with Eleonore and Remy at the old cinema that showed films in their original version (in other words it was in English!, with french subtitles). It was really good, and those cinemas were so cute! They looked like they were half way through a refurbishment or makeover, but I liked the way they were, like a run-down version of some of Melbourne's art-house cinemas.

Wednesday 10th Jan:
It may or may not have been Wednesday, I'm not sure, but we all wanted to have lunch together (the aussies) so we walked around for a bit looking for somewhere. In the end we couldn't decide so Simone and I had lunch at a cute little creperie while the others went somewhere else. We both had a vegetarian crepe, which was very nice!

Thursday 11th Jan:
Madame Pacaud-Chaptal had invited us to attend one of her English classes in the Prepa today at 2:15. So we all went over there, not sure what it was going to be like. It was actually quite good though. We each introduced ourselves and they were able to ask questions, which they did a little, but shyly. Their english was quite good as they were older and were all focusing on English in their courses. They were all really nice.
On Thursday night we had our farewell night at the Lycee. We had all prepared our speeches and Madame Pacaud-Chaptal corrected them all after her class in the afternoon. Most of us stayed in the town between school and the night to do some more shopping. It took a while for all the families to arrive but once everyone was there we started. We sang the Advance Australia Fair at their request and they sang the La Marseillaise for us. Then we got on with the speeches. Each of us read our speech, with Simone's standing out as the longest and fastest! (no surprises there). We made sure we all thanked the teachers, the school and our families and correspondents. Some of the teachers made speeches too. A few people cried I think but not too many. The principle (I think) presented us with posters of Montpellier. I'm not sure where they are still! Then we tucked into the very cute yummy nibbles provided (and the orange juice!). There was the Bread Surprise things filled with little sandwiches, vegetarian pizza and very mini pastries. There was about 8 varieties of mini pastries, all beautifully presented and all very yummy! There was also some of the cake they eat with the little figures in it for the kids. Overally it was a lovely night. We went home and, to my suprise, had actual dinner a bit later. This was my last night with Alix's dad as he was going away hunting on Friday morning. His hunting friend came over and we had dinner. It was a nice meal and a happy time. I think that was the night I tried some French liqueur as well, something like Les Bois de Boulogne or something like that (or maybe not, I really don't remember). I said goodbye to Alix's dad that night but saw him again in the morning to say another goodbye.

Friday 12th Jan:
Jacques and I went to Sport (for the second or third time) as it was our last day at school. After sport we informed our class of this and I got two wonderful photos of our whole class on the courts below the running track. That day we had lunch with some of the students from Madame Pacaud-Chaptal's class from the day before. We walked to La Brioche Doree at the Polygone, bought sandwiches there and went back to eat them on the grass beside the lake out the front of the Lycee. We sat and chatted with some of the girls until we had to go. They were very nice and interested in Australia and Australian teenagers. One of the girls was obsessed with surfers!
That night we had organised for all the Aussies and their correspondents to go to dinner in the Place de la Comedie, at a cute pizza restaurant. Issy and Cynthia's correspodents came to I think. Alix was unable to come as she was babysitting her cousin/niece again, which was sad. We sat downstairs and had dinner, most of us (including me) forcing our way through a whole pizza each. They were really yummy though! Afterwards we decided to go to Haagen-Dazs for dessert but unfortunately it was closed. Instead we walked to the supermarket and bought 4 or 5 tubs of icecream (most Haagen-Dazs, one Marron) and some spoons and cups. So we ate Haagen-Dazs and walked through the Place de la Comedie making lots of noise and having lots of fun.

Saturday 13th Jan:
Our last full day and night. Jacques and I went to maths in the morning and then after maths (our last class! very sad) we said goodbye to the class, not sure if we would see them again. I then walked down to the market at Les Arceaux with Simone and bought my green stone pendant with the remains of my money. Unfortunately I didn't get to go to the Orangerie or the Jardin de Plantes, which was something I'd wanted to do the whole time! I was unhappy about that but I survived! In the afternoon I went back to Alix's mums place and cooked Choc Chip Cookies as a thankyou gift to them. They loved them, even if they were messy and looked like they wouldn't work at one point! It wasn't much but I hoped that those and some cards would be enough to express my thanks to them for hosting me for 6 weeks.
That night Alix and I again met her class and we went to the movies to see The Holiday. Even in French I got the idea that it was pretty bad and certainly afterwards most of the French students said they hadn't liked it much. Enzo came down to see me just before we went in to say goodbye as he couldn't come to the airport. After the movie, Mia and Thoma and Ashley met us the the class and them came back to Alix's dad's place. Charlotte wasn't there as she was in Paris with her mother where they were attending a prestigious ball! At home we hung around and ate and some people played playstation and cards. Ben played some piano too, which was nice. After a while people started leaving. Jacques and Manuel left, and Mia had to go home. Finally there was just Ashley, Ben, Alix and me left. The boys slept over as Alix's dad wasn't home. They left late the next morning and I had to get stuck into packing!

Sunday 14th January:
My very last day in France was a stressful and sad one unfortunately! Organised as I am (not) I hadn't started packing properly and I hadn't started burning photos onto cds so in the end I was rushing to do that all afternoon. The photos were a problem as neither of us really knew what we were doing, but we sort of worked it out. In the end only a few of the cds worked so I've sent over some cds for the others! Finally I was packed and ready to go. I didn't have dinner as our plane left around dinner time (French dinner time that is) and I wasn't hungry anyway. Alix's mum arrived to take us to the airport. She was late so it was a bit stressful but ok. She brought Eleonore with her but Eleonore wasn't coming to the airport so I had to say a quick goodbye to her. This was the first thing that made me cry, lol!
We got to the airport last, but it was ok as we had heaps of time to spare. We checked in as a group, but Jacques wasn't there as he'd spent his last day in Paris with his family and was meeting them there. Then we hung around in the small area below the staircase that takes you up to security checks. Montpellier airport is really quite small. We hung around for ages then took a heap of photos of families and all of us on the stairs. Madame Pacaud-Chaptal (I think, or maybe Madame Blanc) was there to see us off as well. We then moved to the top of the stairs and actually said our final farewells to our families and the others we knew (for me, Charlotte's mum Christine and Mireille's mum Claire). At this point Alix and I, and many of the others, started crying! Thus was the beginning of our trip home. As we went through security we could see the security staff laughing at our tears, and the people who checked our ticket as we went to board were amused as well. Finally we got on the plane and said goodbye to Montpellier.

The Flight:
The first flight was pretty short but we spent it discussing France and how much we wanted/didn't want to leave. Kasey read the letter her correspondent had given her and cried (possibly about someone else called Louis ; ) We arrived in Paris quite tired already and searched desperately for our flight. We went through security and found Jacques on the other side, already lining up for our flight. It was a relief to see him again but we didn't think we'd be sitting with him. Luckily we were thanks to a kind stranger. So the 6 of us boarded the longest leg of our flight, looking forward to dinner and a long sleep. Surprisingly The flights back were quite good and though the movies weren't great we enjoyed the flights. It was like we were stuck in a wonderful in-between - we'd left France behind but weren't yet back in Australia where homework and real-life troubles faced us. At Singapore we had a few hours spare so I blogged, and we walked around a bit, visiting the outdoors in the cactus garden. Simone had ice-cream and we spent the last of everyones money on lollies and chocolate for the last flight. We got some milka (strawberry yoghurt flavour!?!) and some nougat and other nibbles which we ate in the airport and during the flight. For this one Jacques was further up the plane but it didn't matter much as we mostly slept, watched movies and sat around. We visited Jacques a bit and shared out the chocolate. On one of the flights Mia and I checked out the overnight snacks and had some marina 2 minute noodles, which I ate (believe it or not) with chopsticks. I was quite proud.
Finally we landed in Melbourne. I don't know what the others felt but I was a bit numb and a bit sad. In the corridor we followed to the baggage collection area we stopped and considered a group photo. To our suprise (we were still in French mode) an Australian stranger behind us kindly offered to take our photo. We went down and collected our bags and went through customs (which was compulsory that day for some reason - the straight out bit was blocked off). We were all nervous about that...having followed our race-track lane we faced a happy aussie officer keen to make us feel very intimidated indeed (that's how it felt anyway). I got through ok but Simone had trouble with a massive tub of nutella!
Finally we gathered and made the rather short walk to the 'doors' and found our families waiting happily outside.

Just before school went back we found out we had to make a powerpoint (which we had been eagerly planing) for the first assembly. We converged at Mia's house one day and made crepes and put all our favourite photos together. It ended up being too long and the powerpoint, along with its soundtrack of 'Put on your balaclava' was cut short half-way through! But oh well! It was fun for us.