Hey everyone!
sorry i haven't posted much i've been too busy out and about in Montpellier seeing things and enduring classes and catching up with fellow australians!
results wise: i've heard lots of results and they sound fantastic!!! for those who haven't heard, here are mine:
Revs: 46 (anna beat me by one lol!)
Legal: 43
i'm really happy with revs cause i thought i'd totally screwed up the exam but it's all good! i know i could have done better in legal but that's ok cause it's over now!
i want more results from everyone else, especially revs and legal peoples but also anyone else who cares to let me know!
on to life in Montpellier, France...
well, it's been a long time since my last post so here's a quick run down of the week!
so basically last week was our first week at the Lycée Joffre, otherwise known as school. It was so good to get to school and see other people and it helped me stop thinking about home and everything! I've got to know a lot of Alix's friends from her class (here they have one class and do all their subjects with that class, like year 7 and 8 in Aus). They're all really nice and try to talk to me slowly so I can follow but most of the time they have to translate something for me! I'm getting better at listening to them and picking up what they are talking about but they talk really fast to each other! Alix has heaps of friends in and out of her class so i don't remember names, just faces mostly!
The food has been interesting so far - we have lunch with our correspondents in the canteen most days, or at least i do...it's like an american movie but more confusing...you have to wait on the stairs then some lady who must get paid to shove students back into the crowd lets some people through. Then the student has to swipe a card and give you a slip of paper to say you've paid for the meal. Then you get a tray and get one entre (some pastry thing or salady stuff) one main (cooked, generally not very nice meat with not very nice rice or pasta etc...) and some dessert (yoghurt, fruit, sometimes a pastry thing)...then you give the little slip to another random who must be well-paid to refuse to let people through if they haven't paid...then you have to find a seat!!! it's not eqsy! there's heaps of seats but they are always full unless you are early or really late. when there's a big group (alix normally sits with half her class, at least 10 people) it gets hard to find seats but we've managed so far!
So mostly we've been going to some classes and then going shopping with the other australians not in class. French class is ok cause you can pick up some words to translate, and english class is kinda fun cause you can help out and correct the teacher! I've only had one english class so far because the teacher has been sick and they only have 2 classes a week! i don't understand what they are doing in maths but it's something like function and I understood the chemistry more than Alix - they are doing acid-base reactions! I avoid the other science classes, especially the two-hour ones, because i just don't understand them and don't get anything from them. Much better for my french to go and order some yummy haagen dazs (the guy who served me said i spoke good french! yay!!!) or a pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant).
Last wednesday night alix and i went to tai chi with alix's mum - it went for two and a hlf hours! It was alright, but everyone else was older than us. The instructor was pretty funny and cause i couldn't understand most of the things he said alix had to explain them to me when we started doing the exercises. Alix and I spent half the time laughing as some of the things we were doing were pretty funny! When we had to change partners i couldn't understand anything they were saying to me but oh well. I think we might be going again tonight - alix really enjoyed it!
on Friday morning we had sport (a two hour class they have once a week)...it wasn't as bad as i had expected it to be. We played table tenis for the first hour, but they were all so good at it! i felt pretty stupid! Then we walked down to the running track...it was cold and spitting and I really didn't want to spend an hour running! In the end we jogged 4 or 5 laps then stretched for a while then played some basketball - i think their teacher was being nice cause it was so cold!
On Friday and Saturday there was a Telethon in Montpellier to raise money for helping disabled people i think. It was like a festival - there were stalls and events like roller-blading, bike-riding and little displays of judo, rugby etc...On saturday night alix and I went there with some of her friends - it was freezing but lots of fun!
On sunday I slept in until miday then had lunch - we were at Alix's mums place and it was yummy! Then Francoise (alix's mum) took us to the Cathedrale de Maguelone, and cathedrale from the Middle ages (12th century I think). It was beautiful - very simple but very atmospheric. It was right on the beach too so we checked out the beach while we were there!
Ok, i've got to go so I'll update on Paris (yesturday) another time!
also i've seen a couple of movies so far - mr and mrs smith in French - didn't understand a word! and scoop in english with french subtitles haha!!!
anyway, bye for now - give me some more scores!!!
So this is Kasey and Jacques in our first week. Our correspondents had boring classes or classes that we didn't understand (eg. SVT, physique, Allemand, Espagnol...) so Kasey, Jacques, me and I think someone else went out into Montpellier. This shot was taken on the top of the Corum, a random performance building near the school. You can go up onto the roof and see out across Montpellier, it's very cool. Someone had written their Myspace address up there in grafiti!
This is the water tower of Montpellier. I think it's Roman. It's lovely up close...on the other side the aquaduct, les Arceaux, strides away into the distance. It's magnificent, i'll have to get a good photo of it! This is in the park across the road from the Arc de Triomphe (the Montpellier one, not the Paris one).
