Visitors

I apologise for not updating this sooner – as some of you are aware, there have been more problems regarding administration, but I am not going to rant about that again! I think it is safe to assume that everyone reading this blog now knows how I feel about French administration!

It has been a busy few weeks one way or another! Mainly filled with the excitement of having visitors! Last weekend two of our friends who are currently studying in Lyon came to visit! It was lovely to have them to stay and show them the town! We even managed to sit outside and have a glass of wine! Sorry to everyone sitting back home in Britain in the rain and the sleet, but it has generally been lovely weather here until today! The thermometer in town was reading 16 degrees the other day and my trusty weather app informed me that it was 18 degrees on Monday! This weekend just past I had my sister and brother come to visit! They stayed in a hotel in town and amused themselves whilst I was in and out of uni on Friday and then I had time to show them around a bit more Saturday and Sunday! Ben had bought a French phrase book and loved being able to speak some French! It was good to be able to relax a bit with them here and sit outside in the sun and then watch the rugby with them (I don’t have a tv in my room and my internet is very temperamental and so I can’t really watch the rugby unless I go out!).

Unfortunately on Sunday I was struck down with the cold and so I spent much of Monday dosed up on paracetamol trying to get through my classes until I could come back to my room to get into bed! Yesterday was slightly better and today slightly better still although I still could do with an early night! Hopefully it progresses to improve as on Friday I am flying to London to spend the weekend with my boyfriend before we both head back up to Scotland – me to go home for a few days, and him to go back to university.

 

Sun shining and yet more problems

It’s true what they say that people are happier when the sun is shining! At the weekend we had some lovely weather, and all of our issues seemed to pale into insignificance whilst I had my window open, my music on and doing my cleaning! Last weekend my parents came and it was so amazing to see them and to spend some time showing them round the town and having a catch up! When they went, it was back to normality and back to the everyday tasks!

Last week I had my first Portuguese class! It is probably one of the harder things that I’ve done – learning a completely new language from a language that I’m not fluent in! Sitting in that class as the only Erasmus student was slightly daunting but my classmates made me feel welcome and were at hand to help me when I had no clue what was going on – especially when our teacher used French abbreviations! I had absolutely no idea what he meant with some of them! So I think it will be a big learning curve – trying to learn a new language, whilst at the same time trying to master the one that I came out here to improve!

We had confirmation last week that we could drop our criminal law class – this all had to be checked and approved by our home university. It was an interesting course - all about the theory of criminal law – but the teacher spoke at about 100mph! Even the French students couldn’t follow her all the time! If they couldn’t, there was absolutely no hope for us Erasmus students in the class!

The saying ‘when one door closes, another one opens’ is quite apt here, but more in the sense of problems! When one problem is resolved, another one appears. This is definitely true in my case at the moment. I learnt yesterday that my Portuguese class, which I found out last week wasn’t going to be noted (no exams or final mark given), won’t be worth any credits. I need these credits….so in an attempt to sort things out, I have been frantically emailing my teacher trying to sort things out – it’s a work in progress!