Finally an update!

So I can’t remember what I said in my last blog, or even when it was and seeing as I’m typing this offline and then I’ll upload it when I get the internet I can’t check so I’ll just type and see what happens! I'll start with some photos


Sunset from the beach


The beach


Traditional music being played in a bar on the beach


My "office"


The view from my office


Me, Jess and Vanessa at Jess' birthday meal out

So I’ve been on a few dives now and started my level 2 diving certificate with the French Federation. This involves 12 dives and performing exercises such as assisted ascents from 20m to 3m using the BCD and not your flippers. So basically Cyril will simulate something being wrong and I have to grab him and use his BCD to get us up at a safe speed. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, especially when he “passes out” half way up and loses his breathing reg! I also have to lead the dives, which means finding the boat again! So far so good but I think it’s partly because I’m getting to know the diving sites! The first time I just set off and was like, I really hope the boat is in this direction! Luckily it was! I also have to do some theory, most of which I’ve already covered but it’s good revision and interesting to have the lessons in French.

We went on a night dive at some point last week, on le franjack, which is a ship wreck at 25m that I’ve already dived on during the day. During the day it was interesting because you get to go inside and at night we saw 3 enormous turtles, we saw them all separately and then all together at the end. We also saw a stone fish and some really big crabs. Life under the sea is very different at night, all the fish are sleeping. The first turtle we saw was not impressed at all, it looked at us as we were taking photos of it and you could just tell it was thinking “leave me alone, I’m trying to sleep!” Eventually it got really fed up and swam off in a huff!

At some point before Christmas I took a bus up to Deshais to the beach Grande Anse after a morning dive. It was a really nice beach and I just sun bathed and read for a couple of hours and swam in the waves; it’s one of those beaches that gets deep really quickly so the waves are fun (but slightly dangerous!) and there is a strong under current. The beach was really long with golden sand. One of the busses on the way there was driven by my neighbour so he called by to pick me up and take me home at the end of his shift, I got a door to door service!


The beach Grande Anse

I did some more exploring around Christmas time because they decided to shut the club for Christmas day so I hired a car for 3 days; Yohan was with his brother and Cyril and Jess had both taken off to les saintes (apparently beautiful islands south of mainland gwada) for Christmas (separately). I went out for a meal with the car hire guy on the 24th because that’s when it all happens here. He was really nice, we tried to go to the cinema but it was shut so we went to Gosier to a really nice beach and had a really good meal. On Christmas day I drove to Pointe des Chateaux, which is the bottom right hand tip of the right butterfly wing. There were some pretty spectacular waves there and a pretty little beach that I wouldn’t dare to swim in!


The beach at Gosier. Some guy was playing with a luminous frisbee. I didn't even notice when I took the picture but I like the effect!


The beach at Pointe des Chateaux


Waves!

I drove up and went to what the guidebooks described as some of the best beaches on Guadeloupe. Altho they were pretty I was mildly disappointed so I didn’t stay long. I drove back via somewhere called le Moule and stopped to watch some pretty good surfers catching some fantastic waves.

The next day I attempted to spend the afternoon shopping. I headed to Bass-Terre, the biggest town this side of the island and the second biggest town in Guadeloupe. I managed to buy a pair of flip flops and a coke before all the shops shut at 1pm for the day!! So I took the scenic route round to where I hoped there would be a commercial centre, I remembered that Isa had pointed one out to me on the way from the airport on my first day. I wasn’t wrong and spent the afternoon speed shopping. I bought a Guadeloupian sim card and managed to find out how to get my computer to agree with the internet in the place opposite my house. I also bought the last Harry Potter book in French (having bought all the others second hand in Paris I was mildly appalled at the price seeing as it was more than all of the first 6 put together! But I was too into the story to care and had forgotten the details about how it ended). I was tempted to buy Twilight in French too but this time the price put me off so I’m going to try and borrow it off someone! I also bought mosquito nets for the windows in the house, which have yet to be put up but mean that the mosquitoes might leave us in peace in the mornings and evenings. The next day I tested out the internet connection and then headed off to La Souffrière, Guadeloupe’s volcano. No one told me about the walk up, or that it wasn’t as touristy as I thought it would be. I had planned to buy lunch there but there was nothing there! The climb started in the woods for 40 mins or so before attacking the actual volcano for an hour hike uphill. Just before the top I was flaking and had to ask a random for food! The views on the way up were pretty special. When I got to the top the volcano was happily puffing away, which is apparently a good thing. It didn’t smell too much but there was a lot of white smoke/steam coming out of a hole. The vegetation was a little greener than normal. The hike down was a lot easier and I was in the company of the group of people I begged food off; two Guadeloupians and someone from La Reunion. At the bottom I had a swim in the hot water sources before heading home.


View on the scenic route round to some open shops!


The walk through the forest on the way up La Souffriere


La Souffrière


View on the way up La souffrière


More views


More views in the clouds


At the top


The puffy bit puffing away


The top


The hot water source at the bottom

Jess and I spent New Year at someone’s house, a girl who works for CIP, the dive centre next door and our direct competition. It was a good night although I didn’t really know people well and the music wasn’t really my type of music. They had good food and loads of champagne so Jess and I arrived home pretty merry and fairly stuffed.

The next day we only opened for the 2 afternoon dive trips at 1 and 3pm. At 3pm a whole family of English people had booked in so I got to go out on the boat as the official translator. Turns out 2 of the girls are assistants and so are basically doing the same as me out here, we exchanged numbers and I’ll hopefully get in touch with them soon to meet up.

One evening the other week we went and ate Galette des Rois at le nid tropical, a group of bungalows near where I live that works closely with the dive centre. We ate with a group of divers who had come on a diving holiday and had dived with us almost every day at least once a day during their trip. Galette des Rois is a French Christian tradition and is a large pie thing made out of franjipan. Hidden inside it is la fève, a small figurine and whoever gets it is the king or queen for the evening. We made it so that Robin got it, Jaco and Isa’s 6 year old son, so he was happy.

Since then I haven’t really been up to much in the evenings. I’ve been on the internet a couple of times. I seem to spend a lot of time chatting with Jess and Cyril and the evenings just disappear. This week I have an eye and an ear infection so haven’t really been in the mood to do anything but it also means I won’t be able to dive this weekend ☹ I’m hoping to get at least one dive in so I can finish my level 2 next weekend, but that depends on whether or not my infection has cleared up by Sunday.

Works been ok, pretty calm now the season is over and to be honest there wasn’t much of a season. The way tourism is linked to france here is almost worrying. As soon as France came to a standstill with snow and strikes, tourists couldn’t get here and so we had a delayed start to a season that never really took off. I can feel my French getting better tho; I don’t have to ask people to repeat things so much and I’m getting faster at speaking and find it easier to understand the young language.

There’s talks of more strikes like they had last year kicking off towards the end of January. Altho it would give me something interesting to write about for my intercalary project (something I have to do for uni about current affairs) I’m hoping it doesn’t actually happen. Last year apparently it got pretty nasty and it became impossible to do anything, as well as the fact that there were no tourists to dive.

The mosquitoes have started to leave me alone, or they have started to effect me differently so I don’t notice as much, which can only be a good thing!

Next week a new stagiaire is arriving so I am going to lose my room to him and have to share with jess seeing as there will be another stagiaire who arrives at the end of jan, and so we’ll be 5 people in the house, 2 girls and 3 guys, with 3 bedrooms. So us girls will have to share. I’m moving into Jess’ room which is smaller than mine but she has a shower in it.

Anyway, this has hit essay lengths so I’m going to say good bye! I’ll try and update sooner next time but no promises. Even tho I have internet in the place opposite now it’s not always easy because it shuts at 6 and I don’t finish work until somewhere between 5 and 6 pm normally.

I’m off to tidy my room now so that I have my things in a reasonable order before I move into Jess’ room!

Sun and mosquitos

So another week has gone by without a chance for me to update my blog. Nothing overly interesting to report. There was traditional music at the beach last week and it was really good, a really nice atmosphere. There was a house party we were supposed to go to last week but didn’t because the car we were supposed to be getting a lift in broke down. On Sunday there was a bit of a party to celebrate the end of the level 4 exams, a high diving grade which involves a lot of hard work. That was good fun and I got to know the people who work in the neighbouring dive clubs a bit more. We went out for a meal to celebrate Jess’ birthday. I had a really nice duck dish. Yoan moved out and cooked us a really nice leaving dish. He lives down the road now, the other side of the beach from us up a really steep hill. It’s a nice little apartment he’s got.

I went diving this weekend, got 4 dives in, one on a wreck and it was really interesting because we went inside it and everything! It’s only 9 years old so it’s in a pretty good condition. Saw a sea turtle on one of my dives and an octopus hiding in its little hole. Lots of lobsters and barracudas too. I also started my level 2 diving thing, on the French system (not PADI). It’s better than the advanced open water qualification PADI offers, and a lot more complete in terms of theory and it means I’ll be potentially one dive qualification away from being able to teach diving!

I’m finding the language barrier quite frustrating. Before when I’ve been in French environments for long periods of time the conversation hasn’t generally been with young people, and so when I’ve hanging around with younger people the conversation tends to move a lot faster, with a lot of people adding to the convo, so it moves quickly. There’s also language used that I’m not familiar with. It also doesn’t help that a lot of the people that are mentioned I don’t know, or I wasn’t there when they are talking about a past event. Obviously I’m starting to be apart of the experiences so I’m able to relate a lot more to the conversation but it’s still hard to find a moment to input, especially by the time I’ve decided what I want to say, the conversation has moved on already! I’m definitely going to have to learn fast!

Anyway apart from that I'm having a great time, I'm just wishing the mosquitos would leave me alone!!

Guadeloupe; First impressions

So I've been here a week exactly now and still haven't managed to post until now. Internet has been very dodgy here but today at least it seems to be fairly consistent.

So I left Richard in Paris; he came over to see me off but his plane was late so we didn't do much other than pack and go out for a lovely Mexican on Saturday evening and velibed around. Sunday morning was stressful, trying to ram everything into my suitcase which was refusing to close. I thought I was going to miss the plane but we arrived at the airport with time to spare so I bought a luggage strap to stop my bag exploding mid flight! Said good bye to Richard and headed through security. The flight was uneventful, I mainly ate, read and slept!

As we arrived in Guadeloupe we flew over Grande Terre (the right hand butterfly wing). It was so flat!! It looked like the whole lot could just disappear into the sea if the sea rose by a meter or so! You could see right over it to the sea on the other side. Basse Terre (where I live) on the other hand was mountainous and had clouds looming over the mountains.

View over Grande Terre as we came into land



After collecting my luggage I wandered out towards the Pharmacy where Isabelle (my new boss) had told me she'd meet me. I think she found me because I was looking lost! We set off in the car and went over/through the mountains to Basse Terre. As we arrived at the sea the view was beautiful. The whole place is so green!



We stopped off at my new work to pick up the keys to my house and I met Jessica, one of my work and house mates. Then we headed off to my new house. It's right next to the sea but it was very bare, my room had a single bed and a small desk and a chair in it and that was it! The chair has since been moved to the kitchen!


the beach that I work on


the view from my "office"; the islands you can see are where the main dive sites are


My work place

I started to feel very alone in my big empty room but went and showered and then to watch the sunset on the rocks outside the house. Then my housemates came back (Jessica, Yoanne and Cyril) and I chatted to them before going to bed.



Work has generally been great, the first few days I was really getting to grips with how things work. I went out on the last boat on Monday to the Islands to see how things work and on Tuesday I even got to go diving because someone didn't have a buddy. It was beautiful. Loads of pretty corals and fish. We had a barracuda follow us for most of the dive. Other than that work consists of talking to customers, advertising the dives, helping people get ready for dives and helping them when they come back. There's a lot of french; all the tourists here are french (well the vast majority of them) and the Guadeloupians don't speak much English either. It's been going really well tho and I've really got to grips with it after a week there.

My house mates are really nice too. Yoanne has been great, he's really friendly but doesn't spend an awful lot of time at the house and I think he's moving out soon. Jessica talks a lot but is also great and really friendly. Cyril is more serious. He's a dive instructor but when you get him talking he talks a lot. Jessica is 22, Yoanne 31 and Cyril 29.

I have met a few Guadeloupians too and in General they all seem very friendly. Everyone says hello to me as I walk to work. The houses range from fairly basic to pretty big. It's so hot here! The beach I work on has black sand because it's volcanic. It's quite a small beach but nice all the same. I don't think there are many other beaches near here altho I don't think it will be too hard to explore because buses are fairly regular (except on a Sunday!).

There are very french things, like supermarkets and stuff, but then the whole place has a very island feel about it.

I went out last week to a bar with my house mates which was nice. Every one seemed to know each other there but it was a nice atmosphere. We also went out for a nice meal one night at a restaurant in someones living room. It was really good food. When we got back we played cards, which was complicated! I was just starting to get the hang of it when Jessica gave up and went to bed!

Other than that I have spent my evenings chatting to my housemates and various friends of their's that come over. it gets dark very quickly here, I spend most of my daylight hours at work and if I'm lucky it's light for another half hour or so. But it's fine because there's a lot of time for sunbathing at work!

Yesterday was my first day off so I went diving in the morning. It was a really good dive but very different from my previous one. The corals and fish were different even tho it was so close to the site where I was for my first dive. I wandered up and down the beach and then managed to get a lift to the nearest cash point. It's a 10 minute drive away! I hitch hiked back and then went swimming out side my house. Then I went and watched the sunset on the beach. Today I was planning on going diving but it was raining so I stayed in instead and read and tidied and cleaned my room. I also sprayed my computer with ant killer because it seems to have ants living in it!! Not overly cool!

Apparently tonight there will be the traditional music on the beach so I'll go along to that if it's not raining.

Right I'll post again soon. The restaurant I'm in is shutting up!!

Special offers to Guadeloupe

Wow I am getting good at posting!

Just thought I'd put a post up to say I've updated the travel info section for coming to Guadeloupe - there are some deals on at the moment with Corse Air and Air Caraibes - both have a deal that means if you fly out to Guadeloupe on or before the 13th December and return on or before the 16th December it can cost from 419 euros.

Corse Air also has one for 10th Jan to 18th March (latest return 25th March) for 529 euros return. All this is from Paris.

Regarding my news, I woke up feeling loads better today and set out to get my money off my boss. He gave me 100 euros which I was pleased with. I was contracted to get 150 euros per month but I couldn't be bothered to argue with him. Especially considering out of the 24 working days in the month I worked 13 of them!

Then I set off on a mission to stock up on my favourite hair product before Guadeloupe and got a free ring because I bought so many of them.

This evening Georgia, Sarah and myself went to Chartier for a meal. It was a pretty cool restaurant; it was a massive airy room, very busy (people were queueing to get in) and pretty cool decor. The food was standard french (meat and potato) but very good non the less! Our waiters were very friendly and the service was extremely quick, our starters arrived moments after we ordered! Apparently it used to be a soup kitchen style thing but has since become a cheap but good quality restaurant. 3 courses and a bottle of wine between the 3 of us came to just under 60 euros, so at less than 20 euros a head I think it was a right bargain! Then we went dancing at Cafe Oz nearby. Georgia got hit on by a particularly smooth guy whose chat up lines included gems such as "I think you are a thai masseuse named Jessica", "What do you think I am, an artist, a philosopher or a sex God?....I am all three but I am a professor of love" and finally, upon hearing the DJ start to play a salsa song "Do you like salsa? I can feel the salsa dancer in you just waiting to come out"... and he proceeded to try and drag Georgia to the dance floor!

But it was a great night, apart from the dodgy men who seemed to appear all to frequently!

A meeting with the boss

So I thought I'd break my usual habit of posting once in a while and actually post something more frequently!

Today was mainly written off due to this virus which leaves me wanting to sneeze the whole time and a perpetual runny nose, but I eventually left the house and walked to my bank. Unfortunately my bank is a good 20 minute walk away, which was made worse by the fact that I am ill and therefore constantly tired. I walked through park Buttes Chaument, which was really peaceful compared to normal Paris and was a breath of fresh air. I continued to my bank and things went surprisingly smoothly - I wanted to deposit cash (a complicated yet non the less accomplishable task), claim back the 25€ insurance fee that I shouldn't have to pay because I'm young and change my postal address to my new Guadeloupe one. All tasks were completed within 20 minutes and I was very pleased with myself!

Then I caught the metro to my old work to confront my boss and demand that he pay me. I was pretty nervous I have to admit but Lucie opened the door for me (Lucie works there and is absolutely lovely) and after waiting for about 5 minutes my boss decided he was going to see me. He knew exactly why I was there. He took me into his office and proceeded to light up a cigarette. I was so annoyed, I wanted to ask him to stop smoking but figured that probably wouldn't be the best way to go about getting my money. I just resolved to silently chuckling to myself when he dropped the match that he lit it with in a full can of coke! He then proceeded to tell me that, seeing as I had only worked there for two weeks, he was not going to pay me. I was appalled. I tried to tell him that I had in fact worked for 3 weeks non stop before he sent me home and told me to wait for his call, when I would have to come in no matter what. This effectively tied me down and meant I was still obliged to show up when he wanted. I started working there on the 29th September. I would have started on the 28th but the office was shut and he failed to tell me and I waited outside for 4 hours before giving up and going home. I worked my last day there on the 29th October. Anyone with half a brain cell can tell that that equals one month. He cut our meeting short and ran away home (apparently one of his children had been hospitalised) but I am going to go back there tomorrow morning and pin him down!

Then I went and met up with Sarah and Tristan (Sarah's boyfriend), Georgia and some of Sarah's other friends. We had lovely drinks and chats and then Sarah, Tristan Georgia and I went for a lovely meal at the Pot de Terre. Sarah also gave me a lovely going away present; a little charm - a map of Guadeloupe! I was really pleased and surprised, I was not expecting it at all! I need to get myself a charm bracelet now!

Anyway bed time, I need to be on top form to confront the boss tomorrow!

5 days till Guadeloupe and ill again!

So I appear to be ill again, which is rubbish because I haven't shown my face in La Chorba since the entry in my last blog update! Quite a bit of time has passed since then, I went to England that Friday, altho I didn't actually arrive until a very unsociable hour on Saturday morning due to a 7 and a half hour delay from EasyJet. Not amused! But I had at least changed my flights to Stay in Newcastle until the following Sunday.

Newcastle was great, saw people, socialised, got bank stuff sorted and dressed up as a cripple for Steph's 21st - she recently ruptured her achilles tendon so to make her feel less left out we all pranced around with bandages, crutches and various injuries all night long.

Richard came back to Paris with me and we spent Monday biking around, we went to the Sacré Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe and then decided to bike all the way to La Grande Arc de la Defense (or something like that) which is actually a lot further away than it looks when you're stood on top of the Arc de Triomphe! We met with Georgia at Chez Gladines for some plate fulls of meat and potato, the French way!

Tuesday was a doss day and then me and Richard went to see Muse in concert who were awesome!! Altho the French organisation was interesting. We had seats, but they weren't allocated, so when we got there (a little late due to taking longer than expected on the velibs) there were no seats left apart from those behind the stage. And so every one was standing in the aisles. It was no bother because I was planning on standing anyway, I just wonder where they were planning on putting all these people?! In England we would have definitely been a fire hazard!

After Muse we went to Rue Mouffetard for some sophisticated drinks and some late night grub. The next day Richard woke up with food poisoning. We're not sure whether to blame his ham baguette or the late night grub but in any case Wednesday was written off, as was most of Thursday, altho we did make it out for evening drinks and free food at Spaghetti Bar followed by Twilight 2 (which Richard loved of course!).

Friday we hit Disney, which was so cool! It's not just a theme park, it's a whole experience, you are literally transported to another world. Thanks to Lisa we had tickets to both parks and because it was a week day there were little or no queues, most were 5 - 10 mins waiting time, altho we did have to wait about half an hour for a couple of rides. My favourite was the finding nemo ride, and I just loved the Alice in Wonderland maze. We watched the Parade at the end and then headed back to Paris for a meal (Pot de Terre on Rue Pot de Fer - €10.60 for a 3 course menu) and then went to meet my parents for drinks.

Saturday morning we went for breakfast and sent Richard off to Newcastle and then hit Cité de science et de l'industrie because it was having a free weekend, and it was fantastic. We spent most of the day there trying out all the hands on experiments to do with science and industry. A really great experience and definitely worth a visit if you get the chance. Then we headed across to the Opera to try and get some last minute tickets for a dance show that night. It turns out we had to wait until 45 mins before the show to get the last minute tickets. We got 3 cheap ones and one fairly expensive one. Dad and Stef had to stand the whole way thru because their tickets were so appalling. Mum had a great view and my seat was not bad at all. The dancing was absolutely fantastic. The way the dancers moved their bodies was mesmerising. The had such control and made it all look so easy!

Sunday we went for brunch and then to the Orangerie museum which was great, stunning paintings. Then we had the best hot chocolate in Paris (and I would go as far as to say it was the best hot chocolate I've ever had) at Angelina's (226 Rue de Rivoli). Then I took them to the book shops at St Michel and then we headed for a meal with a very heavy bag full of second hand books and cheap BDs.

After a meal I sent them on their way to the airport and headed off to meet Luke (a fellow French student in Newcastle in Pau for the year who had a few hours in Paris between flights/trains). We went up the Montparnasse tower for a view of the whole city and a drink. It was a pretty good view, the Eiffel tower did it's sparkly thing, but it was sooo cold and windy outside!

And then yesterday and today I have been ill again :-( so I haven't really achieved much, altho I intend to go to the bank today to sort out my address change and I may go to Point Par Point to demand my pay!

I imagine the next time I post will be from Guadeloupe unless I manage to get my act together and post before then!

Oh and I changed the blog address so that it doesn't include my name!

Another Week gone by!

So another week has gone by without a blog update!

Thursday I went into work for about 10am having been asked to get there for 9.30. It became apparent that there wasn't a lot for me to do. I spent about an hour sorting cards into piles of 50 so they could be sorted into piles of 50, 100, 150, 200, 400. There were 3400 of them. Then I read for 2 hours before lunch. The afternoon passed in much the same way except I had new exciting things to sort into piles and then work out which piles went with which piles. I again spent 2 hours reading. As 5pm neared I tried to talk to the boss to tell him that I wouldn't be coming back, but he was just impossible to talk to. I overheard him saying that he wanted me in the next day but he didn't actually say that to me. Then he left in such a way that just made it impossible to talk to him. So I sent him an email when I got back telling him I was leaving and asking him to pay me!

The next day volunteering was cool, I got chatting with a really nice girl called Sarah and her friend who was visiting for the weekend, Aude. Sarah is part of a society that is spending 9 months volunteering; they spent 3 weeks at La Chorba and then now they have moved onto 7 months with an association for old people. A lot of the others in the society seemed very immature and loud. Sarah, Aude and myself biked to the 19th on velibs, Sarah is a true Parisienne on the bike, no regard for red lights or other traffic!! The distribution went well. It was different to the other place; less school like. The food was all obviously home made too (by me and other volunteers!).

Saturday I met up with Emily, my cousin from Mauritius, who was in Paris with her school. It was lovely to see her. We went to a Starbucks and Emily was delighted because they don't have them in Mauritius. My Aunt and Uncle were there too and we just generally wandered around Paris. It was horrendously busy seeing as it was a Saturday and my uncle favoured using his car to get from A to B rather than the metro which was actually a lot of hassle! Then that evening I went back to Châlons-en-Champagne with my aunt and uncle and stayed the night there. My cousins were there who I haven't seed for a couple of years now and I met their girlfriends too. The next day we were heading to St Dizier for my other cousins birthday meal celebration. We were supposed to be leaving at 11 and I was ready to leave at 10.45 (surely not?! I hear you cry!!) but yes, I was actually ready to leave at that time! We didn't actually leave until 12.30... Clearly the late gene is something I can do nothing about! It is in my blood!

We arrived and had champagne and nibbles and a spectacular meal; starter was a salad of some sort with some kind of saint Jacques fish, I'm not sure what the english is, then turkey AND duck with cooked pineapple, potatoes and sauce, and 3 desserts; chocolate cake, raspberry mousse and swiss roll with home made custard and fruit coulis. It was soooo good, but I ate enough to feed me for the week! It was all home made and delicious. It was lovely to see everyone too. Then Carole and I got the train back.

Monday I was back in the soup kitchen and again it was great. I didn't go to the distribution in the evening and instead met Georgia at 6pm at La Comédie Française to queue for our free "jeune" tickets to the evening's performance of Figaro Divorce. We queued for an hour and a half before the guichet opened, by which time Sarah from La chorba had joined us, and we didn't even get seats together!! To be honest it wasn't worth the wait. The seats we had meant it was very hard for us to see the stage without leaning right forward and the play was a lot of dialogue that was hard to follow. Even Sarah who is French found it boring! I dozed through the second half and then we headed home. I was starting to get ill :-(

I took all of Tuesday and Wednesday off because I was ill and I did not want to pass it on to all the homeless people of Paris. Tuesday evening I did meet with Sarah Leahy (from the uni) and Georgia for a hot chocolate. Sarah was finding out all about how we are getting on and letting us know that the uni still loves us!

Anyway that's all from me before I bore you to death! Tomorrow is my day off anyway so I shall try and do something exciting and Parisian if I'm feeling up to it; I'm feeling a lot better now after 2 days of bed rest.