Mamma mia, here we go again...

So I've been back in France for a couple of weeks now, and thought I should fill you in on what's been going on! So first of all, my flight back on the Sunday night was cancelled due to fog in the UK, and after queuing for 4 and a half hours at the airport I was eventually transferred on to the next available flight, on Wednesday morning. This meant that I would end up missing 4 out of my 5 classes of the week, which was kind of frustrating as there almost seemed no point in going back that week at all!! That's one of the odd things about the Year Abroad: the amount of time we spend in compulsory classes is actually pretty small (for British Council and studying at least), which often makes me feel like I have no real 'reason' to be in France. Obviously the compulsory 'reason' for me being here isn't really the point, it's all about the other stuff that comes with just being in the country, and using the language: the studying is really just an excuse to be here, if that makes any sense! Anyway, I booked on to the Wednesday flight, and enjoyed a couple of bonus days at home with my parents (who I'd actually hardly seen, seeing as I had spent the week in Exeter and not with them...they're very long-suffering!!).

Lunch with my Mummy

These days were lovely, but in some ways really odd because I had geared myself up to go back at the weekend, and so it felt a bit like I had been building up to an exam which had been postponed! But I did feel a lot more ready to go back to France come Wednesday, and had had the chance to get over the worst of my Exeter homesickness whilst I still had the comforts of home around me! Inevitably I had a couple of panic moments when I arrived back: getting back on the bus going back the other way for another 7 weeks was not easy, but in fact the first few days altogether were much better than I had imagined they might be! I couldn't help but compare it to the last time I arrived in Rennes, terrified and knowing I had an uphill struggle to create a routine and some sort of normality, and I realised how much more settled I was this time! I had a routine, I knew people here, and I had done all the stressful and scary admin/settling in stuff already. Plus, I realised I only have a couple of empty weekends until Christmas: all the others were taken up with fun trips and visits! The weekends are often the most difficult days because they're really long (I don't have classes on Fridays and Mondays) and whereas normally I would be thrilled about having extra time to do fun things and see friends and family, I have a much shorter list of these things here that I can fill my free time with, so unless I actively plan stuff to do, I can get to Tuesday morning feeling bored, unproductive and pretty lonely. One such exciting event I had planned was dinner with Ellie and another girl from Exeter who is doing British Council not far from Rennes: we were at the restaurant for hours eating and drinking sangria, and reminiscing about life in Exe!

Amazing food and cocktails, and lots of laughter: perfect dinner date

Ellie and I ended up going for crêpes the night before as well, completely spontaneously...basically we were looking at restaurants and getting really hungry, and neither of us could be bothered to cook, so I suggested we go to Crêperie Sainte Anne (my favourite one), as Ellie had yet to sample their amazing crêpes. And as we tell ourselves every time we feel like maybe we go out for dinner too often, Exeter specifically tell us to work on our intercultural competence over this year, and really absorb the local culture...how can we do that if we're not eating crêpes regularly? It's as essential to our degrees as grammar exercises and essays. Anyway, they were insanely good, as always.

We were beyond hungry at this point

So that was my first week back! The weekend was pretty busy too, doing washing and shopping and making biscuits for church on Sunday as I was helping out with the kids for the first time, which was so much fun. I was slightly worried that I wouldn't be able to understand them/they wouldn't be able to understand me, but it was completely fine, and they were so hilarious and welcoming. It was so refreshing to spend time with them and look at life through their eyes, and be reminded of how simple everything really is!

That brings me on to Week 2, which was less great. I just started feeling really homesick halfway through the week, and struggled to get myself out of that...possibly because in the first week I'd managed to keep myself busy and stave off homesickness for the most part, but then as last week was much quieter my mind drifted towards home more often! But I felt better towards the end of the week and much better today as I got on with getting things done and organising life again...hopefully this week will be better!

Finally, I'm sure many of you will have seen my brief Facebook updates from my trip to Paris this weekend, but I will also be writing a post about it all soon to talk about it in a bit more detail. So until then mes amis!