A stay in France: Toulouse, pancakes and carnaval...

Word of the week: louper - To miss/make a mess of something. E.g. 'elle va louper son bus' - she's going to miss her bus.

I've started writing down new words and expressions that I hear, in order to improve my spoken French. I probably should have started doing this a long time ago, but I guess I just thought constantly hearing phrases would ingrain them in my memory. That doesn't seem to be working, so new tactics! I learnt the phrase above when my teacher explained to my class that I had to leave quickly otherwise I would miss my bus. I did know what it meant already, but probably wouldn't ever think to use it. Next time, I'll know what to say!! I think I'll introduce word of the week as a permanent feature of my blog, so if you read my blog regularly you might learn yourself a bit of French!

So, last time I updated you I was about to go on my trip to Toulouse. However, before we left for Toulouse on Friday, we had an amazing lunch with our responsable - Christelle. She invited all of the primary assistants (I say all there's only 6 of us, and Serena couldn't make it, so 5), to her house for lunch. I've been to her house before, but even still I can't get over how lovely it is. We sat round the fire drinking our aperitif (gorgeous jurancon wine), and since I'd been up since 7 and only had a small bowl of cereal I was definitely ready for the 3 course lunch which followed! We had soup, chicken with potatoes and cake with creme anglaise, YUM! We stayed for a while afterwards chatting and then she drove us home so we could get ready for Toulouse.

Toulouse was so much fun. We stayed in Ibis Budget, like in Bordeaux. It's so cheap and pretty decent for the price! After dropping our stuff we went out for dinner, ( Tea for us northerners). Actually, that's just reminded me of a funny moment in school. The children were reading letters, and one of them said 'I eat my tea at 6 o'clock'. They all looked at me really funnily, and the teacher said 'but surely you drink tea, you don't eat it!' So I explained that in fact tea was not only a drink us English folk like to drink, but another word for dinner. They seemed quite baffled by this!

Anyway, I digress, back to Toulouse! We went out for dinner/tea at a lovely Italian restaurant. I had a calzone which I haven't had for ages, and really enjoyed it. We then went back to the hotel to sleep ready for a busy Saturday! On saturday we took in the sights: le jardin des plantes and the Jacobins church. It's all so pretty! We also made a pit stop on the way back to the hotel for hot chocolate!

In the evening we ate at Hippopotamus, an American style restaurant - it was so good, had a gorgeous cocktail and Ben and Jerry's ice cream for dessert!! We then went back to get ready, and then headed out to a bar/club after asking at the hotel where was good to go. The place was ok I guess, but we arrived kind of late so it shut after a while and rather then traipse round in the rain to find somewhere else we decided to head back to the hotel. We headed home at lunch time the next day and arrived in Pau late aftenoon.
The rest of the day was spent napping/skyping because as you know everything is fermé le dimanche in Pau!

This week has been ok, we had SNOW on Monday!!! I didn't think we'd get to see any here in Pau, so I was undersandably excited. Not as excited as my class however, who decided to jump out of their seats, and run to the window shoutinf 'IL NEIGE!!!' at the top of there lungs. I can understand, they're only 6, but I just couldn't get then under control and since the teacher had left me alone with them it was a bit of a nightmare!

The morning over, I recieved a nice phone call at lunch time telling me my afternoon classes were cancelled, which I was happy about as I didn't want to risk getting stuck in the snow in tiny Artigueloutan! The snow cleared in the afternoon though anyway and was replaced by rain (quelle surprise!) I spent my afternoon in a café (comme d'habitude) with Clem and Anna, and treated myself to some new boots (they were in the sale so it's allowed!)

Tuesday was pancake day (mardi gras), so we all went to Anna's and made pancakes. They were soooooo yummy, and of course I asked for mine well done - so dad if you're reading I hope you're happy!! I actually lost track of how many I ate, that probably says it was too many, but we had a variety of fillings including cheese, golden syrup and the most delicious spread ever, speculos.
After, we went to the end night of the carnival, and I'm so glad I decided to go as it was so much fun. There was a band playing in a tent and they played such a variety of music, I really enjoyed myself. It's a shame we missed the majority of the carnival being in Toulouse but at least we got to see some of it.

On Wednesday we went to see Les Mis, finally it was released in France! I loved it, and may have shed a tear or two...oops!

On Thursday I had work for most of the day, which was ok, and then in the evening I went to zumba with Abbi.
It was weird not to be going out for a meal/seeing Adam on Valentine's day, but Valentine's day in France is for l'amité (friendship) too, and I'm glad I've got some great friends here to spend my year abroad with :).

My sister and her boyfriend are coming on monday for 5 days, and I'm really excited to see them and show them around Pau!

A+ (This is one of my favourite french abbreviations. It's short for à plus/à plus tard, which means see you later!) xxx