Goodbye

I never expected to have the year I had. I expected to move to France and get by, I knew I would be fine, I knew I would meet people I could hang around with and the year would pass by. I never expected for it to be so great, and so hard to leave. The people I have met here are amazing, my Périgirls are going to be friends I will keep for life. I have never spent as much time with friends as I did with those girls, it got to the stage where we struggled to spend an hour at home alone and instead would be ringing around figuring out where everyone was. We had such crazy times together, spent hours travelling, watched too many shows, cried with laughed, broke an unfortunate amount of things (a lot of them being David’s..) and they have completely changed the way I live. I can’t remember a time I was this carefree and happy! Living abroad in a tiny town does crazy things to the brain!

The people of Périgueux welcomed us in with open arms, even if we were called “Les Anglaises” all year round, they couldn’t have been nicer too us.

Rue Sully wasn’t just Maeve’s home this year, it was all of our home. With Théo and his over happy, always jolly attitude, letting us have an extra chair all year so that a could all sit at Maeve’s table, walking us home late at night and making wax maps of the world so that he could move Portland, Ireland, NI and England all to France so that we could be home and in Périgueux all at the same time.

David who knew food was the way to our hearts and who has almost enough practical solutions to rival me as we became PSL and PSD (Practical Solutions Lauren and Practical Solutions David). A house that we were far too comfortable in, watched too many movies and complained and contributed to the mess more times than David liked.

Teddy bear Romy with his adorableness that kept us going through life. The way he said “oh the puppy” to a deflated balloon, small tomatoes and children as he thought it meant that something was cute, rather than actually meaning puppy.

Bastien and Fantine, the craziest brother/sister combination I have ever met. Who after one week of knowing us made me a wonderful birthday cake and continued to return with marvellous baked goods. Fantine who was unlike every other French girl we had ever met, and joined in on our loud, rowdy, unglamorous dancing and the best French girl we ever met.

Heilan Coo, Springfield bagels and La Cantina were local bars/food places that we visited an uncountable number of times, and in all three we very quickly welcomed in and at felt home, with both staff and locals felt like friends from our first nights there. Heilan coo with moody Bertrand, Pilou Pilou having a love/hate relationship towards us, and his wife Shelly who couldn’t have been nicer not to forget their adorable daughter Megan. Springfield bagels will always be remembered as our WiFi haven at the beginning and I will never forget our many failed attempts to have Philadelphia cheese on our classic bacon bagels AS WELL as cheddar. I will never forget our nights at La Cantina “singing” along to songs where we have no idea what the words are, being last to leave, “borrowing” some cute signs for Maeve’s house, and being palls with the staff.

This year has completely out done my expectations and has arguably been one of the best of my life, thank you to my Périgirls and the people of Perigueux for such a wonderful time – Vous me manquez déjà!

Vienna

Before heading home I decided to stop of in Vienna and visit William. Following my swift, dramatic departure at Agen, I changed train at Bordeaux and was on my way to Paris to catch a flight to Vienna. After a mix up on landing times, and me having had no WiFi in the woods at Romy’s house, I was very lucky to be met at the airport by William. We caught the last train back into the city, I stressed him out with my stories of the day and enjoyed the pretty lights of Vienna.

We had a weekend filled with my favourite kind of tourism – slow paced and full of food.

On Friday I had my first lie in in weeks while William was at school before meeting him for lunch. After being cooped up in fast food less Périgueux for the last 7 weeks, a sneaky little McDonald’s was called for! We spent the rest of the afternoon dandering through the city centre, eating ice cream and seeing the sights.

We had some great Italian food for dinner where you told them what you want and they make it in front of you, you can choose your meet, pasta , sauce, anything! We then went to meet Williams friend at the opening of a new pub beside The Hofburg Palace, in the park.

On Saturday we were both feeling sicky so we decided to postpone the sightseeing and spend the day eating snacks and watching Friends (we might have managed to watch all of season 4 over the course of the weekend…). The day turned out to be a bit of a disaster for us, not only did we start it with headaches and colds, William fell out of the bath/shower onto the floor and I slipped TWICE onto my butt on his balcony haha.

At 5 o’clock we decided we better actually leave the house at some stage and headed for PRATER, where we enjoyed the last of the sunshine before meeting the others and going on some of the rides and having dinner. Out disastrous day continued when I got soaked on a ride we didn’t expect to be wet, and William almost died after a spiny, upside down style ride (think experience at Barry’s but more spinning and long periods of time upside down) and we had to lie on the grass for half an hour as he recovered haha.

Sunday was a much more successful day in that it was injury free and we saw the rest of the tourist sights of Vienna. We made ourselves some pancakes for breakfast before setting of to spend the afternoon at Schönbrunn Palace, it’s like the Austrian version of Versailles, but slightly smaller. the sun made an appearance and we relaxed on the hill taking in the views.

When we were done at Schönbrunn we made our way back into the city centre to get some ice cream and see the last of what William had to show me. We dandered around the streets, ate ice cream and avoided the abundance of tourists. Our last stop for the day was Hundertwasserhaus, a crazy building painted all sorts of colours with trees growing inside and all over. I actually think that this was one of my favourite sights of the city! It was so quirky and different and not over run by tourists which is always a bonus!

We made ourselves dinner at Williams, enjoyed homemade apple straddle made by one of his flat mates and relaxed for the evening by watching Friends and planning a trip to Lyon in December to see the Fête des lumières!

Agen

My last night in France turned into an impromptu trip to Romain’s house. Maeve was going to visit anyway, but instead of leaving me in Perigueux alone for my last night Romain invited David and I along too, so after some almost train disasters (typical us) the four of us caught the train to Le Buisson to be picked up by Romain’s dad.

Before heading to Romain’s house we stopped of at his uncles bar in this tiny little town to say hello, but when he heard Maeve and I were Irish, he insisted on calling his Irish friend to chat to us. Turns out he has lived in France for ten years, but prior to that he lived in Northern Ireland, more specifically Enniskillen – what are the chances!

We made our way to Romain’s adorable house in the middle of the countryside, where we were given the most amazing food ever. One thing I have definitely learnt in France is to pace your self at meals, all the courses will be amazing and you will want to eat everything that you see, but you have to remember you will probably have about 5 courses in total! So after our apéro, salad, pâté, duck confit and vegetables, cheese, and desert, we were definitely full!

We pulled ourselves out of bed early to try and make the most of my last morning, we had went to Romain’s friends house the night before so we were all rather sluggish. We got our selves sorted and went off to see one more castle, Chateau de Bonaguil, before I left.

Then it was home for one last amazing meal of pâté, salad, quail and market waffles before we all literally ran around the house grabbing our stuff and flung ourselves in the car to drive the “gross Demi-heure” (big half hour) to the train station for me to catch my train to Paris to get my flight to Vienna. As per usual this wasn’t without drama, and every slow driver seemed to be on the road. We arrived just in time for me to buy a ticket, hug them all goodbye and jump on the train. Crazy to think that that is the end of my time in a France!

Visioconferences, Pour de vrai

All year, 6 hours of my week has been made up of video conferences, where I am in an office in Perigueux and I pretty much Skype schools to deliver their English lessons. But one Thursday recently Karine offered to bring my to the schools and teach the kids for real. The kids were so excited by this as they had only been used to seeing me on a screen all year. When I arrived at the Schools the kids greeted me with chants of “Lauren, Lauren, Lauren!”,  I got bombarded with daisy chains, pictures and many hugs (something that after a year of being told it’s allowed by French teachers I still find so odd after teaching in Scotland).

Besides from teaching in the schools, Karine and I had a picnic in Bergerac and walked round the town, we visited a castle and tastes some wine, and admired the lovely countryside and vineyards – hard day at work, eh?

Voie Verte

The weather here has been crazily beautiful recently, with temperatures of 24 degrees and up, clear blue skies, and very little wind. We have spent our days trying to get through school as quickly as possible before ringing around to see who is free, grabbing our colouring books, a big blanket, some beers and heading to the Voie Verte. We have sat in the same spot so often now that we have actually squished the grass down where our blanket goes haha. Dog walkers and regular walkers recognise us as the weird bear drinking, bubble blowing bunch of franglais people. We’ve named the ducks, and know the names of numerous dogs and their owners, with our favourite being Lucky and Raphael. Sometimes, its a hard life here. Haha. Its crazy to think that is isn’t even the end of April and I actually have some colour!

Les Ezyies

After a few failed adventures that all ended up back on the Voie Verte, we decided to make the most of our Wednesday off and go to a neighbouring town in the Dordogne. As you come in or out of Perigueux on the train you pass a little town called Les Eyzies and every time we have past it we have said that we should catch the train there and go for a walk, so that is exactly what we did. We packed our picnic and set of for the small town of Les Eyzies.

We had our picnic by the river, walked through the town, played in the park and had some ice cream disasters before making our way towards the caves. Which unfortunately we were too late to get a tour of that day, so back we went to relax by the river where Meg would instead describe the caves to us – pretty much the same experience right?!

Nice

For our last weekend trip out of Perigueux we were headed to Nice, thanks to the wonderful sales that easy jet held after Christmas. Meg and I took a flight from Bordeaux late Thursday night to meet Steff and Neesa who were already in Nice.

Friday was spent seeing the tourist sights of Nice, we walked along the beach, climbed up to the castle, ate sea food for lunch, dandered through the old town, spent the afternoon in a museum and just enjoyed the nice weather and the city.

Saturday took a slower pace, it was the finals of the 6 nations, so we found ourselves an Irish pub and got cosy for the afternoon and watched the matches. I have to say it was the best game atmosphere we have had in France and that is because we were surrounded by Anglophones! Usually the sound is turned down really low and nobody reacts to anything that happens, so we were lucky!

Saturday night we relaxed and had an early night as we were up before 5 to catch our flight back to Perigueux!

Birthday Season

The last month has seemed to hold nothing but birthdays and celebrations!

I am officially 21! If I’m honest I’ve been telling people I’m 21 for a while now, but I don’t really know why, I think I was convinced I was already 21 haha. Every time someone asked me the question ‘what age are you?’, I automatically responded with ’21’, before one of the girls would go ‘ehhhh no your not’. Fear not, now I can say I’m 21 and be telling the truth!
As per usual, my birthday coincided with St. Patrick’s day so we had a little celebration for the two. Overall it was a lovely weekend, on the Saturday night we had a party at Maeve’s, where Fantine and Bastien made a huge mistake in showing us their baking skills. They made me a lovely red velvet cake in the colours of the Irish flag (joint birthday/St. Patrick’s day theme continued) which was AMAZING. Since then they have continued to turn up with baked goods, great friends haha. We went to Heilan Coo for their St. Patrick’s day party, and gained ourselves some free beers for being the only real Irish people in town and spent the night chatting to what seemed to be every person in town we know.

On Monday night we had the longest most complicated dinner together, which much to David’s distress took us two hours to make. But at the end of the evening, despite only having two hobs, we enjoyed our home made burgers and sweet potato fries before having fun with some of my presents.

We’ve also had Romain, Maeve and Birgitta’s Birthdays recently so we have been cake and party crazy!

Spring has Sprung

We returned from the holidays to a changed Perigueux. People are actually coming out of their houses, and town feels busy! This is all helped by the fact that the weather is crazily good. I have been outside without a coat on in March, IN MARCH. What even is this. I have also turned my heating completely off, I don’t really understand what is going on. Maybe it is just the Fermanagh in me that would be overjoyed to see this weather in Summer never mind March! haha

We have made the most of the weather by acctually getting out of bed on the weekend, starting with brunch Chez Maeve. We have had lovely walks by the Voie Verte, drinks on patios, and lazed in the park while locals judge us for sunbathing in March. Who cares, I am making the most of this 18 degree weather!!

Vacances d’hiver ~ Strasbourg

For trip number three of the holidays I caught a flight and a train to meet the Perigueux girls who had been in Portugal the previous week. I had my first bother with the French “validate your ticket” system and managed to land myself a lovely 30 Euro fine for my 10 minute tram journey. Somehow I dont think it is fair that in some cities the validating machine is on the platform, and in others it is on the tram!!

We got the essentials of the day done (eating and buying snacks) before settling ourselves in our lovely apartment for a relaxed evening of tea drinking and movie watching!

On Wednesday we enjoyed a lie in, and great breakfast which has since set a trend of lazy weekend brunches back in perigueux! We set out (at a VERY leisurely pace) to see the sights of Strasbourg, we dandered the streets, seeing the river, palace, cathedral and Petit France. Strasbourg is definitely one of those cities that is just lovely to walk around and appreciate the cute streets and buildings! I loved it and would definitely go back! I also suffered from major bike envy the whole time we were there and now have an uncountable number of bike pictures on my phone. I want them all haha. We enjoyed another lovely home cooked meal before heading out for the evening.

Notre Dame de Strasbourg

Notre Dame de Strasbourg

Notre Dame de Strasbourg

Petit France

Petit France

Petit France

Petit France

Our sole aim for Thursday was to climb the cathedral tower so we could have a nice view of the city and the mountains. So equipped with snacks for a picnic at the top, Maeve, Meg and I set of to conquer the tower – it was well worth all the stairs!

Petit France

We had another relaxed evening drinking tea, eating and watching Chicken Run which was unfortunately in French – it was not the same without all the accents! The next morning we bid farewell to Strasbourg, Steff and Neesa and set of on our 8 hour journey back to Perigueux and working (if 12 hours count) life.