Bonjour!

I have arrived in France! Thank you to everyone who has posted supportive messages both on here and twitter, and on Folksy when I was freaking out about my flight!

The flight wasn't actually too bad, longer than expected but was sitting next to a very interesting person who works as a wine merchant and also hated flying, so that helped a little!

Sadly, the silly, smelly boys who came over last week and stayed in the same apartments didn't bother leaving the key with our manager over here, and the reception of the serviced building was shut on a Sunday! So we went to our French managers house and she whipped up a Shepard's pie, that would have taken me weeks of planning and about four trips to the supermarket, then Siblu put us up in the Ibis. Which we weren't happy with at the time but when we actually did get into the apartments we realised we probably should have just sucked it up. The boys hadn't clean the rooms! Yucky dirty boy bathrooms :(

Anyway, the place we are staying over looks the biggest, creepiest cemetery I have ever seen in my life. I really want to get in there and take some photos but I haven't had any time to myself yet. I'm at work right now, it's pretty quiet. I have some photos to show you, lovely readers but my laptop has completely died because I didn't bring (not that I own) a travel adapter. The strangest thing about being here is it is so very French. I mean, really that shouldn't have come as too much of a shock, but this is the furthest south that I have ever been and no one speaks any English, they have weird kitkats and I haven't managed to get a decent coffee yet.

Speaking of kitkats I bought a green one thinking it was mint, but it wasn't until I bit into is that I realised it was bloody NOISETTE. Why the hell does all chocolate in France have to have noisettes in? What the fuck is a noisette?

We hitched a lift to work yesterday but tried to brave the tram in the pissing rain today. It would have gone okay but our manager rung and said she's pick us up from some French place beginning with 'B' Only once she hung up we couldn't remember where to get off...so we ending up in the sticks of Bordeaux, crying, freezing and not entirely sure what to do. When we did get back on the tram, a very scary dreadlocked man was laughing hysterically...now, I know you get nutters on the tube and all, and I should be used to it really...but it all seemed much more sinister in a foreign land. He was making a fist and starting trying to grab a girls umbrella, we were very relieved to get off the bloody tram and into the safety of Jill's car!

The only other interesting thing that has happened is when I tried to buy cigarettes, we were having a lovely drinky and realised we'd run out, so I tootled off to find a Tabac, you can't buy cigarettes here in a supermarket like you can in the UK. I asked a group of French looking lads "Ou est le Tabac?" and they started laughing and pointing towards a weird little doorway, the smallest shop in the world, not marked as a tabac. They starting talking very fast French to the shopkeeper, and he pulled out from under the counter a huge pack of Marlboros, the kind you buy on the ferry. Then he bloody charged me 14E for two packs and told me to keep them in my pocket until I got far away from the shop.

The moral of the story is, twinklyspangle knows where to score the goods, whatever country she may reside in. Oh yes. Because it's not France unless you have a sore throat from too much shouting in English trying to make yourself understood and very strong, expensive cigarettes.

I'm having an OK time...not really homesick but I miss my little boy. If I can find an adapter I will upload photos later on.

xx

p.s bestest French word learnt "ascensor" for lift...as in "Je nais pas le ascensor!"