Week One continues...

Classes at school are still going really well.

On Thursday afternoon, we went on an excursion to a Liquoristorie - where they make various liquors including Versinthe - which is basically the new version of Absinthe, but one that doesn’t send you mad - hope not anyway!! We had a taste of a few different ones. The versinthe and pastis which I tasted later both taste like anis or liquorish... not my favourite - plus I was glad no one had a naked flame! phew!!

On Friday morning it was my turn to give a presentation to the class (in french of course) about something from our home country. I talked about the size of Australia and how long it takes to travel around the place and overseas, and then talked about Australian Animals. The koala, Kangaroo, Platypus and Echidna. Everyone was very interested and asked a lot of questions. I gave them all a little koala (you know the ones that clip onto things) and they were all very pleased! hee hee - just need to drag out the cute furry animals to get people on side! I was really pleased as I had bought the little koalas for my classmates anyway - so the presentation was a great excuse to hand them out.

After sitting around in the park all afternoon (it was about 35 degrees!!) we had an afternoon of Petangue (the provencal version of boules or boci) which, as the title translates, means you have to stand with both feet planted... in a circle on the ground from which everyone takes a turn. We had two teams of three - noir and blanche (black and white) and sadly for me the noir team did not go home victorious. Lots of fun though. We finished the evening with apertifs (pastis) and a bbq with a bunch of students from the school.. Great fun! even when one of the swedish students was laughing at my Aussie accent. That, and the fact that I kept throwing in the occasional english word (with Aussie intonation) in amongst a french sentence. hee hee

It is particularly hilarious when we all raise our glasses before we drink.. “Salud! Slante!! Bottoms up!! Cheers mate!!”